Carol Marinelli - Royal Temptation

‘How do you feel?’ Layla asked, and Mikael thought for a moment before answering.

‘Elated.’ He turned and looked at her. ‘There’s no such thing as a bad day at the office for me, Layla. That bastard is going down for a very long time.’

He breathed out, stunned at his own honesty.

‘Do you ever not try your best?’ Layla’s eyes narrowed as she asked a very brave question—one perhaps no one else would ever dare ask.

‘I try my best for all my clients. I fight for them with everything I have.’

‘Always?’

‘Always,’ Mikael said. ‘And then, if they are found guilty, I know, as best I can know, that a guilty man has gone down.’

The champagne tasted nice, Mikael thought.

‘Aren’t you going to ask if it bothers me…?’ He was surprised by the lack of the oh, so familiar question.

‘Clearly it doesn’t,’ Layla said. ‘I doubt many people could get you to do something you did not want to do.’

‘You did,’ Mikael said. ‘I took you on when I didn’t want to.’

‘Ah, but you were attracted to me,’ she said, and dipped a raspberry in white chocolate sauce. ‘Intrigued.’

‘I was,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t trouble you, then?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, and instead of eating the raspberry herself she fed it to him, liking the feel of his lips on her fingers and the wetness of his tongue so much that she did it again as she spoke on. ‘For a system to work, both sides need to be represented well. In some lands there is no such system.’

‘How does it work in Ishla?’

‘If you are found guilty of a crime you are either pardoned, removed or killed.’

‘You can be pardoned?’

‘Of course. It is at my father’s discretion and once you are pardoned there is no grudge, no stigma. If you cannot be fully pardoned then you are removed from society till you can be fully pardoned.’ She looked over at him where he lay on the bed, silent. ‘Why are you smiling?’

‘That’s what you do to me,’ he admitted. Maybe it was because she was here just for a few days—just a transient timeframe—which meant he could let down his perpetual guard a touch.

‘Did you always want to study law?’

‘No.’

‘Why did you?’

Mikael shook his head. His guard wasn’t that low. ‘It’s just as well you don’t read and write,’ he said, pulling her into the crook of his arm. ‘You’d be running for prime minister.’

‘But I can read and write,’ Layla said. ‘Just not English. But I am going to learn—it will be good for my work.’

‘You work ?’ This he had to hear!

‘Of course—though I don’t get paid for it. My father was concerned because although the girls in Ishla were receiving an education their grades were far lower than the boys. We had a discussion and decided that I would speak with them once a month and encourage them. Now I speak to all the classes. Every day I have students, but I cannot know all their names. Their grades are improving,’ Layla said. ‘I’m very good at it and they love me.’

‘You’re modest too.’

She shrugged. ‘I loathe false modesty. I tell my girls to be proud of themselves and their achievements.’

They drank more champagne in silence.

Sometimes she felt his mouth on her hair; sometimes she felt his fingers stroke her forearm. It was the most peaceful Layla had ever felt. He dozed, and she liked the thump-thump of his heart in her ear, liked the rise and fall of his chest, and she liked the view too—because she could see the outline of what had been pressing into her last night.

‘What are you doing?’ Mikael asked as her fingers moved to undo the bottom part of his shirt.

‘I want to see the hairy bit beneath your navel again,’ she said, but his hand moved hers away and held it and she watched with a smile as the outline widened and stretched.

‘What made you want to study law?’ she asked again.

‘You’re persistent, aren’t you?’

‘Very, very persistent.’ Layla nodded. ‘I always get my own way in the end, so it would be much easier on you to just give in now.’

It was tell her or let her hand go.

Speak or find her mouth.

Mikael knew what he would prefer, but she had invited him to her bed ‘not for sex’, and it had been the nicest hiding place he had ever had.

He couldn’t even be bothered to put the news on and find out what was being said.

Okay, he’d tell her why he had studied law.

Some of it.

‘When I grew up I had no family. I just remember a flat and lots of people, but there was no one there that I called a parent. There were other children and lot of fights, drinking. One night everyone was moved on and I started to live on the streets.’

‘As a beggar?’

‘And a thief,’ Mikael said. ‘When I was around twelve, maybe thirteen—I don’t know exactly how old I was—a government worker helped me. His wife was dead and he took me in. I shared his home with him and his son, I got an identity, an assumed date of birth, and I went to school. I was always Mikael, but I took his surname.’

‘What was it?’

‘Igor Romanov,’ Mikael said.

‘He adopted you?’

‘No,’ Mikael said. ‘I just took the surname. I was grateful to him, and worked very hard at school, but I still got into a lot of trouble. I was very angry. But when I got the gold medal at school Igor suggested law.’

Layla lay there trying to imagine a life without her family. She missed her mother every day, and even though she had never met her she knew so much about her.

Imagine not knowing anything…

Mikael lay in the dark place in his mind that he didn’t visit very often.

How he had fought to survive in a world where no one had cared if he lived.

Worse than that, though, had been the boredom—hour after hour to fill.

Had he not had chess, Mikael knew that he would have lost his mind. Day in, day out, night in, night out, hour after hour, he would sit with men older than him who taught him so well he could soon beat them—until people had started to pay for a chance to play him.

They hadn’t paid much, but it had been enough to feed him.

That was when Igor had stepped in, having heard about this boy who was being paid to play chess. Mikael had carried on playing, but there had been books then, and study, as Mikael had fast made up the years of education he had lost on the streets.

Layla’s persistent fingers had slid into the gap between his shirt buttons and now idly stroked the hair there. He went to move them, but from her breathing and the sudden stillness of her fingers he realised she was sleeping.

Mikael lay and watched the sun set over Sydney as the tension of the past few months receded.

‘Layla…’ He felt her stir, and despite having washed her hair himself he could still smell the exotic scent when she moved. ‘Would you like to go out?’

‘Out?’ Her hand pulled away from his stomach.

‘Dancing.’

She was off the bed in a moment, and peeling off his shirt as she headed to the bathroom. Mikael had never known anybody get dressed so quickly.

‘I’ve never danced,’ she said excitedly as she pulled on her glittery shoes. ‘What if I can’t do it?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll manage,’ he said, ringing down for a driver and preparing to head out into the world instead of locking himself in for the night.

The trial was over; it was time for some fun.

CHAPTER NINE

HE CHOSE A very private, exclusive club, but as the driver dropped them off there was still a line-up for the less than perfect. They lifted the rope as soon as Mikael approached—but not before Layla had already bypassed the line.

She wasn’t deliberately flouting the rules, Mikael realised, they had just never applied to her.