His Defiant Desert Queen(20)

                Jemma didn’t know how she knew. She just knew.

                Both men were silent. Sheikh Azizzi ate a dried apricot. They sipped more tea. There wasn’t any conversation at this point.

                Mikael placed his cup on the table and spoke at last. His voice was quiet, and even, but there was a firmness in his tone that hadn’t been there earlier. Sheikh Azizzi replied to Mikael. A very short reply.

                A small muscle pulled in Mikael Karim’s jaw. His lips thinned. He spoke. It sound like a one syllable reply. A fierce one syllable reply.

                She glanced from Azizzi to Mikael and back. The two men stared at each other, neither face revealing any expression. After a moment, Sheikh Azizzi murmured something and rose, exiting the room and leaving Mikael and Jemma alone.





                                      CHAPTER FOUR

                THAT DID NOT go well.

                Aware that Jemma was looking at him, aware that she’d been waiting patiently, exceptionally patiently for the past hour to know her fate, Mikael finally glanced at her.

                Shadows danced on the walls, stretching tall across the tiled floor. He didn’t like her. Didn’t admire her. Didn’t feel anything positive for her.

                But even in the dim lighting, he recognized her great beauty.

                She wasn’t merely pretty, she was stunning. Her face was all hauntingly beautiful planes and angles with her high regal brow, the prominent cheekbones, a firm chin below full, generous lips.

                She was pale with fatigue and fear, and her pallor made her eyes appear even greener, as if brilliant emeralds against the ivory satin of her skin.

                Sitting so close to her, he could feel her fatigue. It was clear to him she was stretched thin, perhaps even to breaking.

                He told himself he didn’t care, but her beauty moved him. His mother had been a beautiful woman, too, just as Mikael’s father’s second and third wives were both exquisite. A king could have any woman. Why shouldn’t she be a rare jewel?

                Jemma was a rare jewel.

                But she was also a rare jewel set in a tarnished, defective setting.

                He now had a choice. To save the jewel, or to toss it away? It was up to him. Sheikh Azizzi had given Mikael the decision.

                “Well?” Jemma whispered, breaking the tense silence. “What did he say?”

                Mikael continued to study her, his thoughts random and scattered. He didn’t need her. He didn’t like her. He’d never love her.

                But he did desire her.

                It wouldn’t be difficult to bed her.

                He wondered how she’d respond in bed. He wondered if she’d be sweet and hot or icy and frigid.

                His gut told him she’d be hot and sweet. But first, all the Copeland taint would have to be washed away. “I am to decide your punishment for you,” he said finally. “I’ve been given a choice of two sentences and I must pick one.”

                “Why?”

                “Because Sheikh Azizzi knows me, and he knows I wish to do what is right, but what is right isn’t always what is popular.”