His Queen By Desert Decree. Lynne Graham

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.’

      It was his wording that unnerved Molly. Talk of ‘releasing’ her implied that she was not free to leave when she wished. ‘Am I a prisoner here, then?’

      Azrael sidestepped that leading question. ‘I am determined to settle this affair for once and all with you before you go home.’

      A pair of green eyes inspected him with a level of scorn Azrael had never met in a woman’s gaze before. ‘And how do you plan to settle it?’

      Ironically, Azrael was grateful to be urged to that distasteful point. ‘By compensating you liberally for your ordeal in return for your silence.’

      Molly was very much taken aback by that declaration. ‘You’re offering me money to keep quiet?’ she gasped in disbelief.

      ‘Compensation,’ Azrael framed, wishing he could gag her to force her to listen, wishing she weren’t acting shocked because he had been shocked by the concept too until Butrus had laid out all the possibilities before him. He did not wish to see any admirable qualities in her because it only intensified the attraction of something that could never ever be.

      After all, in all likelihood he would be married in a few months. He would probably accept the bride from Quarein his stepfather had already suggested to him. Nasira was Prince Firuz’s niece and Azrael had met her when they were both still children, thinking even then that she was rigorously well behaved and very devout. Why did those worthy assets turn him off rather than turn him on? He didn’t want to think about that. He had yet to meet Nasira as an adult and if Prince Firuz’s wishes were followed, he would not get the chance to meet her before marrying her because that was the tradition in Quarein. Worryingly however, a veiled queen would be a retrograde choice in the eyes of his people, whose women had never worn the veil.

      ‘But money,’ Molly responded in unconcealed disgust. ‘I want justice, not money!’

      ‘Perhaps in an ideal world,’ Azrael countered. ‘Unfortunately, it is not an ideal world that we live in.’

      ‘My desire to have your brother prosecuted is stronger than my desire for money,’ Molly assured him fiercely. ‘I am not a forgiving woman.’

      ‘With respect, I suggest that you consider my offer,’ Azrael advised with icy cool, the hauteur of his finely sculpted features intense. ‘If you do not consider it, we are at stalemate and, as you have already said, you want to go home.’