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“I’d fill your days and nights with all the good news I can muster,habibi. But these are small in the scheme of things.”
“Tell me, please.”
“I have finally convinced Diana to enter rehab.”
“What? How?” Yana pressed her hands to her mouth, disbelief a giant balloon in her chest. In all the months since she’d agreed terms with Nasir, she hadn’t been able to make any progress with her mother, who had broken down and admitted that she had a problem but wanted no part of the solution. Yana had seen shades of a woman she’d once adored, and her resolve to help her had only intensified. But her efforts hadn’t borne fruit yet.
He shrugged, as if it was indeed a small thing. “I tried to persuade her. Offered her incentives. Then I...” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, as if unsure of her reaction. “I sort of threatened her with being completely cut off from the rest of her family. I think it was a culmination of all three that finally brought success.”
Yana laughed and then cried, feeling as if gravity had been stolen from under her. She knew how much he disliked her mother, how many bad memories were associated with her. How much he’d have hated even talking to her. And yet, he’d done it. For her peace of mind. For her happiness. She took his hands in hers. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Now for the third piece,” he announced, as if her gratitude made him uncomfortable.
“I’m ready,” Yana said, her words a mere whisper compared to the loud thundering of her heart.
He placed a sheaf of papers on the coffee table in front of him. “These are custody papers. If you sign them, we’ll share custody of Zara. You can have her for more than just a month. You can course correct me when I get it wrong. You and she can have each other without me in between.”
Whatever high she’d been riding deflated and she crashed with a hard thud back into reality. “Why are you doing that?”
“Because I know how much you love her and I want you to have everything you want, Yana. I never want you to doubt your place in her life.”
“Everything I want, Nasir?” she said, throwing his words back at him.
“Yes, everything. Including my heart, if you still want it.”
Yana stared wordlessly.
“I’m in love with you,habibi.” His gaze searched hers, studied her, seemed to devour her. Even now, confusion danced in his eyes and she wondered if he felt as untethered without her as she felt without him. “You’re a sorceress, like in the dark magic tales of the old. Only instead of cursing me to a wretched existence, you brought me back to life. And if you’d let me, Yana—” now he was on his knees in front of her, his large hands on her thighs, his amber eyes glittering with such pride and devotion and love “—I’ll show you how much I love you for the rest of our lives. Life without you is like words without emotions. You are my heart and soul, Yana. And I’m sorry it took me forever to realize that you were already and always mine. I was the one who had to grow worthy of you. Do you see?”
Tears filled and overflowed down her cheeks and he still couldn’t stop talking. “And I’m so glad that you came to me,habibi. That you found me all over again. That you gave me another chance because now, finally, I see you and I’m so ready for the exquisite, fragile, prickly and precious thing that you are, love. I’m ready for all of you, sweetheart.”
And then she was crying in earnest then, falling into his open, waiting arms, her shoulders shaking with these great, heaving sobs that seemed to rush out of her in a torrent, and Nasir just held her, feeling his own heart break and tear and come back together again, in some kind of loop, as if it could be made and unmade by her tears and her laughter and her joy and her promises.
It was a long while before she raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes and nose were all pink and splotchy and she was so achingly beautiful that a flicker of fear flashed through him. “Do you want to marry me?” she asked.
“Yes. Now. Tomorrow. I... I’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
Then she hid her face in his chest and held him so tight that he was reminded of his daughter’s hugs. “Zara’s already your child as much as she’s mine. Just give me a chance, too, Yana,” he said with growing alarm that she hadn’t really given him an answer. “Give me a chance to do this right.”
“And if I have lots of demands and conditions and negotiations?”
“Only if you agree to all of mine.”
She was kissing him now and laughing at the arrogance creeping back into his words and she thought she loved him most like this. “And what are they?”
“You’ll hire a wedding planner so you don’t get stressed out. You’ll sleep in my bed even before then. And if you want babies,habibi, then we’ll have babies, even if it means I turn old and decrepit by the time they go to college. But the wedding will be in two weeks, Yana. No more. I won’t wait, not even for your sisters. And it will happen on the castle grounds.”
Yana couldn’t help smiling at how he’d tried to make it sound like a request and utterly failed.
“The castle? The whole world will know where you live, then. Because I don’t want a hush-hush affair, Nasir. I want a big bang of a wedding. I want the whole world to see you’re mine. At least a thousand people.”
His eyes widened and he flinched and then recovered fast. “Fine. It will be gloriously extravagant and beautiful and loud, just like you are. And afterward, we’ll move to a different castle then and we’ll have two different ceremonies and you can invite the whole damned world if you want.”
He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom and Yana buried her face in his neck, her heart full of joy. “I’m all sweaty,” she said, offering a token protest, but Nasir was already unbuttoning his shirt and she pushed his hands away because that was her job.
And then he was inside her and they were laughing and she was still crying a little and she wondered if one could explode out of sheer happiness.
Hours later, in the dark of the night, Yana sat up and looked at the man next to her, deep in sleep. She’d tired him out with her incessant demands, she thought with a smile. Switching on the night lamp, she pulled her clutch open and took out the letter she’d been keeping for just such a moment.
