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It stopped nothing. The military feet kept advancing. Xa Shiraq ignored her. Mr Kozim found another empty spot on the ceiling for himself and gazed steadfastly at that.
Amanda was thinking more furiously than she had ever needed to before. Xa Shiraq might have submerged the link he felt with her but it had been a powerful, compelling link. Somehow she had to find that link again.
‘I have a better plan,’ she announced.
Boldness be my friend, she prayed wildly. If there was any substance in the form of address used by the old serving woman, she had to have some chance of changing what was happening.
The guards halted around her in escort position, ready to about-turn and take her out as soon as the order was given. Amanda swiftly forestalled the order.
‘Will you not allow me one last word?’ she demanded of Xa Shiraq.
His black eyes slashed at her. His fingers pressed savagely into the armrest, indenting the cushioned leather one by one, back and forth. He said nothing. The guards remained at attention. Amanda seized on the tacit permission to advance on Mr Kozim.
‘Is it constitutionally correct that a princess can be sent to the rat-hole?’ she asked, pulling his gaze down from the ceiling.
Mr Kozim not only looked sheepish but very, very unhappy at being chosen to interpret the sheikh’s will.
‘Over the centuries,’ he said ponderously, ‘more princesses ended up in the rat-hole, per capita of population, than any other category of our people. It was...uh...standard procedure in cases of...’ he coughed ‘...rebellious intransigence.’
That certainly fitted, Amanda thought, but did the rest follow? ‘Am I a princess?’ she pressed.
‘A proclamation was signed that you were to be treated as such,’ Mr Kozim mumbled, shooting a worried glance at the
sheikh.
Uh-huh! Amanda thought with satisfaction. A chink in the armour. Xa Shiraq was in two minds about her. Or rather, his heart was warring with his head. He wanted his people to honour her even as he condemned her as unworthy of being his true companion.
His mind was set on punishment to fit the crime he believed she had committed against him, but it wasn’t what he really wanted. Not deep down. He wanted the fulfilment of the promise that had shimmered through both of them in the crystal caves. And so did she.
Clutching that conviction to her heart, Amanda walked across the room to where Xa Shiraq indolently lounged, her clear aquamarine eyes reflecting strong and unwavering purpose.
‘There has to be a better way of resolving what is between us,’ she said.
‘Name one,’ he invited, his face stonily closed to her, his eyes watchful but giving nothing away.
She knelt beside the armrest of his chair, close enough so that only he could hear her words. ‘Tell me of your secret desires and passions,’ she said softly, caringly, her eyes openly promising an answer to them.
‘I do not desire you,’ he replied curtly, contemptuously. ‘You could not provoke it in me.’
Amanda refused to be deterred. ‘Let me try to change your mind,’ she persisted, trying to bore past his wounded pride to the primitive mating instinct that yearned for fulfilment.
His hand curved over the end of the armrest, his long, restless fingers lying still. She lifted her hand and stroked her fingers over the bare skin of his. She saw the sudden tightening of his neck muscles, the leap of his pulse at the base of his throat. He sprang to his feet, whipping his hand out from under hers. He towered over her, his black eyes ablaze with fierce turbulence.
‘You do have the capacity to gall me,’ he grated. ‘No more of this talk. You know nothing of men nor of their pleasure.’
‘How can you pass such judgements?’ Amanda immediately replied, whirling up off her knees to confront him head-on.
‘At the Fisa hotel you inflicted on me a fat cow from the bazaar whose dancing was supposed to entertain me,’ he mocked savagely. ‘She bored me more thoroughly than I’ve ever been bored in my life.’
‘I can do much better than the fat cow from the bazaar,’ Amanda promised quickly, thinking any promise was better than the rat-hole.
His eyes derided her claim. ‘Are you suggesting you are not culturally inept?’
‘I chose the fat cow from the bazaar for other reasons than entertaining you,’ Amanda excused.
‘You have the temerity to remind me of your duplicity?’
‘I have no trouble remembering yours,’ she retorted. ‘I also remember the link that crossed those barriers. I doubt that even you can crush that memory.’
