His Defiant Desert Queen

Her fingers curled against his chest. “Did you go live with her?”

“No. I stayed with my father.”

“You wanted to?”

“I didn’t have a choice. I had to stay with my father.” He glanced at her. “In Saidia, like many Arab countries, mothers do not retain custody of the children in a divorce. The children usually go to the father, or the closest male relative, and the sons always remain with the father.”

She rolled closer to him, both hands against his chest now. “But you saw your mom sometimes?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“She was expelled from Saidia.” He reached out and caught her hair again, playing with the strand. “I wouldn’t see her again for almost twenty years. In fact not until just a few months before your sister Morgan’s wedding.”

“What?”

He let go of the strand. “I couldn’t see her after she left, and then, I wouldn’t see her.”

Jemma just stared at him, eyes wide, her expression shocked. “You punished her for the divorce.”

He shrugged. “I had a hard time forgiving her for divorcing my father. Because yes, she knew that by divorcing my father, she’d lose me. He made it clear he wouldn’t let me leave with her. But she divorced him anyway. She chose to leave Saidia and leave me behind.” Mikael abruptly pulled away, rolling from the low cushions to stand up, and offered her his hand. “It’s hot. We talked. I think it’s time to cool off with a swim.”

* * *

They swam and splashed for a half hour until their lunch was brought to them. They sat in their wet swimsuits beneath the shade of a palm tree eating lunch.

As Jemma nibbled on her salad she watched Mikael from beneath her lashes.

She was still processing everything he’d told her in the pavilion about his parents’ marriage and divorce. Knowing that his mother was an American made it worse as Jemma found it so easy to identify with the woman, and how she must have felt in this Arab country with her powerful royal husband. And yet, even though his mother was an American and unhappy here, how could she leave her child behind?

How could she adore her son but then walk away from him?

“Do you look like your father?” she asked Mikael as they finished their meal.

Mikael ran his hand through his short black hair. “I wish I hadn’t told you about the divorce.”

“Why?”

“I’m not comfortable with it. Or proud of my father. Or myself. Or of any of the decisions made.”

Jemma understood, more than he knew. She’d wanted to go live with her mother when her parents divorced, but she hadn’t wanted to lose her father. And for years after the divorce, she’d still looked forward to seeing him, and she’d cherished the gifts he’d sent in the early years after the divorce—the dolls, the pretty clothes, the hot pink bike for her twelfth birthday—but then her parents quarreled again when she was thirteen, and all contact stopped. Her father disappeared from her life completely.

She hated him, and yet she loved him. She missed him and needed him. She went to London to start over, to get away from her past and herself, and she thought she had. Until the news broke that he’d stolen hundreds of millions of dollars of his clients’ money.

Jemma looked at Mikael. “I sometimes think that if my parents hadn’t divorced, and my father had been more involved in our lives, he would have made different choices. I think that if maybe we’d stayed close, he would have realized how much we loved him and needed him.”

Mikael’s expression was incredulous. “You blame yourself?”

“I try to understand what happened.”

“He was selfish.”

She flinched. “You’re right.”

“He was the worst sort of man because he pretended to care, pretended to understand what vulnerable people needed, and then he destroyed them.”

Jemma closed her eyes.

“Who befriends older women and then robs them?” he demanded.

Eyes closed, she shook her head.

“Your father told my mother to refinance her house and give him the money to invest, promising her amazing returns, but didn’t invest any of it. He just put it into his own account. He drained her account for himself.” Mikael’s voice vibrated with contempt and fury. “It disgusts me.” He drew a rough breath. “We should not talk about this.”

She nodded, sick, flattened.

Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

Mikael left his chair and paced the length of the pool. Jemma’s eyes burned and she had to work very hard not to cry.

She was so ashamed. She felt raw and exposed. In the Arab world, she represented her family. She was an extension of her family, an extension of her father. Here in Saidia his shame attached to her. His shame would always taint her.

Silently Jemma left the pool, returning to the Chamber of Innocence to shower in the white marble bath, and shampoo her hair to wash the chlorine out. As she worked the suds in, she gritted her teeth, holding all the emotion in.

She wasn’t sad. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t lonely. She wasn’t miserable in any way.

No, miserable would be living in Connecticut, trying to find a place to stay, wondering who might take her in, if maybe one of her mother’s few remaining friends might allow her to crash on a couch or in a guest bedroom.

Rinsing her hair, she lifted her face to the spray. It was so hard to believe that her family had once had everything. Hard to believe they’d been placed on a pedestal. Their beautiful, lavish lifestyle had been envied and much discussed. Magazines featured their Caribbean home, their sprawling shingle house in Connecticut, the log cabin in Sun Valley. They had money for trips, money for clothes, money for dinners out.

Jemma turned the shower off, wrung the excess water from her hair wondering if any of it had been real.

Had any of it been their money to spend?

How long had her father taken advantage of his clients?

Bundled in a towel, she left the bathroom, crawled into the white and silver bed and pulled the soft Egyptian sheet all the way over her, to the top of her head.

It was hard being a Copeland. Hard living with so much shame. Work had been the only thing that kept her going, especially after Damien walked away from her. Work gave her something to do, something to think about. Working allowed her—even if briefly—to be someone else.

Now she just needed to get home and back to work. Work was still the answer. She simply had to get through these next seven days. And seven nights.

Jemma drew a big breath for courage, aware that the night would soon be here.

CHAPTER TEN

SHE WAS TO dress for dinner.

That’s what the card attached to the garment bag instructed: Dress for dinner. I will collect you at nine.

Jemma unzipped the bag, and pushed away tissue to discover a sumptuous silk gown the color of ripe peaches. Ornate gold beading wrapped the hem and the long sleeve of the asymmetrical gown. The gown gathered over one shoulder creating a full flowing sleeve, while leaving the other shoulder and arm bare.

It was beautiful. Exotic. A dress for a desert princess.

There was a jewelry box in the bottom of the garment bag containing gold chandelier earrings studded with diamonds and pearls. They looked old, and very valuable.

She lifted an earring, holding it to her ear and looked in the mirror. The delicate gold and diamond earring was stunning against her dark loose hair. She’d wear her hair down tonight, dress like a desert princess. She hoped Mikael would not be angry this evening. The morning had been fun. He’d been a great companion. For a couple hours she’d forgotten why she was here.

He arrived at her door promptly at nine. Jemma had been ready for almost an hour. Opening the door she discovered he was dressed in his traditional robe again and she felt a stab of disappointment, preferring him in Western clothes. She felt more comfortable when he looked familiar, and not like the foreign sheikh he was.

“You look stunning,” he said.

She smiled, hiding her nervousness. “Thank you.”

“Do you know what we are doing for dinner?” he asked, leading her from the room, and down the outer corridor.

“No.”

He smiled down at her. “Good.”

He escorted her all the way to the front of the Kasbah, and out through the grand wooden doors. A car and driver waited for them.

The driver opened the back door of the black sedan. Jemma glanced at Mikael before climbing in. But he said nothing and his expression gave nothing away.

With Mikael seated next to her, the driver left the walled Kasbah. Soon they were driving through the desert, the car flying down the ribbon of asphalt. Moonlight bathed the miles of undulating sand.

Mikael pointed to the landscape beyond the tinted window. “This, my queen, is all yours.”

She looked out the window, at the vast desert, and then back at Mikael, struggling to keep a straight face. “It is truly lovely sand.”