They didn’t speak, either, as the car traveled the long private driveway lined with hibiscus and palms to the enormous black and gold iron gates that marked the entrance to the Karim family’s private beach.
The gates opened and then closed behind them. Jemma turned her head as if to get a last look at the brilliant blue coastline before it disappeared and swiftly wiped away a tear. The sun shone down on the water, and the ocean sparkled. She turned back to face the front, and wiped away another tear, seeing how the red gold sand stretched before them, reminding her of the Kasbah and the Bridal Palace and how Jemma and Mikael had spent the past eight days there.
All the experiences. The sensation. The pleasure. The emotion.
The car picked up speed on the empty highway. There was so little traffic in this part of Saidia that the driver could fly down the black ribbon of asphalt. He did, too.
Mikael stared out the window, lost in thought, and Jemma left him to his thoughts.
One minute all was quiet and the next they were smashed sideways, slammed off the road in a screech of screaming brakes, screeching metal and shattering glass.
The impact knocked Mikael’s car sideways, and the two cars, hit again, and once more, before the red sports car went sailing overhead to land off the road in the sand.
The heavy black sedan spun the opposite direction, until it finally crashed on the other side.
For a moment inside the car there was no sound.
Mikael shook his head, dazed.
“Jemma?” Mikael’s hard voice cut through the stillness as he turned toward her.
She lay crumpled against the door, her face turned away from him.
“Jemma,” he repeated more urgently, reaching for her, touching the side of her face. It was wet. He looked at his hand. It was covered in blood.
* * *
She was flown by helicopter to the royal hospital in Ketama. Mikael traveled with her, holding her hand. Mikael’s chauffeur walked away with cuts and bruises like Mikael, while the driver of the other car didn’t need a helicopter. He’d died at the scene.
Jemma spent hours in surgery as the doctors set bones and dealt with internal bleeding. She then spent the next few days heavily sedated.
Mikael refused to leave her side. Fortunately, he was the king, and this was the royal hospital named after the Karim family, so no one dared to tell him to leave her, either.
The doctors and specialists had all said she’d be okay. She was simply sedated to help reduce the swelling. She would mend better, and be in less pain, if she were sedated, and resting.
Mikael wanted her to rest, but he needed to know that she was okay.
So for three days he slept next to her bed. Nurses brought coffee to him. His valet brought him clean clothes daily. Mikael used Jemma’s hospital room shower when needed.
He struggled with that last day, the beach trip to Tagadir, her reaction when he told her he was sending her away, and then the silent car ride before the sports car slammed into them.
Was the accident karma?
Was this his fault, again?
He leaned over the bed, gently stroked her cheek, the bit of cheek he could reach between all the bandages. The shattered window had cut her head badly. They’d picked glass out for hours before finally getting the side of her head stitched and stapled closed.