Page 63 of Wreck My Mind

“Good. I’ll make this easy then—I call you a princess because you are one. Perhaps sheikha would be the more appropriate term, though, yes?” I reached out and took her hand, clasping my fingers around hers to stifle their tremble. “You see, I already know who you really are. I know. So please, just come clean with me.”

Her fingers clenched and I returned the grip, letting her know it would be okay, I had her.

“I was named Ozma when I was born. My mother always called me Aziza, though. My father called me Mira, which means female leader or queen, hence he often used the endearment. My father was a sheikh, yes. But I’m not a princess nor a sheikha. Not anymore. Not for a long time.”

I was impressed she’d revealed so much without really telling me a thing. “Ozma what? Tell me your full name.”

“Ozma Zamirah…” She paused, her deep brown eyes pleading with me to understand. Little did she know I’d understood and forgiven her the lie a long time ago. “Zaki.”

I lifted her knuckles to my lips and pressed a kiss on them. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Ozma Zamirah Zaki.”

The tension dropped from her body, her relief to have the monstrous lie off her back obvious. She studied me, questions swirling in her eyes—How did I know? How much did I know? Was this going to change anything? Would she ever have the upper hand with me again? Her eyes narrowed, but not enough to hide the spark in them or her lip twitching into a mischievous smile. “Nice to meet you, too, Michel—”

I flared my eyes wide and pulled my lips in a snarl. “Oh, no you didn’t.”

Her impish smile grew confident enough I knew she wasn’t bluffing. She’d tracked back through my name changes. Hell, she probably had an original copy of my birth certificate. The woman was the best tracker and sparring partner I’d ever had.

“Ohhhh, I did, Michelangelo Amadeus Cooper.”

Like a lion, I pounced. Springing from the chair and onto the bed, I captured her in a full-body tackle as she burst out laughing. We wrestled with each other until we were limp with exhaustion and gasping for air from laughing too hard.

Then she straddled my midsection and said, “My turn. You owe me an explanation. What were you doing in the Amazon?”

“After,” I agreed huskily as I rocked my hips, ready for round three. “I’ll tell you everything, after.”

“After what? After we take care of this?” she asked as she ground against the hard bulge in my pants.

“After we finish this job.”

Aziza

The reminder of the real reason we were on this ship in the first place sobered me up. Not only were we bringing the Ozma Emerald to the surface, but Coop knew my birth name. Knew I was Omar Zaki’s granddaughter, the one everyone believed had gone down with the Esmeralda. If there was one thing I’d learned as Zaki’s hand, it was that just because someone has the answers doesn’t mean they know the question. And the questions are invariably more useful in revealing a secret than the answers.

Depending on where in the depths of the wreck site Coop looked, I knew those questions would be coming up with him.

Coop smoothed his palms over my thighs. His eyes studied my face as he peered up. But I couldn’t bring mine to make contact with them.

“You’ve got the thousand-yard stare.”

I shifted my gaze then closed my eyes completely. I didn’t want him to read the apprehension I felt. The fear.

“You were on the ship when it went down, weren’t you, Presh?”

He rolled to his side, taking me with him. Cradling the whole of my body, he embraced me in a way no one had since my mom had been murdered.

I didn’t have to tell him about the night the ship had gone down. Knowing who I really was gave him plenty of ammunition. With it he could prove Zaki had been fraudulent, which could ruin the credibility of everything we’d done. Beryl Enterprises would be reduced to no more than a lucrative emerald mine and several defunct businesses. All the good we’d done would be overshadowed.

But even with the risk of losing everything, I desperately wanted the ideal he presented to me. I wanted everything on the table. I wanted us to have a real chance.

“There was the most horrible, shuddering vibration. The sound was…a screaming squall of death, a monster’s claws scraping down a chalkboard. But the Esmeralda actually being damaged hadn’t occurred to the ten-year-old me, not right then. Because for a minute, even the storm seemed to go silent and still. We must’ve been in the eye, but I just thought whatever had happened was over. I had an inside cabin, so I didn’t have portholes, just a nightlight. The darkness hit with a punch as the electricity cut out. Even though it could only have been off for a few seconds, the air had turned thick and suffocating. I didn’t think about logistics of electricity and air-conditioning though. I just thought a pillowcase had been dropped over my head again. I started thrashing and screaming, believing the kidnappers had come back for me.”

Coop’s arms tightened as his lips pressed against my temple. Just as my father had done when he’d come in to comfort me that night.

As an adult I understood my reaction to the electricity going out had been a flashback. But when I was a child, my reality had been distorted due to the drugs the so-called rescuers had used on me and the medication the doctors had given me to ease the shock of my ‘ordeal’. My ordeal. I never knew if the term referred to my having had a hood thrown over my head and being crammed into a trunk or losing my mother and aunt.

But just because I understood everything now didn’t mean it wasn’t still traumatizing. I steadied my breath before another wave of panic rolled through me.

I explained how my father had come in and what we’d talked about, about how he had confronted my grandfather. How their fighting had turned physical. Soon I was right back in the moment.

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