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“Have you actually met her?”
Piper smiled. “We have an understanding.”
“I’m working and going to school to get my accounting degree, so I can’t keep track of her the way I should.” Guilt oozed from every part of her. “Right now, I’m heading for the library.”
Piper noticed the woman’s tired eyes. Not Coop’s current lover, then, because if she were, he wouldn’t let her work so hard. “That sounds tough.”
“It could be a lot worse. Anyway, nice to meet you.”
“You, too.”
When Piper reached her office, she finished her lukewarm coffee while she talked to Jen on the phone about Berni. Then she turned on her computer. Her job at Spiral was temporary, and she had to keep marketing herself. She’d been using her Web site to post tips on self-defense, credit card fraud, and personal security, putting to use everything she’d learned from her father and from the classes she’d taken in the past few years. Now she intended to take some of that information and put it in a flyer as an additional promotion for her business.
She wanted important clients—law firms, big insurance companies that investigated disability fraud. Until that happened, the fastest money she could make was based on suspicion. She typed away:
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF HE’S CHEATING?
IS SHE REALLY OUT WITH HER GIRLFRIENDS?
She began laying out the signs of a cheating partner—too many late nights at work, unexplained phone hang-ups, new interest in personal grooming. She’d hand-deliver the flyer to hair salons, sports bars, coffeehouses—whatever businesses would let her display it. And every flyer would be printed with her logo and phone number.
The phone rang. It was Jen again. “Guess who’s coming to town?” her friend chirped. “Princess Somebody from one of the big oil countries. Along with her retinue. Over fifty people! They need some female drivers.”
“How do you know this?”
“From Dumb Ass. I just heard him talking about it with one of the reporters. Apparently the princess decided to drop a few zillion on the Mag Mile instead of Rodeo Drive. Piper, these Middle Eastern royals tip big!”
“I am so on this!” Piper exclaimed.
She reached one of her father’s old pals, who gave her the number of the owner of a limo company that worked with visiting VIPs, and landed the job. She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d juggle the royals and Cooper Graham, but she’d figure it out.
***
Tuesday morning, she was at O’Hare sitting behind the wheel of a black SUV. She’d never seen herself as a chauffeur, but the job sounded interesting, the pay was decent, and the lure of a big tip at the end made this a no-brainer. She was supposed to meet with Graham that afternoon to talk about the club’s Web site, but she had more than enough time before then to get whomever she was driving from the airport to the downtown Peninsula Hotel.
The royal family, she’d learned, had something like fifteen thousand members, either highnesses or royal highnesses depending on whether or not they were in line for the throne. They always traveled with a huge retinue: other family members, military guards, servants, and—it was said—briefcases stuffed with cash. She sincerely hoped some of that would be coming her way in the form of a huge tip when the job was over.
Their private jet turned out to be a 747, and their VIP status let them avoid the lines at passport control. An armada of SUVs and half a dozen cargo vans for luggage waited for them. When the retinue emerged, only the servants were in traditional Islamic dress. The female royals—at least a dozen of them, ranging from teens to late middle age—wore the latest designer fashions. Diamonds glittered, spindly Louboutins clicked on the asphalt, Hermès bags swung at their sides.
The Middle East’s most pampered princesses had come to town.
7
Piper opened the back door of the SUV for a beautiful woman in her forties with big designer sunglasses propped on top of a mane of luxurious dark hair. She wore a vibrant purple Chanel jacket, a short black leather skirt, and stilettos that looked like surface-to-air missiles.
They’d barely pulled away before the woman took out her cell and began an intense conversation in Arabic. Piper had a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but she’d been instructed not to address
any of the royals, which was a major bummer. The woman didn’t once look at her—not that she projected hostility. Piper was simply invisible.
By the time the motorcade arrived at the Peninsula, Piper’s jaw ached from the effort of keeping her mouth closed. She’d been given the sixth position in the line of limos, an indication that her passenger wasn’t the ranking princess. The woman exited without acknowledging her, but as she disappeared into the hotel, one of the Realm’s grim-faced officials ordered Piper to wait.
She waited. Half an hour passed. An hour. The guard barked at her like a dog when she finally got out to run inside and use the hotel restroom. “I ordered you to wait!”
“Be right back.” As she bolted through the lobby, she remembered that slavery hadn’t been abolished in the Realm until 1962.
When she came out, a servant girl was sitting in the backseat. She was young, with a round face and soulful dark eyes. Unlike the royals, she was traditionally dressed in a plain gray abaya and navy hijab. Piper apologized for keeping her waiting, something that seemed to startle the girl. “Is not a problem.”
Piper was happy to hear her speak English, and since she hadn’t been given orders not to address the servants, she introduced herself. “I’m Piper.”
