don’t look for a perfect woman. Look for the one who looks at you the way you looked at me that first night.”
“Without fear. Without lies. Without masks.” “That’s good advice. You learned from the best example.”
They fell quiet, watching the sun sink below the horizon. “Do you ever regret it?” Azra asked softly. “Regret what?”
“Choosing me. Defying your mother, your court, your whole world for a servant.” Selim looked at her with the same eyes that had met hers that first night twenty years earlier. Still dark. Still piercing. But no longer empty.
Now they were full of love. “My only regret,” he said, “is that I didn’t find you sooner. Every day before you was a wasted day. Every night without you was an empty one.”
“You once asked me why I couldn’t stay away from you.” He took her face in his hands, just as he had in the garden that night. “Because before you, I wasn’t living. I was only existing.”
“You taught me the difference.” Azra felt tears rise in her eyes. Even after twenty years, he could still make her cry from happiness.
“I love you,” she whispered. “And I love you. Today, tomorrow, always.”
The sun disappeared completely, and the first stars came out over Istanbul. Somewhere in the palace, their children were laughing. In the gardens, the Damask roses scented the air.
And on that terrace, beneath the endless sky, the sultan and the servant stood in each other’s arms. Two people life had tried to separate in a thousand ways. Two souls who had chosen to love each other anyway.
Two hearts that had found home in one another. And they lived—not perfectly, not without hardship, but together. Always together.
