The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters
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pawn who accepts whatever scrap you care to throw at me. I’m trying to do the best I can to repair the damage I’ve done. And, yes, I can stand up for myself and I don’t need your help, but you’re involved in this whether you like it or not and you can’t just walk away. These are my people and you’re in danger of offending them, and no one loves these people more than I do. Yes, they’re flawed, but so am I. We all are. We’re human, Tyr, and flaws come with that territory. No one understands the people of Kareshi better than me. All I’m asking is the chance to continue working with them. I can see now that my idea to marry the emir to strengthen our borders and appease the traditionalists was a terrible mistake, but I’m not going to allow a second terrible mistake to ruin my chances of helping my people.’
‘Jazz, you need to sit down and think through things calmly,’ he advised, but even he knew it was too late for that.
‘I shouldn’t have been up there on the dune,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘If only I’d ridden a different way, none of this would have happened.’
‘So don’t pile another mistake on top of that one.’
‘How fortunate you are to be exempt from the shortcomings that afflict the rest of the human race,’ she called after him as he started to unbuckle the storm cloth.
The wind howled in and nearly knocked her over. He reached out to save her and Jazz grabbed hold of his arm. She was pulling at him with all her strength to keep him in the tent, and yelling at him above the ear-splitting howl of the storm. ‘Are you mad? You’ll be killed out there.’
‘So, what do you want me to do, Jazz? Spend the night with the forbidden princess? Will that help your cause? Well?’ he demanded, shouting in her face.
Jazz’s tears shocked him rigid. He’d done so many things that haunted him, and in the process had changed, or so he had believed, into another, callous and more dangerous person. He was a trained killer, a dangerous man, but right now he was only aware of a pressing need to reach out and help Jazz in every way he could.
‘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?’
Jazz frowned. ‘Hear what, Tyr?’
‘Exactly.’ The wind had dropped. ‘The storm has passed over. People will be on their way round to check up on you very soon and you don’t want me here when that happens.’
‘It’s too late to worry about that, Tyr,’ Jazz assured him with a rueful smile.
Freeing the storm sheet, he stepped outside. Unfortunately, Jazz was right. He stopped short on the threshold of the pavilion as a group of villagers came up to him, wanting to know their princess was safe. He saw the exchange of glances when he tried to reassure them, then realised they assumed Jazz was safe because he had been with her throughout the storm. How could he betray these good people? He couldn’t indulge his wanderlust any more than Jazz could run away. He was definitely going to stay and see this out.
As he walked away, he could feel the villagers’ stares on his back. They weren’t hostile—quite the contrary. They seemed delighted by the developing relationship between him and Jazz. There was just one thing wrong with that. He didn’t want a wife, and the last person on earth he’d risk sweeping into his dark world was Jazz, though he could still feel the brush of her lips against his cheek, and the