After a moment, something in the smaller man's eyes convinced him that fighting wasn't going to solve the problem, and he shrugged hard, turning to face Rachel.
"This isn't the end of this, Miss Marigold."
The other man answered for her. He spoke in English, whether for Rachel's benefit or because it came more naturally, she wasn't sure. "If you contact her again, then I will personally see that accounts are settled. Saheeh?"
The man licked his lips and watched, obviously considering taking a swing at the smaller man. He stopped himself with a visible act of will and turned on his heel walking straight out.
"I know you," he said softly. "I knew your sister."
"Then you should know that you just sent away my last hope of finding her!"
"No," he answered. He sat down beside her on the bench, a respectable distance away. He looked tired and sad, nothing like the fierce, combative figure who had just come to her aid. "He wouldn't have helped you get her back. Even if you paid him, which he would have had you do."
"You don't think I knew that? I wanted to pay him. To pay my sister's ransom. But now I can't even do that!"
Rachel realized with a start that her phone was still recording. She reached down and snatched it up, jabbing the button to end the recording, and slipped it back into her purse.
"You don't know what you're doing, do you, Rachel?"
"How do you know my name?"
"I told you. I knew your sister. She was working in the city, you know. That's why they took her."
"Is it?"
"No," he said. He looked at the ground again. "I suppose it's not."
"Why, then? You seem to know quite a lot about my sister and her kidnapping, for someone who I just met a moment ago in a crowded hotel-- one where I was supposed to meet her kidnappers, no less."
"She was here for my brother, of course. My elder brother. He's taking over for my father, and the whole family is here in Dubai. Celebrating, I suppose."
"Who are you, even? If you don't mind my asking?"
He looked at her, his voice soft. "I'm... not sure what to say. Your sister, she didn't tell you?"
She hadn't noticed at first, when he'd been fighting. The agitation in his voice had changed it. As he calmed down, though, she noticed that he spoke with a distinct accent, but for someone who seemed so comfortable speaking Arabic, he didn't speak with the local accent. No, he sounded British.
"No. We weren't especially close, and she often only told me where she was going. What her assignment was? She never discussed it. Why would she?"
Rachel was ashamed at the bitterness that slipped into her voice. She hadn't wanted to sound angry, hadn't wanted to complain to some stranger about business that he had no hand in. But now here she was, and he had asked her a simple question and she'd been complaining about a sister who she'd spent the last week desperate to save.
"I'm Nazir ibn Ahmed al-Awaki. You know Sau-dee? Saudia Arabia?"
"Of course," Rachel snapped, too harshly. "I'm not a complete fool."
"There's a tiny principality in the south. Not the Saudi royal family, but it's something, right?"
Rachel frowned. "And you are..."
"The second son. So a perfectly wonderful nobody surrounded by wealth and fame, at your service. My elder brother takes the seat in a week. Your sister came to cover it for her American news. My brother..." He scoffed. "He took an interest in her, I suppose."
"You don't approve?"
"It's nothing like that," he answered, waving the implication away with a hand. "He is married, you see."
"Caitlyn was perfectly capable of looking after herself."
Nazir glared at her. "It is an embarrassment to the family. My father forbade him from paying any ransom for her. We hadn't counted on them sending on their demands to you, or to your coming here. If we had..." He spread his hands out wide. "Then we wouldn't have let it get that far."
"So, what then? It's some kind of pity thing? You feel sorry for me?" Rachel knew that she was making a scene. She wasn't sure what she was thinking, but she could feel every eye in the entire establishment on her and this Nazir. She tried to ignore them. Let them watch, she thought. Maybe it would finally get something done.
"No," he said. His voice took on a hard edge. "It's much worse than that. My family is embarrassed by you, by the scene you're going to make. If you want your sister back, then someone will have to go get them."
"Are you saying I should try to... to what? Sneak into their camp and take her back? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?"
"No," he said softly. "There are men for that. Men who can be paid."
"If I had the money to pay for that--"
"You wouldn't be able to, of course. People like you don't. Can't, for the most part. They don't work for the sort of wages that you could afford to pay, even if you knew the right people. Which you don't."
He sat back and rubbed his eyes. "Come with me back to my seat. There, we can talk more. If you can be quiet. But it's making a scene just to be over here, please."
Rachel looked around again, with an eye out for people who weren't watching her, but watching the man sitting beside her. She noticed the waiter immediately. He waited patiently, but he wasn't moving, either. Nazir stood and started back towards the table. She followed at a respectful distance, not wanting to raise hackles any further than she already had.
Nazir pulled a chair out for her and was careful not to touch her as he pushed it in for her. Then he sat across, looking at his now-cold food and his newspapers. He let out a long breath.
"There isn't anything we can do right now, miss Marigold." He took another deep breath and looked at her.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He gave her a severe look that quieted her voice before she realized what was happening. "Why did you call me over here if you're just going to tell me that it's useless?"
"The wrong sort of people would start asking questions if my family got involved in the recovery of your sister. My father knows people in the press. He'd be able to keep it quiet for a little while, but not forever. We need this to go away, and we need it to stay gone, as long as possible. You can understand, I hope, that this puts me in an uncomfortable position."
"What does that have to do with my sister?"
"Well, what I'm trying to say is..." He swallowed and closed his eyes. Whatever he was about to say, she realized, it was a struggle. She wanted to hear it, more than anything. But she held herself back. If it was this much of a struggle then she had better remember to keep her manners in check.
He was silent for long enough that Rachel began to wonder if he was going to continue. Then he opened his eyes again.
"What I'm suggesting, miss Marigold, is that if my family had some other reason to get involved in recovering your poor sister..."
"Then it wouldn't be hard to explain why you're spending resources recovering her?" Rachel finished the thought for him.
"Just so." He looked at his hands.
"I'm guessing that you have something in mind, then, from the way that you're acting."
"I have only one idea. I'm open to suggestions, of course. But it's..." he pursed his lips and leaned towards her in his seat. "I must confess that it's an uncomfortable suggestion. I shouldn't even bring it up, only it may be your sister's only hope."
"Then tell me."
"If you have any other ideas, then I am more than open to them."
"What is your idea?"
"If my wife's sister were kidnapped..." He let the idea hang in the air with a note of significance. When Rachel didn't react immediately he made a pointed look at her.
"What?" The word came out of her mouth louder than she'd realized, and she was more than a little bit conscious of dozens of eyes turning to watch the spectacle that was surely unfolding at her table. She leaned in and spoke softly. "You're suggesting that... you and I..."
"I am sorry if I have offended you, miss. I told you that it was uncomfortable, but I can see t
hat I've offended you."
Rachel's mind raced. This man was a prince, and one of the most gorgeous men she'd laid eyes on in her entire life. He was suggesting marriage with her?
"You're not involved with someone else?" Rachel regretted the words the moment that they left her mouth. What business was it of hers if he was?
"No," he answered tersely.
"But..." It must have been a trick, she thought. She would marry him for a few days, and when they had Caitlyn back then they would get it annulled. That was what he meant. "A temporary wedding?"
He let out a sigh. "No, I'm sorry to say that's not how it works."
"What do you mean?"
"If you and I were married only for a few days, and then divorced, and in that time we spent nearly a half-million US Dollars recovering a young woman, questions would be asked. Even a fool would be able to realize what had happened, you see."
"So a month?"
"Perhaps after a year, it would not seem so strange. Further, you and I have never been seen together in public, which is highly unlikely by itself. We would have to explain that I had met you at Oxford, and had grown close." He rubbed the bridge of his nose again. "My father had only just agreed to the union, so we had kept it a secret until my family was prepared to make an announcement."
"For a whole year, we'd be married?"
"And it wouldn't be a marriage on paper." He pursed his lips.
"I can't--"
"I'm very sorry to have insulted you, madame. I only want the same as you, to see your sister returned home safely. But I need to protect my family."
"But it's your life, Nazir. You can't just marry me, we don't even know each other?"
"No, I suppose we don't," he agreed. "Only... My mother has been begging me daily to find myself a wife, to raise her grandbabies. I need a wife. You need someone to save your sister. I don't mean to put you in this situation. But I think we need each other."
Rachel tried to slow the beating of her heart. She wanted to reach her hand out, to take his hand in hers. To feel his skin against hers. No, she thought, she wanted more than that. She pushed the thought away. It wasn't going to be like that. She had no business marrying a prince, and he had no business marrying an American woman. It would be a scandal to say the least, especially when people started asking questions about who she was and where she'd come from.
That didn't stop her nipples from rubbing across the rough fibers of her shirt, setting her body aflame.
"So... you're going to want children?" She had meant for it to sound like an idle question, the sort of question that people might ask a new acquaintance. When it came out of her lips, it sounded like an invitation. Rachel wasn't sure that she wanted to take back the insinuation.
"Yes, I fear I will have to. Large families are the way, among my people, you know."
Rachel didn't know, but she could feel something stirring in her gut, a feeling that she wasn't at all upset about it. It wasn't proper, she knew. She should have protested, she should've insisted that they find another solution. She had him on the line, now. He felt bad about the entire thing, and if she just pushed him, then she was sure that she could get him to figure something out that didn't demand her to give up the autonomy she had dug out for herself.
She didn't, though. She didn't want to admit it, not to herself and certainly not to him, but she was beginning to wonder if perhaps she wanted something else. Something that she couldn't admit to herself, couldn't admit to anyone. What if what she really wanted wasn't a life of blazing trails, or being on television-- but rather, a life with a husband that loved her?
Her heart fell as the thought crossed her mind. She could want that all she liked, of course. But this wasn't that. He was going to marry her because it was convenient for him, for his brother and his family. He needed an excuse to go and do the right thing, to go off and save Caitlyn, and she was just a convenient cover for that. Nothing more.
She pursed her lips. No, she couldn't let that factor into her decision. Either she was going to accept or she wasn't, but it couldn't be because of some promise of love that he wasn't making to her. The only question that she had to answer was, what was her sister's life worth. The answer was obvious, and as long as she kept it in mind then she was going to get through all of it just fine. She hoped. It was going to be a struggle to remember, though, that it wasn't about her, or her feelings. She was doing this for her sister, and if it wasn't what she wanted then...
Then she'd have to deal with it.
"How long would it take to do this, Nazir?"
"There could be an announcement tonight, and we could be wed by the end of the week. Your sister could be back in her hotel room by the time that we..."
"Consummate the marriage, so to speak?"
"Just so," he answered, his face cast down.
She could see by his manner that he was no more comfortable with this line of conversation than she was. Both of them recognized that the other was doing it only because they had to. Rachel kept the secret in her heart, that she would have done it if he'd only offered, even if her sister was alright. All he needed to offer was his love, but if she couldn't have it, then she would take his body.
"Do you have a cellular phone?"
"Of course." She pulled it out of her purse a little bit to show him, and then slid it back in. She wrote her number down on a slip of paper and slid it across the table to him.
"I will call you, then." He put the paper into his breast coat pocket and patted it. "This evening. Have you a dress?"
"I have a dress or two, I suppose."
"Then I'll have my man call you. You can't come to a party like we're going to have tonight with an 'I suppose' sort of dress." He took a deep breath and seemed to center himself. "No offense, of course."
"No, I understand, it's fine. No need to apologize."
"Your sister's going to be fine," he said softly. "Say it back to me."
"Caitlyn will be just fine," she said, though she didn't sound convinced even to her own ears. She would have to find that confidence somewhere else. She wanted nothing more than to take it from him, to hold him close and bury her face into his shoulder. She could just sense the tiniest hint of sweet cologne, and she wanted to live in that scent until her problems melted away. She held herself back.
"Until then," she said, unsure of how to finish the conversation. She stood from the table and they headed together to the door, but that was as far as their paths went in the same direction. The trip back to her hotel room was a miserable one. She wanted nothing more than to go home, for him to deal with her problems for her. If she was to marry, why did it have to be under such miserable circumstances?
She buried her face in her pillow and tried not to cry, but she knew that it was pointless. She woke an hour later to the sound of her phone ringing in her earpiece, and the salty feeling of tears that had dried on her cheeks.
Another English-sounding voice was on the other side of the line, a woman's voice. The woman gave her name as Tazeen, and asked where Rachel was staying, so she told her. The woman on the other end of the line told Rachel to be ready, that she would arrive in twenty minutes. The desk clerk called up after eighteen and said that she had a guest down below. Rachel wrapped the hijab again, unsure exactly how, and went down.
The woman had come, just as she'd promised, and with her, she'd brought a car. Rachel slid into the back, and the woman walked around and joined her. A driver turned, silently, and Tazeen said something in Arabic. The man started driving.
"I'm terribly sorry about all this confusion," she said after a long moment. "There's quite a lot to do, and only a very little time in which to do it."
"Of course," Rachel answered. Was she being rude, or was the other woman? Or was this a cultural confusion? She chewed the inside of her lip, trying to maintain a neutral expression.
"You haven't been in Dubai long, then?"
"A few days," Rachel said, watching out the window. "It's a very beautiful
city."
"Yes, it is that, certainly. You will like your new home, I think. It's very beautiful. Like this city."
Rachel tried to keep her attention on the bustling streets outside to hide the shock that ran through her heart. New home? She hadn't even thought of it that way, until the other woman had mentioned it. Now it seemed as if everything was moving so terribly quickly, like a train about to derail. But she had no other choice. None of them had.
"I'm looking forward to it," she answered. She hoped she didn't sound as afraid as she felt.
The woman made a perfunctory smile and started to watch out the doors. She said something and pointed, and the car drifted to a stop. Rachel was pulled out of the car and taken into a store full of brightly-colored fabrics and being managed by an attractive-looking woman in conservative clothing.
The woman didn't ask her to try very much on. She took a studied look at Rachel's body, pulled her clothing tighter, and then went away, keeping her thoughts to herself. She handed something over occasionally, but as Rachel continued following her, she started to feel less and less like she was being taken to buy clothes, and more like she was a porter for this woman's clothing buying spree.
"There," said the woman at last. "Follow me."
Tazeen grabbed her arm and nearly dragged her bodily towards the back of the store, then pushed her into the changing room and followed her before pulling the curtain shut.
"Put those on."
Rachel did as she was told, but part of her dug in. Who was this woman, and why on earth did she think that she could talk to people like that? It was more than just a little bit rude, it was offensive. She didn't have to take it, but she bit her lip and let it continue. She knew that trying to make her entire life over in a day would be hard, but she hadn't thought about it.
Now it seemed like there wasn't any time for thinking. It was all walking and moving and carrying, more and more places to be. She stood in her underwear in front of the woman, who frowned. "It will have to do."
Unspeaking, the woman pulled clothing around her body, checking the fit and the silhouette of everything. Then she grabbed a light coat and helped Rachel fit it on over her dress, helped her into her scarf, and helped her button the coat up over it.
A Billionaire's Heart (Erotic Romance Bundle) Page 6
