Ellen had to get this done and get out quickly, before she got in over her head. It was for his own good. And for hers. They’d both be better off if she just got it over with now.
“I have a better idea.” Still holding his shirt, Ellen caught Rudi’s hand and led him from the dance floor.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” She threw him one of her patented mysterious smiles, her hair swinging around her shoulders.
Rudi followed her out of the warehouse, bemused by his luck. Ellen was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in his entire life, and he’d seen a lot of beautiful women. But they never came on to him like this. Not to Rudi.
Only Rashid ibn Saqr ibn Faruq al Mukhtar Qarif could get women at the snap of his fingers. And then it was the money and the power that attracted them, not the man.
Money and power were as much of an illusion as Rashid. Or maybe Rudi was the illusion. Sometimes he wasn’t sure which of his personas was the real one. But he did know that the money and the power belonged to his father, not to him.
Down the street outside the warehouse, Ellen hailed a taxi. The streetlight gleamed along her slender, mile-high legs as she got in. Rudi stared, half-hypnotized, until Ellen leaned out the open car door.
“Are you coming?” she asked, a smile curving her luscious pink lips. A smile that promised nothing and everything at the same time, that dared him to find out what secrets hid behind it.
He shouldn’t. He had doubtless terrified and infuriated his family enough, vanishing as he had. The bombs back in Qarif were real. The terrorists were real. But the terrorists were still in Qarif, trying to transform the country into a miniature Afghanistan. This woman could not possibly be a terrorist. Just look at her.
Rudi followed his own suggestion as she waited without a hint of impatience for him to make up his mind. She was a blond goddess, a Valkyrie escaped from Wagner’s opera. Her straight dark gold hair spilled over her shoulders like yesterday’s sunlight, streaked with the brighter shine of tomorrow’s dawn. Long thick lashes shaded eyes whose color he couldn’t decipher in the uncertain light. A high forehead, straight narrow nose, prominent cheekbones and full mouth completed her classically beautiful face.
But it was not the beauty of her face or her sleek athlete’s body beneath the simple black dress that drew him. Perhaps it was the hint of mischief in her eyes, or the mystery in her smile, the feeling that she played some secret game and he did not know the rules. She challenged him, dared him to play. Rudi had never been able to pass up a dare.
He stepped off the curb and got in the cab. Satisfaction flickered across Ellen’s face a brief second before she hid it behind that smile. Rudi did not object. She had won only one hand. He intended to win the game.
“So, Rudi.” Ellen leaned back in the corner of the cab opposite him. “What do you do?”
“I dig holes.” At least, he wanted to. His family did their level best to keep him in a nice, clean office where he couldn’t play in the dirt.
Ellen’s eyebrow arched. “Really.”
Would she back off now, thinking him no more than a ditchdigger?
“Holes, as in the Lincoln Tunnel?” she asked. “Or holes as in—” She waved at a construction site vanishing behind them, where bulldozers would have clawed deep into the earth to set the foundation before the steel frame started up.
“Holes as in wells. For water, oil—whatever is hiding down there.”
Ellen’s expression changed, as if she were impressed in spite of herself. At least, Rudi hoped that was what it meant.
“You dig oil wells?” She stretched a long, elegant arm along the back of the seat.
Rudi started to agree, then changed his mind. Tell her the truth, see how that impressed her. If it did. “Actually, I prefer drilling for water. A person cannot drink oil.”
“You can’t run a car on water.”
“Not now.” Rudi grinned. “Give the scientists some time. If they ever finish their fusion reactor research, we could be pulling up to the garden hose to fill our cars with fuel.”
She watched him with that enigmatic smile on her face, saying nothing. Rudi did not know if that meant she wanted to know more or was bored to tears. But he did not handle silence well.
“Of course, you can make more money drilling oil wells, but…” Rudi shrugged. “The people who need water generally need it more.”
Ellen’s smile changed, became warmer and yet sad at the same time. This smile still hid secrets, but it seemed more genuine. “You’re a nice man, Rudi,” she said. “I like you.”
Stunned, Rudi didn’t realize the cab had stopped until Ellen got out. Scrambling to follow her beckoning gesture, he found himself on the sidewalk in front of an upscale hotel. Ellen linked her arm through his and strolled past the doorman into the gilt-and-marble lobby.
She led him past the desk, past the plush brocade chairs, past the opening to the dimly lit bar, to the elevators between the potted palms where she pushed the up button. Rudi’s second thoughts kicked in.
Not that he objected to the idea of going up to Ellen’s room and “getting to know her better.” But he did not know her. She probably was no terrorist. Then again, she might be. Or she might be a thief, with a partner upstairs waiting to cosh him over the head and steal everything he had in his pockets, which by now was not much, since he had been away from the family coffers for more than a week.
Or she might be the best thing he had ever happened across in his life.
He was used to women throwing themselves at him, wanting to be seen with him for his name, or his money, or because they liked the way he looked. Their motivations had always been transparent to him, and he’d usually been willing to give them what they wanted—a little pleasure for the moment, a little thrill, a little pampering. They were easy. So easy that lately he hadn’t bothered.
But this woman was different. She intrigued him. She challenged him by holding her secrets so close. She was all mystery and potential and wide-open possibility.
In which case, he did not want to ruin it by rushing into sex with her. He wanted to know more, know everything about her, how she thought, what made her laugh and cry. That took time. If he went upstairs with her now, Rudi very much feared he wouldn’t get that time.
“Ellen, why do we not go into the bar? Have a drink. Talk.” He tipped his head toward the dark, cavelike entrance.
Something that might have been surprise flashed in her eyes before it vanished behind that sexy, enigmatic smile. Rudi began to hate that smile.
“Why?” She slid her hand up his arm to his shoulder and trailed her fingers down his chest.
“I wish to talk to you.” He caught the hand resting on his chest and kissed her fingertips. Then he touched the corner of her mouth.
Her smile slipped, just a little.
“I want to find the woman behind
