Okay. Calm down, she told herself, taking a deep breath as she paced the room. Let’s think this through. There was a number she could call, and this really was a wild card. Remembering Emir telling her about his love of horses, she stabbed in the number for His Majesty’s stables.
The voice that answered was young and female and it took Britt a couple of breaths to compute this, as her calls so far had led Britt to believe that only men worked for the sheikh and they all had tent poles up their backsides.
‘Hello,’ the pleasant female voice said again. ‘Jasmina Kareshi speaking...’
The Black Sheikh’s sister! Though Princess Jasmina sounded far too relaxed to be a princess. ‘Hello. This is Britt Skavanga speaking. I wonder if you could help me?’
‘Call me Jazz,’ the friendly voice on the other end of the line insisted as Jazz went on to explain that her brother had in fact been in touch some time ago to warn her that Britt was due to arrive in the country.
‘How did he find out?’ Britt exclaimed with surprise.
‘Are you serious?’ Jazz demanded.
Jazz’s upbeat nature was engaging, and as the ruler of Kareshi’s sister proceeded to tell Britt that her brother knew everything that was going on in Kareshi at least ten minutes before it happened Britt got the feeling that in different circumstances Jazz and she might have been friends.
‘As he’s not here, I’m supposed to be helping you any way I can,’ Jazz explained. ‘I can only apologise that it’s taken so long for the two of us to get in touch, but I’ve been tied up with my favourite mare at the stables while she was giving birth.’
‘Please don’t apologise,’ Britt said quickly. She was just glad to have someone sensible to talk to. ‘I hope everything went well for your horse.’
‘Perfectly,’ Jazz confirmed, adding in an amused tone, ‘I imagine it went a lot better for me and my mare than it did for you without a formal introduction to my brother’s stuffy staff.’
Diplomacy was called for, Britt concluded. ‘They did what they could,’ she said cagily.
‘I bet they did,’ Jazz agreed wryly.
This was really dangerous. Not only had she fallen for the Black Sheikh masquerading as Emir, but now she was starting to get on with his sister.
‘My brother’s in the desert,’ Jazz confirmed. ‘Let me give you the GPS—’
‘Thanks.’
Jazz proceeded to dispense GPS coordinates for a Bedouin camp in the desert as casually as if she were directing Britt to the local mall. Britt was able to draw a couple of possible conclusions from this. Sharif had not wanted his staff to know about the connection between them—possibly because as she was a woman in a recently reformed and previously male-dominated country they wouldn’t treat her too well. But at least he had entrusted the news of her arrival to Jazz. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt this one time. Just before signing off, she checked with Jazz that the car hire company she had decided on had the best vehicles for trekking in the desert.
‘It should be the best,’ Jazz exclaimed. ‘Like practically everything else in Kareshi, my brother owns it.’
Of course he did. And he thought Skavanga Mining was in the bag too. Not just an investment, but a takeover. There was no time to lose. Having promised to keep in touch with Jazz, she cut the line.
She had a moment—a fluttering heart, sweaty palms moment—when she knew it would have been far safer to deal with the Black Sheikh from a distance, preferably half a world away in Skavanga. Sharif was too confident for her liking, telling his sister about Britt’s arrival in Kareshi as if he knew all her arrangements. According to Jazz it was very likely that he did, Britt reasoned, more eager than ever to get into the desert to confront him. And this time she would definitely confine their talks to business. She might be a slow learner, but she never made the same mistake twice.
* * *
He wasn’t surprised that Britt had decided to track him down in the desert. He would have been more surprised if she had remained in Skavanga doing nothing. He admired her for not taking anything lying down. Well, almost anything, he mused, a smile hovering around his mouth. He did look forward to taking her on a bed one day.
Stretching out his naked body on the bank of silken cushions in the sleeping area of his tent, he turned his thoughts to business. Business had always been a game to him—a game he never lost, though with Britt it was different. He wanted to include her. He knew about the customer going bankrupt leaving Skavanga Mining in the lurch. He also knew there was nothing Britt could have done about it even had she been in Skavanga, though he doubted she would see it that way. He had been forced to get in touch with Tyr again to fast-track the deal, and with Britt on her way to the desert maybe he would get the chance to put her straight. He didn’t like this subterfuge Tyr had forced upon him, though he could understand the reasons for it.