Cinderella's Desert Baby Bombshell by Lynne Graham, Louise Fuller

EPILOGUE

Five years later

SAIFGLANCEDACROSSthe room to where his wife was seated beside his father. It was the Emir’s birthday. He was ninety years old and just months earlier had stepped down from the throne to allow his son to become Regent. Freed from the stress of ruling, the older man had become much more relaxed, in a way his son had never expected to see.

Their children—Amir, who was four, and the toddler twins, Farah and Milly—were playing at the Emir’s feet, absorbed in the latest toys he had presented them with. For the first time ever, Saif reflected fondly, his father was enjoying a peaceful family atmosphere and he owed that blessing to Tatiana.

His father adored his daughter-in-law. He was fond of telling people that his own life would have been very different had he had the good fortune to meet a Tatiana. As to his pride in having married his son off to the grandchild of his old friend, that went without saying. But the knowledge that his father was happy and at peace and delighted in his grandchildren made Saif’s duties a lot easier.

The Emir had not changed personality overnight, but he had become less authoritarian and more willing to listen to other points of view. On the other side of the room his three older sisters, engaged in their endless embroidery and crochet, were chattering to Tatiana, smiling and laughing, patting the slight swell of her stomach affectionately.

Thanks to his rashness, their fourth child was due in a handful of months, Saif mused ruefully. Strange how he had never had a reckless bone in his body until Tatiana came along, but then he had also never been happier. When Tatiana had learned that she was carrying twins the last time, they had decided that three children were enough, and then Tatiana’s amazing fertility had collided with his desire to have sex in their private pool and the result was before them. He smiled abstractedly as he watched his beautiful wife weaving her magic with his family. The pool encounter had been spectacularly worthwhile.

As Tati’s mobile phone buzzed she excused herself and walked through an open archway out to a terrace to take her call. The Emir had not noticed the phone ringing and she was relieved. While the old man was a lot less grumpy than he had once been, he still held on to many of what his son deemed to be ‘medieval prejudices.’

‘George wants a baby,’ Ana proclaimed in a tragic voice.

‘Well, you knew it was on the cards,’ Tati reminded her cousin, who had been married for four years. George had finally proposed and stuck to his word after Ana began seeing another man. A banker, George Davis-Appleton was a clever character, more than equal to the task of keeping his avaricious in-laws at bay, and that had meant that Tati could finally relax and know her cousin was safe from exploitation.

‘You love my kids...why shouldn’t you love your own child?’ Tati asked cheerfully.

‘It’s not that, Tati.’ Ana sighed. ‘But when you have a baby you have to grow up and I’m not ready for that yet.’

‘But George is, so you have to consider him as well. Look, it’s the Emir’s birthday party here, so I can’t talk for long,’ Tati warned her cousin, soothing Ana’s fears about motherhood aging her overnight.

Rupert and Elizabeth Hamilton had both received prison sentences after the crooked solicitor had declared that her aunt had been present at his meetings with his client. Within eighteen months, however, both of them had been released and they had moved in with their daughter. With Ana married, they still lived there, and Tati hadn’t seen her uncle since their last meeting at the hotel, a situation that she was quite content with.

Saif and Tati regularly stayed at the manor when they were in England and spent every Christmas there. Her mother’s cousin, Pauline, had moved in as a sort of caretaker for the property when it was empty. Tati’s life had changed radically but very much for the better, she conceded cheerfully, because she was fiercely content and happy with Saif and their family.

She glanced up and saw her husband watching her from the archway.

‘Hi,’ she murmured softly, blue eyes locking to him, brimming with love and appreciation. Tall, dark and devastatingly handsome, he still rocked her where she stood every time she looked at him.

He closed his arms round her slowly. ‘You look tired.’

‘It was exhausting trying to explain Father Christmas to your father...because there isn’t really an explanation and he doesn’t like fanciful stuff.’

‘It’s what you call an own goal, aziz.You persuaded him to join us in England for Christmas this year. He wants to be prepared for some weird old man in a red suit trying to squeeze himself down a chimney...’ Saif laughed softly.

Tati mock-punched a broad shoulder. ‘Don’t you dare tell Amir that version. He’s already very excited about Christmas.’

‘Relax. It’s still summer,’ Saif reminded her, bending his dark glossy head to steal a kiss from her soft pink lips and a little flame ignited low in her pelvis, provoking a moan deep in her throat.

His mouth circled and teased hers and she squirmed against him, helpless in the grip of that hunger as he backed her up against the wall edging the terrace, ultimately dragging his lips from hers with a groan. ‘We can’t leave until my father retires for the night,’ he reminded her hoarsely.

Tati chuckled and bumped her brow in reproach against his shoulder before stepping back from him. ‘You’re like oil on a bonfire for me... I’m not complaining,’ she murmured with reddening cheeks as she smiled up at him with adoring eyes that he cherished. ‘I love you so much.’

Their little private moment was invaded by clattering feet and noisy voices. Amir pelted out with his two-year-old sisters hard in his wake, shouting at him to wait for them. He was tall and black-haired like Saif with the same wonderful green eyes. Farah and Milly were an identical mix of blond-haired blue-eyed little girls with pale golden skin and as lively as Amir was steady like his father.

Saif hoisted up his daughters in his strong arms and walked back indoors. Amir’s hand slid into his mother’s and he yawned. ‘I was trying to tell Grandpa about Father Christmas, but he got all mixed up,’ he complained.

As Saif’s keen gaze encountered Tati’s, he was smiling, warmth and tenderness a vibrant presence in that appraisal, and happiness that was as solid as gold shimmered through her. She had everything she had ever wanted in life.