as the band’s manager turned to greet her. Time to go to work.
Rudi stared at the piece of paper in front of him on the polished table without actually seeing it or anything it said. It was Wednesday. Hump Day, as they had called it when he was in college in Texas, and probably everywhere else in the United States. If he could make it past Wednesday, it was a downhill slide to the weekend. Only, the weekend would be no better, trapped as he was by his bodyguards and big brother Ibrahim.
Rudi felt Ibrahim’s glower and ignored it. He pulled his hand inside the sleeve of his djellaba and discreetly scratched his thigh. Ibrahim had insisted on traditional dress for the negotiations today, to remind the other parties just who they dealt with. Rudi stuck his hand back out and took yet another sip of water. Maybe he could escape to the rest room for a few minutes, if he drank enough water.
He had no idea why he had to be at this forsaken meeting anyway. It was not as if he could contribute anything but another body. Ibrahim’s wife or one of his children now in New York could contribute as much. Rudi would happily trade places with Kalila and escort the children to museums and even opera, while she sat in on her husband’s meetings. They were about finance and numbers, dollars and marks and yen and things he knew nothing about. Did not want to know about.
Give him a piece of ground, a “Christmas tree” rig and a couple of roughnecks to handle the steel, and he could bring in the well. He could even tell you if the piece of ground might produce anything, whether water, oil or gas. But high finance could kill him. If Rudi got any more bored, his heart just might forget to beat, fall asleep just like the rest of him. Although if he actually dozed off, Ibrahim would be the one to kill him.
He had sworn off thinking about her. This resolution had lasted about as long as every other resolution he had ever made. Maybe an entire hour. He needed something to do that would keep him awake, so he began to plot his revenge on Ellen Sheffield. Most of the plots involved isolated tents in the desert, paved with thick, soft carpets and plenty of pillows, and thin, gauzy, semitransparent clothing. Better yet, no clothing at all.
Not that the plots would ever come to fruition. It had been ten days since Ellen had turned him back over to the loving, suffocating arms of his family like a runaway schoolboy, and he still had no hint how to find her. Her company “did not give out personal information,” as he had been told several times over by the annoying, perky-voiced receptionist. His dream girl might have been just that—a dream—for all he was able to learn about her. He had held her in his arms, only to have her vanish like a mirage in the sands.
“What is your opinion, Prince Rashid?”
One of the suits around the table asked him a question, and Rudi had no idea what he was supposed to have an opinion about. Even if he had heard the discussion, he would not have understood it. He moved his leg out of reach of Ibrahim’s potential kick under the table.
“I am in complete agreement with my brother,” he said, which was true. Ibrahim knew about this kind of thing. Rudi wished he would take care of it and stop making him sit through this agony.
Finally, after another eternity of congratulations and chitchat and backslapping, the deal apparently made, the meeting ended. Rudi headed for the elevators, only to be halted by his brother calling him back.
“Rashid, are you not joining us for lunch?” Ibrahim looked surprised, maybe even wounded by Rudi’s apparent defection. “To celebrate the success of our negotiations. Come.”
Allah forfend. Rudi stifled his shudder. He could not take another hour of high finance, not another minute. He had been to lunch with these men before. He knew what they talked about.
“Forgive me, brother. It has been a long morning, and I feel a bit under the weather.”
“Are you ill?” Genuine concern colored Ibrahim’s voice.
Rudi was grateful once more that he was merely the seventh son of his father, and not the ninth and youngest. If young Hasim stubbed a toe, the flags in Qarif went to half-mast. Ibrahim would have panicked.
“Merely tired.” Rudi said. “I will catch a cab back to the hotel.”
“You will take the car. And Omar.”
“Very well. I will take the car.” Rudi did not mention that Omar was back at the hotel with a severe case of traveler’s trouble, and had only consented to stay in bed because of Ibrahim’s own bodyguards. This could be his chance to make a break for it.
Maybe they would send Ellen after him again.
Rudi was whistling by the time he reached the garage.
He slouched in the back seat of the bulletproof, bombproof, escapeproof car, and plotted his escape. Without Omar, or any of the rent-a-bodies, it ought to be relatively easy. He had received a phone call from Buckingham, saying that everything was ready and just waiting for him. He could get the driver to drop him at the hotel, catch a cab to the heliport and take a helicopter to the airport. He could be gone without anyone knowing it. Perhaps they would send Ellen after him again. Perhaps he would allow her to find him.
But not in Buckingham. No one knew about Buckingham, and that was the way he wanted it.
Then he sat up straight, his attention captured by a woman in the park as the car inched along in the near-noon traffic. It was Ellen. It had to be. No other woman could possibly possess that precise combination of sun-kissed hair and million-dollar legs.
She was talking with an odd collection of mostly men. Or rather Ellen stood near them while they talked. She did not seem to be paying much attention, looking at her surroundings, until one of the men put his arm around her. Ellen moved away from his arm, but listened to what he had to say, nodding now and again.
The car moved a few feet ahead, leaving Ellen and the rest of the group walking slowly the other way. Rudi turned to watch, swearing when his view was blocked by a horse and rider.
In that instant, a plan sprang full-grown into his head. He had always wanted to sweep a woman off her feet and carry her away on horseback, like his great-grandfathers had surely once done. He was even dressed for it, in his desert robes.
“Stop.” Rudi didn’t wait for the driver to comply. The car was barely moving as he opened the door. “I will be back in five minutes, perhaps ten.”
He caught up with the horseback rider in a few quick steps, wondering if he ought to rethink his plan. This horse seemed to have little in common with the fiery animals in his father’s stables. He caught the beast’s rein, startling a little shriek from its rider, a slightly plump, barely pubescent girl with braces and red frizz under a white helmet.
“Hello, might I borrow your horse?” Rudi borrowed Ibrahim’s Oxford accent. It seemed to play better dressed as he was. “I wish to surprise my fiancée.” The lie rolled easily from his lips. “By sweeping her away in the manner of my ancestors.”
The girl gulped and giggled. Rudi captured her hand. “Surely someone of your sensibility would be willing to assist in my romantic endeavors.” His ploy seemed to be working on the horse’s rider.
“I’ve only got an hour to ride,” she said.
“I only need the barest minute.” Rudi glanced over his shoulder. Ellen and her party were retreating deeper into the park. In a moment they would be out of sight. “Please. My heart will be devastated if you do not allow me the use of your steed for
