Her Royal Protector (a Johari Crown Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) (4 page)

“Why are you reluctant to lunch on the Sultan’s yacht? Most women would be thrilled.”

Most women. “I’ll bet. I can just imagine the wild bunga-bunga parties.”

Her words fell into a well of ice-cold silence. She had committed plenty of social gaffes in her time, but this one got the blue ribbon. Aly’s mouth fell open in horror as she grasped for something to say.

“I didn’t mean—”

But Arif al Najimi’s face had already turned to stone, his eyes to ice. This man was one of the Sultan’s Cup Companions. The most trusted and respected post in the kingdom. The closest to the Sultan. Not a good idea to suggest his boss held wild sex parties with underage models like some cheap corrupt politician. She was sure that Arif al Najimi had the power of veto over her trip, and he wouldn’t need to justify his decision to anyone.

“You yourself are personally familiar with such affairs? Bunga-bunga parties?” the sheikh asked. And the look he gave her now simply fried her with contempt.

She had absolutely no right to complain about it, having cast the first slur, but she wanted to hit him. The man had a way of throwing her off center just standing there, but it was beyond her to explain that her stupidity was actually all his fault.

“No. I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. It’s just—can’t we have the discussion here?”

“I begin to see why your project has had such trouble finding funding. Do you understand nothing about diplomacy?”

She deserved that and more, but still she had to grit her teeth. “I’ve said I’m sorry.”

“You are welcomed to this country as a guest, and repay our hospitality with a gratuitous slander against a man who gives every waking thought to the well-being of the people he rules. And then you think that a single insincere word should put all to right. Yes?”

She hated being cornered like this. Her father had been so good at it, from her earliest memories. By sheer force of will Aly forced down her reaction. “I’m sorry, it just popped out. And I don’t know what else to say besides sorry.”

“The Sultan has enemies, like any leader of a small country who refuses to let powerful countries rob his people and despoil their heritage. Are you one of them?”

His burning contempt, the determination to humiliate her in spite of her apology, was too familiar. Aly’s stomach caught fire and her jaw clamped so tight it hurt. She forgot her own sins in the primitive fight for survival.

“His amazing self-sacrifice doesn’t stop him having a mega yacht, does it?” she said. “Do I have to be an enemy to point that out?”

“You are a fool,” the Cup Companion said softly, smiling with his mouth while killing her with his eyes. “It is clear we cannot talk here. Get aboard the tender, Ms. Percy.”

They had drawn an interested little circle of spectators, more than one of whom was pointing a bloody smartphone their way. His Excellency was right. She was being a total fool.

“I have to lock up,” she muttered.

“Then do so.”

“And I need to get this lot stowed first.” She gestured at the boxes of equipment and supplies strewn around the deck. Her cheeks were burning and there was no place to hide.

“Go below,” Arif al Najimi commanded, and as soon as she was down the hatch steps he passed the first box to her. Aly shoved them wherever they would fit. Then she bent over the galley sink, dashed some cold water on her cheeks, grabbed her deck shoes, sunglasses, and the padlock. She resurfaced to find Arif al Najimi already on board the tender.

A minute later she was beside him, and a minute after that the spectators had receded into the distance.

Chapter Four

Dhikra
had clean, proud, traditional lines, nothing like the black and silver space-rocket-cum-bicycle-helmet design her father had preferred, but still, aboard, there was the same aura of wealth and exclusivity which Aly still found claustrophobic.

And the same feeling of not belonging. As she stood at the basin in the powder room, the very glass of the mirror seemed to reject her—her tangled hair and grubby hands and her cutoffs and stained t-shirt. As if the yacht smelled her discomfort. What was it her father had said?
Aly wouldn’t get a job in the boiler room, if we had a boiler room.
Laughing, as if that were an innocent joke and not an angry barb.

His other children, Ben, Viola, and Emily, had dutifully admired his yacht. Viola especially had loved it, every inch of it—her designer stateroom, the marble and gold bath, the fluffy towel deferentially handed to her poolside by expertly invisible crew, the perfectly chilled champagne, the parties for the rich and famous. The week at Monte Carlo, Cannes, the Mediterranean cruising, the envy of her friends.

Life’s short
, Viola would urge her sister—her father’s echo, but not really believing the maxim. What pampered, rich, carefree eighteen-year-old really believes that life is short?

But Aly believed it. Somehow, deep in her being, she had known that it was all false. That her father was a facade. The real man was someone else, and therefore their lives were unreal.
Shorter than you know
, she’d answered her sister once.

Not that she could have put a finger on her discomfort. She by no means consciously guessed the depths of financial fraud he was mired in. She only knew that her father was not what he pretended to be, and that that was an important fact. Sometimes it amazed her that no one else saw in him what she did—a malicious man who had a finger for a sore spot, always. When Aly’s breasts did not grow as her sister’s had, he had smiled and said,
My poor scrawny little chick. Shortchanged everywhere. Don’t worry. When you’re a little older we’ll get you some implants…
and maybe even a pretty face.

He’d tapped her nose and smiled down at her, but the expression in his eyes had chilled her to the marrow. Her mother, looking on, had smiled as if this sentiment marked Trojan Percy’s loving concern for his child, instead of being a clear message that to him, she was forever inadequate.

Aly examined herself in the gold-tinted mirror. In the end she hadn’t had to face the choice. Just as she’d reached an age where cosmetic surgery was an option, it had all come apart. Would she have resisted? She hoped so, but pressure was an unpredictable thing. And it must be something to wake up beautiful.

The gentle lighting around the mirror softened the planes and hollows of her face into something almost attractive—which could only be deliberate.

The rich are even protected from seeing themselves as they are
.

She flushed, dried her hands on the perfectly draped, perfectly fluffed hand towel, untangled her hair with the silver-backed guest comb. It did no good. He’d have to accept her for who she was. Putting out the light, she made her way to the dining room where Arif al Najimi waited for her.

…

“Shall we have some champagne to celebrate your voyage?” Arif inquired, as the waiter offered the bottle for his approval.

The air in the room was cool and fresh, music played softly, and sunshine spangled through a collection of greenery. All designed to soothe and relax the human spirit. But the scientist sat on the edge of her chair as if waiting for a plane at Heathrow. Like a cat that hasn’t been stroked for too long. His hands itched to caress her into ease.

“I suppose that depends on whether I’ll actually be going or not,” she said. “Will I?”

She was not a cat, and her state of relaxation was not his business. Arif frowned, rubbed his hands together briefly to relieve the urge, and signaled to the waiter. They waited in silence as the waiter pocketed the foil wrap, popped the cork, and then poured with perfect control. He nestled the bottle down amongst the ice cubes and disappeared.

“Why do you doubt it?” Arif asked then.

“Partly because I’m here right now, when I should be on the other side of the harbor making ready to go, and partly because you said you wanted to discuss it,” she said. She took a sip of the champagne without any of the affected appreciation he so often saw. Then she put her glass down, laid her forearms on the table, leaned forward, and fixed him with those eyes.

“So, what’s it all about?”

He wasn’t used to straight talk from women. Except perhaps for his mother who, even after thirty-five years of marriage, still had not lost her western feminist knack for speaking her mind. Arif wrapped his hand deliberately around the flute glass, picked it up, and sipped the champagne.

“First, tell me your plans.”

“Well.” She shrugged. “In the absence of Richard and Ellen, of course we’ve had to cut down the scope of what I’ll be doing. I’ll be visiting fewer islands, and not every beach on any given island. It isn’t entirely satisfactory, but still better than nothing.”

“It is your idea that you can do this alone?”

Her eyes pleaded with him. “Why not?”

Why not. She could not be the fool she pretended to be. He calmed himself by taking another deliberate sip, took time setting his glass down again.

“How often have you sailed these waters, Ms. Percy?”

Her cheeks went pink. “Well, I’ve never sailed here in the Gulf, actually, but I am very used to handling a boat on my ow—”

“Where have you sailed?” he insisted. Her eyes flashed with irritation. “Come, you are so direct with words—tell me the truth without embellishment.”

“I wasn’t going to embellish. I’ve sailed at home for years—since I was a child. The O
neira
is a motorboat, you know, I’m not going to be at the mercy of the winds.”

The winds. He could hardly believe that the only danger she thought of was that from the natural world. A woman alone—even in her own part of the world such a voyage could hardly be without risks.

“You do not know that. In any case, you are at the mercy of fuel. Where do you plan to fill up your tank when you run out? Do you know which islands will have fuel pumps?”

“I know which islands have yachting facilities. They’re marked on the charts. It’s all been taken into account.”

There was no reason for her self-sufficient attitude to annoy him, but it did.

“And what if the engine fails, as seems almost certain with such a boat? Are you a mechanical engineer? How will you fix it? How will you get parts?”

“The engine isn’t going to fail, Your Excellency. It’s been completely refurbished. Richard saw to that.”

He lifted a finger and shot her. “You do not believe this yourself,” he said. “You know very well first, that one cannot count on any engine never to fail, and second, that your boat is barely seaworthy. What will you do, in such a case?”

“I suppose, limp along to the nearest port and have it fixed,” she said.

No sense of danger troubled her. No desire for a protector. She was too self-sufficient, and too unaware. With no understanding of her needs.

He would teach her. “Speaking what language?”

Her cheeks were flaming now. “Look, I know it’s not ideal,” she cried. “But don’t you understand? I can’t just abandon the project. I’ve worked so hard to set it up, spent so much of the charity’s money…everything depends on the research happening this year. Everything. If it takes another year, or even two, to mount the expedition again—and who knows whether we’d get the funding?—there may not even be enough Johari turtles left to track by then.”

“Everything does not depend, however, on your going alone on an old fishing boat,” Arif said. A waiter set down appetizers in front of each of them. She flicked a smile up into the waiter’s impassive face. She had so far, apparently, not thought Arif worth such a smile.

“There’s no
time
to find anyone to come along, no time
or
money to get them out here from the U.K.” she said. Her voice deepened almost to a growl. She was struggling against tears, as if frustrated by her failure to make him understand. “The turtle females have already been laying for over six weeks. There may be hatchlings already, and they need protection.
My
protection. I’m already two days behind schedule. It’s me alone or it’s nothing.” She broke off and breathed deep, and when she spoke again her voice was calmer. “And it’s not going to be nothing if I can help it. So please—tell me why I’m here.”

“The Sultan offers you
Dhikra
, with crew, for the necessary time,” Arif said, and watched her face.

She frowned, the two dark, level eyebrows coming together almost into a single flat line, giving her an engaging air, like a troubled
peri.
And now he understood the old tales of enchantment. The
peri
who appeared and disappeared in remote parts, enticing human men to abandon the world.

“He offers me what? What’s
thick raw
?” Then her face changed so suddenly and completely he had to laugh.

“Dhikra?”
she repeated the name incredulously. She glanced to left and right, as if to reassure herself that the world was still there. “This yacht? To do what?”

“You may sail the islands of the gulf in
Dhikra
for the duration of your research program,” he said. “Some crew will be specially designated as your research assistants.”

Aly Percy swallowed, dropped her fork
, and flung herself back in her chair, staring at him almost in reproach.

“You’re joking, right? You’re playing a game with me?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I am perfectly serious. As is His Royal Highness.”

She propped her elbows on the table, dropped her chin onto the little bridge of her linked hands. Her smile stretched her lower lip into a perfect curve. He was reminded of his dream. His hand tightened on his glass.

“Well, thank you, and thank His Highness, but I really do prefer
Oneira.
Which is, actually, much better suited to the purpose. Is it possible His Highness doesn’t quite grasp the nature of what we are doing?”

“He understands that it is less than ideal, of course.
Dhikra
is large for your purposes.”

“Yes, you might say tha—”

“But as it happens,
Dhikra
has had a cancellation for almost the whole of the relevant period, and the deposit is forfeit.” He interrupted. “No other boat is at the Sultan’s disposal so readily.”

She looked at him from under those level brows. “I heard it, but I didn’t believe it. The Sultan leases his personal yacht to holiday makers?”

“When he does not need it for state occasions,
Dhikra
is for hire,” he agreed.

“That’s pretty extraordinary, isn’t it?”

“If you mean that the Sultan should leave a yacht such as this unused for ten months of the year as testament to his ego, I say that would be far more extraordinary. The Sultan holds his wealth for the people, and for future generations. The yacht is useful on certain state occasions, and for times when the Sultan and Sultana wish to holiday out of the public eye. The rest of the time, it is an asset of the people of Bagestan, and we capitalize on it.”

“Well, I have nothing to say.” She took a mouthful of food and chewed. “Except, what a pity they didn’t think of doing that with
Britannia
before they dumped her. And again, my thanks to His Royal Highness, but
Dhikra
is so totally unsuited to my purposes that it would be completely counter-productive.”

He had expected wild gratitude, not pig-headed resistance.

“Counter-productive,” he repeated evenly. This woman got under his skin. His grip on his glass tightened and he gazed at his own hand till he was sure of his self-control. Then he let his gaze flick over her. “Would you care to explain?”

Aly waved a hand. “Did you see them on the dock back there? All those people gathering to gawk at the Sultan’s yacht and whoever emerged from it? Now try to imagine that scene taking place on one of the smaller islands, Your Excellency.
Dhikra
pulls into a tiny little bay, and every tourist, every inhabitant of the island comes to take a look. What do you think happens to the beach sand in such a situation?”

Arif shrugged. “A few people gather on the beach to stare. How does it matter? You will soon learn to ignore it.”

She smiled that curving smile again, finished the last mouthful of her appetizer and sat back as the waiter removed her dish. She crossed her arms and gazed at him.

“How do you think we track the turtle nests and the hatchlings, Your Excellency? The turtles aren’t micro-chipped, you know. We track them by observing the marks the female makes as she moves up out of the sea and digs the sand. Get even a few humans running over the sand to obliterate those subtle marks and that is a nest lost to us. And as for any hatchlings trying to make their way to the sea…we’d have at worst gawkers trampling them underfoot and at best well-meaning people picking them up and helping them into the ocean, which will kill them just as surely.”