just a good investment.
Okay, and it didn’t have buttons going down the front.
She accepted this part mentally, but it still made her nervous. Every nerve ending in her body was tingling with excitement, wondering what Rais might do when she showed up with a blatant…challenge?
She smiled, touched up her lipstick then grabbed the sleek, bolero jacket that came with the dress and her matching purse. When she pulled the door to her apartment open, she jumped when she spotted the two men who were standing outside her apartment. “Oh!” she gasped and stepped back. “What’s going on?” she asked.
One of the men bowed and stepped forward slightly. “His Highness asked that we bring you to him tonight. He wanted to ensure your safety, ma’am.”
Rachel’s hand flew to her neck, astonished that Rais would do something like this. “I don’t really need an escort…I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
The first man bowed again. “I’m Kadar and this is Joe, ma’am.”
Rachel blinked and released a breath. “Okay, Kadar and Joe, thank you for the protection, but isn’t this a bit of overkill? Shouldn’t you be out guarding Rais?”
The men didn’t even flinch when she called their employer by his first name. “We have our instructions, ma’am.”
Her shoulders slumped and she looked down the hallway in both directions, worried that her neighbors would see this conversation and think someone was about to arrest her. The two guards looked suspiciously like FBI agents, or at least the kind of agents that appeared in the movies or television shows. “Would you mind if I called Rais? I just don’t think this is necessary.”
“We are at your service,” Kadar replied, again with a bow.
Rachel looked at him curiously, but she backed up into her apartment, closing the door so she could have a private word. She pulled the card out of her purse that Rais had given her earlier in the week and glanced at the number. She pulled her phone out and dialed, then waited impatiently for the man to answer.
“Good afternoon, beautiful,” he said as soon as he answered the phone. “What are you wearing underneath the suit?”
Rachel blushed and was glad that he wasn’t around to see it. “Rais, why are two security guards standing outside my doorway?” she asked impatiently.
“They’re supposed to escort you to my house. Didn’t they explain that to you?”
She heard the edginess in his voice but ignored it. “That’s what they said to me, but that doesn’t explain why you want them to escort me.”
“Because I want to ensure you’re safety, Rachel. I thought we discussed this on Monday.”
She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore her impatience. “I don’t need security guards, Rais. Call them off.”
“I won’t. And I need you to go with them. They will escort you to the house, but once you’re on my property, you’ll be safe enough. Now answer my question. What are you wearing underneath that blue suit? Or are you going to make me find out on my own?”
She sighed and looked out the sliding glass doors of her apartment, seeing the late afternoon sunshine streaming through. She needed to hurry up and get out to his house, wanting to supervise the various vendors that were arriving to set up but if she didn’t hurry, she’d be late and that’s when confusion settled in.
Knowing she wasn’t going to win this argument with him, she smiled slightly as she said, “Don’t worry, Rais. I’m not wearing anything underneath the blue suit,” she said with complete honesty.
With that, she snapped her cell phone shut and stuffed it back into her small clutch purse and walked back out to the hallway. Kadar and Joe were still standing at attention in the hallway and she pulled her apartment door shut, twisting the lock to make sure it caught.
“Okay, I’m ready to leave,” she said with a smile, ignoring her phone that started ringing at that same moment. She knew that it was Rais trying to reach her about her last comment and her grin widened but she didn’t take her phone out of her purse.
By the time she reached the elevator, she heard Kadar’s cell phone ring. The man immediately pulled it out of his pocket and answered it in a language she didn’t understand. It sounded like Arabic, but it could be any number of dialects or even the original language itself for all she knew.
Kadar spoke rapidly but she had no idea what he said. By the time the elevator reached the ground level,