by Olivia Gates
He didn’t order his driver to drive, only adjusted his position to face her. “So, what do you think of GAO Central?”
“Besides ‘holy cow’, you mean …?” She stopped, groaned. “That probably isn’t the right exclamation to make around here …”
A powerful finger stemmed her mumbling. “What have I told you about never apologizing?” She couldn’t hold back the shudder the feel of his finger on her lips, his words, his voice wrenched from her. “Before you tell me you’re not, I want you to promise me never to watch what you say around me.” Yeah, sure. For the whole of the next hour. She could do that. “I have no cultural or religious sensitivities to step on. Even if I did, I think political correctness is becoming reverse persecution and I for one am never contributing to it. ‘Holy cow’ summed up your opinion beautifully.”
Not only a god, but deeply sane with it too. Whoa.
She cleared her throat, groped for something half-coherent to say. “Not that my opinion counts for much, but this place is awesome—as you know. But what, and why, is it? I didn’t know GAO had anywhere near these resources or, if they did, that they’d use them to establish a single mammoth of a center like this.”
He smile was all indulgence. “You’re right. GAO wouldn’t splurge on one place like that. This is all built by Damhoorian funds, providing GAO with a site to pool resources, human and otherwise, to engineer emergency and long-term operations, to equip, man and deploy them, as well as a destination for those in need of help, medical or otherwise, who GAO can’t help with any reliability or continuity under the conditions in their countries.”
She chewed her lip. “Put that way, this place is the answer to the prayers of all the people I know who work with GAO. They always moan about how prosperous nations can do far more to help them in their humanitarian endeavors and aren’t. But this place says that one of those nations is. And doing it right.”
He gave a dismissive gesture. “We haven’t done much yet.”
“You’ve done plenty and laid the foundations for doing a lot more. And in such economy. That’s one of the things that most impressed me here—the total lack of opulence.”
He huffed in what looked like genuine surprise. “Excuse me, but you’re the first to comment favorably on that. Everyone took me to task about what was described as the barrenness of the place.”
“It’s not barren!” she protested. “It has great ambiance and it’s streamlined. Guess everyone’s been brainwashed by the five-star medical complexes sprouting up all over the world. It makes my blood boil to think of all the people who could have been helped with all the money that went to their zillion-dollar internal decoration. But this place is simple and efficient and its size is purely functional. It’s clear every cent was well spent.”
His smile widened. “You have issues with misspent money, don’t you?”
She frowned. “Any sane human being has those.”
“You’d be surprised how many insane human beings litter the planet, then. But GAO’s positive influence goes beyond cost-effectiveness. This establishment is as near perfection as it gets in terms of therapeutic environment, sanitation, circulation, expandability, safety, security and sustainability and I’ve already commissioned them to design a major health center in Al Areesha, our major coastal city.”
She nodded slowly. “Um—I’m still not clear why GAO is basing itself here, in one of a handful of countries in the world where its presence isn’t needed. Why not take your donations and build many mini-centers in their target regions?”
“Because being here.” He spread those expressive hands of his. “ … on Damhoorian soil, gives GAO a stable base of operations and the vast resources to reach out to the chaotic and impoverished countries in the region. Damhoor also has fringe communities that need their awareness raised in order to provide them with effective healthcare, to stop them from abusing their health in the name of tradition. We’ve learned that wealth and resources have no impact on such deep-rooted problems. So, yes, even Damhoor needs GAO for their unsurpassed experience in dealing with every cultural and mass health dilemma known to man.”
Just what she’d been thinking before the accident. Before she’d met him, a lifetime ago. And he was admitting it, so freely, so eloquently. Not at all the attitude she’d expected. But, then, what preconception of hers hadn’t he pulverized?
And she was spending the last minutes in his company. Now he’d take her back to her hotel. She doubted she’d ever see him again.
A fist convulsed around her heart. Which was just silly.
But, silly or not, after the soaring of the last hours she felt like she was on a roller-coaster. Meeting him had been one hell of a ride. Now she was on the last drop before she got off.
Just get it over with.
“So, uh, I get the picture now,” she croaked. “And it looks great. You were, too—helping me with my driver, taking me around the base, going above and beyond in debriefing me.” She rummaged in her bag for her hotel address and handed it to him.
He scowled down at it.
“Is this an attempt at subtlety?” he drawled, slow and nerve-racking. “Demanding I take you to your hotel without actually saying so?”
She gave an awkward shrug. “I must get points for not blurting out the demand like before. And you notice I’m no longer asking to get out to take a taxi.”
“Only because you’re too intelligent to try the same thing again and expect a different result.”
“That doesn’t take intelligence, just common sense.” She stopped, her heart slamming against her ribs until she felt he must see them throbbing through her top. “I—I hope you’ll let one of your men update me about my driver’s condition.”
“He’s our patient. My patient.” That had an edge of harshness, of arrogance, betraying another side of him. The side no one would want to cross. It seemed he couldn’t abide her allusion that he’d relegate the responsibility. “I’ll follow him up and update you.”
Something thorny expanded in her throat. She could only nod, before turning blind eyes to the darkened vista outside her window. Let him ask the driver to get going. Let them get to her hotel quickly. Please.
She felt him move beside her, felt as if every muscle expanding and contracting under his polished bronze skin was pulling at her own. Then his voice drenched her skin in goose-bumps.
“About our interview,” he drawled huskily, commanding her eyes back to his, his gaze on her mesmerizing, “and conducting it over the now very late lunch—what cuisine takes your fancy? French, Italian, Chinese—or local?”
CHAPTER FOUR
HE WAS INSANE.
Instead of sticking to his plan of taking Janaan on a short guided tour then rushing her back to one of his cars and jumping in another to zoom in the opposite direction, he’d gone over the base almost down to the wiring and piping, clung to her all the way to his car and jumped in beside her telling himself he couldn’t hand her over to his driver and must escort her himself to her hotel. Then she’d let him know exactly where to drop her and he’d panicked. He’d known then that his plans had been empty bravado, that he’d do anything to prolong his time with her.
And he had. He’d taken her to one of his two “personal” places. His first and overwhelming desire had been to take her to his private one. A last wisp of sanity had made him opt for the public one, even if it was where he’d never brought another woman.
He was still vibrating with the jumble of relief and anxiety that had assailed him when she’d succumbed this time, with such an obvious muddle of eagerness and agitation. She felt the same about him, knew it was foolish to prolong the exposure, yet couldn’t stop herself either.
But if there’d be no more brakes applied from her side, how high would this conflagration soar?
She now snatched her eyes away, sent a tremulous smile up at the Bedouin waiter who’d placed the last in over a dozen plates of hors d’oeuvres on the four-foot-round copper tray. Then she bus
ied herself with smoothing the keleem covering the floor where she sat, studying the vivid patterns of the hand-woven wool before she tucked her blue denim-covered legs beneath her, adjusting her pose against the reclining cushion into a guarded, formal one. She could have been spreading herself in the most erotic display with the way his hormones seethed.
His avid gaze followed her nervous, awed one as it darted around. She was attempting to distract herself with the details of the restaurant, which was a vision of the time of one thousand and one nights with a futuristic twist.
It was minutes, crowded with the unspoken and the out of bounds, before she finally gave up trying to avoid his eyes and a conversation, and sighed. “So you own this place, or what?”
He huffed in surprise at this new self-deprecation she made him experience. “It’s just the only place, besides one of my retreats, where I feel … at peace.”
“Provided you’re the only customer, right?” She gave him an assessing glance. “Since a place like this—one that combines tradition and progress in such a magical blend—must have people fighting to secure a tab-a tub … er …” She waved at the handcrafted copper trays gleaming in the last rays of the sun and placed on foot-high, carved, solid mahogany bases.
“Tubleyyah,” he provided, picking up an incense stick, lighting it from the flame of an intricately worked brass lamp and placing it in the matching incense burner.
She gasped when the sweet-spicy scent of ood, his land’s most valued incense, hit her. “Yeah, that.” A hot, short sound of pleasure escaped her, vibrating behind his ribs, shooting to his loins. The sensations spiked when her eyes narrowed on him with disapproval. “I bet the absence of customers is to accommodate you. And I bet I can’t even imagine what that cost.”
“Is your blood boiling at the misspent money?” His lips spread, warmth and something he’d never felt towards a grown woman other than his mother—tenderness—humming in his.
She waved her hand. “Nah. This is not a hospital and it’s your personal money—though you could do better with it … Oh, OK. My blood, while not boiling, is a few degrees above normal.”
He shook his head in amazement. Everything she did and said was affecting him like an intravenous euphoric drug. “You’ll be glad to know I exchange favors with the owner, not money.”
“I won’t ask what kind of favors.”
He chuckled. “Very wise of you.”
He knew she would have volleyed something if not for the arrival of more food. She sat watching a procession of waiters bearing one serving plate after another in arrested attention and vocal appreciation, all but licking her lips as their meal was served by a dozen waiters clearly thrilled to lavish their expertise on such guests as them.
Malek always demanded that only one served him and only when asked, but he’d ordered the full fanfare of service the restaurant was known for for her benefit, felt the spreading coolness of satisfaction in his chest at her delightfully flustered reaction at being waited on like that.
She went on to delight him further, not picking at her food or getting finicky about ingredients that experience told him foreigners balked at, at least at first exposure.
She attacked her meal with relish, kept reporting her experience with every mouthful. She enthused at the assorted grilled goat and sheep, including liver and brain, and the kapsa, the spiced rice with fried nuts and raisins, and the date wine. At trying gahwa, the cardamom Arabian coffee, her eyes widened at its bitterness, got even wider when he instructed her to drink it with the ultra-sweet chewy agwa dates. She went on to wash down a whole pack with a full carafe of coffee.
By the time logmet el guadi arrived, he was sure such a flat stomach couldn’t hold any more food. But it did. She popped one of the crunchy, chewy golden spheres of fried dough dipped in thick syrup into her mouth and moaned. She washed it down with goat milk, murmuring “Sinful” and reaching for another one.
He didn’t know why, but he thought this was the moment to tell her. “I cancelled the security checks.”
She choked. He thumped her on the back to stop her coughing paroxysm. Her eyes glittered up at him from a bed of tears. “You mean into my dark past? Why did you do that?”
“Because I want to hear about it from your lips.” In fact, he needed to. “And Janaan, this is not an interview.”
“But you said—”
His lips twisted. “I would have said anything to get you to agree to come here with me.”
“You conned me?” He only shrugged and held her eyes, unrepentant. At length she tossed her hair, sending the sunlit waterfall thudding down her back. “You deserve that I wolf down this mouth-watering food in silence.”
And he guffawed. “You mean you still haven’t?”
She popped another piece of logmet el guadi into her mouth and chewed defiantly.
He leaned closer, brushing her exposed forearm with his, took a piece himself, mimicking her actions.
After their logmet el guadi eating competition had emptied the plate, with her still looking up at the thirty-foot-high tented ceiling, he drawled, “You won’t last. You can’t be silent. Not with me.”
She swung her eyes back to his, defiant, irritated—magnificent. Then she drawled back, “If this isn’t work-related any more, why should I tell you anything?”
“No reason.” He shrugged, knowing that his nonchalance was a flimsy act. Especially when he added, “Except for me.”
For him. Was there a better incentive? Jay thought.
She sighed, wondered when she’d finally stumble back out of this fantasy dimension she’d spilled into the moment she’d plopped into his car and he’d materialized out of the darkness.
It had felt just as mystic as sharing this with him, the best meal—the best experience—of her life. Incense fumes shrouded them, echoes of past and future twining with distant live music, the reed-like lamenting naay weaving with the oud, the melancholy of the quarter-tones of the music deepening the feeling of unreality.
She leaned on one of those incredible cushions, resuming her surrender to this out-of-sanity, out-of-life encounter. “So—what do you want to hear? The highlights in bullet form?”
“We have all evening—as long as we want.”
She watched him unfold his magnificent body, hers throbbing as he bent one endless leg on the floor, the other at the knee with his forearm resting there, like a sultan preparing to watch a show thousands had sweated their lives away to provide him with. He’d taken off his jacket and tie, rolled up his sleeves and undone his shirt. She’d been right. His body was that of a higher being. His beauty made her ache.
And he, this perfect creature, was asking her to reveal herself to him, of all people, when she’d never done so to anyone. It was one thing he’d find out her secrets from a security report, another that she’d tell him her story herself, in words she’d never tried to formulate—and see pity or even distaste forming in his eyes.
He reached out, ran a finger over the hands entwined tightly on her lap, startling her out of her chaos.
“Listen,” she blurted out. “Just get on with your security checks. I’m sure your people will give you a far more accurate rundown of my life than I ever will.”
“They would, if I wanted a background check, which I don’t. I want to hear about you from you.”
“There’s not much to tell, really. It’s all very boring.”
“As boring as you’ve been so far? I’m certain it’s an impossibility that you, or anything about you, can be boring.”
What she’d thought about him earlier.
She fought to the surface, tried one last time. “I assure you a professionally gathered and written report will be far more entertaining.”
He shook his head, dislodging a thick, glossy lock from his slicked-back mane. She thought she’d tell him anything for the privilege of smoothing it back. “Tell me, Janaan. Please.”
It was the “please” that undid her.
“Oh, all righ
t,” she muttered. “But I’m shutting up at the first yawn.”
He chuckled, did to her what she was dying to do to him and tucked back a lock of hair behind her ear, electrifying her. “If I yawn, it will be because in forty-eight hours I’ve only shut my eyes for the minutes it took for the accident to occur. You are the only thing keeping me awake.”
“Oh … OK.” With her last escape blocked she tried to think where to start, her heart bobbing in her throat.
He twined another lock of hair around two fingers, gave an almost imperceptible tug and whispered, “Start at the beginning.”
He’d read her mind! Or maybe she was just too predictable.
But anyway, he’d given the only logical place to start.
She exhaled. “I was born twenty-eight years ago next month in Chicago to a twenty-year-old single mother. She never married, so I was an only child. With no family herself, it was all she could do to take care of an infant as she studied and worked as a nurse. When I was ten, she stopped working and we subsisted on unemployment pay. I guess even then she’d started the plunge into depression, that it was why she couldn’t hold a job anymore. But she was only diagnosed with a major depressive disorder when I was fifteen. By then I was working in two part-time jobs to boost our meager income, had already jumped grades and had a scholarship to pre-med school. Once I entered med school, the scholarship lasted only one more year as I no longer qualified for it with my scores plummeting. By that time my mother was almost totally dependent as she started abusing alcohol and anything else she could lay her hands on. Soon we were in debt, and I had to work in any job I found just to keep us off the street.”
She stopped, groaned. God—she didn’t have to tell him all that, not this explicitly, this intimately.
But she wanted to. For the first time in her life, she wanted. needed to share with another. With him.
What about him? He couldn’t possibly want this level of personal detail imposed on him.
She ventured a look at him, whispered, “Sorry that you asked already? I told you it was boring. I neglected to mention it was pathetic too.”