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‘Please don’t leave me, Tyr.’
Jazz’s voice was small and made the impulse to drag her close unendurable. Her quiet strength reached out to touch some hidden part of him. Relaxing his grip so the cover fell back into place, he secured it firmly, then, taking her hand as if Jazz were a child again, and he the youth who had always looked out for her, he led her back into the heart of the pavilion.
‘We will find a solution to this marriage problem,’ he promised, wondering for the first time in his life if he could keep his promise to Jazz. He had never let her down before, but this time maybe he would. She’d gone without so much in her young life, compared to the camaraderie he’d enjoyed with his sisters, and then, to all intents and purposes, he’d come along and stolen her brother away. ‘I owe you,’ he murmured, thinking back.
‘More juice?’ she suggested, her lips slanting in a small smile.
Her hands were shaking, he noticed, but she clasped them tightly round the goblet in the hope he wouldn’t see. He watched her gather herself in a way Jazz used to do as a child. She had always had a backbone of steel.
‘I owe you an apology, Tyr,’ she stated levelly, not disappointing him. Raising her head, she looked straight at him. ‘I got us into this mess and I couldn’t regret it more. I just get so frustrated sometimes, and I know I come up with some wild ideas—’
‘Wild?’ He relaxed. ‘You can’t go round kissing men and proposing to them.’
Jazz’s cheeks flamed red. ‘Yes, I know. I feel embarrassed about that. If I’d had my choice you’d have been a long way down the queue.’
He laughed, relieved to see her relaxing at least a little. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, Jazz. You don’t need to do any of that. And I’m not just talking about what the world sees. You’re beautiful inside, and you deserve better.’
‘Than you?’
‘Much better than me. And better than some emir you don’t even know. You’ll fall in love one day, and when that day comes you won’t want baggage. Believe me, I know all about that.’
‘You’re not married, are you?’ Her smile vanished.
‘Me? No. The women I meet have got more sense.’
‘I think you’d be a good catch,’ Jazz argued.
‘Do you?’ Once again they were staring at each other and all sorts of wicked thoughts were flying through his head, but best of all was the fact that maybe their friendship could move on now.
‘Why don’t you tell me about the baggage, Tyr?’
It had always been a mistake to relax around Jazz.
She stared at him in silence for a moment. ‘It’s another of those things you don’t want to talk about, isn’t it, Tyr?’
He shrugged. ‘You’ve known me most of your life, Jazz, but people change over time.’
‘So I’ll get to know you all over again.’ She met his stare steadily. ‘I don’t see anything different, Tyr. I just see you. And I’m not afraid of anything you have to tell me, but I think you are.’
‘Where are we going with this?’
‘If you point-blank refuse to tell me about your past, then all that’s left to talk about is you agreeing to marry me.’
She said this lightly as he raked his hair with frustration. ‘I thought you’d agreed we would forget that.’
‘You’re not making this easy for me, Tyr.’
‘Easy?’ He laughed. ‘Nothing about this situation is easy, Jazz.’
She huffed a smile. ‘Bet marriage was the last thing on your mind when you heaved me out of that sand drift.’
He slanted her an amused glance. ‘You could say.’
‘And now if you don’t marry me, I will be known to one and all as the disgraced princess of Kareshi. My people will never forgive you for that,’ she said, growing serious, ‘and neither will Sharif. He might be a forward-thinking leader, but he would never do anything to risk losing the hard-won trust of our people. I’m sorry, Tyr, but there really is no alternative—for either of us.’
‘Do you know how mad that sounds?’
‘Not mad,’ Jazz said sadly, ‘realistic. The emir won’t have me now, and neither would any other man in our world. I could run away and live somewhere else, I suppose, but I wouldn’t be much use to my people.’
For once he was lost for words. Finally, he said tensely, ‘Can you hear that?’
