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Anya had not considered it an honor. Should she have? When Tarek had made it clear that it was likely damage control? Maybe she really did need to sit down with her mobile, get online, and read the story of what had happened to her as told by people she’d never met. But the thought of picking up that phone again made something cold roll down her spine.
She smiled back at the women. “I’m hoping you can help me. I’ve never attended a formal dinner in your country and I have been...indisposed for so long.”
“Don’t you worry, madam,” said the other woman, smiling even brighter. “We will make you shine.”
And that was what they did.
They spared no detail. They buffed Anya’s fingernails and her toenails, then added polish. They clucked disapprovingly over her brows, and then, as far she could tell, removed every errant piece of hair from her entire body. There was a salt scrub, because they did not feel that her long shower, or deep soak in the bath, was up to par.
Nor were they impressed with her hair, and when they were finished restyling it, she could see why. Anya looked luminous. Soft, pampered, and something like happy.
They had rimmed her eyes with dark mascara. They’d slicked a soft gloss over her lips. And when she looked in the set of full-length mirrors in the dressing room, she found herself resplendent in a bright tunic and matching trousers, flowing and lovely. Topped off with a long scarf with a pretty, jeweled edge that complemented the outfit and made her seem like someone else. The kind of woman who dined with ambassadors and kings, maybe.
“Thank you,” she said to the women when they were done. “You’ve worked miracles here tonight.”
Anya found herself smiling when they led her out of her rooms, then through the halls of the palace.
Night was falling outside, but the palace was still filled with light. She could see the last of the sun creep away a bit more every time they walked across a courtyard. And when they reached the grand central courtyard—that she vaguely remembered studying on the plane out of Houston a lifetime ago, because she’d known she was heading into the region—she paused for a moment as the night took over the sky.
Because she wasn’t in the cell. There was nothing between her and the stars, save the palace walls that stood, then, at a distance. As if they understood, the women seemed content to wait while she stood there, her head tipped back and the half-wild notion that if she jumped, she would float straight off into the galaxy.
But she didn’t. And when she came back to earth, the servants led her into a smaller room off the courtyard that was filled with Americans.
“His Excellency wishes you to speak with your countrymen for long as you desire,” the woman closest to her said, not in English. “Only when you are satisfied will the formal dinner begin.”
“Thank you,” Anya said quietly.
“You learned the language?” asked one of the men who waited for her, slick and polished in his suit and shiny shoes, with a sharp smile to match. “Smart move, Dr. Turner.”
Anya heard the door close behind her, and surely she should have felt...something different, now. Some sense of triumph, or victory. Instead, she felt almost as if she was back in one of the hospitals she’d worked in before she’d come abroad, forced to contend with competitive doctors and high-stakes medical issues alike.
There were too many men in suits in the room and somehow, what she wanted was a different man. One in ivory and gold, with a predator’s sharp gaze, and the quiet, inarguable presence of heavy stone.
“Was it smart?” she asked, smiling faintly because she thought she should. “Or survival?”
“It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Turner,” said the most polished of the men, his face creased with wisdom and his smile encouraging. “I’m Ambassador Pomeroy, and I have to tell you, I can’t wait to take you home.”
Home.That word echoed around inside of her. And as the circle of men tightened around her, all of them making soothing noises and asking about her state of mind and general welfare, she told herself it was joy.
Because it had to be joy.
But it wasn’t until she walked into the dining room that had been prepared for them—another triumph of mosaic and marble, beautifully lit and welcoming—that she breathed easy again.
Because Tarek waited there, lounging with seeming carelessness at the head of a long table. His gaze was hooded and dark, a clear indication of the power he was choosing not to wield, so obvious to Anya that it made her feel hollowed out with a kind of shiver. He was wearing a different set of robes that should have made him look silly compared to the pack of American diplomats in their business suits. But didn’t.
At all.
“Welcome,” the King said, his voice a ruthless scrape across the pretty room. “I thank you for joining me in this celebration of—” and Anya could have sworn that he looked only at her, then “—resilience and grace.”
“Hear, hear,” cried the men, a bit too brightly for strangers.
And despite how she’d feasted earlier, and how sure she’d been that she couldn’t eat another bite, she found when she was seated at Tarek’s right hand that she was starving. So while the men engaged in the sort of elegantly poisonous dinner conversation that she supposed was the hallmark of international diplomacy, or perhaps of tedious dinner parties, Anya indulged herself. Again.
It was only when she was quietly marveling at the tenderness of the chicken she was eating—simmered to tear-jerking tenderness on a bed of fragrant rice and doused in a thick, spicy sauce with so manyflavors—that Anya realized that the Sheikh was not paying any attention to the arch wordplay of the ambassador and his aides.
Instead, Tarek was focused on her.
“The food in the dungeon wasn’t terrible,” she told him, realizing only as she smiled at him that she was...not embarrassed, exactly. But something in her heated up and stayed hot at the notion he was watching her again. “Just, you know. Bland.”
