manage whatever it is.’
There was that word again...
She’d been managed her whole life.
‘You really have a thing for control, don’t you?’ Which was tantamount to waving a red tea towel at the bull of her capricious nature.
He shrugged. ‘I’m paid to control our environment.’
Her environment, for the next four weeks.
‘Okay...’ Four weeks was a long time, she needed to lighten things up a bit. ‘Courtesy, cooperation, respect and emergency protocol. I think we’ve covered everything. Except maybe a safe word? I vote for “capsicum”.’
His dark brows folded. ‘Capsicum?’
‘You know...in case either of us needs out of this arrangement at any time?’
If she thought the muscles of his face capable of it, she would have pegged that tiny twist on the right of his mouth as a smile. Probably just gas. Except then he really blew her mind by making a joke.
Kind of.
‘What if you’re ordering at a restaurant and you say it?’ he queried, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
Her perception of him shifted just a little. In an upward direction.
‘I’ll call them peppers.’
‘And if you’re planting a garden?’
She matched his straight face. ‘In the deserts of Umm Khoreem?’
‘What if you’re picking out wall colours?’
She laid her hand on her heart. ‘I pledge to do no interior decorating until this month is up.’
His eyes returned to hers and—miracle of miracles—they were just a hint warmer than before. More bark of oak and less Thames in winter.
‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘Capsicum it is.’
Why did it feel good to have had a small win over this man, even in jest? And exactly when had it started feeling a little bit like flirting?
THE MORE SHE SPOKE, the more comfortable Brad felt about the month ahead. This wasn’t some helpless princess who would flap her hands every time something didn’t go her way. She wasn’t the needy type. She might well end up being a pain in his butt but at least she wouldn’t be looking to him for any kind of rescue. As far as he could see, this gig was more about protecting her from herself.
Still, she was celebrity offspring and he was a pro and so, out of habit, his eyes scanned the many expensive vehicles keeping pace with them at two hundred clicks on the highway away from Kafr Falaj. Each one with extra dark window tinting that obscured its occupants. Once, that would have made him twitchy, but this was Umm Khoreem—there was an oil-rich sea between here and any of the conflict hotspots he’d ever been stationed. And he was here keeping an eye on some rock star’s kid, not enforcing sanctions or protecting UN personnel.
Those days were behind him.
He cracked his knuckles and slid his eyes back to his client. Sera had made quite a meal of studying the endless desert since the whole ground-rules conversation had limped to a civil halt between them, and her eyes were still fixed on the massive dunes in the distance as they sped along the Al Dhinn highway.
His mind flashed up the client sheet that her London-based security firm had provided.
Seraphina Blaise. Twenty-four years old, daughter of a middle-aged Goth frontman who’d been performing live for most of Brad’s own youth and still was today. A punishing and relentless schedule that kept his band, The Ravens, at the top of the charts whenever they released anything. Blaise didn’t really seem old enough to have an adult daughter, but who knew with these rock types—they started their careers young, or made their mistakes early. Whichever.
His daughter’s file was full of labels like ‘ardent’ and ‘rash’ but also ‘committed’ and ‘loyal’. And ‘damaged’. There were screenshots about her very public arrest earlier in the year mixed amongst older citations for volunteering, academic excellence and her talent as a photographer. So which was true? He had citations—a drawer full of them—and they didn’t necessarily make him a better person.
Maybe he’d be better off ignoring what was in Sera’s file and conducting his own assessment.
Her tongue might be a little sharp but it worked for a pretty switched-on brain; not everyone called him out as thoroughly as she had just now. It was hard not to respect a pre-emptive striker even if she was overly cranky. She’d just been detained by one of the toughest and touchiest governments in the world—he’d throw her a bone on that one.
She’d been carved by some kind of post-modern sculptor. A whole bunch of mismatched parts that came together into an intriguingly curious package. Everything about her was long. Her face, her jaw, her nose. Hair. Fingers. Legs. It reminded him of Al Saqr’s best Arab horses but still managed to be feminine. It shouldn’t really work together but somehow it did, leaving her more...striking than classically pretty. She didn’t accessorise with copious amounts of jewellery the way most of her flight had; other than the silver clasps on her flimsy blouse, the treacle-brown hair tumbling down over her bare shoulders was all the decoration she needed.
On the other hand, she’d swanned into a conservative country with her arms and shoulders bare. Ordinarily, he would have chalked that up to cultural ignorance, but in Sera... He found it hard to imagine that she hadn’t read up on the region she was visiting. It was almost as if she was challenging Umm Khoreem to a silent social debate.
Maybe she was. Her file was full of protests and causes and righteous indignation about one thing or another.
For the second time in forty minutes, Brad hit the indicator to change lanes, and he navigated the SUV around and under the highway to reach the start of Al Saqr’s access road. He let the massive vehicle own the road; when the resort was as exclusive and private as Al Saqr, oncoming traffic was rarely an issue.
Sera sat up straighter to see what was ahead. The composed woman he’d seen at the airport was morphing, with every stretch of her long neck, into a different creature. A more excited, engaged, relaxed woman.
Or maybe the desert was just wielding its subtle magic already. It was good like that.
‘Still fifteen minutes,’ Brad murmured, and she slumped back into her seat like an impatient teen. He forced himself not to smile. ‘Is this your first desert?’
‘Not counting ones I’ve flown over? Yes.’
‘Whatever you’re expecting,’ he murmured, ‘you’re wrong.’
Her eyebrows raised, but she didn’t bite. She peered, instead, out the front of the vehicle at the vast...nothing...that was ahead of them.
Five minutes later, he pulled to a halt at Al Saqr’s armed boundary checkpoint. Per the regulations, the guard came out and eyeballed the whole
