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He should have kept her in Rayas when she’d showed up there last month. Though he supposed canceling her visa and locking her up might have caused an international incident. And, at the time, he had been as anxious to get rid of her as she was to leave.
“Your Royal Highness?” A voice came over the intercom of the Gulfstream. “We’ll be landing at Teterboro in a few minutes.”
“Thank you, Hari,” Raif responded. He straightened in the white leather seat, stretching the circulation back into his legs.
“I can show you the town while we’re here,” said Raif’s cousin Tariq, gazing out his own window at the Manhattan skyline. Tariq had spent three years at Harvard, coming away with a law degree.
Raif’s father, King Safwah, believed that an international education for the extended royal family would strengthen Rayas. Raif himself had spent two years at Oxford, studying history and politics. He’d visited many countries in Europe and Asia, but this was his first trip to America.
“We’re not here to do the town,” he pointed out to Tariq.
Tariq responded with a lascivious grin and a quirk of his dark brows. “American woman are not like Rayasian women.”
“We’re not here to chase women.” Well, not plural anyway. They were here to chase and catch one particular woman. And then Raif was going to make her talk.
“There’s this one restaurant that overlooks Central Park, and—”
“You want me to send you home?” Raif demanded.
“I want you to lighten up.” Tariq was Raif’s third cousin, but still an important player in the Rayasian royal circle. It gave him the right to be more forthright than others when speaking to Raif. But only to a point.
“We’re here to find the Gold Heart statue,” Raif stated firmly.
“We have to eat.”
“We have to focus.”
“And we’ll do that a whole lot better with sustenance, such as maple glazed salmon and matsutake mushrooms.”
“You should have been a litigator,” Raif grumbled, fastening his seat belt as the landing gear whined then clunked into place. The two men had been friends since childhood, and he doubted he’d ever beaten Tariq in an argument.
Tariq leaned his head back in his seat, bracing himself for the landing. “I would have been a litigator. But the king objected.”
“When I am king, you’ll never be a litigator.”
“When you are king, I am seeking asylum in Dubai.”
Both men fought grins.
“Unless I can get you to lighten up,” Tariq finished. “Maybe get you a girl.”
“I can get my own girls.” Raif needed to be discreet, of course, but he was no fan of celibacy.
The wheels of the Gulfstream touched smoothly onto the runway, its brakes engaging as they sped through the blowing December snow. He would never understand how such a pivotal city had grown up in a place with such appalling weather.
“There’s this club off Fifth Avenue,” said Tariq.
“I’m not in New York to get girls.”
Even as he spoke, Raif couldn’t seem to stop his thoughts from drifting to Ann Richardson. He’d been a fool to kiss her, a bigger fool to like it. And he’d been a colossal fool to let their single kiss get so far out of hand.
When he closed his eyes at night, he could still see her wispy blond hair, that delicate, creamy skin, and her startling blue eyes. He could taste her hot, sweet lips and smell her vanilla perfume.
The Gulfstream slowed and turned, and finally rolled to a stop inside an airport hangar. The ground crew closed the huge door behind them against the cold weather.
When the airplane hatch opened, Raif and Tariq descended the small staircase. A few sounds echoed in the cavernous building—the door clanging into place, a heater whirring in the high ceiling and the ground crew calling to each other in the far corners. Beside the airplane, Raif and Tariq were greeted by the Rayasian ambassador, a couple of aides and some security staff.
Raif appreciated the low-key reception. He knew it was only a matter of time before his every trip would become a state occasion. Though still in his mid-sixties, his father had been ill for some time with the remnants of a tropical disease contracted decades ago in central Africa. These past few months had been hard on the king, and Raif was becoming more worried by the day that his father might not recover this time.
“Your Royal Highness.” The ambassador greeted him with a formal bow. He was dressed in the traditional white robe of Rayas, his gray hair partially covered in a white cap.
Raif detected a slight narrowing of the ambassador’s eyes as he took in Raif’s Western suit.
But the man kept his thoughts to himself. “Welcome to America” was all he added.
“Thank you, Fariol.” Raif shook the man’s hand, rather than embracing him and air kissing as was the Rayasian custom. “You’ve arranged for a car?”
“Of course.” Fariol gestured to a stretch Hummer limousine.
Raif raised a brow. “I believe my office said nondescript.”
Fariol frowned. “There are no flags, no royal seals on the doors, no Rayasian markings whatsoever.”
Raif heard Tariq shift beside him and guessed he was covering a smirk.
“I meant I wanted a sedan. Something plain and inconspicuous. Maybe something I could drive myself.”
Fariol drew back in obvious confusion. The younger aide beside him stepped up to speak in his ear. “I can arrange it right away, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Please do,” Raif said directly to the aide, earning himself another censorious expression from the ambassador.
The aide nodded and quickly withdrew, pulling a phone from his pocket.
Fariol turned his attention away from Raif. “Sheik Tariq,” he said.
It was a slight but very intentional snub. It was the crown prince who ended a conversation, not an ambassador.
Tariq gave Raif a fleeting, meaningful glance, silently acknowledging the break in protocol before responding. “Mr. Ambassador. Thank you for welcoming us.”
“Do you know when you’ll be returning to Rayas?”
Tariq paused for half a second, putting on an exaggerated expression of surprise. “When the crown prince decides it’s time for us to leave America, of course.”
The answer was an obvious rebuke of Fariol’s attitude, and Raif had to suppress his own grin. Tariq might be overly familiar and opinionated in private. But in front of others, he paid strict adherence to the Rayasian royal hierarchy.
The aide rushed back. “Your car will be here in just a few minutes. A Mercedes sedan. S-Class. I hope that will please Your Royal Highness.”
“That will be fine,” Raif answered. He turned to Tariq. “Think you can get that address?”
Tariq looked to one of the security guards. “Jordan?”
The man stepped forward. “We’re good to go, sir.”
Jordan Jones was an American security specialist who’d become friends with Tariq after they met at Harvard. Raif had never met Jordan in person before, but he’d heard stories over the years that gave him a good deal of confidence in the man’s abilities.
The bay door clattered partway open, and a steel-gray Mercedes sedan drove inside. Instantly, the flight crew appeared with the royal party’s luggage, waiting as the vehicle came to a halt in front of Raif.
“That will be all, Fariol.” Raif dismissed the ambassador with a curt nod, striding around the front of the car. Tariq and Jordan immediately fell into step.
“I’ll drive.” Raif held out his hand for the keys as a man appeared from the driver’s seat.
“Sir?” Jordan prompted, arching a brow in Tariq’s direction.
Glancing over his shoulder, presumably to ensure Fariol and his staff were out of earshot, Tariq spoke in a low tone. “You don’t want to drive, Raif.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
The driver glanced from one man to the other. He was American, an employee of the rental company. In Rayas, there would have been no hesitation about who would win the argument. Raif’s word there was law.
“Who’s the prince around here?” Raif demanded of Tariq.
“Which one of us has driven in Manhattan?” Tariq countered.
“I’ll drive,” Jordan put in, deftly scooping the keys from the driver. He kept moving right past the surprised American, opening the back door of the sedan, turning to meet Raif’s eyes. “Foreign royalty in the back. Brooklyn native at the wheel.”
“You’re pretty cocky,” Raif said to Jordan.
“You know it...sir.”
Raif followed Tariq to the backseat door. “In my country, I could have you beheaded,” Raif lied.
“In my country, I could abandon you in Washington Heights.” Jordan paused. “Same thing, really.”
Raif couldn’t help but grin as he got into the car. He didn’t have a problem with people speaking truth to power, so long as they did it respectfully or in private. He was willing to concede that a born and raised New Yorker could probably get them to Ann Richardson’s apartment faster than he could.
Jordan closed the back door of the car and then folded his big body into the driver’s seat as the trunk clicked shut on their luggage.
“I understand you’re at the Plaza,” he said, adjusting the rearview mirror. “Their service is impeccable, and their security is tight.”
“Nobody knows I’m here,” said Raif. Security wasn’t going to be an issue on the trip.
“Interpol knows you’re here,” Jordan responded. “Your passport sends off sirens and flashing lights in their Manhattan office.”
Tariq chuckled.
“So does yours,” Jordan warned Tariq.
“Interpol’s got nothing against me,” said Raif.
“They’ll worry someone else does.”
“The only person in America with something against me is Ann Richardson. And that’s because I’m about to out her as a criminal and a liar.”
Jordan pulled the car smoothly ahead, turning for the open bay door. “Interpol will watch you, and others watch Interpol.” He straightened the wheel. “If there’s anything happening in Rayas I should know about, political dissent, difficulties with neighboring countries, now would be the time to tell me.”
“Some internal stuff,” Tariq said. “Raif’s uncle was stood up at the altar, as was a distant cousin Aimee. The Gold Heart statue theft is the only international scandal Rayas has had lately.”
“I hear your father is ill,” Jordan said to Raif, glancing at him in the rearview mirror.
“He’s getting better,” Raif said automatically.
“The truth doesn’t matter, perception does. The perception is that your father is dying. And that means you’re about to become king. And that means somebody, somewhere out there, wants to kill you.”
“Just on general principle?” But Raif knew it was true.
“As a power play. Your cousin Kalila’s next in line?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s close to her, especially lately?”
“You do know I’m only going to be here a few days,” Raif said to Jordan. The man had been hired as temporary tour guide, not as the new head of Raif’s security team.
“I still need to know the landscape.”
“She’s picked up a British boyfriend,” said Tariq. “He’s new.”
Raif shot Tariq a glare. They didn’t need to air the family laundry in front of Jordan. That Kalila had taken up with a completely unsuitable college boy instead of pledging her honor to a sheik’s son in a neighboring country, as had been arranged a decade ago, was an embarrassment to the royal family. It was yet another thing upsetting the king. But it wasn’t a matter of national security.
“His name?” asked Jordan, turning on the wipers as they drove into the snowstorm.
Raif interrupted. “You’re driving us to Ann Richardson’s, not compiling a family dossier.”
“Niles,” said Tariq. “That’s all we’ve managed to get out of the stubborn girl. Kalila was the first casualty of the curse. And now Mallik’s been jilted.”
Raif gave an eye roll. “There is no curse.”
“The curse of the Gold Heart statue?” asked Jordan.
“It’s a foolish myth,” said Raif, growing impatient. He was a tolerant man, but even he had his breaking point.
“This Niles guy?” Jordan asked. “He arrive out of nowhere?”
“He’s a student,” said Tariq.
“Of Arab descent?”
