Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1) (5 page)

She could hear Tariq's voice, but not see where it was coming from as she gently pushed the door to the quiet Presidential Suite closed.

"No problem. Um – where are you?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm in the cocktail bar shining my shoes – wanted to do it on the marble so I didn't get any polish on the carpet," Tariq called, slightly sheepishly.

"Oh my God, why didn't you call me? You shouldn't be doing this kind of thing!" Chloe called, aghast, as she walked briskly towards the source of Tariq's voice. "Here," she said as she rounded the corner to see her employer sitting on the ground with a black-stained white rag in his hand, "let me call someone from downstairs to do this for you." She raised her phone to her ear.

"Nonsense," Tariq replied chuckling, a broad grin on his face. "If I'd wanted someone to do it for me, then I'd have called downstairs."

"If you're sure?" Chloe said doubtfully, a wrinkled grimace extending all the way up to her nose.

"Besides, I don't like the shine I get back when some hotel worker I don't know does them." Tariq laughed, the joke going straight over Chloe's head.

Immediately on the defensive, Chloe fired back. The last thing she wanted was to mess up her first big gig, no matter what she thought of her client personally – and if the Kingsland Group were to hear that one of her clients was sitting on the floor of his suite polishing his own shoes because he thought that the hotel would ruin them, then she'd probably be out of a job…

"Well… Of course we wouldn't have done inside the hotel. We're only a mile or so away from Jermyn Street – have you heard of it?"

"Have I heard of Jermyn Street?" Tariq asked, a smile playing on the corner of his lips as he played with his assistant. "Why do you think I flew to London instead of New York or Sydney?"

"So – do you want me to send them down?" Chloe asked, flummoxed. "It's the best street for men's shoes in England, and probably the rest of Europe, too, you know."

"I know." Tariq smiled as he carefully applied the tiniest amount of black polish with a small horsehair brush into the welt of the black leather boot he held in his hands. "Honestly, don't bother. I love doing this, it's one of those things that gives me a sense of normalcy."

Chloe looked at him more carefully, calming down now as she realized he was serious – he enjoyed this, and noticed how impossibly well-dressed he was for such a mundane task. It looked almost like a GQ fashion shoot – his fitted white shirt, which was so tight as to show off the outline of every muscle underneath, was rolled up to the elbows, revealing a brown leather-strapped Breitling aviator watch on his wrist. The shirt was tucked into a pair of immaculately pressed grey woolen suit trousers that rode high on his ankle.

"Okay then," Chloe smiled, "if that's the way you want it…"

"It is." Tariq smiled back with a thousand-watt grin. "Now, talk me through what you've got."

"Did you get the binder I sent up?" Chloe asked, setting her own copy down on a low coffee table.

"I did. Very interesting – I love the locations you've chosen."

"Do you need me to get it from somewhere? It's no problem."

"No, no," Tariq said, waving his hand. "I'll remember. Tell me what you've come up with."

Chloe found the entire situation utterly bizarre – she was briefing a man who looked like he should be the face of a magazine fragrance advert while he was finishing up his Sunday evening chores. But ever the professional, she began.

"It's an early start tomorrow, so the cars will arrive here at seven – does that work for you?"

"You're the boss," Tariq replied, his tongue slightly stuck out in concentration as he worked the white rag across the toe of his Chelsea boots to build up a shine.

Chloe was completely at a loss as to how to react – nothing in her training had prepared her for a client who was quite as laidback as Prince Tariq. In a way, it was almost easier to deal with grumpy Russian oligarchs demanding that she install a painting by an obscure Dutch Master in the hotel suite during their stay; or the time not long after she’d first joined the Kingsland Group that a Greek shipping magnate had asked her if they could host his birthday party on an authentic pirate ship in the middle of the River Thames.

She managed both of those requests without a problem, difficult as they'd been to handle, and she was used to her clients being difficult. This, however, was different – Tariq was perfectly reasonable, and it was messing with her head. It would have been easier for her mind to process exactly the opposite scenario – if Prince Tariq was abusive, annoying or unpleasant, then she'd have been able to rationalize the situation and just get on with her job.

Unfortunately, at least for Chloe, the daughter of a family that had been put through so much torment at the hands of Tariq's father and the state that he represented – the man sat diligently polishing his shoes in front of her was nothing like that. The Prince Tariq Chloe found sitting in front of her was a handsome, charming and utterly likeable man – and that was much more difficult to deal with.

"Okay then. Perfect." Chloe made a note in her binder, ticking off that piece of business. "Will one of your people at the embassy be able to tell me about any dietary requests?"

"There aren't any," Tariq replied confidently, throwing Chloe off course.

"None at all?" she asked, surprised. It was highly unusual for a group that large not to contain at least one, especially these days…

"Jack's wife," Tariq began counting on his fingers, "is a vegetarian – but she can't make it tomorrow. Tom doesn't eat lamb, but given that it's a breakfast meeting, I think it's pretty unlikely you'll be serving any of that. Miranda, the deputy CEO, she doesn't drink – but I've seen the menu you suggested and there are plenty of alternatives. Oh, and the owner, Charles, might make an appearance – but he's on a strict intermittent fasting diet. Bit of a health nut, you know?"

Chloe just looked at him, shocked – the last thing she'd expected he'd be able to do was list of the names and eating habits of his guests. Apparently she failed to prevent the look of surprise reaching her face, because Tariq picked up on it.

"Surprised? You shouldn't be."

"Oh… Why's that?" Chloe replied, because this was definitely unusual.

"Three reasons – Saudi Intelligence briefed me on all sorts of things before I left home, I've got a good memory, and I've done more preparation for these meetings than I've done for anything in my life." He ticked them off on his fingers as he went through.

"Clearly," Chloe joked. "Any chance you can get me a hook up with Saudi Intelligence? That kind of connection could be pretty useful in the concierge industry!"

Tariq picked up the boot he'd been polishing, finally finished. "Unfortunately, I think that's one of the few privileges I can't share around. Anyway, think this is getting close?" He put the shoe in front of her face, and Chloe realized with surprise that she could almost see her reflection in it. She wouldn't want to put on her makeup in it, but it wasn't bad at all. In fact – it was probably the shiniest shoe she'd ever seen.

"That's… Amazing!" she replied, genuinely impressed, or at least about as impressed as she'd ever been at the condition of a pair of men's shoes.

"Pretty nerdy, right?" Tariq joked self-deprecatingly. "But I guess we can only do what we can with the skills that we've been given. And for me, I guess that was polishing shoes… Thank God I was born into the family I was, else I would have been doing it for a living in Waterloo Station!"

"Well, with skills like that, you'd probably make a pretty decent living…"

As they went through the remainder of the binder, Chloe found herself continually shocked at Tariq's grasp of the minor details it contained – including the contents of the goody bags she was proposing giving the wives of the top executives Tariq was to be meeting.

"I'm not sure about the Armani dress, but I think the Tiffany necklace is beautiful. Just make sure you give a different one to each of them, okay?"

"No problem," Chloe replied. "Why?"

"The last thing I want is for them to turn up to some event together later on and all wear the same damn piece of jewelry. I'll be back here next year, no doubt, and it will be a lot easier if I don't have to deal with their husbands’ stress…"

"You got it," Chloe replied. "Any budget?"

"Spend as much as you need," Tariq replied dismissively. "It doesn't matter."

When she finally left the meeting exhausted, hours later, Tariq had finished the entire row of black and brown leather shoes, bringing them all to the same condition as the boot he'd shoved in Chloe's face. Bringing them to the kind of shine that he was looked physically exhausting, but Chloe was more than happy with it – she hadn't ignored the way his biceps and shoulders had flexed and tensed under the thin material of his white shirt.

More than that, though, she was beginning to get a handle on the man himself, and the picture her mind was painting was terrifying – not because Tariq himself was in any way scary, but because she could no longer deny the way that she was responding to this handsome, charming, caring, intelligent, and most of all – forbidden – young prince.

7

T
he horrendous, screeching alarm that Chloe needed to wake herself up did its job, and at precisely 5:31 a.m., she grudgingly clawed her way out of her cozy, warm double bed and threw herself into a hot shower to blast away the cobwebs of sleep.

"And you, too, can have the JML Cobweb Blaster for a limited time only at just £79.99. And wait, there's more – you get three free attachments, a pipe to reach those spots that you normally can't get at…" echoed the harsh, blaring voice of the television salesman.

Chloe stumbled back over to the offending television with her towel caught around her legs, flicking the channels on the remote in frustration as she realized she'd woken up too early for breakfast television. If there was one thing she hated about this job, it was the often unreasonable hours. It wasn't so much getting up at half five in the morning that was the problem, it was the inconsistency – the next day she might have the morning off, and the day after that be getting up at 6 a.m. It was a nightmare trying to build up a workable sleep pattern. The one bonus was that usually she got to watch her favorite morning chat show – but as so often happened, she was too early for that, too.

Instead, infomercials.

She quickly blow-dried her brown hair and tied it in a neat but unspectacular ponytail, applied just enough make up to accentuate her best features, but not enough to truly make any kind of statement.

She continued the same pattern with her choice of clothing – a dark pencil skirt, plain white shirt and slim cut, dark jacket. Nothing ostentatious, nothing too bold – just smart and attractive, but an outfit that allowed her to either blend deftly into the background or mingle, unnoticed, with the rich and famous.

"
Y
OU LOOK LOVELY
, Chloe. Ready for the big day?"

The unexpected voice startled Chloe, catching her halfway through the act of stuffing a banana she'd grabbed out of the bowl in her suite down her throat.

"Oh –." She chewed desperately, forcing the glutinous mashed fruit down her throat as swiftly she could. "My apologies, Prince Tariq, I had no idea you'd already be up."
Typical, Chloe, making a fool of yourself…

As usual, the Prince was dressed like he was either heading for a day of filming on the set of the next James Bond film, or to a modelling shoot, this time in a grey single-breasted Savile Row suit.

Chloe felt as though her outfit was being put to shame, and even though the sensible half of her knew that blending into the background was her job – the selfish part of her wanted nothing more than to rush straight back upstairs and throw on a slinky cocktail dress.

"No – I'm sorry," the Prince winked, "I didn't mean to catch you in the middle of your breakfast. I'm an early riser."

Of course you are
.

"
I thought I was, too – apparently we have different expectations for what that means…"

"It's an old habit. Anyway, please don't feel that you have to call me by my title all the time – at least when it's just us two around." Tariq gestured around the hotel lobby, reassuring Chloe that they were indeed the only people up at this ungodly hour other than the two members of hotel staff quietly manning the check-in desks.

"Thank you, Tariq." Chloe hesitated before saying his name and smiled shyly up at him – and it was up, because even with her heels on, and her Norwegian ancestry, the handsome Prince towered over her.

"It's nothing." He smiled warmly. "It's great when you're a kid, but after a while you get tired of everyone having to treat you like you're the best thing since sliced bread."

Chloe’s face must have betrayed some hint of disbelief because Tariq hastened to qualify his statement.

"Trust me!" He grinned self-deprecatingly. "I know it sounds like a first-world problem – well, it is – but think about it. If everyone around you is besotted with you from the day you're born, how are you supposed to know who to truly trust, and who's just out to get something from you?"

"I suppose so," Chloe murmured, thinking it over as Tariq lightly grabbed her upper arm. She looked up, startled, as an electric buzz tingled up to her shoulder and onwards into her body from the brief unexpected contact. "What –."

Tariq pulled her in closer, as though to confide with her in confidence. "That's why I keep Khalid around. You've seen him?"

"I have…" Chloe said guardedly.

"And what do you think of him?" Tariq asked, an intrigued look on his face.

"I –." Chloe began, unsure of how to answer. Again, Tariq was putting her in a position that she hadn't ever faced as an assistant concierge – assaulting her with personal questions or topics of conversation that crossed the boundary of what she thought either acceptable or sensible in an employer-client relationship. And yet…

And yet, Chloe felt almost compelled to answer, drawn in by this strange, attractive, intriguing and irresistible young man.