Older Woman, Younger Sheikh Page 5

  But there was more to the issue. In fact, she and Shafa had danced around this deal many times, when Ghassan was laid up sick, of course. “A native telecom in Qena would be amazing. It would provide jobs, and infrastructure the company could control. But that company would also have to maintain that infrastructure, which would be expensive. The company would have a steep learning curve that Adhra Tel has already conquered. In the meantime, mobile coverage in Qena is spotty. Not having reliable service hurts businesses and individuals both. It would definitely be better to have a native telecom. The advantage of going with Adhra is their exceptional coverage and the speed the network could be implemented. But I’d be tempted to look to a local company instead of sending our jobs outside Qena.”

  Her blood thundered in her veins, heady excitement mixing with the underlying anxiety of being on the water. Her little speech was the opening salvo of a negotiation battle with Shafa. Friendly, but also deadly serious. For the past few years, she’d been increasingly involved with Ghassan’s affairs, managing things that he couldn’t, and was too proud to admit he couldn’t. So, behind the scenes, she’d taken the reins where she could, showing smarts where it helped, acting the ditzy mistress where she needed to.

  The thrill of it had gotten into her. At first, the negotiations had seemed so annoying, so treacherous… Now? She saw why Ghassan had always gotten off on hammering out these deals. The game. Nothing was like it.

  “Well…” Shafa let the word hang in the air, pretending to consider the problem, as if he hadn’t worked out what he would ask for and what he would give long before he stepped on board the Miizaan. “Perhaps some of your concerns would be mitigated by, say, twelve dedicated kiosks in malls around Qena.”

  “Retail jobs. Not even full time.” She sipped her champagne casually. “Now, development jobs would be another thing. University of Qena has an excellent software engineering department, but most of our graduates end up leaving to work elsewhere. That’s something worth changing.”

  Shafa raised his hands, an exaggerated wall between them. “Move a development center? No, I cannot. Unthinkable.”

  “Oh well.” She shrugged. “Too bad. I see your drink is empty. Where is Cassius? I wonder if Aaliyah Rasheed would be interested?”

  “In fact,” said Amin, “I have a meeting with her next week.”

  Interesting. Did he really? Or was he playing the game? Either way, smart move.

  Shafa turned his lips down. “Bah, she is a vulture, picking at the bones of the dead.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’d love to give her the business. I have the greatest respect for a woman who’s built a company like Tamr Digital under the circumstances. I can support that.”

  “I feel we should encourage more women to participate in the economic prosperity of the Middle East in general. These resources are currently going to waste,” added Amin, and she couldn’t tell if he was serious, or just supporting the negotiation. “And she is from Qena, which I also wish to encourage.”

  “A development hub is out of the question, but we are scouting locations for a new technical support center,” Shafa offered.

  “Interesting, caro. How many?” She didn’t have to say jobs. He knew it.

  “Two hundred and fifty.”

  Two hundred and fifty people with solid jobs they could count on. Qena wasn’t a large country, and putting that many people to work was nothing to sneeze at. She tapped a nail on her champagne glass.

  “The abandoned glass factory could easily be retrofitted,” she speculated. It was in the center of Nalut, an ideal spot for an easy commute, maybe even revitalizing that area of town.

  Shafa jumped on her words. “At Qena’s expense.”

  “Hmmm.” She pretended to think, not committing to anything. But she’d been dying to do this deal for years. She knew exactly what she’d settle for, and so did Shafa. Now it was just a matter of getting as much over that as possible. “We would need a twenty-year guarantee of those positions. And net neutrality, of course.”

  Shafa threw out his arms expansively. “You wound me to suggest otherwise.” Then, like a light bulb flicking to dark, his mocking expression shut down. “We want exclusivity for fifty years.”

  She leaned forward in her chair, throwing aside all pretense of friendship. “Five. We get fifty percent of ad revenue and all the public service ads we want.”

  Shafa narrowed his eyes at her. She did the same right back.

  It was Shafa who cracked first, the corners of his lips rising like they were lifted by helium. “Very well, very well. Fifteen years exclusivity, seven percent of ad revenue, and three percent of ad space dedicated to public service it is.”

  She laughed. They hadn’t been friends for twelve years for nothing. Shafa had known her demands and skipped right to them.

  “Shafa, I’ve wanted to make that deal for so long.”

  “Subject to the excellent Amin’s approval, of course.” Shafa nodded deference in Amin’s direction.

  Manache. She should have included him. She’d let herself get caught up in the game, forgotten he was even there.

  Amin had leaned back in his chair, eyelids lowered, seeming to take in the banter between the two of them in a casual way. Except… Heat that wasn’t from the sun finger-crawled up her spine. Despite his laid-back attitude, she couldn’t get past the warning feeling that Amin’s focus was laser-guided right on her.

  Big mistake. She’d treated Amin like she would have treated Ghassan, deep in his illness. As an observer, barely involved in the process.

  But Amin wasn’t Ghassan. He might be furious at being shoved aside in the negotiations.

  Too late now. All she could do was try to recover.

  “The exclusivity can only be granted by parliament, but what Amin presents, they’ll approve,” she pointed out. Qena had only been a republic for a few decades. Before that, the monarchy had been pretty popular and respected. That carried over to Amin, the man who would have been king if his father hadn’t ushered in the modern era of democracy. Many members of parliament had been Amin’s father’s courtiers at one time. They’d be happy to give him anything he asked for—within reason.

  At that moment, Nairi, all windblown hair, perky boobs, and sculpted abs, runway-walked to Shafa and curled up in his lap. All the while, looking straight into Amin’s eyes.

  Offering everything she had, whenever Amin wanted it.

  Rania stifled an automatic sigh and clamped down on her envy. On her best day, she never would have been on Nairi’s level. Now those best days were behind her and her only hope was to fascinate Amin, which she wasn’t going to be able to do with Nairi’s tanned thighs strutting around the place.

  “And now I must negotiate one more thing, Amin, since we are all such friends here.”

  Her throat threatened to strangle her from the inside. Dark clouds gathered at the edges of her vision. Shafa? What was he doing? What else did he want?

  Shafa ran the back of a finger down Nairi’s bare, toned abdomen in a way that made it clear she wasn’t his niece. She purred in response. “You can no doubt spare Rania’s company for this evening. We are old friends and would appreciate getting reacquainted. Perhaps you would enjoy getting to know Nairi.”

  Every muscle in her body tightened.

  “No.” Amin barely unclenched his teeth to speak, putting an unsubtle dark note in his voice. “I am afraid not.”

  Shafa shooed his “niece” from his lap. “I meant no offense. I did not understand how it was with you two. I hope this will not affect—”

  A seagull cried overhead, followed closely by the jarring buzz of a mobile phone. Without even taking the phone from his pocket to check the caller, Amin rose in a spare, elegant gesture. “You will pardon me. I must take this.” He nodded to her. “Rania, I trust you will amuse our guests.”

  And then, before she could do anything to pacify him, he was gone below deck.

  Dio cane.

  “Look!�
�� Nairi vaulted from Shafa’s lap, launching herself toward the boat’s railing.

  A pang of anxiety tripped through Rania at the sight of the younger woman dead-set at going over the side… But mercifully, the girl stopped just before diving overboard. A school of blue-gray sea dolphins leapt alongside the speeding yacht.

  “They are a sign of good luck, my dear,” Shafa told his companion, before turning to Rania, a sudden serious darkness on his face. “I cannot tell if that went well or poorly.”

  Of course he was referring to the deal. And the proposal that followed it.

  “Don’t worry, Shafa. He won’t blow the deal over me.”

  “Will he not? I am not so sure.” He looked the direction his host had exited, as if Amin were still there. “Tell him what you need to. I do not mind. I feel he can be trusted.”

  “Thank you. I won’t tell your secrets unless I have to.”

  He placed his hand on hers, then quickly took it back. In case Amin was watching, she supposed.

  “Congratulations on Ghassan’s death. How are you handling the transition?” he asked.

  Oh, you mean being passed from man to man like a used car? She bit back the sarcastic reply, even though she was feeling the mileage on herself.

  “I have no idea. As you just saw.”

  Shafa hmmmed. “Yes, he did not take Nairi. Surprising, and yet not so.”

  “He’s not Ghassan.”

  “That is a good thing, I think.”

  She shrugged. “I had Ghassan figured out. I’m out of my element with Amin.”

  “Cara mia, you may be in deep waters, but I suspect you are safe as houses for the time being.”

  “How so?”

  Shafa tipped his drink to her in a kind of tribute. “The jealousy in that man’s eyes when you pay attention to another is so vivid that it can be seen from outer space.”

  “He doesn’t like to share. That doesn’t mean he has any particular attachment to me.” Any lingering sentimentality I have in regards to you shall die when confronted with the reality, Amin said in her memory. “And if he does, it’ll be over soon anyway.”

  Shafa slid his eyes to Amin’s empty chair. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps not.” Shafa held out his glass, and she dutifully refilled it from the nearly full bottle on the table. “But have you thought of your game plan for when he will marry?”

  She felt—actually felt—the blood drain from her face.

  Marry. Of course Amin would marry. Some nice girl close to his own age, without the distressing past she was saddled with.

  And then what? Would she be the mistress to a married man, while his young wife was left at home? Or would she ask him to release her, maybe angering him enough so that he took out his threats against her family? Or would he discard her, leaving her alone, with nothing, no way to take care of her grandmother?

  She’d never even thought of this option with Ghassan. He’d preferred having control over a mistress a lot better than having a wife who might have options of her own. How could she be the heroine her father told her she was if she was betraying some perfectly nice unknown woman, maybe a mother, because you knew there would soon be a couple of mini-Amins running around.

  Dio dannato. There were no good choices in that set of options. And Shafa was right. He would find a woman to marry. Probably soon. Which meant disaster for her was coming, and she had no idea how to deal with it.

  Shafa put a calming hand on her bare knee. “You know you are welcome with me, my friend. Any time, and for as long as you need.”

  “Thank you,” she said. But her best option would be to get her claws into Amin and keep them there as long as possible.

  Of course, first she had to grow claws.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “You may go with him tonight if you wish,” said Amin, his back to her.

  Rania closed the door to the master cabin behind her. Smoothing things over with Amin was her only option. If she didn’t do that, she was as sunk as this boat if it had a hole in the hull.

  Ugh. Shouldn't have thought that. The mental picture of the Miizaan with a hole in it sent her mind very bad places. Bad places that made her want to curl up in a fetal ball under the covers and wait for the water level to rise over her head.

  Amin glanced at her over his shoulder. “What?” he snapped.

  “I didn’t say anything,” she managed to squeak out.

  “You gasped as if I had struck you.”

  Had she? Stupid boat, distracting her when she should focus all her energy on Amin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. And I don’t want to go to Shafa. I am where I want to be.”

  Amin turned, revealing that he had a Samsung tablet in his hands. Its screen occupied all his attention. “The numbers show that Al Nawaz had an increase in wise investments and creative deals over the last three years. About the time my guardian fell ill.”

  “Okay.” She tried to roll with this unexpected turn in the conversation. Where was he going with this?

  He turned falcon-sharp eyes on her. “Are you responsible?”

  So he wasn’t mad about Shafa offering to take her for the night? Okay. But was he mad about something else?

  They’d only said a few sentences to each other and already this conversation felt like a pit-filled minefield with barbed wire. And maybe a maze thrown in for good measure.

  “I have no power in Al Nawaz Industries.” There. That wasn’t a lie. She didn’t.

  “But you had power over Ghassan.”

  Rats. He hadn’t fallen for it. Still, she had a feeling this wasn’t about the deals she’d suggested to Ghassan while he was ill.

  “Amin, I’m at sea in more ways than one. You can have whatever you want—but please tell me what that is. Are you angry about what Shafa said? He was only joking. He and I have been friends for many years.”

  Amin’s jaw set, though the rest of him seemed relaxed. And he spoke casually. “More than friends, it seems. How many others have there been? Was Ghassan even the first?”

  His last question was like a physical blow, but she didn’t collapse in on herself, like he might have done once. Instead, she fought against a solar flare of anger.

  “Ah,” Amin said. “Finally some emotional truth from you.”

  Emotional truth. Ha. Maybe if he wanted emotional truth, he shouldn’t have hired someone to be his girlfriend. Then he could have all the emotional truth he wanted. Even if it was a woman telling him he was being an ass.

  “Ghassan was the first,” she confirmed. “And he required my faithfulness in all things.”

  “You claim you were faithful to him?” Amin laid the tablet on a nearby table with studied slowness. “When that man out there wished to sleep with you tonight, as if it was a normal arrangement for him to do so.”

  She repeated the words she’d said in her head so many times. “I was faithful to Ghassan. Always.”

  “You have never slept with Shafaqat? I can ask the crew, you realize.”

  “And the crew will say I spend many nights in Shafa’s cabin,” she told him. “I can understand why you think Shafa and I were lovers, but the truth is that we’ve been—”

  “Friends for many years. You said so several times. It becomes irritating.”

  Fair enough, but if she kept the conversation on Shafa, she was in safe harbor. There were other things she didn’t feel like explaining. That she thought she would never have to share with anyone else.

  “Shafa and I have had a long-running flirtation. It’s a game we play, but it isn’t just a game. It’s been useful for both of us.”

  “Useful.” Amin’s eyelids dropped. “For getting away from Ghassan.”

  A pain stabbed her lip. She’d bitten the inside of it.

  “Yes. For getting away from Ghassan. It’s a small boat and your guardian was sometimes a hard man. I don’t have to tell you that.” She paused before the next thing—the thing she could never take back. Danger lay in the words, but not for her. For a dear friend who
would suffer if she was wrong about Amin’s character. “And useful to Shafa. You’ve been in England so long. Not every country is as liberal-minded as the West.”

  “Just say what you mean, Rania.”

  Please, please, please let there be some of that little big-hearted ten-year-old left inside Amin. That kid who had hurt so much and had offered to rescue her.

  “Shafa hides himself from others,” she told him, still inching toward the subject. “He can be himself with me in a way he can’t with others. In the meantime, Ghassan could amuse himself with whatever niece Shafa brought along.”

  “But the two of you did not have sex. I am meant to believe this?”

  Right. So Amin wasn’t going to read between the lines.

  Here we go. Forgive me if I’m wrong and you get thrown overboard, Shafa.

  “Do I have to say it? Okay. He doesn’t want so sleep with me. He would be more interested in you.”

  A heartbeat passed, while Rania searched Amin’s placid face for some hint at what he was thinking.

  “So, you didn’t have sex with him.”

  She nearly laughed in disbelieving frustration. “I didn’t have sex with him in any way at any time. He would be grossed out by the idea. He’s gay, Amin.”

  “Very well.” The clouded look on his face didn’t clear. “But you are still hiding something.”

  Can we go back to talking about the telecom? she didn’t ask.

  “Tell me, Rania.”

  Everything. He wanted her to expose everything. One of the few good things about being Ghassan’s mistress was his disinterest in her life. She didn’t talk about her family, just him. It would have been easy to keep information from him, if she’d had any. Now, she had secrets, and wanted to keep them.

  “It’s not important, Amin. If it was, I would tell you.”

  Amin ignored her words, but studied her expressions like he was trying to memorize them. “You did not sleep with Shafa, and Ghassan was the first. But there have been others.”