They moved to the furthermost point and she stood against the stone safety wall, cocooned from the other tourists by Zageo who stood closely behind her, his arms encircling her waist, making her feel they were on top of the world together.
‘Here we are at the Cape of Good Hope and you are looking down at where two great oceans meet, Emily,’ he murmured, his head lowered to rub his cheek against her hair, his soft breath making her ear tingle.
‘There should be some sign of it,’ she mused. ‘Waves clashing or different water colours mingling.’
‘Instead there is a harmonious flow, a union that does not break because of coming from different places. This is how nature ordains it. It is only people who make demarcations.’
Emily sighed at this truth. Why couldn’t the stream of humanity recognise its natural commonality instead of dividing itself into hostile camps?
‘Are you brave enough to merge your life with mine, Emily?’
Her heart leapt. Her mind frantically quizzed what he meant. Hadn’t she already merged her life with his?
‘I’m brave enough to do anything with you, Zageo,’ she answered, her stomach fluttering nervously over whether this was what he wanted to hear. She had the frightening sense that something critical was coming.
His arms tightened around her, pulling her body back into full contact with his. He kissed the lobe of her ear and whispered, ‘Regardless of the differences that have shaped our lives, we have that natural flow, Emily. So I ask…will you marry me and be the mother of my children? Stand with me, no matter what we face in the future? Stand together as we are now.’
The shock of hearing a proposal she had never expected completely robbed Emily of any breath to answer. Her body whipped around in his embrace, her arms lifting to fly around his neck, instinctively grabbing for every linkage to him. Her eyes drank in the blaze of love and desire in his, taking all the fierce courage and determination she needed from it.
‘Yes, I can do that, Zageo,’ she said with absolute assurance. ‘I will do it,’ she promised him. ‘I love you with all that I am.’
Sheikh Zageo bin Sultan Al Farrahn looked into the shining blue eyes of the woman who had made it impossible for him to choose any other woman to share his life. He remembered arrogantly determining to put her in her place, not realising at the time that her place would be at his side. He had decided to find a suitable wife, and he had found in Emily Ross a true compatibility in everything he really valued.
He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek in a tender caress, wanting to impart how very precious she was to him. ‘And I love you with all that I am,’ he replied, cherishing her words to him, repeating them because they carried a truth which should be spoken and always acknowledged between them.
A lasting love…
A love that no force could touch because they willed it so…together.