Acquiring Trouble

had—with near-disastrous results. 
    His father had ruled as if it were still the 19th century. The ministers, not content with that, had ruled as if it were the 15th century.
    Khan was a prince, accustomed to a life of pleasure, but he was not a fool. His country and his people were inexorably part of him.
    He'd waited a year. Then, with determination and commitment his ministers had not expected, he had assumed control. 
    His life had changed, of course, but in his heart, he'd always known this was kismet, his destiny.
    Under his guidance, Altara was moving forward, embracing science, technology, and a new infrastructure. Roads. Hospitals. Schools, all funded by the money his father had left ,  a multi-billion dollar cache the old man had  amassed from the kingdom's  oil and mineral resources. His father had treated the money as if it were his own, an ancient custom followed by most of the kingdoms in the so-called Black Gold triangle along the Sapphire Sea.
    Not anymore.
    Khan held a view some of his ministers saw as quaint, even radical. 
    He believed that Altara's wealth belonged to Altara .
    A New Beginning for an Ancient Kingdom , the New York Times had trumpeted. It was the first time he'd smiled at a headline that involved him.
    But there were still those who preferred to see him as a stereotype, a libertine prince with too much money and too few morals.
    He came across them all the time.
    Tonight, for instance.
    Dammit!
    He was back to that. The woman. The brunette in the house behind him.
    A vein in his temple throbbed.
    Ridiculous, that he should permit such an incident to anger him, especially this evening, when he had important business to conduct in Dallas as well as here, at the Wilde ranch.
    A sea of oil lay under the endless sands of Altara but much of the drilling equipment was old and outdated. His engineers had tried to convince Khan's father to invest in new techniques but the older man had been deaf to their pleas.
    Khan had listened.
    He understood the benefits of looking beyond the Black Gold triangle for new environmental and ecological drilling techniques, and he knew that there were men in Texas who understood such things.
    Men like the Wilde brothers.
    They were his oldest friends, and for years, they had been among his most trusted advisors.
    Jacob was the one to consult about the horses Khan bred on ranches in Brazil and in Altara . Caleb handled all his stateside legal affairs. Travis was the reason he had become almost embarrassingly rich even before he'd ascended the throne.
    The four of them had met as undergrads at Columbia University. They'd been acquaintances.
    Then, one memorable night, they'd become friends. The memory eased him, and made him smile.
    Somehow, they'd ended up going out together after they'd all survived tough finals. The night had been a long journey through pleasure.
    They'd ended it in a tough bar off   Amsterdam Avenue.
    A bunch of punks had decided the three guys with the funny Southern drawls and the guy with the definitely un-American accent would be easy to take.
    Wrong.
    A couple of bloody noses later, the punks stumbled out into the night. Khan and the Wildes had grinned at each other, and then ordered a round of Buds for the crowd of admirers who'd stood back and watched the brawl.
    As the night wore on, they'd talked about the future. Jake wanted to fly combat helicopters. Travis, already a pilot, wanted to fly jets and do in the bad guys. Caleb was talking with a recruiter for a hush-hush government agency.
    "I'd tell you all about it," he'd said solemnly, "but then I'd have to kill you."
    Everybody laughed. Then Caleb looked at Khan.
    "So," he'd said, "what's it like to be a prince?"
    By then, the heady combination of wine, women and a bar fight had loosened Khan's tongue.
    "Actually," he'd said, "it sucks."
    The Wildes had looked at each other.
    "Such princely talk," Caleb had said.
    "You wanted the truth. Well, that's the truth." The downside of too much of any indulgence was reality, and Khan had plummeted into a lake of it. "Men should not be judged by such arcane nonsense as titles."
    Silence. Then Jake had raised his eyebrows.
    "Arcane," he'd said, solemnly.
    "Arcane," Travis had echoed.
    Caleb had nodded.
    "Easy for you to say," he'd muttered,   "even if nobody's sure what the hell it really means—unless you're complaining about that title pulling in more babes than any one man can handle."
    It was the truth, but nobody had ever