Billion dollar baby bargain.txt

by Неизвестный

  The car stopped at a gate and the chauffeur exchanged words through the window with an armed guard.

  Salah put the papers away, snapped the briefcase shut and set it aside. After a moment, as if at a thought,

  he reached out and spun the locks. She felt it like a slap.

  “You can never be too sure,” she said sarcastically. “But really, the state secrets of little Barakat are safe

  from me.”

  He looked at her with a black gaze that revealed nothing.

  “What is this place, Salah?”

  “It is Prince Omar’s palace.”

  “Am I staying here?”

  “What else? Should I put you up in a hotel? Do you think I forget what I owe your family?”

  “Won’t I be meeting your family?”

  They moved up the incline, past an unmanned sentry post, then under a broad archway and into a

  courtyard where there were several parked vehicles.

  “Except for my father, who is at the dig, my family go to the mountains in summer. The heat is bad for

  my mother’s health. Only the poor remain in the city in summer, and they move down by the river.”

  His eyes were hard. She remembered the very different look in his eyes the last time they had met, on

  the morning that he left the island for the last time.

  Never got over her? On the contrary, the boy who had loved her had disappeared. He was changed out of

  all recognition. You had a lucky escape! she told herself.

  Her heart, contrarily, mourned a loss.

  “So why are you still in the city?”

  He lifted one corner of his mouth and looked at her as if she were being naive.

  “You stayed in the city to meet me? Why? What do you want?”

  “Not what I want, Desi. What you want.”

  He opened his door as two servants appeared through a doorway. The men seized her bags from the

  trunk and disappeared. The chauffeur opened her door. The heat slapped her again as she got out.

  “What has it got to do with me?”

  “I will be your guide to my father’s dig. Did you not expect it?”

  Of course Salah will be your guide. The entire plan depended on this, and yet, somehow…not until this

  moment had Desi really believed that it was going to happen. That she’d be travelling across the desert

  for hours with only Salah for company….

  Her eyes hurt as she gazed at him, as if they were letting in too much sun.

  “Well, I’m sorry. Your father said, a guide. I didn’t expect…”

  “No?” his manifest disbelief infuriated her, even though he was right.

  “I’m sorry, but this is the only time I’ve got. It’s when I normally go to the island.”

  The word was electric between them.

  “And the case is so urgent,” he said.

  There was no answer she could make to that, without looking even more of a selfish idiot. She turned

  her head to escape his cynic’s gaze, and a panel of exquisite, ancient tilework met her eyes.

  She had stayed in some pretty fabulous places in her time: a hot modelling career opened a lot of doors.

  But not so far an active royal palace. Never a place with such an aura of power, past and present.

  “Will I get to meet them?” she asked. She knew that Prince Omar and Princess Jana had children of their

  own, as well as two daughters from Omar’s first marriage.

  Salah led her under a worn, intricately arabesqued stone archway onto a tiled path.

  “They go to Lake Parvaneh in summer. Princess Jana asked me to assure you of your welcome here, and

  apologizes for her absence.”

  He opened a door and ushered her along a path bordering a formal garden and thence into an internal

  courtyard so entrancing Desi stopped short and gasped.

  Columns, floor, stairs and walls were covered with beautiful, intricately patterned mosaic tiling. A

  perfectly still reflecting pool in the centre reflected greenery and sunlight and the balcony above, with a

  mirror’s clarity and water’s depth. Cloisters ran around the walls on all sides; an ancient tree rose up in

  one corner, its gnarled branches and thick leaves shading the space from the morning sun. More tumbled

  greenery cascaded down from the balcony, or entwined the tall columns and latticework.

  It was compellingly beautiful, deeply restful. The temperature seemed to have dropped by at least ten

  degrees. Desi heaved a sigh of sheer wonder.

  “Isn’t it spectacular!”

  “It is more beautiful in spring, with the flowers,” said Salah and, pausing under the archway, he threw a

  switch.

  She heard a rumble, a groan, as if some great underground creature had been disturbed in its rest, and

  then the perfect reflection in the water shimmered and was lost as fountains leapt up into the air from the

  centre of the pool.

  The fine spray damped her face as she stood smiling up at the vision.

  “Now, that’s what I call air conditioning!” Her spirits lifted and she laughed for sheer pleasure.

  Watching as the fine mist damped her lips, as if a kiss had moistened them, his face closed. He turned

  away to lead her through the spray up a flight of stairs and along the balcony.

  A sudden gust caught his cloak and it billowed around him, the image of the hero in an ancient tale. Desi

  was struck by the same promise of timelessness and belonging that the sands had whispered to her, as if

  they had met here a thousand years ago….

  He opened a door.

  She stopped to catch her breath again at the doorway. It was a magnificent room, huge, but divided into

  comfortable niches by the artistic use of rugs, furniture clusters, and intricately carved antique room

  dividers in cedar, ebony and sandalwood.

  Above the doorway and windows, panels of stained glass threw patterns of coloured sunlight onto the

  white-painted walls. Fat brocade cushions forming sofas and armchairs were interspersed with low

  tables; on the walls above hung fabulous paintings and patterned mirrors, with niches holding burnished

  bronze plates and pitchers that glowed like gold. Covering the dark polished wood floor was the biggest

  silk carpet she had seen outside a museum. A Chinese cabinet looked as if it had been painted for an

  emperor.

  The plates and jars that glowed like gold, she realized with a jolt, were gold.

  A sweeping arch gave onto a farther room, and against the opposite wall a soft breeze coming through

  the jalousies of an open window disturbed the silk canopy of a low bed whose pillows and spread were

  patterned in turquoises and purples.

  The luxury was suddenly and profoundly erotic. So different from the bed under the old dock ten years

  ago, but pulsating with sensual and sexual promise. As if that other bed, those places they had made

  their bed, had been a foreshadowing, a dream of which this, now, was the living, breathing, full-colour

  reality.

  They stood gazing at each other, locked in the moment, as the tentacles of memory reached out from the

  thing called bed and began to entwine them.

  She had thought herself immune. She had imagined that hatred had blanked out the love that had once

  consumed her, and that in the intervening years indifference had wiped out hatred.

  Desire, it seemed, was independent of such considerations. It operated outside them, it must, because

  right now his eyes were as hot on her skin as the desert sun.

  Desi thought wildly, with a kind of panic, if he kissed me now…

  A woman appeared silently, suddenly, as if from nowhere, and murmured
a greeting. Salah drew in a

  controlled breath, spoke a few words to her, and when he turned back to Desi all sign that he had been

  affected by the moment was blanked out behind obsidian shutters.

  “I have a meeting now. Fatima speaks a little English. She will look after you and bring you lunch later.

  It will be best if you remain in the palace today. We will have dinner about sunset. Do you wish

  something to eat or drink now? Fatima will bring it.”

  “Nothing, thanks. Do you live in the palace?” she asked, not sure which answer she was hoping for.

  “I have rooms here, yes,” he said. “We all do.”

  “‘We’?”

  “Prince Omar’s Cup Companions have offices and apartments in the palace.”

  Desi remembered all about the Cup Companions. In ancient times holders of the title had had duties no

  more onerous than to carouse with the monarch and take his mind off affairs of state.

  “Now they work very hard,” Salah had told her, that day he confided his dreams of one day serving with

  Prince Omar. “They are the Prince’s working cabinet. One day, inshallah, I will achieve this—to work

  with Prince Omar.”

  I don’t know what Salah’s exact mandate is, but my brothers have heard he’s in Prince Omar’s

  confidence, Sami had explained more recently. They’re convinced he’s very very VIP.

  “We heard about your appointment, of course. Congratulations, Salah, I know it was always your

  dream,” she said now. “Your parents must be proud.”

  “Mash’allah,” he said dismissively. It was God’s will.

  In another life, he would have come to her first with the news.

  Looking up at the shuttered face, the arrogant tilt of his chin, the hanging judge’s eyes, Desi could well

  believe that Salah had a Prince’s ear. But she herself wouldn’t marry him now for all the power and

  influence in six continents. She was suddenly violently, intensely glad she’d agreed to help Samiha.

  Marriage to Salah would be a hell of a life.

  Five

  “T hey want me to marry Salah,” Samiha had said.

  The harassment had begun during the last year of her undergraduate degree, after Sami’s father had been

  killed in a work accident. With his death, her eldest brother, Walid, became “head of the family”. The

  trouble started almost immediately, and because her mother caved in under the pressure, Sami had had

  to give in. First she had been forced to wear the head covering called hejab whenever she was out of the

  house. Other restrictions followed, in a steady erosion of her freedom.

  But when Walid, supported by their brother Arif, started to suggest that the headscarf was not sufficient

  to protect her from men’s lusts or show her devotion to their religion, and that Sami really ought to wear

  niqab, the full face veil, Sami had finally found the courage to introduce him to Farid, her fiancé. The

  couple hoped that Walid would be happy to pass his troublesome ownership of his sister to a husband.

  This had been a tactical error. The secrecy of it, her brazen determination to make her own choice,

  outraged Walid. It violated his right as her protector and guide to choose a good husband for her. Farid

  al Muntazer, though a Muslim, did not meet with his approval.

  Samiha should marry someone from back home. Someone connected to them. Family.

  “But Salah’s your cousin!” Desi had protested, scandalized.

  In her distress, Sami had turned to Desi as naturally as breathing. They no longer lived on the same

  street, but there were ways of keeping in touch that were almost as good as walking home from school

  together. Wherever Desi was in the world, the two friends always spent a couple of hours a week on the

  phone.

  “All the better!” Sami informed her bitterly. “The old ways are best, you see!”

  “They’re crazy! Sami, you can’t give in to this!” The idea filled her with primitive horror. Sami and

  Salah, married? It couldn’t be allowed! “You’re twenty-seven! It’s none of their business who you

  marry. You’ve got to refuse!”

  “I am refusing. But my mother is being very weak. My brothers keep telling me how lucky I am, can

  you believe it? Salah’s got everything—he’s rich, handsome, Prince Omar’s right hand man.”

  “I don’t care if he’s Prince Omar himself, he’s your cousin!”

  “If he were Prince Omar himself, Des, he wouldn’t be my cousin.”

  “That’s what they call gallows humour, is it?”

  “I knew there was a word for it.”

  “What can you do to make your refusal stick?”

  “I know what I can’t do. I can’t marry anyone but Farid. I’ll drink bleach first. But Walid is pretty crazy

  right now, and Arif is right behind him. Full-frontal confrontation is probably not a good idea.”

  “Can you just tell Salah himself? He must think you want this. Surely if he knew—”

  “Maybe, but, Des, I’m actually scared to risk it. I don’t know what his reasons are. Maybe he needs a

  Canadian passport or something.”

  “What? He’s a Cup Companion! Why would he need—”

  “Des, I can’t risk telling Salah!” Sami protested in a tight voice. “I don’t know what’s in it for him! If he

  told Walid…”

  “Do you really think Salah would—”

  “I don’t know who to trust!” Sam cried, and Desi suddenly realized how close her friend was to outright

  panic. When your own brothers could turn rabid, what was safe?

  “Oh, I feel so useless! I wish I could help!”

  “Des, you’re the only one who can.”

  Her heart had started to pound right there. “Me? What—”

  “It’s no good challenging the noble protectors of Islamic purity head on. I figure I have to start from the

  other end.”

  “I’d be very happy to kneecap them both for you, Sam, but I think it’s actually illegal.”

  “Not that end.”

  Desi’s heart seemed to feel she was trying for the thousand metre world record.

  “You want me to kneecap…Salah?”

  “That’s the one! Do you think Salah ever got over you, Desi?”

  “Yes,” she said crisply. “Without a doubt. In ten years he hasn’t lifted a finger in my direction.”

  “He hasn’t married, either.”

  “Clearly the women of Central Barakat are not stupid.”

  “I don’t think he ever really got over you. And that was then. Look at you now. Did you see what

  Everywoman called you this week? Hang on a sec, I’ve actually got it here.” There was the sound of

  rustling paper, then Sami started reading.

  “‘Perhaps the most iconically beautiful of all the supermodels on the world scene today, Desirée

  Drummond—Desi to everyone caught in the intimacy of that smile—projects the haunting vulnerability

  of a woman who has never learned to hide her heart.’”

  “How wrong can one sentence be?” said Desi.

  “Whatever reasons Salah’s got for wanting the marriage, I bet if he thought he stood any chance with

  you…”

  “Along the lines of an icicle’s chance in hell…”

  “…he’d walk away from this deal so fast we’d see smoke at his heels.”

  The bottom fell out of Desi’s stomach. She tried to laugh.

  “Sami, I haven’t seen Salah in ten years!”

  “Yeah, but he’s seen you! Your face is everywhere, isn’t it? You can bet he hasn’t forgotten.”

  Her face on a magazine cover would only serve to remind
him of why he’d rejected her, but Desi

  couldn’t embark on that now.

  “You aren’t dating anyone, are you? I wouldn’t ask if you were involved with someone. At least—I

  hope I wouldn’t,” Sami admitted with disarming honesty.

  “Are you joking me, Sam?”

  “Des, all you’d have to do is—let him think there’s a chance. Talk about those carefree summers on the

  island. Remind him how you used to hero-worship him. You know you can do it.”

  Desi took a deep breath, and reminded herself that Sami hadn’t been there. And afterwards she’d told no

  one, not even Sami, all of it.

  “Oh, Sam…” she began pleadingly.

  “Des, I know it’s a terrible thing to ask. But this is the rest of my life, and you’re my only hope. Just

  think if your father wanted to force you to marry—Allan, say.”

  Her cousin Allan was a blameless stockbroker in Toronto, but Desi shuddered.

  “I understand. You know I understand. But honestly, Sam—”

  “All we need is some excuse for you to visit Central Barakat. Could you be looking for locations or

  something?”

  “Models don’t scout locations. Anyway, even if I did visit, why should I run into Salah? The country’s

  not that small.”

  “After all your family did for him all those years! Of course you’d get in touch and ask for his help!

  Wouldn’t you?”

  “When pigs fly,” Desirée said grimly.

  “But why? Of course you’d call him! Harry did, when he was over there. Salah treated him like royalty,

  he told me.”

  “Sam, if I did go, if I did see him, it wouldn’t do any good. Ashes are ashes. They don’t stay warm for

  ten years.”

  “They do. Salah used to act as if…”

  She would not ask. She didn’t care how he used to act.

  “As if what?” Desi blurted.

  “As if his heart was broken, I guess. For years when I mentioned your name he’d stiffen, the way people

  do when they’re protecting a sore spot.”

  “I’d be happy to think Salah suffered, but I think it was probably gas.”

  “Hey—that’s it!” Sami said. “Two birds with one stone! Think of how sweet revenge would taste.”