White Moon Black Sea Read Online Free Page B

When it became clear to Christos that Rashid wanted to own as much prime Turkish property as possible, he approached his cousin about a trade-off — all Christos’s property in Turkey for Rashid’s in Greece.
    For each man, this was the end of a long road to greater power in the country of his choice. Had Rashid fully sensed the significance of the contents of the purple box? Could he register the singular power and importance they conferred on him in his beloved homeland? Once, long ago, Mirella’s ancestor, Kadin Roxelana Oujie, had been loved beyond reason by a sultan. His passion had enabled her to oust Rashid’s forefathers. She had passed the power that had been theirs to Mirella. Now, by cunning, Rashid was about to steal back that power from Mirella.
    It was all there. Every document Rashid needed. He replaced them in the box. The lock clicked shut. He set the key carefully alongside the others on his key ring. Then Rashid sat back in the wing chair and heaved a sigh. He began to chuckle to himself and then relaxed into a deep interior laughter that finally brought tears to his eyes. Some time passed before Christos placed a goblet of cold water before Rashid and a hand on his shoulder.
    “And what now, Rashid?”
    A scent of lilac and jasmine, and she was there. The two men rose from their chairs, their eyes riveted on the lady in white whose very presence changed the atmosphere in the library. She walked directly to Rashid, stood before him, and submissively lowered her head. He raised her hand and then lowered his lips to kiss the long slender fingers in a quite courtly manner. That was the way they always greeted each other in public. In private it was a different matter. At those times she would drop elegantly to one knee and kiss his hands, first one, then the other, addresshim as master, and never raise her eyes to his until he allowed it by word or gesture. She would usually be naked except for a diaphanous scarf or an odd jewel, worn not to cover but to excite.
    Rashid reacted at once to her presence. She was one of his most prized possessions. Rarely had he wanted her more than he did upon seeing her at this moment. He was gripped by the power of a raunchy sexuality that showed through her Junoesque beauty cocooned in the whiteness of her garb. Her regal bearing and the desire he read in her eyes possessed him, as they had so often during the many years she had been his sexual slave.
    She had captured the erotic hearts of numerous men in those years. And still she was dazzling the two men in the room, making them oblivious to all but their sexual desire for her.
    He held his golden fleece, the purple box and its contents, in one hand, and Humayun in the other. His first words to her were, “Are you ready to leave?”
    She did not speak but merely nodded, affirming her readiness. He smiled at her and charmed her by kissing her hand again.
    “Good. I have a surprise for you. A change of plan.” Then he turned to his cousin and said, “Christos, I have decided to accept your invitation. Until the morning then.” He stretched his hand across the desk to shake Christos’s and was aware of a look in his cousin’s eye that asked to be included not in the morning but now. Rashid ignored it.
    “Rashid, I’d like to give Humayun a gift to thank her for her company this past week, if that’s agreeable to you,” Christos asked, knowing very well it would be, because that was the form. A gift to this remarkable woman was a way to say thank you to Rashid without offending his generosity in sharing his sexual goddess. It was the form, and it had made Humayun a very wealthy woman in her own right. One of Rashid’s great joys was the sexual intrigues they created together at his behest in which many men had acquiesced.
    What happened next took Rashid rather by surprise. Hehad nodded his consent to his cousin, who then went around the desk to Humayun and presented her with a dark blue leather jeweler’s box,