Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1)

by Rosie Pike

  "Why would they want to stop you buying body armor?" Chloe asked sweetly, increasingly certain that buying body armor wasn't the only reason the handsome Prince had flown into London.

  "It's… It's more complicated than that, Chloe." Tariq sighed, closing his eyes and massaging his temples. For a second, Chloe almost felt sorry for him, before she realized what he was in the country to do.

  "So, tell me the truth," she said quietly so that no one else in the room could hear – she got the sense that for some of the more conservative embassy diplomats, the sight of a woman questioning their prince might be intolerable. "What are you over here to do?"

  He looked up and gave her that same, curious look.

  "Why do you want to know?" he asked. He didn't say it, but the subtext was – why does it matter to you?

  The truth was, Chloe didn't know, or at least, not exactly. There were things that she remembered from her childhood, things that her father had said about their background that made her instinctively recoil when thinking about the arms trade in general, and Saudi Arabia in particular. But how could she explain that to Tariq?

  "It's… complicated," she said, finally squeezing the words out.

  "It always is." Tariq sighed, gesturing with his hands in a tired manner.

  "You want the truth?"

  "Always."

  "My family fled Saudi Arabia when I was just a girl – I don't know the specifics, but I know enough not to want to be involved in helping your country buy weapons. Not that I'll have a choice, if I want to keep my job," Chloe reflected.

  Tariq studied her for a long moment before replying. "That explains a lot. Is that why you were so, what's the word, cool to me when I first arrived?"

  "I suppose so," Chloe said coldly, not sure where this was going.

  He cracked a weak smile. "I'm not used to that."

  Chloe didn't reciprocate. "No time for humor?" the Prince continued. "I suppose not. I'll tell you the truth – there are a thousand things I'd rather be over here doing other than buying planes and tanks. But we're both in a difficult situation. We're going to have to make the best of a bad situation."

  "What do you mean, we?" Chloe scoffed. "How does this affect you?"

  Tariq was about to reply when a staffer tapped him on the shoulder. He leaned down and listened to what the man had to say, the message whispered into his ear.

  "I'm sorry, Chloe, I've got to go."

  12

  "Miss, are you supposed to be in here?"

  The voice came out of nowhere, interrupting Chloe's daydream and startling her. She responded by looking around wildly for a source, and eventually identified it as coming from a secretarial, thin looking man with spectacles standing to her right.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Are you supposed to be here? Are you –." He paused, wondering how to couch his question. "Are you a guest of the Prince?"

  "Oh God, no," Chloe replied, mortified at the suggestion that she was there in anything other than a professional capacity – regardless of the fact that she had in fact been writhing in Tariq's arms only the night before. "I'm with the hotel – well, with the Kingsland Group. The Prince and I have been working together on the hospitality arrangements of the last few days."

  The man looked as relieved as she was to find out that Chloe wasn't a lost girlfriend. "I understand. Can I ask you to keep to this side of the room, please?" He pointed at the opposite side of the suite, and Chloe noticed that most of the harried looking aides and staffers were beginning to coalesce on the other side of the hotel room. "The Prince has a very important call to make, and it wouldn't be right for any of us to listen in – I'm sure you understand."

  "Of course, no problem," Chloe replied, patting the man on the shoulder to reassure him.

  Behind her, she heard the sound of the doors to the suite sliding open and turned to see Khalid and Omar striding into the room.

  "What's going on?" Khalid barked at a petrified looking young man, who perhaps responded slightly indiscreetly, particularly given the presence of an outsider like Chloe in the room. Given the opportunity, though, she listened with interest.

  "Sir, sir," the scared looking aide called as Khalid hurried past him. "Please don't disturb the Prince – he's on the phone with his father."

  That stopped Khalid, who turned the full force of his displeasure on the unfortunate young man and growled, "Well, why don't you tell me what the hell is going on then?"

  The young staffer quailed in the face of Khalid's towering anger and looked almost too scared to reply. Chloe wondered to herself exactly what kind of reputation the man had back home that he was able to engender such fear.

  "Khalid, brother," Omar interjected with an apologetic smile. "When you let the poor man speak, maybe he'll be able to give us an answer…"

  The target of all this anger shot Omar a thankful look. "Gentlemen, have you seen the news?"

  "The news?" Khalid scoffed rudely. "I just woke up, you young pup." Chloe could well believe it, for in contrast to Omar, who was immaculately turned out and well-manicured, the Interior Ministry colonel was a scruffy mess – his uniform a riot of wrinkles and his hair no more trimmed than a scarecrow's.

  Chloe almost giggled as she watched the conflicting struggle of emotions work its way through the young man's face – she could read him like a book, and frankly wondered how he'd managed to get a job as a diplomat, given how naive he seemed. The gist was clear, though. The man wanted to point out how unprofessionally Khalid was acting, but knew that if he did so the consequences would be dire.

  Judging by the tiny smirk on Omar's lips as he stood slightly out of Khalid's eyeshot, Chloe guessed that he was thinking exactly the same thing.

  "Ah, sorry, sir," the man mumbled, clearly wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of there. "I didn't mean to cause any offence. Rashid Al Mansouri was on the news this morning urging the British government not to allow the sale of the Eurofighter to the Kingdom…"

  The young man trailed off in the face of the growing rage on Khalid's face. "Who the fuck is this Rashid?" he growled.

  Chloe listened in with interest, also noting out of the corner of her eye that the aide who had first asked her to move was now busily in conversation on the other side of the room, paying no attention to the fact that she hadn't done so. In fact, she was in perhaps the perfect position to observe what was going on in the study Tariq had removed himself into.

  "He's an…" The man struggled to pick the right word, clearly fearing Khalid's wrath. "Protester in exile, sir. He has some grievances with what he sees as his unfair treatment in the Kingdom." Khalid glowered. "All nonsense, of course," the young man hastened to add.

  "Who the fuck does he think he is, trying to stop the rightful and legal actions of the King?"

  "I never knew you were such a royalist, Khalid," quipped Omar, a wry smile on his lips as he goaded his colleague. "Some of the things you've said about the King over the years aren't exactly savory…"

  The staffer in front of the two men now looked as though he wished a hole in the ground would simply swallow him up and remove him from his worries.

  "Run along." Omar grinned at the young man, patting his shoulder in thanks. He sagged with relief and disappeared in a flash before he could be called back.

  “Outrageous," Chloe heard Khalid mutter. "We've got to do something about these insults, Omar."

  "We don't know what's going on, Khalid. Why don't you wait until Tariq's off the phone with his father – it's up to him anyway."

  Chloe could only just hear Khalid's response as he lowered his tone, since it appeared even he knew that he couldn't express such opinions with his usual force, as he growled back, "For now."

  As the pair left both Chloe's eyesight and earshot, she took stock of her situation. Thinking rationally about it, she realized that while she was in an unfortunate situation, she was going to have to stick it out if she wanted a career in this business.

  The unfortunat
e fact of the matter was that the powerful and wealthy didn't end up that way without making difficult choices that most of the rest of the population never had to encounter – and whether that was right or wrong, she knew that was what was going on.

  And yet, Tariq didn't seem, on the face of it, as though he was embracing that difficulty. He seemed like a good man put in a difficult position, and the thought made Chloe reflect upon her own situation. Was his position really that different from her own? After all, Tariq was only doing what he had to – sticking it out, exactly the same as her.

  Chloe sat down, contemplating for the first time the unpleasant realization that the world wasn't always black-and-white – and the more difficult question of whether she herself remained a good person if she were to help Tariq fulfil his goals.

  She sat down, noticing with a shock that she had found herself in exactly the same sofa on which she and her one-time lover had made love the night before. Her mind racing, she stared ahead, blankly, trying to come to terms with the right course of action. Should she quit her job? After all this time getting to the top – was that the right thing to do?

  A part of Chloe wished that she had never been promoted to her own hotel – it had been so much easier when she was just a cog in the machine. Making these difficult decisions was something that, in hindsight, she wasn't sure if she could handle. Her eyes slowly began to focus on what was in front of her as she came out of the confused trance, no closer to a resolution than when she'd begun.

  In front of her, now that she was concentrating, she could see a crack in the door that separated Tariq's study from the main living area of the large Presidential Suite, and through it, the handsome Prince himself.

  His posture was so at odds with the confident and composed man that she had come to know over the past few days that, had she not known it was him, she wouldn't have believed it. He was bent over, holding himself up with a hand placed on the heavy mahogany desk that dominated the room, a phone held tight to his ear. From time to time, she saw the back of his head nod in a defeated fashion as though he were acquiescing to some new, terrible demand.

  She watched in turn, and quickly averted her gaze, worried that she might get caught. But her curiosity got the better of her, and before long she was staring straight back into the room. Tariq was now seated resting on the desk, feet on the floor, his shoulders hunched. Chloe hadn't seen an expression like that on his face before – it was almost haunted, completely unrecognizable.

  In a flash, she understood that his situation was, in fact, no different from her own. He was no more in control of his life that she was of hers. While Tariq had been born into power and wealth, whereas Chloe had worked hard every day of her life to achieve just one of those, he had to meet the same goals and expectations – except for him, they were set by his father, rather than by the need to pay rent on time.

  Tariq no more wanted to spend his time buying guns than Chloe did. But he didn't have a choice.

  13

  "Everyone get the fuck out," Khalid screamed to the room as Tariq put the phone down and emerged from his study. Staffers and aides fled in fear, a migrating herd of junior political advisers fleeing from an apex predator.

  Chloe hesitated, and the unhinged Interior Ministry colonel turned on her in a flash. "That includes you, woman," he hissed. "You're not even one of us, what makes you think you can stay?"

  A jarringly tired looking Tariq intervened, holding up his hand to forestall another outburst. "Have some respect, Khalid."

  "Why should she stay? What does she know of us?" Khalid asked accusingly, outraged at Tariq's apparent acquiescence. "What right does she have?"

  "I told you to keep quiet, Khalid," Tariq snapped, startling Chloe, who up until now had only ever seen him act calm and amiably. "Did you grow up in England?"

  Khalid's lip curled at the question. "You know I didn't. What does that have to do with anything?"

  "Not that it's any of your business," Tariq snarled, "but I want someone here who understands how people operate in this country. Do you? Of course not." He dismissed Khalid and turned to Chloe with an apologetic smile.

  "I can go if it helps…" Chloe offered, honestly wanting nothing more than to do that, but Tariq dismissed her suggestion out of hand.

  "No – I need you here." Shielding the act from the others’ view using his body, he patted her affectionately on her hip. Lowering his voice he said, "We'll talk after, okay?"

  He turned away without waiting for a response, presumably to ensure that nobody noticed their closeness, but left Chloe confused about his true intentions, and even how she felt about them – and him. He beckoned the people left in the room towards him and sat on a sofa in the main seating area of the Presidential Suite. Chloe, Khalid, Abdul, and Omar followed and chose seats around him. Chloe was careful to pick the one furthest away from the unpredictable Khalid.

  "I'm sure you all know what's happened, but I'll run you through it anyway so I know we're all on the same page. This morning a man called Rashid Al Mansouri was interviewed on television and made the case that we should not be allowed to do business here, and if necessary, the British government should prevent us from continuing to ink deals.

  "All with me so far?" Heads nodded around the room.

  "Good. The embassy has been receiving calls all morning – the phones are off the hook. We've got little old grandmas calling in outrage, but more worryingly right now, I'm told we had Members of Parliament and junior ministers calling in to express their… What's the right word? Displeasure.

  "I shouldn't need to remind anyone," Tariq continued, beginning to build up a head of steam and return to the confident, composed man that Chloe had first met. "But the Eurofighter deal is essential. And as I'm sure you're all aware…" He looked around the room with a wry smile on his face. "My father has called to make that very plain."

  "So, what's the plan?" Omar asked, ever practical.

  "That's why you're all here. I don't have the answer. I want your ideas."

  He opened up the floor, but Chloe deliberately held back for a number of reasons – she didn't want to provoke Khalid any more than he already was, and she was curious about what solution this group of people would come up with. She'd come across more than one military serviceman in her life, and at least in her experience, they weren't always brilliant thinking out of the box.

  "Who is this piece of shit?" Khalid asked with typical callous disregard for the rules of polite society. "Why should we care what he says?"

  "We aren't back home, Khalid. We can't just do and say whatever we want here. As to who he is, I've got the intelligence people at the embassy running it down. All we know so far is that he was in prison outside of Riyadh five years ago."

  "I'd imagine he's got some rather unpleasant stories to tell them, in that case," Omar said drily. Chloe couldn't help but notice the calm and relaxed manner with which Omar seemed to operate. She didn't necessarily think that he was any more honorable, or even more trustworthy than his colleague Khalid, but he managed to present a face to the world that was far less deranged.

  "That's what I'm thinking as well," Tariq agreed worriedly. "I've been telling the Interior Ministry to clean those places up for years, but what good was that?"

  Khalid laughed, but it sounded more like an evil cackle than anything else, and his face was screwed up in a rictus grin that did nothing but emphasize his brutish features. "You wouldn't be complaining if we'd just kept him there, would you?"

  "Perhaps not," Tariq allowed. "But we could have avoided this situation in the first place if you lot had just done your job without beating innocent prisoners." Chloe couldn't help notice a hint of steel creeping into Tariq's voice. For the first time since she'd known him, he exhibited the kind of confidence that didn't just come from wealth, but also from being a leader.

  "Why don't we just tell the Brits to stick him in prison for a few weeks?" the quiet Abdul offered up, and Chloe couldn't believe what she was hear
ing. She hadn't expected much from these men, but this wasn't even meeting her low expectations.

  "Don't be stupid, Abdul," Tariq snapped. "This isn't Riyadh. And I don't want to use that kind of method to solve my problems."

  "I don't see why not," Khalid muttered. "Why don't we just make this problem go away?"

  Chloe piped up, sickened by the suggestions being floated around by Tariq's underlings, but nevertheless determined to do her job. "I'm pretty sure we're, I mean you're, not going to get the government to lock this guy up.

  "They wouldn't do it anyway, unless maybe he was suspected of being a terrorist or something like that – maybe there are laws that could be used to lock someone up in that case, but otherwise can you imagine the public outrage it would cause?" She laughed just imagining it. "I mean – think about it, he's been on TV now. It'd cause a media storm. There's no way that would do anything to help."

  "You're right," Tariq agreed, shooting Khalid and Abdul dirty looks. "What do you suggest?"

  Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe caught Khalid shooting her a filthy glance, and she made a mental note not to be caught alone in a corridor with him – Lord knows what kind of tricks he would be willing to pull to get even.

  "Well… I'm no expert in this, but now he's got himself airtime, I think you probably need to respond," she said slowly, thoughtfully, thinking it over.

  "What do you mean? Go on television?" Tariq asked, surprised at the suggestion.

  "No – I don't think that's the best route."

  "What then?" Tariq asked, confused. "Spit it out!"

  Chloe grinned. "Okay, okay. I'm not saying I've got the answer, but what I think I would do if I was in your shoes is meet this guy, sit down with him and discuss his concerns."

  Tariq nodded thoughtfully, but Khalid spluttered his displeasure. "What the fuck is that going to do, you stupid girl?"

  "If you'd let me finish," Chloe jumped in before Tariq could respond to his junior's unspeakable rudeness, though she could see the anger in the blood rushing to his face, "instead of being so rude, then you'd know already." She had no idea what possessed her to speak so firmly, but the look of building rage on Khalid's face was a victory in itself, and the sight of stifled grins on Omar and Abdul's faces was food for thought.