“No… I… yes… I mean…”
He laughed, though he felt no amusement. “That’s what I thought. You really should have done your homework a little better.”
She pushed back her chair and stood up to him, her cool blue eyes flashing like flint. “Tell me about your country, Sheikh Khaled. Your people. They enjoy a high standard of living, do they? All that wealth of the Arab nations. Some of it must have trickled down to them. I expect they all wear gold watches and drive flashy cars, don’t they?”
“My people are quite content.” He hoped they were, but he knew it was hard living in a poor nation surrounded by the opulence of oil-rich neighbors. Very few Saqati citizens had vehicles at all, let alone flashy cars to show off their wealth. The souks in Saqat City sold food, spices, serviceable fabrics, but not gold or jewels. As far as he knew, no one went hungry, but few were rich, as Olivia McInnes no doubt knew.
“They are content to be the poor relation, living on handouts from their rich neighbors, are they? How long do you suppose that generosity will last before Saqat is expected to start exploiting its own natural resources? If not with MCI Oil, with some other company whose environmental track record is far worse than ours.”
He turned away from her to stare out of the window again. She was right. Damn her, she was right and that was why his father had set up the meeting. The Emir had always done his duty by his people, and now it was Khaled’s time to step up to the mark.
“Your people need this deal, Sheikh Khaled. They deserve the opportunity to earn the freedoms that come with wealth. They deserve a better education system, health care, technology, everything your oil could provide. Surely that is more important than protecting against the unlikely chance of an environmental problem?”
“Problem! Disaster would be a better word. Destruction. Devastation.”
“Call it what you like. Can you deny your people their inheritance?”
No, he couldn’t do that, but there was more than one kind of inheritance that mattered, and he couldn’t explain it here in a gray office at the top of a gray building in a gray city.
“Come with me.”
“What? Where?”
He didn’t wait for her. If she wanted this deal, she would follow. She caught up to him at the elevator, still shoving papers back into her briefcase. The door slid back, and he indicated she should enter. He pressed the button for the ground floor.
“Are you kidnapping me?” she asked calmly.
Khaled smiled briefly. “Certainly not. You are free to leave at any time. Of course, if you do, I won’t have signed your contract.”
She nodded. “Very well. But won’t you at least tell me where we’re going?”
A car was waiting for them outside the building. Khaled opened the door for Olivia, then went around to the other side. As they pulled away smoothly into the busy London traffic, he answered her question.
“The Natural History Museum. I want to show you my people’s true inheritance.”
It had been twenty years since Olivia last visited the London museums. As a child, she’d been unimpressed with the dull old paintings in the National Gallery and unsure what to make of the elaborate, useless exhibits in the Victoria and Albert. It was the Science Museum that had held her spellbound with its interactive displays that opened a fascinating window into the way the world worked. After that, the Natural History Museum could only ever have been second best. She had vague memories of skeletons and trays of butterflies pinned horribly through their stomachs for display. It was hard to see what that had to do with the Saqati oil.
The sheikh’s car drew up outside the main entrance. Olivia exited and stepped onto the pavement before Sheikh Khaled could help her out. He raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing and leaned into the car to give a murmured instruction to his driver.
“This way,” he said, walking away from the grand entrance with its impressive Victorian gothic architecture.
Olivia followed hastily. “Where are we going now?”
“Tradesman’s entrance,” he told her, with a teasing smile.
He led her around the back of the building and through a series of security gates, which he opened as easily as if he worked here every day. When the receptionist greeted him with a warm smile and an assurance that his lab results were waiting, Olivia couldn’t hold back any longer.
“You work here?”
“Of course,” he replied smoothly. “It is the best.”
“The best what?”
He laughed. “The best place for my research, of course. Come.”
“What research? What work?” But he was already striding down a long corridor and showed no sign of answering her questions. Eventually, he stopped by a door with a brass plate screwed to it. By the side of the door, a black plate listed the names of the researchers involved with the collection. The first name on the list was disconcertingly familiar.
“Dr. K. Saqat? You’re a doctor?”
“Ph.D. Yes.”