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“Not personally. But we had a neighbor who’d lost her brother in the Twin Towers. I saw how she struggled with it, every year on the anniversary, and it made an impact on me. When I got old enough to really understand it, I decided that I wanted to do my part to defend freedom. The minute I was old enough, I went straight down to my neighborhood Navy office and signed up. After boot camp, they accepted me into the marksmanship program, then into SEAL training. Now, here I am.” He picked at some nonexistent lint on the front of his dress shirt. “What about you? What did you want to be when you were growing up? I don’t think many kids imagine running a nonprofit.”
She laughed. “Yeah, nobody daydreams about filling out grant applications.” She scrunched her nose and stared up at the darkening sky. “Believe it or not, I used to think that, someday, I’d run a restaurant.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. My Aunt Nana—she wasn’t really my aunt, but I called her that anyway—she had an Italian restaurant on the ground floor of the building where we lived. I used to hang out in her kitchen all the time when my mom was working. Dad never came around, so I was on my own most of the time.” She gave a small shrug, her sad tone tugging at Spencer’s heart. “This one time, when I was about nine, she got called away on a family emergency and put me in charge while she was gone.”
“Put you in charge? At nine?”
“Yep.” Toni grinned at him. “I loved it. I ran everything for the whole night—or I thought I did. Front of the house, kitchen, everything. All the staff knew me, and most likely they were just playing along and pretending to follow my orders, but that’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I like running the show. So yeah, I thought I’d run a restaurant—but when I landed with the foundation instead, it felt like a good fit. I do enjoy being in charge.”
“Only child?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Me too.”
“Really?” She faced Spencer, her hip grazing his. “Guess we have something in common.”
“Guess so.”
Whatever reply she might have made was interrupted by the ding of the elevator arriving in their foyer. He straightened and cleared his throat before stepping back inside from the balcony. “Bet that’s dinner. Be right back.”
Spencer showed the room service waiter into the dining room and watched while he unloaded their meal onto the black marble tabletop. The smells of curry and garlic and lemon tickled his nose and made his stomach rumble anew. Toni wandered in and took a seat across the table from where Spencer stood. Once the guy had laid everything out, Spencer tried to give the man a tip.
“No, sir,” the waiter said, bowing. “You are here under the hospitality of the sheik. To take your money would be an insult to his highness.”
“Of course.” Spencer made a small bow of his own to the man, thanking him in his native tongue.“Shukraan.”
“La shukr ala wajib,” the man said, bowing once more before leaving.
Toni lifted the domes off several plates and inhaled the rich aromas of roasted shrimp and spiced beans. “Man, I’ve missed this food. I love these dishes any time I can get them, but there’s just something about Jubailian flavoring. It’s really not like anything else.”
“How many times have you been to Jubail?” Spencer asked as he waited for her to fill her plate, then did the same himself. He took the seat across from her and dug into the delicious meal.
“Only once, several years ago. But I loved the food so much, I tracked down a restaurant in the DC area—it’s run by a couple who emigrated to the US from right here in Hasan fifteen years ago. Their food is amazing. We should go sometime.”
Spencer blinked. Had she meant to ask him out? No, it must have been a slip of the tongue. He decided to change the subject. “You must travel a lot for the foundation. How many of these e-readers would you say you hand out in a given year?”
She frowned, chewing and swallowing a large bite of pita bread slathered with hummus before answering. “Last year we donated over twelve thousand in five countries around the world. We’re on track to double that this year. Why?”
“Just wondered.” He filed the information away to share with his team later and opened two bottles of the pale ale, passing one to her before taking a large gulp of his own. The prawns on his kebabs were each nearly the size of his hand and tasted like pure sweet and sour goodness. “That’s a lot of reading.”
“Books help kids use their imaginations. They teach them that anything is possible.”
“No argument here.” He tore off another bite of grilled shrimp. “I love to read.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that. Or, at least, you mentioned that you read business books. What else do you like to read?”
He shrugged. “History, biographies. I like the social sciences, too—especially anthropology. I’m interested in the ways that different cultures develop and adapt. It’s come in handy on missions before, knowing enough about the native culture to be able to pick up on something they’d expect a foreigner to miss.”
She smiled, shaking her head. “You’re an interesting man, Spencer Nixon.”
“And you’re an interesting woman, Toni Williams,” he shot back with a grin. He winked, then took another swig of his beer, the alcohol doing its part to relax his tense muscles and slow his overactive mind.
