what do they call them? I feel like such an ugly American, calling them ‘headpieces.’ I know what a kimono is, Jim, I know what a kilt is—I even know the proper name for those shorts some Europeans wear on special occasions, although the name escapes me at the moment. So why don’t I know what those headdresses are called? Laziness, that’s what it is. Sheer laziness on my part. I should be ashamed of myself.”
Jim rolled his eyes. “I don’t think that’s important right now, Eden. What’s important is that this Nadim fellow is back at the hotel, sick from the flight or something, and that the sheikh is here on his own, and making one hell of a mess out of six months of our hard work. Why couldn’t this Nadim guy just have postponed the meeting? Why do we have to have this big shot, know-nothing Sheikh of Ara-bee here to screw up the works?”
Pulling herself back from the inanity of trying to calm her badly jangled nerves by thinking about headpieces, Eden did her best to slip into her professional role. Jim wasn’t exactly known for his social skills, and he had just crossed the line.
“One, Jim,” she began firmly, “you’re out of line. Two, you’re still out of line. Unless you want to be that redneck ‘y’all’ lawyer from Texas, and I don’t think you like insults any more than anyone else does. Third—how so? How is everything going wrong? Today’s meeting should have been nothing more than a formality. All the bugs were worked out months ago.”
“Got you, Eden. That was stupid. I’m sorry.” Morris raked a hand through his thinning hair, hair he wore three inches too long in the back in an effort to make the world believe he owned more of it. Eden noticed, withholding a grimace, that he’d had his hair permed since she’d seen him last. Talk about someone who could benefit from one of those headdresses!
She mentally shook herself, once more tried to keep her mind on what was important. Tried to pretend her private world wasn’t falling apart.
“All right, Jim. We’ll forget it. Now, as I said, we should be ready for some signing on the dotted line this morning, shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you. You thought so, I thought so, everybody in our firm thought so,” Morris grumbled. “But it turns out the sheikh—this Ramir fellow—is a lawyer of some kind himself, educated at Yale, if you can believe that. A Yalie! He’s got, like, a million questions. We need you, Harvard. Harvard always beats Yale, right?”
“What do you want me to do, Jim? Threaten to tackle him? Besides, I saw Klinger out there, right?” Eden protested, feeling the urge to bolt sliding over her again. This was too much. Too much information, too many memories, too many fears. They were all crowding in on her, bearing her down, crushing her.
She could barely think. “Surely Klinger can handle this. We’re just here for decoration at this point, Jim, and you know that. As I said, a few comments, a lot of ego-kissing, some signing on the dotted line, and we’re outta here.”
“How interesting, Ms. Fortune. And who will be kissing my…ego?”
Eden closed her eyes, wishing the action could make her disappear. The way he’d disappeared so many years ago.
“Oh, God,” she breathed almost soundlessly, looking at Jim Morris, whose thin features had turned the color of putty. Then she squared her shoulders, turned around, and looked straight into Ben Ramsey’s eyes. Into Sheikh Barakah Karif Ramir’s dark, mocking eyes.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” she said quickly. “As you can imagine, you weren’t supposed to overhear my associate and me talking. I apologize.”
Ben kept looking at her. Staring at her. Staring straight through her. With Sawyer’s eyes, damn him.
“You may go now,” he said rather imperiously. “Closing the door behind you as you leave—something you might have considered earlier.”
Jim Morris knew he’d been the one addressed, even though the “Ramir fellow” was still looking at Eden. He didn’t hesitate in escaping the small room. Rats deserting a sinking ship moved slower than he did as he left Eden alone to face the insulted Sheikh of Kharmistan.
Ben took two steps in Eden’s direction.
She backed up an equal two paces, until she could feel the edge of the table against her hips. She placed her hands on either side of her, holding on to that edge, her posture definitely one of defense rather than offense.
Which was stupid. The last thing she wanted to do was to look in the least vulnerable.
“You are looking well, Eden,” Ben said, touching a hand to the soft, snow-white material that made up his headdress. He should have looked silly, or pretentious, dressed in his gray Armani suit, the headpiece held in place by two coils of something that looked very much like gold-wrapped silk, the edges of the material flowing over his shoulders.
But he didn’t look silly. He looked wonderful. Dark, and mysterious, and somehow larger than life. Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, but photographed in sepia tones. His eyes as dark as any Arabian night. His features chiseled from desert rock weathered by desert winds. His tall form muscular but not musclebound. His movements measured, graceful.
His hands…well, she already knew about his hands.
“And you. You’re…um…you’re looking well,” she answered at last, then cleared her throat. Maybe the action would help her to breathe. But she doubted it. “You knew I’d be here today?”
“Yes, Eden, I did. A knowledge you obviously did not share.”
Eden’s temper hit her then, like a sharp slap on the back meant to dislodge a bit of stuck fish bone, or pride. “You’re right, Your Highness. I had no knowledge that you’d be here today. That Ben Ramsey would be here today.”
He bowed slightly, from the waist. A regal inclination, certainly no gesture that her words had impacted him, no sign of any reaction that had even a nodding acquaintance with the word “embarrassed.”
She longed to clobber him with something hard and heavy.
And then he really blew her mind…
“Very well,” he said coldly. “If you wish to play the ignorant, Eden, I suppose I am willing to listen as you tangle your tongue in knots, trying to deny that you did not know who I was—who I am. Or is your memory truly that faulty, that you forgot my letters, my explanations. That you forgot to answer those letters, just as you chose to forget me, forget Paris.”
“Letters? What letters? The only letter I ever received from you was the note you left on the bed. Let’s see, I think I still remember it. ‘Eden, darling. I have been called home. Stay where you are, I shall contact you, explain everything as I should have at the beginning.’ You signed it with love, as I recall.”
She knew very well how he had signed the note, because she had kept it, for all of these years. It was all she could ever give Sawyer of his father.
The anger was back, cold and hard. “Did I know you were really a sheikh, Ben? How in hell was I supposed to know that? By reading between the lines of that note?”
When he said nothing, she stepped away from the table, picking up her attaché case as she headed past him toward the door. “I waited, Ben. I waited for nearly two weeks, long past the time I’d planned to return home, nearly too late to begin my next law school term. I waited, and
