by Ella Brooke
“Does this bother you?” he asked. “Are you feeling as if you are not up to it?”
“Not at all!” she said, slightly offended. “I can translate whatever you need, wherever you need it!”
It was true. Danielle might not have been proud of much, but she was proud of her translation skills. She was proud of the fact that she had once translated an entire seventy-page contract from French to English on a bumpy train ride.
He frowned, and for a moment, Danielle was struck by the urge to touch his dark brows, just to run her fingertips over those fine darkly drawn shapes.
“But there is something bothering you,” he observed.
She took a deep breath. She didn’t know what she was going to say until she said it, and when she started, it was like she couldn’t stop.
“I think that was a dirty trick that you pulled back at Transglobal,” she said finally. “I think it was awful, and that you shouldn’t have done it.”
To her irritation, he didn’t look repentant or even defensive. Instead, he only looked at her with mild confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“When you… you came in with Ahmed, and you started… started insulting people,” she stuttered. “Everyone who works there is very good at their job, and you could have figured it out without saying… things about them.”
Like the fact that they look like elves, she thought with a flinch. Don’t I have enough problems having people see me as a grown woman?
To her frustration, the sheikh only shrugged carelessly.
“It got the job done,” he said offhanded. “Beyond that, I don’t care whether some people get their feelings hurt.”
When Danielle had just started with translation, she might have taken that. She would have gone silent, ducking her head, and stayed furious for days. Now, though, she made herself sit up, looking him right in the eye. Something about the gesture seemed to startle him, and he looked stunned.
“Don’t pull any tricks like that on me again,” she said. “I mean it. There’s nothing I like less than… than scoundrels who won’t play fair.”
“I see,” he said, and she wondered if there was a stormy threat in his voice. “And how do you expect to enforce this, hm?”
She knew that she should be nervous. Danielle was painfully aware of who held all the cards in this situation and that finding another translator would be child’s play for him. Then her resolve strengthened. So what if he fired her? So what if she had to be poor for a while. She had done it before. It was hard, but far from impossible.
“If you play any games like that with me again, I am going to leave,” she said. “I don’t need this job nearly as much as you seem to think I do, and I will walk out, and damn whatever contract or deal you are trying to work!”
Her words hung in the air, and for a moment, they merely stared at each other. She could feel her heart beating too fast from her unexpected outburst, and she knew that her cheeks were pink with color from nervousness. However, she had said her piece; she wasn’t taking it back, and she was certainly not going to back down.
Danielle was just wondering if he was going have the jet turned around and drop her back in Dubai, but then he shrugged. That slight smile was back on his face, and suddenly, it was a bit less charming and a whole lot more irritating.
“Ten thousand.”
She stared at him, unable to understand what that number had to do with anything.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll give you an extra ten thousand dollars. For ten thousand dollars, you’ll put up with those games, as you call them, which any real businessman will tell you is how things are done.”
She frowned, still not quite understanding what he meant. Was he seriously going to offer her ten thousand dollars to ignore his bad behavior?
“I happen to think that your skills are just what I need, and the idea of going back to find someone else who has similar abilities is incredibly tiresome. Men who understand power know that some games are necessary, but I do not want your feathers permanently rustled when we are working together. So, an extra ten thousand a year. Surely that is enough to soothe you?”
Danielle finally figured out what he meant, and she scowled. She was not a woman who got angry immediately, but when she did, it could be dramatic.
“No,” she shot back. "Keep your money. Look, you may be a man of power, but I know my own worth. You can’t buy me off because you want to act like… like an ass! It’s not worth it. If the other people who work for you think it’s great that you pull dumb stuff like this and pay them for the honor of dealing with it, fine for them. I won’t put up with it.”
The echoes of her outburst rang in the cabin, and for a moment, she thought that he was definitely going to turn the jet around and deposit her in Dubai again. Or perhaps he would make her find her own way back from Aswar, which would be difficult to say the least.
Instead of bursting into some kind of temper tantrum, however, his eyes crinkled, and suddenly he burst into laughter. Unlike the laughter from before, there was a genuine quality to this sound, one that was loud and friendly and made him look far younger than he was.
“All right, all right,” he said, shaking his head and holding up his hands in surrender. “You will not be teased, and you will not be bought. All right, Danielle…”
Somehow, in that entire speech, what she heard was her name. She had always thought that her name was rather dull and boring, but when she heard him say it, a shiver ran through her body, making her eyes go briefly wide.
“You used my first name,” she said, and he grinned at her.
“That I did. It’s a lovely name, and it’s better by far than calling you Miss Jennings, which makes you sound like a bitter old schoolteacher. If you are going to demand fairness in all things, you can call me Faris, all right?”
“All… all right.”
She was relieved after that when he received a call that he had to take. He spoke mildly accented Urdu, she realized, before she remembered that it was impolite to listen in on other people’s conversations. She leaned back against the seat cushions and looked out the window.
Things were changing, and she still didn’t know how she felt about that.
*
When he finally got off the call with the new investors, Faris looked back to find that his little translator had fallen into a dead sleep. He settled back into his own seat and for the first time got a good look at her.
When they first met in the Transglobal office, he had thought at first that she was just a little mouse, a frightened woman who would never be able to keep up with the work that they needed to do. Then she had gotten that bright fire in her eyes, calmly telling him and Ahmed off with biting certainty, and he had glimpsed something else.
God above, who dressed her? She was wearing black like some kind of village widow in perpetual mourning. While the headscarf was often worn in the more rural areas of the UAE, women of the cities wore or it or not as they chose, and he was certain that all of the women who wore it wore it more fashionably than she did. Had she decided that it would make her fit in better? Was she looking for something to hide in?
Faris wondered why he was so curious about the translator sleeping in her mess of black clothing. The magazines might have exaggerated his exploits, but they hadn’t exaggerated much. His taste ran to women with curves, who were tall enough to look him in the eye, and who had world-conquering grins full of teeth. He liked women with spirit, not little mice in black.
Twice now, however, he had seen her spirit. The little mouse was hiding fire, and for the first time, he wondered what she was hiding underneath that black. What would happen if he reached over to tug that scarf down away from her, if he skimmed up the hem of that black skirt…?
He shook himself, half-amused and half-disgusted with his own appetites.
Faris reminded himself that he would be back in Aswar in a few hours. There were plenty of women who would be happy to re
ceive a call, but the truth was there was much to do. He needed to keep his head clear, and that generally meant being very single-minded for a while. That meant no dancers or actresses, and certainly no mousy little girls with more fire than sense.
He put the thought out of his mind, or at least he thought he did. Now and then, throughout the rest of the flight, he glanced over at the sleeping Danielle and wondered what she might look like if that fire were directed toward passion instead of anger.
Chapter Four
Danielle awoke with a start when the pilot announced the landing. She hurriedly buckled her seat belt and glanced over at Faris, who was watching her with an amused glance.
“I was out for a while,” she said apologetically. “I’m sorry, I hope you weren’t bored?”
“How could I be bored when I was watching such a delicate beauty as yours? ” he asked.
She frowned at his flowery language, but before she could protest, he was continuing.
“There’s no work set for today. I had just finished up some business in Dubai, and I wanted to return home. You can use today to get yourself settled in at the manor, and we can start fresh tomorrow.”
Danielle blinked.
“The… manor?”
He glanced at her.
“Yes. The contract said explicitly that I would be providing you with room and board to ensure that you stayed close for all of the contract work I am going to need. That means that you are going to be given lodgings at the manor, where I do a great deal of work when I am in Aswar.”
“Oh, that sounds… interesting,” she said, but inside, her head was spinning. What in the world was her life turning into?
The plane landed and a driver met them at the airport, taking their bags and escorting them to a dark limousine with tinted windows.
Before today, I had never been in a limo or a jet, she mused. Now I’ve been in both. What in the world am I going to experience before the end of the week…
As they drove through the capital city of Aswar, which gave its name to the emirate, Danielle couldn’t help peering out the window like a rube. Dubai was an astonishingly modern city, with skyscrapers that would put New York and Taipei to shame. Aswar was beautiful, but in a different way. In Aswar, new and old came together to produce something lovely and melodious. She saw people in traditional clothing with smartphones; she saw a woman in a smart business suit ordering a meal from a man with an enormous shank of meat on a spit.
She caught Faris watching her, and to her surprise, he made a face.
“It is not Dubai,” he started, and before he could continue, she put her hand on his. She was not a woman who touched other people much, and she could feel her surprise mirrored on his face. Before she could make things weirder, however, she spoke.
“It’s not Dubai, and Dubai is not this beautiful,” she said. “Aswar looks amazing, and I am looking forward to exploring it when I have the time.”
He looked startled at her words, and then he nodded, relieved. It was strange that a man who could fly the world in his own private jets might be worried what she thought of him, but there it was.
“Oil has made Aswar wealthy, but we are one of the older emirates,” he said. “Under my great uncle and my father, things were… crystallized in some ways. We did not change because we saw no urge to change, but when I became sheikh, I left home and I saw the future. I want Aswar to have a piece of that.”
His words touched Danielle in a way that she had not expected. She had looked at him and seen a casual playboy, one who was intent on his own pleasure and not very much else. Now she could see a man who thought about the future of his country, and she liked this one much better.
“It likely means nothing from me,” she said, a little shyly, “but I think that is wonderful.”
They continued on to the manor, talking about less fraught things, and Danielle was almost feeling like herself again until the driver came to open the door for her. Then she saw the manor and she felt as if the floor had dropped out from underneath her.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she breathed.
She had assumed when he mentioned the word manor that he meant something like a mansion. In her head, she had some vague thoughts about Swiss chalets and Mediterranean beauties, but this was something else.
Like Aswar itself, the home of the man who led the emirate was a combination of new and old. She could see that the foundations of the manor must have gone back hundreds, if not thousands of years, and the red stone walls looked as if they could withstand the force of giants. Despite that, she could see hints of modernity in the modern garage, the manned guard towers, and once inside the gates, a lush and profuse garden.
“You live at Buckingham Palace,” she exclaimed, and when Faris chuckled at her, she blushed a little.
“Not really,” he said. “This is the family home, and though I have a penthouse in town, I prefer to stay here when I can. The defenses and security are excellent, and they are all focused at the gates, allowing me to go where I please without worrying about whether I am irritating my security detail.”
“Your problems are utterly foreign to me,” she said solemnly, and he laughed.
“Well, they won’t be for very much longer,” he said. “But right now, find someone to show you where your room is. In a few hours, you have an appointment.”
She blinked at him.
“I do? I thought you said that we weren’t doing any work today.”
He grinned at her, and again, she could feel her heart beat a little faster.
“I’m not, and if this is work, it is fairly easy work. I cannot abide the way you dress. While you were sleeping, I called in a woman I know fairly well who can fix that.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hand, halting her.
“You said yourself that this is utterly foreign to you. If that’s true, you’re going to need me to be your guide. As your guide, the first thing I am going to tell you is that I need you sharp for the meetings. Not just mentally sharp, I need you to look like you belong and that you are ready to work. That means looking the part. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered. She knew she was blushing again, and she wished that she were a million miles under the ground. She had been teased enough for her clothes, hand-me-downs and purchased on extreme sales and clearance, that this stung. She had been so proud of the small but professional wardrobe she had put together, but of course it wouldn’t be good enough for the work that she was doing now. She should have expected no different.
Something of how she felt must have shown on her face, because Faris stepped closer. He reached out to touch her chin with a gentle hand, making her look up at him. There was a tingle on her skin where he touched her, but his eyes were what caught her, held her.
“Hey,” he said gently. “There is nothing wrong with dressing the way you do. Wear it whenever you like when you are on your own time. This is no different than me giving you a uniform, all right?”
Danielle took a deep breath and nodded. Though her smile was admittedly a little wobbly, it was genuine.
“Got it,” she said, and he smiled.
“All right, get going,” he said. “I have some things to take care of on my own.”
Maybe this won’t be so bad, she thought. He seems very kind.
*
Faris watched her go with strange feelings stirring in his belly.
Danielle had looked like she was going to cry at the prospect of getting new clothes, and at first, he hadn’t understood at all. He had been with many women, and universally, they had all been thrilled at the idea of getting to purchase clothes on his credit card. He had been the beneficiary, as he got to see them in the confections of silk and satin, but they had still loved them.
It hadn’t been until he had seen the look of pure misery in Danielle’s eyes that he realized that she was ashamed. She was ashamed that he had told her she wasn’t good enough, and suddenly, he had felt like
a cad.
She looked a little more cheerful when he had told her it was more of a uniform than anything else, but still he couldn’t get that haunted look she had out of his head.
What a strange little puzzle his translator was proving to be.
As Faris walked back to his own rooms, he checked his phone messages. There was one from Ahmed, asking him out to eat at the newest hotspot, and two from Semele.
Semele was the singer that he had been seeing before he took his trip to Dubai. She was exactly the sort of woman he liked. She was tall and curvy, and her dark eyes flashed with temper, with humor, and with passion. They had had a passionate few weeks together before he had left, and he could see that she was eager to renew their acquaintance now that he had returned to Aswar.
He hesitated for a moment. Habit alone would tell him to contact Semele. He had been on his own for two weeks in Dubai, and having a woman as passionate and exciting as Semele around could certainly take the edge off the stress from his travels. However, something held him back.
He shrugged. He was probably more tired than he had thought he was. He could call Semele at any point, and he would be reasonably certain she would answer. Even if she didn’t, there were a half dozen other women he could think of who would.
Instead, he thumbed his contact for Abdul and thought nothing more of the matter.
*
Danielle’s apartment was amazing. She had to call it an apartment, because it was far from a simple room. Instead, she was given the key card to a full suite decked out in green and silver, complete with a full kitchen, living room, and bedroom. She was relatively certain she had had bedrooms that were smaller than her new bathroom, and for a little while, she had simply wandered around in awe, simultaneously excited that it was hers while worried that she was somehow going to sully it with her presence.
She had approximately two hours to enjoy it. At the stroke of one, there was a fast rap on her door, and blinking in surprise, she went to answer it.
There was a tall European woman standing there with a pair of girls behind her. The woman was tall and whip thin, and with her dark hair and dark eyes, she looked exquisitely disdainful as she swept into the suite.
