Page 57 of Her Desert King

“Feminism isn’t about men versus women,” Harper growled. “If you really understood feminism, then your first priority is to find a way for women to help each other up and not pull each other down. It’s certainly not for one woman to belittle another woman – and wasn’t that what you were doing to Kyria?”

Do you get that now, you ninny,Harper wanted to yell at Jennifer’s face, but caught herself in time and instead stopped to inhale deeply, realizing too late that she hadn’t even paused to breathe in her entire tirade. And she was shaking too, dammit. She only shook this much when she was really angry, and this Jennifer woman was definitely—-

A sound interrupted her thoughts.

Clapping?

A moment later, and the applause became thunderous.

Holy shit.

Harper gaped.

She had lost her temper, and they were clapping for it?

As Jennifer stormed out of the scene, Kyria rushed to the queen, eyes glowing with admiration. “You were so great, Your Majesty.”

Harper cringed. “I was such a hothead, you mean.”

“Because you were angry for me,” the younger girl said loyally.

“I was, but I should have remembered to be more...”Queenly?But thathadoccurred to her earlier already, hadn’t it? She had thought about the right thing to do, thought aboutwhyshe would do it andwhomshe would do it for—-

Don’t do it for me.

And in the end—-

She had done it for Kyria. For people who needed protecting. For people like the kingdom of Ramil—-

Oh.

Her head immediately snapped, her gaze wildly searching the crowd—-

And finally, her eyes met the sheikh’s.

And he was smiling.

Do you understand it now, wife?

She wanted to laugh and cry, wanted to wrap her arms around him as much as she wanted to throttle him.Damn him.He could have simply told her straight that he wanted her to be a queen who would put the people’s needs before everything else, but no—-

Damn sheikh.

Even knowing she could hate him for it, had hated him a little for it, the sheikh had not taken the easy way out—-

Damn sheikh.

Because he had trusted her more than trusted herself, had trusted Harper to discover for herself the queen that she could and should be—-

Damn sheikh.

And so he had not spoken a word and let her hate him instead.

Damn sheikh.

But oh, how she loved this sheikh—-

How could she not, when now all his actions made sense—-

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