Gail Dayton - Hide-And-Sheikh

But the game was not over yet.

And she had promised him they could talk later, if he wished. Rudi definitely wished to talk much more with Miss Ellen Sheffield.

Ellen Sheffield was the best at what she did.

At least, she used to be, before she met that too-handsome-for-her-own-good son of a sheikh. His movie-star face kept popping into her head, complete with that obnoxious grin. The one that made him look even more handsome. No matter how hard she tried to dismiss him as a lightweight, tell herself the grin was goofy and the man uninteresting, his voice would whisper in her mind’s ear, A person cannot drink oil. And she’d wonder if he still wanted to talk.

Because, however many times she told herself she didn’t want to see him, she couldn’t forget that he had actually wanted to delay going upstairs at the hotel. He’d invited her into the bar. He’d seen past the mask to the person behind her polished facade, the first man to bother looking in years. Maybe ever.

When she was little, she’d been merely “the Sheffield boys’ sister.” Then she’d grown breasts, and her brothers’ friends had done nothing but stare at them. Until her brothers beat them up.

None of the boys in high school had dared ask her out, and with a policeman for a brother, none of the men in the academy had, either. So she’d had no preparation for Davis’s practiced seduction when she’d met him at a book signing just after she’d finished her course.

Ellen sighed. Davis had been such an overwhelming experience that she’d agreed to marry him before she realized what kind of man he was. Before she realized what kind of woman he wanted. He wanted a decorative, expensive toy to show off to his friends, not a person. Ellen’s opinions, desires, thoughts and wishes had all been dismissed as unimportant. Her career was immaterial. Davis expected her to drop everything and dance to his tune.

When she’d broken the engagement, his “friends” had moved in, all of them wanting the same thing: a beautiful woman to show off. She’d learned then how to use her appearance as a tool, a weapon against them. That skill had benefited her career, both in the police department and since. Vic Campanello, her partner on the job and her current boss, called her his secret weapon. Which was why she’d been tapped to find Prince Rudi the Gorgeous.

She didn’t want to think about him, didn’t want him popping into her head. He might have noticed the devil in her eyes, but he couldn’t care anymore. Not now, not after she’d put him back into his gilded cage.

Ellen got out of the cab and slammed the door. Then she overtipped the driver because she felt guilty for taking out her guilt on his cab. She had not betrayed Rudi, or Rashid, or whatever the man wanted to call himself. She had probably saved his life. He had no business wandering around New York on his own, not with terrorists stalking Qarif’s ruling family, of which Rudi was most definitely a member.

The terrorists had been a problem in Qarif for most of Rudi’s life, but lately things had changed, according to Campanello. The old leader had been captured, and the new, more militant leader had vowed vengeance for the captivity, even though he was probably the one who’d tipped the authorities off.

Rudi might be used to the terrorist threat, but that didn’t mean there was no danger. Ellen’s job was to protect him from that danger, and she had absolutely no reason to feel guilty for doing her job.

Summer flowers bloomed in beds lining the paths, but they might as well have been weeds for all the attention Ellen paid them as she headed into Central Park. She checked her watch and picked up her pace. If she didn’t hurry, she’d be late for her meeting.

Swainson Security had been hired to provide security for a music video to be shot in Central Park sometime in the next month, and she was supposed to meet with the producer, the director, the group’s manager and whoever else thought they needed a finger in the pie, to check out locations. She much preferred this kind of work to tracking down spoiled dilettantes. Though she had to admit that finding Rudi had been a challenge. She did enjoy a good challenge.

Campanello had told her this morning he had a new assignment for her, one that would begin immediately after this meeting. Maybe it would offer something tough enough to keep her mind off Qarif’s prince. The fact that the boss wouldn’t tell her what the new job was, however, made her suspect that it might have something to do with said prince.

Ellen ground her teeth, then curled her lips up in what she hoped resembled a smile more than a snarl 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.”