Scarlett Secret

by Brenda Barrett

  "Oh." Terri nodded. "So I am going to have to pack my most modest apparel, huh?"

  "Or you'll be supplied with a hijabs of all colors; after all, Hamad is a prince. You’ll probably have a wardrobe. As a matter of fact, we'll have to find a scarf to cover your hair and neck before you leave tomorrow. It is expected."

  Terri sighed. "Really?"

  Lola nodded. "Oh yes, I hear he is very strict. I think the whole issue of modesty was in the contract too."

  "Maybe I shouldn't go with my head covered, then." Terri stopped walking. "Flout the rules, make him angry."

  "No, no." Lola swallowed. "He might punish you for your defiance and if you are not in the proper attire, he may not see you. How can you convince him to divorce me if you don't see him?"

  Chapter Three

  "Zack, how is it going?"

  Zack looked up from his computer and frowned. Amoy was standing at his office door in a pinstripe pantsuit which fit her perfectly, her hair spread across her shoulders in wavy curls and a pout across her berry red lips.

  "It is going," he said dryly. He had expected her to show up after the board meeting, and in a huff too. "What's up?"

  "I should be the one who is going to Jannah to convince the Prince that we are the best lawyers to see to his northern Caribbean interests."

  Zack nodded. "I agree 100%."

  "But you didn't say so in the meeting," Amoy scowled. "You were vigorously agreeing with Daddy and the rest of the men when they voted for you to go instead of me. I am the one with the most corporate law experience. You just switched over to corporate four years ago. I am the one with the balls to do this job. I should be leading this project!"

  Zack raised an eyebrow. "You got balls now, Sis—or should I say bro?"

  "Oh shut up." Amoy came into the office further and sat down across from Zack. "This law firm is so unfair and I know that I am a broken record for even saying this but I am tired of butting my head against the glass ceiling.

  "I thought that when you made senior partner you would at least make some changes. The board room is still filled with enough testosterone to stifle a woman."

  Zack closed his laptop’s lid and gave his sister his full attention. "I agreed to go to Jannah because sad to say, Prince Hamad would never deal with you. You are a woman. He does not do business with women; you wouldn't even get a foot in the door. And our father is still the managing partner. You know full well there is not much I can do where you and the glass ceiling are concerned. I am one vote.

  "Please work out your personal difference with your father and don't expect me to fight your battles, Amoy; you are a better debater than I am."

  "Dad is something else," Amoy muttered. "So I left the firm for a while and got divorced and I have no children yet...what on earth does that have to do with business? Huh? Huh?"

  Zack folded his arms and looked at his sister patiently. "Why are you really in here, Amoy? Surely it’s not to rehash the age-old venting about Dad? I am sure you can do that quite well in his office, and to his face."

  "I am really here because of the Scarlett account." Amoy smirked. "Because you are now the point man on wooing the Prince, I am supposed to take over the Scarlett account. Yay me," she said flatly. "I am so overjoyed, I am going to work on my ex-boyfriend’s family's project."

  Zack rubbed his chin. "That's a temporary situation, until I get back. The Scarletts are my personal project. I am very invested in finding Dolby Scarlett's missing heirs. I promised him personally that I would do it. I can't give that up now. Besides, I have a lead on Peter Scarlett that I want to follow up. My detective guy, Channer, is notoriously slow. He found out that Peter went to Canada twenty-five years ago and then, nothing. It's as if he disappeared into nothingness."

  "I thought you said you had a lead?" Amoy frowned.

  "I do." Zack narrowed his eyes. "Tell me if this is crazy but Yuri told me that when he was in the cafeteria at work and Ricky came to him and threatened to bring down all the Scarletts he mentioned some of his cousins that were missing. Ricky knows something. He knows where they are."

  "So your lead is Ricardo Mills? Amoy asked skeptically. "He is mentally unstable and I am sure he won't tell you anything."

  "I don't necessarily need to talk to him." Zack leaned back in his chair, "I just want his detective. Maybe you can work on that while I am away?"

  "No." Amoy winced. "I will only deal with pressing Scarlett matters if I have to. I'll wait until you get back to do whatever it is you are doing."

  "I thought you had gotten over the whole Yuri business," Zack murmured. "You went to the party Yuri and Marla had for Malik four weeks ago…you gave a speech…you hugged Marla."

  Amoy smiled slightly. "What can I say? I like her, I can't seem to dislike her, and that baby Malik is so adorable. Have you ever seen a cuter baby?"

  Zack sighed but answered dutifully. "No. He is really a sweet child; he looks like both his parents."

  "Yes," Amoy said dreamily. "I want one. I would be satisfied with just one. All I have to say is, Yuri makes nice babies. Maybe I should borrow some sperm from him?"

  Zack got up and headed for his file drawer. "Marla would not like that."

  "No, she wouldn’t. I guess I am sort of getting desperate to even suggest it." Amoy grimaced. "Why is it that my life is working out like this?"

  "We are the same age and I am not desperate," Zack said, realizing that he wasn't speaking the truth. Most of his friends were married and starting families or plotting to start families. He was totally ready to do the same.

  He put down a stash of files in front of her. "Here you go. The rest are saved under Scarlett in the client database. The only teeny tiny little business that you have to deal within the coming week is to set up a charity in Dolby Scarlett's name. Yuri said he'd find out if the rest of the family are up to it and then he'd let me know. Now, he can let you know instead and you can advise him further."

  Amoy winced. "The pain is still too raw. I still have feelings for Yuri Scarlett. They haven't miraculously faded like the sunset."

  "You seem fine when you socialize with them." Zack rubbed the back of his neck wearily.

  "That's because I am a professional and a nice person." Amoy looked at her brother skeptically. "Enough about me. You look tired. Is it that darned cat that is keeping you up at night?"

  "No!" Zack looked at the picture of Morpheus that he had on his desk and grinned. Morph, with his orange brown mixture of colors and green eyes, was his feline companion for five years now. The cat was given to him by his mother, who had gotten him from a well-meaning church sister but was allergic to cats.

  Amoy was usually Morph's cat sitter when he wasn't around but Morph did not settle well when he wasn't around and had gained a reputation for being restless at night.

  "So what's wrong?" Amoy had her concerned sister, lawyer inquisitive voice on.

  "Nothing's wrong." Zack blinked and wiped his hand across his eyes. "I am just tired from the Bennett case. Thank God that is over. I am not going to mind this trip to Jannah. It will be a different pace from the usual breakneck, tension-filled weeks gone by."

  "Hmm, it really sounds like a luxurious island," Amoy said, trying to keep the envy out of her voice. "And you really need a rest. One week of bliss should be fun for you."

  Zack laughed and sat down in his chair. "It's business, Amoy, not bliss. I will be competing against a few other firms I am sure will be sending their best and brightest to impress the prince. To tell you the truth, I would not mind a real vacation somewhere quiet, where there are no cell phones or computers or television. Complete blackout for seven days."

  He closed his eyes and swung in his chair. "No briefs. No subpoenas. No papers. No documents whatsoever."

  "And a pretty girl who will do your bidding," Amoy purred. "Yes Zachary, no Zachary, anything you want Zachary."

  Zack opened his eyes to a slit. "No women, at least no talkative woman, and definitely not one who sounds so spin
eless."

  Amoy chuckled. "You want a raging firebrand like Judith who eats men for breakfast? I thought you two were over, finito, laid to rest."

  Zack winced and grabbed the stress ball marked Chang and Dubois and threw it and caught it. "We are done."

  Amoy looked at him pointedly and then down at the files, silently perusing them while he thought about Judith. He had not thought about her in weeks. He had seen her on the television at a press conference for some case she had won. He had not felt a thing.

  Judith was not a bad person. She had very good qualities when you thought about it. Amoy didn't like her because she ran her own law firm at Chang and Dubois and commanded the kind of respect she could only dream of having.

  His parents didn't like her because she was prone to get very passionate over her politics. She was a senator for two years. Any remark about the government would be cause for debate and she would argue with his father, who was no slouch in the debating department, and stare him down until he gave up.

  He was used to Judith's eccentricity and her passionate fly-off-the-handle nature. He had loved that about her. She knew what she wanted and went after it with single-minded determination. That could be intimidating to some people, but not to him.

  That was how they had met. Judith had seen him, liked him and pursued him with a relentless intensity that he strangely had not found to be a turn-off. After six years together, they broke up at the start of the year.

  He had his resolutions for the New Year. He wanted to get married, to go to church again, and to live a different kind of life.

  He was tired of showing up for family Christmas dinner and his grandmother asking him loudly why he was still a fornicator. "Explain to me, Zachary, what is wrong with the institution of marriage?"

  But Judith was having none of it. Marriage scared Judith at an unreasonable level. Nothing was wrong with the way their lives were, was her constant argument. "Your grandmother is old school. We can still go to church and have babies and what-not. No marriage necessary."

  That's when it clicked that they probably would never share the same value system; he was tired of waiting around for her to change her mind about committing to him. So they had parted amicably, or as close to amicable as you can get. It was over the phone too; Judith had been on her way to court and she had said, "Let’s just end it, Zack. I can't process this right now."

  He had said, "Fine it’s over."

  They had seen each other at a cocktail party a few weeks after and had nodded at each other like the past six years had not happened.

  He was not even brokenhearted, and that was a worry to him. He constantly asked himself the question, Did I love Judith? Really love her or did I just stay in the relationship because it was comfortable? They knew each other's schedules. She visited his house occasionally, as he did hers, and they were each other's dates at functions.

  After a month or so, he hardly missed her. Their lives had been so separate that their only commitment was to be exclusive sex partners.

  Amoy was silently sorting through the Scarlett files, looking at each, while he reminisced about his broken relationship.

  "Done brooding?" She looked up at him.

  "Yep." He straightened in his chair, put down the stress ball and opened his computer, pushing all thoughts of Judith aside.

  "I have to do a crash course on Prince Hamad bin Ali Al Jerza. If I want to be ahead in this I have to know what makes the man tick."

  "I know what makes him tick." Amoy rolled her eyes, "I don't have to do a crash course on him to tell you that he is the stereotypical male."

  "Go on." Zack rubbed his chin. "Let’s hear it."

  "The man has two or three wives, right?"

  Zack nodded. "His profile says two and he has twelve children, five sons."

  "And he is traditional and religious, probably reads his Koran diligently."

  "I don't know." Zack shrugged. "His file says he celebrates Ramadan, a full month of fasting and reflection. That sounds dedicated to me."

  "Then he is like Dad or one of the other fuddy duds."

  Zack chuckled. "Fuddy duds. Really?"

  "Yes, really." Amoy got up. "What you need to research is how you can impress traditional, religious fuddy duds with a chauvinistic streak. When all that fails, when you get on the island, suss out his favorite wife."

  Zack shook his head. "I don't think getting close to his family will be possible. Arab men guard their women closely. Besides, the island is large enough and has several houses built for each wife; then there is the hotel, a mini-Atlantis, at the other end for visitors, and then there is the mansion midway between.

  “I heard that we will be meeting with his lawyers in the hotel. Kind of like a long, lazy interview session. Apparently, they are the ones who we should be trying to impress. They are the ones who will recommend whoever to the prince."

  Amoy snapped her fingers. "I say impress the favorite wife. If you can get to her she is the ticket. She must have his ear, so to speak. She would be the perfect champion for our cause. All she has to do is whisper in his ear, ‘Honey that law firm, Chang and Dubois, they are the perfect fit for you. That lawyer, Zachary Lee Chang is so handsome and urbane and sophisticated. Look how tall he is and muscular.

  "'Look at him, honey, such a virile young man; he can represent you very well in the northern Caribbean. It's just really obvious.’"

  Amoy finished with her breathy voiced supposed imitation of Hamad's favorite wife and Zack laughed heartily.

  "If she did that, she would probably be stoned to death."

  Amoy got up. "I still say, find the wife and half the battle is done."

  Chapter Four

  Terri pulled the scarf closer to her brow as they touched down on what had looked like a significant-sized island somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

  Her hand trembled and she used her other trembling hand to hold it down. Things were suddenly real.

  She was really here. It had taken her all of one hour and ten minutes to move from the comfort of her home to the lush green island she had glimpsed through the window of the private plane.

  She shouldn't have done it. She shouldn't have exchanged places with Lola. She had realized what a foolish position she had put herself in the second she reached home and realized that she did not have a plan. She didn't even know anything much about Lola's prince except for a Time magazine article that Lola had shown her a couple of months before when she had entered into this doomed contract.

  She only knew that Hamad was fifty-five years old and he was heir apparent to the country Akdhir, one of the most fertile areas in the arid Middle East. He was also a member of the royal house of Jerza. He had a personal wealth of over one billion pounds besides his foreign interests.

  She was flying blind. She knew little of how he looked and even less about his personality. In most of his pictures he was in full traditional dress with headband, robe and hair covered, plus he had a full beard.

  She had not slept a wink last night, tossing and turning and fretting about the stupidity of offering to confront a prince she knew nothing about and ask him to change a contract.

  After seeing her parents off this morning, she had turned to Lola to explain to her that she could not follow through with her promise to help; just then the heavily-tinted black SUV pulled up at the gate.

  The man who had accosted them at the beach had alighted from the car, looking like a big apparition in the early morning semi-darkness, and had stood at the car, arms folded.

  And Lola, quite happy to not be the one facing her own fate, had wrapped the scarf over Terri's head, pushed her through the door and now here she was.

  It had been a bad idea.

  Bad idea.

  But for better or worse, here she was.

  The plane landed on a private airstrip that ran alongside what looked like a pineapple field. They were huge pineapples, still semi-green, but there seemed to be acres of them. Beyond that was
the sea, looking like a sparkling sapphire band in the distance. She could hear the heavy sound of the propeller as it whisked the air. Thump. Thump. Thump. It was in tandem with her heart as it beat in a heavy slow rhythmic fear.

  The hostess who had greeted her earlier when she stepped on the plane appeared in front of her. She had on a full white dress with a matching hijab. Except for her hands and face, not a bit of her skin was showing.

  Terri, whose arms were out because she couldn't find a long-sleeved maxi dress, felt very underdressed.

  "Madam Lola, we have arrived on Janna. There will be an escort to take you to your house."

  "My house?" Terri got up and nodded. "Er...Shukran."

  Thank you in Arabic, about the only thing she had absorbed from the book of phrases that Lola had shoved at her before she left the house.

  She alighted from the plane and realized that her escort was a three-vehicle cavalry of men in white robes and head coverings. She did not miss the way the men averted their eyes from her. Not one of them looked at her directly. They had their hands over their chests in a respectful manner and they were keeping their distance.

  Was she supposed to say something? Terri wondered idly. Was she breaking some kind of etiquette? Was she supposed to wave like a queen?

  "Madam." Ajmal, the chief security guy, the one who had addressed her yesterday, appeared beside her.

  They traveled with her but sat in the back of the plane.

  She reached the end of the steps and stepped on a carpeted green rug.

  "Yes Ajmal," she said, hoping she sounded confident. She would be lying if she didn't admit that she was feeling out of her depth.

  "The master is happy that you are on the island. He wants to see you at lunch."

  Terri swallowed and nodded. She was going to see the prince so soon.

  "Your maids will attend to you in the meantime and then you will be escorted over to the main house."

  She nodded uncertainly again. Maids?

  Good Lord. Her chest tightened and she had to deliberately focus on inhaling and exhaling slowly so that she didn't pant.