She turned her attention back to the girl and pulled some antiseptic spray out of her bag. “This is going to be cold, okay? But once that wears off, it won’t hurt anymore.” She sprayed a light layer over the girl’s knee and gently placed a bandage over it. She ran a hand through the girl’s dirty, matted dark hair before helping her to stand up. “Feel better?”
The girl nodded solemnly.
“Then, go. But be careful.” She watched as the little girl tested her legs before running off down the street.
“Your Arabic is better than the last time we were together,” Zaid told her.
“I wanted Calum to know it, so I kept my language classes up.”
“So, he speaks Arabic?”
Nodding her head yes. “He’s learning. There’s a mosque not too far away and the Imam’s wife has been giving him lessons along with their sons.”
They continued walking in silence. Rebecca watched him look at everything. His face seemed pensive and she wasn’t sure what he was thinking. His father had come under the watchful eye of more than one human rights organization for the lengthy list of complaints from the migrant workers who both lived and worked in Sharjah. When she was asked to come on this tour, she had made sure to study all the files she could access. She had been shocked to find how rampant it was in such a small area. It was as if their poverty supported all of the other wealth in the Emirate.
“One of the problems I wanted to bring up is the water in Timina,” she said.
Zaid stopped walking and looked at her. “How is it that you know more about what’s wrong in Sharjah than I do?” he asked her. There was no humor in his voice. He was truly concerned with how out of touch he’d become.
“It’s my job, Zaid. I study places like these and help people in power figure out how to fix it so that it doesn’t become a political problem. You know, I help you avoid the torches and pitchforks.”
Zaid grimaced as he took in the sewage in the gutter on the other side of the street. “What about the water?”
“You should have received a copy of the water sanitation report from the UN Water Program. The scientists that came through here two years ago reported broken pipes and unsafe levels of toxins in the drinking supply.” She was about to continue but a cloud passed over his face as he turned to her.
“First, I need to find out why Timina is crumbling while the rest of the Emirate is growing and progressing.” She could tell by his tone that he was angry and she was glad it wasn’t directed at her.
“What about the water? Some of your poorest Emiratis don’t have safe drinking water. What are you going to do about it?” she asked insistently.
“I will need to get a copy of that report and have someone look into it. In the meantime, we can bring in water trucks. Since this is not something that we can resolve overnight, we will have to look into temporary solutions until more permanent ones can be found.”
Rebecca felt a smile spread across her face. Given everything she had read in the reports, she was surprised at how quickly Zaid was to jump into action. She just hoped
that his enthusiasm to make things right wouldn’t be short-lived.
“But will you keep this concern up after the tour goes home or once more money has been invested in the growth of Sharjah?”
Turning to glare at her, “Why would you even ask me something like that? You have gotten my attention, which was what you wanted and now I intend to do something about…all this,” he finished as he gestured to the cracked and crumbling buildings.
Hearing a small motor, they both watched what might have once been a motorcycle cruise slowly past them. The rider had two small children, one in front and the other in back, holding tightly to him as he rode past.
Shaking his head, he watched them go by. “Something is very wrong here and I intend to find out what happened.”
His deep, commanding voice stirred the desire she’d tried to ignore all day. She wanted to distance herself from him on a personal level and maintain professionalism around him, but it was hard to do when she started seeing how much he truly cared as opposed to the clueless Sheikh who hid inside the palace and pretended these problems didn’t exist.
10
Upon returning to the palace, Zaid escorted Rebecca to his private quarters, again, while he made several phone calls to start an investigative probe into the problems in Rajak and Timina. He wanted to know where the money was going, where the jobs were, and just how it was that so many problems had been overlooked for so long. He handed the job over to the same contact who was looking into the Sultan’s Chief Advisor. He felt it was only fitting since Alacabak was supposed to oversee both areas.
He briefly contemplated speaking with his father about his suspicions but Alacabak was a trusted member of his father’s staff and he would need to have considerable evidence against him before his father would listen.
He then called to order the water trucks and was assured that they could begin delivering water as early as that evening.
When he finally finished his calls, he walked into the bedroom to find Rebecca sleeping on his bed. She’d removed her suit jacket and stretched out on the bed in her white dress shirt with the first two buttons open, showing off the ivory skin that almost matched her shirt, and her dress slacks having already kicked off her shoes. He stared at her remembering kissing that skin. Pinning her petite body beneath him and kissing every delicious inch of it.
He’d been gentle with her initially, taking his time and taking care of her as if she had been a piece of fine china that he didn’t want to break, but he remembered the way she’d asked him to stop being so gentle.
“You won’t break me,” she’d said. “I’m a big girl.”