The Intern Affair (78 page)

“Your two pilots from Air Location and the Lear are on their way down as we speak. They’ll be here tonight as well,”
Sir Reginald
replied.

“And I’ll be flying your plane back to
Paris
, if you don’t mind,
Your Highness
—I’ll be
you
for the duration of that flight,”
Jerry
(the silent one) added, to Samir’s surprise. Trusting a stranger to fly one of his toys was not to Samir’s liking.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You’ll be putting yourself in the line of fire—”

“I’m sure. You’ve done enough baiting for awhile. I think you and Ms.
Gilmore
deserve to have a peaceful journey for a change.” 
Well-said,
Jerry
.

“And I’ll be joining you at the Hotel de Crillon in a couple of weeks.”

Talya was a little ta
ken
aback by their cat’s pre-emptive move. “
Christian.
How could you be certain of that?  Have you talked to
Sir Reginald
?”

“Oh yes, he has,” the ambassador replied for him, “and I’m afraid the agency has agreed to have him at your door steps at that time.  And I’ll be losing my Attaché by the same to
ken
.”

Christian
bent down and put his elbows on his knees. He looked content.

They arrived at the Meridien forty-five minutes later, and immediately, as the car pulled in front of the hotel’s entrance,
Christian
and
Jerry
practically jumped out to stand by the opened car doors, their guns out, surveying the surroundings under the astonished gazes of the porters.

Christian
preceded them to the elevators and escorted them to Talya’s
apartment. When she walked into the living room, she felt a pang of sadness hitting her heart.  She went to the terrace at once, stood with her arms resting on the railing and she heard
Mansur
’s voice,
‘I think you need a change of scenery. How about lunch at the beach?’
  She began crying in Samir’s arms. He had come to join her quietly.

“Shhh, Princess.”

Christian
was watching them discreetly from the sofa in the living room. 

“I hope you’re not intending to sleep under my bed,
Christian,
because my patience has its limits,” Samir said, looking at their cat as he and Talya retraced their steps from the terrace.

Christian
replied with a deadpan face, “Oh no,
Your Highness
, I’ll have my basket brought in front of your door for the next few days, if that’s not too much of an imposition?”

Talya was laughing and crying at the same time. 

Suddenly they heard a knock at the door. Talya was on her guard instantly. 

Samir looked at
Christian
on the sofa. He was not moving. “Well?  Are you going to answer the door or shall I?”

“I think
you
should. There is one last person who should be with us and you will know who it is the moment you open that door.”

Talya was beyond puzzlement. 

Samir was already at the door.

When Talya saw her, she rushed pas
t
Samir to take her in her arms and squeezed her so hard that she was gasping for air
when she said,
“My Lady, how are you?”  It was
Jasmin
. 

Of course, she couldn’t have gone back to school and being left alone in
Paris
.

“Child, who gave you leave to come and join us?”  Samir
asked, the words choking him.
He was as glad as Talya was to see his daughter.

“
Sir Reginald Carson
, father. He phoned the school last night and two men came to fetch me and brought me down in the same aircraft as the one you flew down to
Nouakchott
.”

“I’m so happy that you’ve come. You look gorgeous,” Talya said, approving of her outfit.  She was wearing a tailored suit, a laced-collar blouse and high heels.

“Mr.
Christian Sylvester
, I’d like you to meet my daughter,
Jasmin
Khalif Al-Intha
.”  Samir was leading his daughter by the hand to meet their cat. 

Christian
was visibly staggered.  “Miss
Khalif Al-Intha
, it’s an honour … I mean, it’s a
real
pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he muttered, staring at Samir’s daughter with unrestrained admiration.

“Now settled down,
Christian
,” Samir suggested when he saw that their cat had a hard time controlling his speech
or behaviour
. “Just remember one thing, this young lady is my daughter and if you lay one finger on her, I’ll hang you by your fingernails somewhere in the desert—”

“I’m so sorry, Samir.  I didn’t mean to be rude, but Miss
Khalif Al-Intha
is … I mean … I was only admiring her beauty.  Again, please forgive me?”

I would have to watch our cat when we get back to
Paris
.
 
He
would be
liable to meow all night under Jasmin’s balcony.

“It’s all right,
Christian,
just consider yourself warned. And now I have a question for you: do you intend to have my daughter share your basket tonight or do you have a suite for her?” 

Jasmin
looked up at her father curiously. Obviously, she’d missed that one by a mile. 

Talya decided it was time for them to sit down. She dragged
Jasmin
down with her on the sofa under the satisfied gaze of her father who sat across from them.
Christian
took the other chair by the terrace doors.

“I have a suite reserved for Miss
Khalif Al-Intha
,”
Christian
replied, averting his eyes from
Jasmin
’s steady gaze. She too had been smitten. Their cat’s blond curls were having a definite effect on her. “She will be staying in the room across from this suite, so our agents can watch both rooms at the same time. I’ll be taking up my apartment downstairs with
Jerry
. We have a direct line hooked to my phone from
Carl
and
Thomas
’s room.”

“And where has
Charles
been staying all this time?” Talya asked.

“In the same apartment.”

“Don’t tell me;
Thomas
and
Carl
have been sharing a bed? I don’t think either would go that far to protect
Charles
.”

“Oh no, Talya, we’ve managed to get a set of twin beds in the second room in the middle of the night last week while we got a gurney in and out of that room the next morning.” 

Talya couldn’t help chuckling. These sorts of shenanigans in a hotel such as the Meridien must have given management quite a headache.

131

“How is she,
Carl
…, and Samir?  Not worse for wear I hope?”
Charles
asked as he saw
Thomas
and
Carl
enter his room, which was now, as Talya had guessed, in utter disarray.

“She looks great actually,”
Carl
answered quickly.

“Her hand is still in a plastic splint and bandaged, but her face looks much better,”
Thomas
said as both men put down some files from two chairs on which they sat across from their friend. 
Charles
had a sling supporting his arm yet, but he looked much restored after a week of enforced rest (and confinement).

“But there is something that none of us knew because Talya kept it a secret, I suppose,”
Carl
began somewhat embarrassed.

“Don’t tell me she’s got herself in some sort of trouble again?” 

“Absolutely not,
Charles
,”
Thomas
answered, “quite to the contrary; she’s engaged.”

“
What?
To whom? Not to
Alhassan
—she has refused him so many times it’s not even funny.  And they haven’t spo
ken
since
Vancouver
anyway,”
Charles
surmised while his companions looked at each other, not knowing which of them was going to break the news to
Charles
.

“To Samir,”
Carl
finally replied almost inaudibly.

“Good God!
Really?
”
Charles
slammed his fist on the armrest of the chair. “Do you know what that means? Do you realize that we’ll have a
Qatar
Emir
on
Tristan
’s Board now? 
Terrance
is going to jump for joy for a week. That’s unbelievable.”

“Oh yes it is.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it,
Carl
, why?”

“Because of
Alhassan
, the man is going to give up.” 

“He might not be able to pull himself out of this one,”
Thomas
added, and turning to
Carl
, “although, did you notice, she didn’t want to talk about it?”

“Yes, and I think she has some reservations,”
Carl
agreed.

“What do you mean by ‘reservations’? Is she engaged or not?”
Charles
looked confused.

Thomas
and
Carl
exchanged a hesitant glance.

“Well? Is she or isn’t she?”
Charles
insisted.

“It’s only what Samir said—when he called Talya his
fiancée
—that drove us to conclude that she was engaged,”
Carl
said.

“I see. In that case, until we hear it’s official, we can’t pre-empt the announcement.  Although we can certainly invite Samir on the Board after all he has done for the company.”

“What about
Alhassan
? What do we do?”
Thomas
asked.

“Nothing. I don’t think we can do anything.”
Charles
looked at both men in turn. “Talya may be able to do something….”

Carl
seemed to be pondering. “If anyone can resolve this dilemma, it will be Samir. The man has been
Alhassan
’s friend for many years. And in Islam, you don’t ask a woman to resolve a man’s problem, especially when it comes to such a delicate situation as this one.”

Carl
was hopeful that
Alhassan
could pull through this ordeal with only the scars on his back.

132

When Samir and Talya
were alone in the apartment, they decided it was time for them to go swimming.  They needed to escape.  They suffered from the same disease, an intense desire for solitude where no words were spo
ken
; where there was no need for words to be spo
ken
.

Using some subterfuge to divert the attention of their bodyguard, they found themselves swimming long and hard until they were out of breath, having left the beach far away behind them. 

At one point, Talya flung herself back onto the water surface, splashing Samir in the process, and quickly swimming a backstroke away from him.  She wasn’t fast enough however, to escape
his grasp.  He had reached for her knife belt and pulling her back forcefully toward him he said,
“Princess, if you think I’m ever going to let you go away from me again, you’re deluding yourself.”

They laughed and started swimming aimlessly once again, as the clouds were gathering quickly overhead.

“Let’s go home,” Samir said, looking upward at the menacing sky.

This being July, the rain season was upon them. It meant intermittent and furious downpours for hours on end. On land, it wouldn’t have mattered to them at all, but in the ocean they had a problem, a problem called jellyfish. They come up to the surface just before the rain, and they are deadly. It takes five seconds for their caressing touch to paralyze your body and another five minutes for you to die in abominable agony. The only way Talya and Samir could avoid such a fate was to swim under water, and find a passage between their rising bulbous, white heads while avoiding their filaments at all costs. As soon as they heard the first thunder clap, they plunged downward and swam as long as they could before surfacing briefly to catch their breaths.  Thankfully it was still early in the season and they were not seeing too many of the jellyfish as they progressed slowly back to the beach. However, one thing they did see overhead was the bottom of a speedboat pass
ing
them and then turn
ing
around slowly.  Samir took Talya’s hand, leading her upward to surface near the launch.  As their heads popped up above water, the first thing they saw was their cat at the wheel. The rain was pelting down on the water surface in millions of droplets hitting the swells. Samir yelled
Christian
’s name from the top of his lungs repeatedly until their cat finally turned his head and noticed them.