Protecting the Desert Princess(34)

                ‘Enter,’ Layla called, and he took out his swipe card and let himself in.

                She was sitting up in bed, still wearing his shirt. There was champagne in a bucket and he hadn’t had a drink in two months, and there was fruit and chocolate sauce. She understood him, Mikael realised, somehow she understood him—or rather she simply let him be.

                ‘Are you upset?’ Layla asked.

                ‘No.’

                ‘Because I thought you could just hide in bed with me. Not for sex. I have always dreamt of it, but today I found out it is really nice to sit in bed and just eat.’

                ‘Okay…’ Mikael’s voice was a touch wary, but he took off his jacket and tie, shoes and socks, and then opened the champagne. He poured two glasses and joined her, but lay on top of the bed rather than getting in.

                ‘How do you feel?’ Layla asked, and Mikael thought for a moment before answering.

                ‘Elated.’ He turned and looked at her. ‘There’s no such thing as a bad day at the office for me, Layla. That bastard is going down for a very long time.’

                He breathed out, stunned at his own honesty.

                ‘Do you ever not try your best?’ Layla’s eyes narrowed as she asked a very brave question—one perhaps no one else would ever dare ask.

                ‘I try my best for all my clients. I fight for them with everything I have.’

                ‘Always?’

                ‘Always,’ Mikael said. ‘And then, if they are found guilty, I know, as best I can know, that a guilty man has gone down.’

                The champagne tasted nice, Mikael thought.

                ‘Aren’t you going to ask if it bothers me…?’ He was surprised by the lack of the oh, so familiar question.

                ‘Clearly it doesn’t,’ Layla said. ‘I doubt many people could get you to do something you did not want to do.’

                ‘You did,’ Mikael said. ‘I took you on when I didn’t want to.’

                ‘Ah, but you were attracted to me,’ she said, and dipped a raspberry in white chocolate sauce. ‘Intrigued.’

                ‘I was,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t trouble you, then?’

                ‘Of course not,’ she said, and instead of eating the raspberry herself she fed it to him, liking the feel of his lips on her fingers and the wetness of his tongue so much that she did it again as she spoke on. ‘For a system to work, both sides need to be represented well. In some lands there is no such system.’

                ‘How does it work in Ishla?’

                ‘If you are found guilty of a crime you are either pardoned, removed or killed.’

                ‘You can be pardoned?’

                ‘Of course. It is at my father’s discretion and once you are pardoned there is no grudge, no stigma. If you cannot be fully pardoned then you are removed from society till you can be fully pardoned.’ She looked over at him where he lay on the bed, silent. ‘Why are you smiling?’

                ‘That’s what you do to me,’ he admitted. Maybe it was because she was here just for a few days—just a transient timeframe—which meant he could let down his perpetual guard a touch.