Glorious Leader? Oh, how Molly enjoyed that label and she would have struggled not to laugh at it in any other mood but her aggression had been swallowed alive by mind-blowing surprise. Tahir’s brother was the King of this country? That was why there had been that portrait hung in the Djalian Embassy, she realised belatedly. But Tahir had not mentioned his big brother’s exalted status, possibly because he lived in a different country. Molly had looked up Quarein on the Internet, not Djalia, and she knew nothing whatsoever about the country she had landed in.
‘I didn’t realise he was the King,’ Molly admitted thinly, not best pleased to accept her own ignorance.
But it didn’t essentially change anything, she reason
ed angrily. She now understood why Azrael could declare that his word was law in Djalia and not be carted away to the funny farm. She also understood that he had much more power over the situation than she had initially appreciated. Well, that was good, Molly thought grimly. With his influence, he would surely be able to get her home to London even faster. And she had to get back, had to get home to be available for Maurice should he need her. After all, she was her grandfather’s only relative and his only representative and she needed to be on the spot to ensure that his needs were always met and that he received the best possible care.
CHAPTER TWO
AZRAEL’S HEART SANK when Butrus ushered Molly Carlisle into the library of his desert fortress, where he normally contrived to relax. In truth, while deeply resenting the position he found himself in when he had done nothing wrong, he had had enough of her for one day. But he straightened his broad shoulders, reminded himself of his duty to Djalia and felt ashamed of that momentary shrinking from what had become necessity.
Whether he liked it or not, he had to placate Molly Carlisle. It didn’t matter how much money it cost to buy her silence. It didn’t matter even that bribery of any kind appalled him and contravened his values. Butrus was correct: ‘needs must when the devil rides’, some homely but apt saying the older man had picked up from his Scottish grandmother. But the entire distasteful business might have been more bearable had he found Tahir’s victim less attractive, he conceded grudgingly.
Of course, he couldn’t remember when he had last had sex. That was probably all that was amiss with him: the weight of a celibate life. Not that, strictly speaking, he was expected to be celibate but he could only relax and enjoy his sensual nature outside Djalian borders because to do otherwise could risk attracting unsavoury comparisons with Hashem’s orgies with his so-called concubines. Unhappily for Azrael, the time and freedom to travel abroad where casual affairs were not seized on and dissected did not feature in his current crammed schedule. And he had already learned that nothing he did, nowhere he went and nobody he even spoke to was considered too trivial to provide fodder for the Djalian free press. His every word, his every act was reported on. Only here in the desert at the fortress built by his ancestors was he usually left alone in peace.
And absolutely the very last thing he needed in his sensitised radius was a woman with a shape that even in a long dress was impossible to ignore. She had hourglass curves, an incredibly womanly figure and a luscious full mouth that would put X-rated images into the head of a saint. And he was no saint. At heart he was merely a man like any other with all a normal man’s needs and wants and he really did not wish to be reminded of that exasperating reality when he could do nothing to assuage his libido.
* * *
Mr Gorgeous looked more like Mr Grumpy, Molly reflected, noting the hard lines etched into his stunning features. Sadly, it didn’t detract in the slightest from his male beauty, although she was irritated that his head was covered and she couldn’t see his hair to see if it was as dark as his brother’s. She liked looking at him, no harm in that, she rationalised. It wasn’t as though she liked anything he said or anything he did and finding out that he was a king was downright off-putting because how was someone as ordinary as she was supposed to know how to tiptoe politely round his royal sensibilities? She didn’t like him; he didn’t like her. She could see his animosity in the steely glint in his darker-than-dark eyes, the flare of his classic nose, the challenging angle of his jaw and the set compression of his full male lips.
His hostility wasn’t a problem for her though, she thought ruefully. All she wanted was to go home, back to the life she had been very rudely ripped from, and no haughty, proud royal personage would deflect her from her rights or her wishes.
‘I’m not easily impressed, Your Majesty, but I do apologise if anything I said earlier caused offence.’ Molly trotted out her prepared opening speech, seeing the point of smoothing her way in advance with a little civility. It was surface-thin civility but he didn’t know that, did he?’
Azrael’s lip curled because he could read insincerity at twenty paces and her eyes told him the truth that her voice did not. Even so, he was equally willing to dissemble if it solved the problem. ‘It is forgotten,’ he assured her. ‘How may I help you?’
‘I want to go home...as quickly as that can be arranged,’ Molly admitted.
‘And your desire to see my brother prosecuted?’ An ebony brow lifted enquiringly.
Involuntarily, Molly flushed. ‘Is unchanged but I’ve realised that the crime would be more properly handled where it occurred...in London.’
‘Naturally I do not want that.’
Molly tossed back her head, rich coppery ringlets rippling back from her cheeks. ‘I fail to see why,’ she admitted bluntly. ‘You weren’t involved in what your brother did, were you?’
‘No, but the crime took place in my country’s embassy and at my brother’s request a member of embassy staff illegally acquired the drug used to sedate you. Tahir then brought you here to Djalia, intending to transport you to this fortress, which belongs to me. The reputation of Djalia and my own reputation is thus very much involved in this offensive matter,’ Azrael told her with equal directness. ‘The member of staff has been returned here to face charges of drug abuse and the servant who assisted my brother in his wrongdoing has been dismissed.’
‘How was I transported here?’ Molly queried uneasily.
‘The women in Tahir’s birth country, Quarein, wear full veils. You were veiled and conveyed through the airport in a wheelchair and no questions were asked because my brother holds diplomatic status. You were put in the cabin of the private jet owned by Tahir’s father, Prince Firuz, the ruler of Quarein, and were still there when the jet was boarded at our airport. The steward was so concerned by your unconscious condition that he instructed the female stewardess to remain with you throughout the flight. He also alerted Tahir’s father, who immediately contacted me. At no stage were you left open to any form of abuse.’
Molly swallowed hard on her relief because in the back of her mind she had worried about what could have happened to her body while she was unconscious and had scolded herself for her fears. She breathed in slowly. ‘That is good,’ she muttered a little unevenly as she looked down at the worn mosaic tiled floor, embarrassed by her secret apprehension that she could have been touched while she was unaware of it.
For a split second, she looked so vulnerable that Azrael’s conscience propelled him forward one dangerous step to offer inappropriate sympathy before he stopped himself in his tracks. ‘I do recognise that you have suffered a very traumatic experience,’ he breathed almost harshly. ‘And I deeply regret that a member of my family subjected you to such an ordeal, but be assured that Tahir will be most severely punished. His father is horrified by what he has done—’
‘That means nothing to me,’ Molly broke in quickly, keen to forestall such a shift in their dialogue because Tahir’s family was not her concern.
‘Quarein is much stricter than Djalia when it comes to relations between men and women,’ Azrael extended, royally ignoring her interruption. ‘In Quarein the sexes are segregated and women are very much protected. Men are executed for crimes against women there.’
‘And not here?’ Molly could not resist asking.
‘While Hashem was in power here, men were executed daily for every kind of crime, many for very small crimes and many who were innocent of any crime other than opposition to his regime,’ Azrael told her with gravity. ‘It was an inhumane system.’
‘It’s not my business anyway,’ Molly backtracked hurriedly, wondering how she had got led into such a discussion. ‘My only interest here is in how soon I can go home.’
Azrael opted for honesty. ‘I do not want to release you only for you to return to London to pursue Tahir’s prosecution. I will do almost anything to avoid that happening because I will not have Djalia damaged in the fallout from such an appalling scandal.’