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No, she shouldn’t have come to Saidia. She shouldn’t have broken laws.
But she had.
And now she’d pay. And pay dearly.
She felt Mikael’s gaze. She knew he was watching her. His close, critical scrutiny made her pulse race. She felt cornered. Trapped.
She hated the feeling. It was suffocating. Jemma’s fingers wrapped around the door handle and gripped it tight. If only she could jump from the car. Fling herself into the desert. Hide. Disappear.
But of course it wouldn’t work like that.
Her father had tried to evade arrest and he’d taken off in his yacht, setting across the ocean in hopes of finding some bit of paradise somewhere.
Instead his yacht had been commandeered off the coast of Africa and he’d been taken hostage and held for ransom. No one had paid. He’d been hostage for months now and the public loved it. They loved his shame and pain.
Jemma flinched and pressed her hands together, fingers lacing. She didn’t like thinking about him, and especially didn’t like to think of him helpless in some African coastal village.
If only he hadn’t run.
If only he hadn’t stolen his clients’ money.
If only...
“The doors are locked,” Mikael said flatly. “There is no escape.”
Her eyes burned. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “No,” she murmured, “there isn’t, is there?”
She turned her head away again, trembling inwardly. It had been such a bad, bad year. She still felt wrecked. Trashed. Devastated by her father’s duplicity and deceit. And then heartbroken by Damien’s rejection.
To have your own father destroy so many people’s lives, and then to have the love of your life abruptly cast you off...
She couldn’t have imagined that her life would derail so completely. One day everything was normal and then the next, absolute chaos and mayhem.
The media had converged on her immediately in London, camping outside her flat, the journalists three rows deep, each with cameras and microphones and questions they shouted at her every time she opened her front door.
“Jemma, how does it feel to know that your father is one of the biggest con artists in American history?”
“Do you or your family have any plans to pay all these bankrupt people back?”
“Where is all the money, Jemma?”
“Did your father use stolen money to pay for this flat?”
It had been difficult enduring the constant barrage of questions, but she came and went, determined to work, to keep life as normal as possible.
But within a week, the jobs disappeared.
She was no longer just Jemma, the face of Farrinelli, but that American, that Jemma Copeland.
Every major magazine and fashion house she’d been booked to work for had cancelled on her in quick succession.
It was bad enough that six months of work was lost, but then Damien had started losing jobs, too.
Damien couldn’t get work.
Farrinelli cancelled Jemma’s contract as the face of Farrinelli Fragrance. Damien didn’t wait for Farrinelli to replace him too. He left Jemma, their flat, their life.
Jemma understood. She was bad for his career. Bad for business. For Damien. Farrinelli. Everyone.
Heartsick, miserable, she opened her eyes to discover Sheikh Karim watching her.
Tears filled her eyes. She was ashamed of the tears, ashamed for being weak. How could she cry or feel sorry for herself? She was better off than most people. Certainly better off than the thousands of people her father had impoverished.
But she never spoke about her father, or what he did. She didn’t openly acknowledge the shame, either. There were no words for it. No way to ever make amends, either.
“Please don’t think this is a challenge, nor is it meant to be disrespectful,” she said quietly, swiftly dashing away tears before they could fall. “But I did not come here on a lark. I am not a rebel schoolgirl. I came to Saidia because I desperately needed the work. I had thought I’d fly in, work, fly out, and no one would be the wiser. Clearly, I was wrong, and for that, I am very sorry.”
* * *
Mikael listened to the apology in silence. The apology meant nothing to him. Words were easy. They slipped from the tongue and lips with ease.
Actions, now those were difficult.
Action, and consequence, those required effort. Pain. Sweat. Sacrifice.
It crossed his mind that Jemma had no idea what was coming once they reached Haslam. Sheikh Azizzi, the judge, was not a soft touch. Sheikh Azizzi was old world, old school, and determined to preserve as much of the tribal customs as possible.
He was also Mikael’s godfather and intimate with Karim family history, including Mikael’s parents’ drawn-out divorce, and his mother’s subsequent banishment from Saidia.
Sheikh Azizzi had not been a fan of his mother, but the divorce had horrified Sheikh Azizzi and all of the country. Divorce was rare in Saidia, and in a thousand years of Karim rule, there had never been a divorce in the Karim royal family, and the drama and the endless publicity around it—the news in the international papers, not Saidia’s—had alienated the Saidia public.
No, Mikael’s father had not been a good king. If he hadn’t died when he did, there might have been an uprising.
There would have been an uprising.
Which is why ever since Mikael had inherited the throne, he’d vowed to be a true leader to the Saidia people. A good king. A fair king. He’d vowed to represent his country properly, and he’d promised to protect the desert kingdom’s culture, and preserve ancient Saidia customs.
Thus, the trip to Haslam to see Sheikh Azizzi.
Sheikh Azizzi was both a political and spiritual figure. He was a simple man, a village elder, but brave and wise. He and Mikael’s father had grown up together, both from the same village. Sheikh Azizzi’s father has served as a counselor and advisor to the royal Karim family, but Sheikh Azizzi himself did not want to serve in a royal capacity. He was a teacher, a thinker, a farmer, preferring the quiet life in ancient Haslam, a town founded hundreds of years ago at the base of the Tekti Mountains.
But when a neighboring country had sought to invade Saidia fifty some years ago, Sheikh Azizzi was one of the first to volunteer to defend his country and people. He’d spent nearly two years on the front line. Halfway through, he was wounded in battle, and yet he refused to leave his fellow soldiers, inspiring the dispirited Saidia troops to fight on.
After the war ended, Sheikh Azizzi returned home, refusing all gifts, and accolades, wanting no financial reward. He wasn’t interested in being a popular figure. He didn’t want attention, didn’t feel he deserved the attention. What he wanted was truth, peace, and stability for all Saidia people.
“I will ask Sheikh Azizzi to be fair. I cannot ask for him to be compassionate,” Mikael said suddenly, his voice deep and rough in the quiet of the car. “Compassion is too much like weakness. Compassion lacks muscle, and conviction.”
“Does he know about my father, and what he did to your family?”
“Yes.”
“So he won’t be fair.”
“Fair, according to our laws. Perhaps not fair according to yours.”
* * *
For two hours the convoy of cars traveled across the wide stretch of desert, before turning southeast toward the foothills and then on to the Tekti mountain range. They traveled up a narrow winding road, through the steep mountain pass, before beginning their descent into the valley below.
Finally they were slowing, the cars leaving the main road for the walled town built at the foot of the mountains.
Jemma was very glad the cars were slowing. She needed fresh air. She needed water. She needed a chance to stretch her legs.
“Haslam,” the sheikh announced.
She craned her head to get a better look at the town. Twenty-foot-tall walls surrounded it. Turrets and parapets peeked above the walls. The vehicles’ headlights illuminated huge wooden gates. Slowly the massive gates opened and the convoy pulled into the village.
They drove a short way before the cars parked in front of a two-story building that looked almost identical to the buildings on either side.
Jemma frowned at the narrow house. It didn’t look like a courthouse or official city building. It seemed very much like an ordinary home.
The driver came around the side of the car to open the back passenger door. “We will go in for tea and conversation, but no one here will speak English,” Mikael said, adding bluntly, “and they won’t understand you. Or your short skirt.” He leaned from the car, spoke to the driver and the driver nodded, and disappeared.
“I’m getting you a robe,” Mikael said turning back to her. “It won’t help you to go before Sheikh Azizzi dressed like that. I am sure you know this already, but be quiet, polite. Respectful. You are the outsider here. You need to make a good impression.”
“Sheikh Azizzi is here?”
“Yes.”
“I’m meeting him now?”
“Yes.”
Fresh panic washed through her. “I thought we were going in for tea and conversation!”
“We are. This is the judicial process. It’s not in a court with many observers. It’s more intimate...personal. We sit at a table, have tea, and talk. Sheikh Azizzi will either come to a decision during the discussion, or he will leave and make a decision and then return to tell us what he has chosen to do.”
“And it really all rests with him?”
“Yes.”
“Could you not override his decision? You are the king.”
Mikael studied her impassively. “I could, but I doubt I would.”
“Why?”
“He is a tribal judge, and the highest in my tribe. As Bedouin, we honor our tribal elders, and he is the most respected man from my tribe.”
The driver returned with a dark blue folded cotton garment and handed it to Mikael. Mikael shook out the robe and told her to slip it over her head. “This is more conservative, and should make him feel more comfortable.”
She reached up and touched her hair. “Shouldn’t I have a headscarf too?”
“He knows you’re American, knows your father was Daniel Copeland. No need to pretend to be someone you’re not.”
“But I also have no wish to further offend him.”
“Then perhaps braid your hair and tie it with an elastic. But your hair is not going to protect you from judgment. Nothing will. This is fate. Karma.”
Jemma swiftly braided her hair and then stepped from the car, following Mikael. Fate. Karma. The words rang through her head as she walked behind the sheikh toward the house.
Robed men and women lined the small dirt road, bowing deeply. Mikael paused to greet them, speaking briefly and then waving to some children who peeked from windows upstairs before leading her to the arched door of the house. The door opened and they were ushered inside.
Candles and sconces on the wall illuminated the interior. The whitewashed walls were simple and unadorned. Dark beams covered the ceiling in the entry, but the beams had been painted cream and pale gold in the living room.
As Mikael and Jemma were taken to a low table in the living room, Jemma spotted more children peeking from behind a curtain before being drawn away.
“Sit here,” Mikael instructed, pointing to a pillow on the floor in front of the low square table. “To my right. Sheikh Azizzi will sit across from me, and speak to me, but this way he can see you easily.”
Jemma sank onto the pillow, curling her legs under her. “He’s not going to ask me anything?”
“No. Over tea I will give him the facts. He will consider the facts and then make his decision.”
“Is this how you handle all tribal crimes?”
“If it’s not a violent crime, why should the sentencing be chaotic and violent?”
She smoothed the soft thin cotton fabric over her knees. “But your country has a long history of aggression. Tribal warring, kidnapped brides, forced marriages.” She quickly glanced at him. “I’m not trying to be sarcastic. I ask the question sincerely. How does one balance your ideal of civility in sentencing, with what we Westerners would view as barbaric tribal customs?”
“You mean, kidnapped brides?”
Her eyes widened. “No. I was referring to arranged marriages.”
He said nothing. She stared at him aghast. The seconds ticked by.
Jemma pressed her hands to her stomach, trying to calm the wild butterflies. “Do you really kidnap your brides?”
“If you are a member of one of the royal families, yes.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “It’s how one protects the tribe, by forging new ties through forced marriage with other tribes.”
“It’s barbaric.”
