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“What is your name?” The sheikh had finished his inspection and now fixed his gaze squarely on her face.
She straightened her glasses, wishing, out of nowhere, that she had bothered to put her contact lenses in that morning. “Emma.”
“Emma What? Do you have a surname?”
She bit down on her lip. Would it tip him off? Curious, despite the certainty she was playing with fire, she nodded. But butterflies were waging war with her body. At least a million butterflies, surely, were zipping around her insides, making it difficult to focus. His lips were so full. It was the kind of detail you only noticed up close, but now, she couldn’t stop staring at them. Full and pink lips, set in a symmetrical face, with a darkly stubbled, very square jaw line, and even, white teeth. She shivered.
He spoke a word in a foreign language, and from the inflection and volume, she gathered it was a curse in his own tongue.
“Anderson!” She blurted out, her blush deepening. “Emma Anderson.”
“Well, Emma, what exactly did you take exception to earlier?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to confront him, didn’t she? So what the hell did it matter if they got off on the wrong foot? “I don’t think you’re right to cut your foreign aid contributions.”
His eyebrows rose. “Would you care to explain why?”
“Not particularly,” she said with a dry smile.
“I insist.” His words held a note of warning that even she didn’t ignore.
“As you wish,” she said with an imitation of a shrug. She marshaled her thoughts together as best she could, recalling the conversation that had caused her to frown in disagreement. “Amar’a is a country of peace and wealth. But my understanding is that the rest of the region is politically instable. The funding you offer is building schools that help equalize society. It’s creating legitimacy in political systems. You have an obligation to help make the world a better place.”
He laughed, and it was such a rich sound that she shivered again. Her eyes flew wide as saucers as she stared across at him.
“You don’t agree?”
“Of course I agree. Unfortunately, your socialist view point does not tally with the reality. I’m not talking about reducing foreign aid. I’m talking about taking a tighter grip on how money is dispersed.” He dragged a hand through his hair and she realized he was stressed. There were fine lines around his eyes, perhaps even some dark shading, too, though it was hard to tell beneath his spectacularly tanned skin.
“Why?”
“Because, we have intelligence that suggests half a billion American dollars that we’ve sent to foreign aid has been funneled into organizations associated with terrorism. And that’s a price too high to pay.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Does that wipe that disapproving little frown off your face?”
She stared at him, sure he must be able to hear her heartbeat, even over the sound of the sea, lapping against the sides of the boat. “Do you particularly care if it does or doesn’t, your highness?”
Rafiq didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he’d been strangely annoyed by the waves of disapproval he had felt emanating from this woman. He’d noticed her several days ago, and every time he’d seen her since then, he’d felt a strange emotional intensity leveled at him. He was not used to being criticized, and certainly not by someone in his employ.
She could have been quite attractive if she’d tried. Her face was striking, and her hair the color of flames. But she seemed determined to downplay any beauty she could have displayed. Even the way she wore the uniform was strange. The fit was all wrong, too big, somehow, so that instead of looking like a woman, she just looked lumpy. And yet, there was a swan-like elegance to her neck. Her wrists were fine boned and slender. He suspected that beneath the navy suit, her body might be quite attractive, too.
Such speculation was beneath him and he suppressed it from his mind with the kind of mental discipline he was renowned for. “No.”
“No?” She stared at him, momentarily lost. What did he mean, no?
He seemed suddenly impatient. “No, I do not particularly care if you approve or disapprove.” He reached down to the coffee table between them and picked up a yellow legal note pad. “You may go.”
As dismissals went, it was pretty summary. Much as her sister’s had been.
The next time Rafiq saw Emma, she was polishing silverware and laughing with another member of staff. A young male with blonde hair and Hollywood heart throb good looks. Rafiq was simply walking past the galley and turned his head at just the right moment, to catch her as she let out the kind of laugh that spoke of true pleasure. For some reason, it made him restless, and he found himself hearing her laugh over and over again in his head, almost as if it were taunting him. That night at dinner, he found he was watching her, instead of paying attention to the conversation at hand. She was simply standing in the corner of the room, as a back up to the main servers of the meal. He was surrounded by officials and advisors, and yet he felt oddly overcome by a desire to clear the room with the exception of her.
The next morning, he
woke early. The dawn light was just breaking over the horizon, and he stretched restlessly. He really shouldn’t linger much longer. Mansour wasn’t coming. He’d have to be an idiot not to realize that his brother wasn’t missing by accident. Mansour had run away. Even for the confirmed party animal of the family, it was a strange departure from his usual modus operandi. His disappointment as Sheikh was eclipsed only by his worry as a brother. Mansour and he rarely saw eye to eye, but he was kin, and Rafiq valued little else above blood ties.
He threw back the waffle print blanket and crossed the cabin, naked and virile. His tanned skin glowed like sun-warmed caramel. He pulled on a pair of jeans and strode out of his private chamber up on deck. It was deserted at this hour, as he’d expected.
