His Defiant Desert Queen(7)

He should leave but his feet wouldn’t move. His chest felt tight.

It was her own damned fault.

But he could still see her five years ago in the periwinkle blue bridesmaid dress at Morgan’s wedding.

He could hear her gurgle of laughter as she’d made a toast to her big sister at the reception after.

“We will leave as soon as you’re dressed,” he said tersely, ignoring Jemma’s pallor and the trembling of her hands where they rested on the dressing table.

“I will need five or ten minutes,” she said.

“Of course.” He turned to leave but from the corner of his eye he saw her lean toward the mirror to try to remove the strip of false eyelashes on her right eye, her hands still shaking so much she couldn’t lift the edge.

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.”

And he didn’t approve of her character.

Jemma understood then that he wouldn’t help her in any way. He didn’t like her. He didn’t approve of her. And he felt no pity or compassion because she was a Copeland and it was a Copeland, her father, who had wronged his family.

In his mind, she had so many strikes against her she wasn’t worth saving.

For a moment she couldn’t breathe. The pain was so sharp and hard it cut her to the quick.

It was almost like the pain when Damien ended their engagement. He’d said he’d loved her. He’d said he wanted to spend his life with her. But then when he began losing jobs, he backed away from her. Far better to lose her, than his career.

Throat aching, eyes burning, Jemma turned back to the mirror.

She reached for a brush and ran it slowly through her long dark hair, making the glossy waves ripple down her back, telling herself not to think, not to feel, and most definitely, not to cry.

“You expect your tribal elder to sentence me to prison, for at least five years?” she asked, drawing the brush through her long hair.