It wasn’t his problem. He didn’t care if her hands shook violently or not. But he couldn’t stop watching her. He couldn’t help noticing that she was struggling. Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes as she battled to get the eyelashes off.
It was her fault.
He wasn’t responsible for her situation.
And yet her struggle unsettled him, awakening emotions and memories he didn’t want to feel.
Mikael didn’t believe in feeling. Feelings were best left to others. He, on the other hand, preferred logic. Structure. Rules. Order.
He wouldn’t be moved by tears. Not even the tears of a young foreign woman that he’d met many years ago at the wedding of Drakon Xanthis, his close friend from university. Just because Drakon had married Jemma’s older sister, Morgan, didn’t mean that Mikael had to make allowances. Why make allowances when Daniel Copeland had made none for his mother?
“Stop,” he ordered, unable to watch her struggle any longer. “You’re about to take out your eye.”
“I have to get them off.”
“Not like that.”
“I can do it.”
“You’re making a mess of it.” He crossed the distance, gestured for her to turn on her stool. “Face me, and hold still. Look down. Don’t move.”
Jemma held her breath as she felt his fingers against her temple. His touch was warm, his hand steady as he used the tip of his finger to lift the edge of the strip and then he slowly, carefully peeled the lashes from her lid. “One down,” he said, putting the crescent of lashes in her hand. “One to go.”
He made quick work on the second set.
“You’ve done this before,” she said, as he took a step back, putting distance between them, but not enough distance. He was so big, so intimidating, that she found his nearness overwhelming.
“I haven’t, but I’ve watched enough girlfriends put on make up to know how it’s done.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her gaze searching his. “And you have no say in the sentencing?” she asked.
“I have plenty of say,” he answered. “I am the king. I can make new laws, pass laws, break laws...but breaking laws wouldn’t make me a good king or a proper leader for my people. So I, too, observe the laws of Saidia, and am committed to upholding them.”
“Could you ask the judge to be lenient with me?”
“I could.”
“But you won’t?”
He didn’t answer right away, which was telling, she thought.
“Would you ask for leniency for another woman?”
His broad shoulders shifted. “It would depend on who she was, and what she’d done.”
“So your relationship with her would influence your decision?”
“Absolutely.”
“I see.”
“As her character would influence my decision.”