Diplomacy

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9801018-7-4

    Author’s Note

    A writer doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
    Although we tend to be loners, happy to spend time with just ourselves for company, we can’t live without other people to interact with. We need others so we can borrow a look, steal a character trait, use a quirky insight from them. It’s other people that help us write fleshed out characters, interesting people and intriguing situations and that interaction starts early on in life. Without other people in our lives, our imagination would be sadly limited.
    Some people are more important than others in that respect.
    My mother raised an open-minded daughter and showed her, in a very matter-of-fact way, that relationships come in all shapes or sizes and that some of them involve two people of the same gender. Thank you Mom, for being one of my most avid readers and for not even blinking when a passage turns a little explicit. Also, thank you for saying that my book was every bit as good as the romance novels you devour at a pace of three a week, even though I know you’re biased.
    On the internet I met many kindred spirits and one who became my regular editor. Silv, thank you for correcting my strange European sayings, my wonky spelling and weird sentence structures and putting up with my sometimes very American way of putting things. Also, thank you for having the guts to tell me when things don’t work and the tact to tell me in such a way that it doesn’t damage my delicate writer’s ego.
    Nancy, you persuaded me to send this story to a publisher and here I am!
    To all my internet readers, thank you for encouraging me to write more.
    Every single one of your comments was devoured and appreciated. Feedback keeps a writer not only on her toes, but also keeps her motivated.
    Elizabeth and all the lovely people at Dreamspinner Press, my professional editors, Lynn West and Willa Canter and my cover designer, Mara McKennen, thank you for giving me a voice.

    From behind her desk,
    Zahra Owens

    D i p l o m a c y | 1

Introduction
    JACK took a deep breath. He hated his job.
    Well, not exactly his whole job, just the pomp and circumstance that came with it. Far away from the official engagements, he actually adored it. He did what he had always longed to do, ever since he was a child. He did what his father had always done, and as soon as he was in high school, he knew he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a diplomat. Thanks to the fact that he grew up all over the world, he spoke quite a few languages, and he was learning another one now that he was in a new country. All his life he had wanted this, and now he had it.
    Only tonight was one of the nights when he hated what he did.
    Because he was helping his President host a banquet in honor of his visit, he was dressed to the nines in an Armani suit that was especially cut for him and a designer shirt underneath with gold cufflinks that Maria, his wife of more than fifteen years, was helping him fasten.
    “Will you just...hold still for one second?” She wasn’t smiling when she asked. He figured she was as nervous as he was, if not more so.
    When it came to banquets, he was the host in name of the President, but all eyes were invariably pointed towards ‘the wife’ because it was understood she always made all the practical arrangements. He smiled as he realized how lucky he was to have her.
    Maria was also the child of career diplomats with an upbringing similar to his own.
    The reason why he had gotten his first ambassador posting before the age of forty was undoubtedly in large part thanks to the fact that she 2 | Z a h r a O w e n s

    was an impeccable organizer. Tonight would be no different. She had arranged a banquet for 112 dignitaries with a five course meal and speeches, and it would all flow together seamlessly, no doubt. He would get all the compliments tonight, not in the least about his wife’s radiant beauty. And a beauty she was, her medium length blond hair pulled back and pinned up with the diamond hair pin he had bought her in Antwerp for the wedding anniversary they had just celebrated, her slim body and delicate breasts enrobed in an elegant burgundy red strapless dress that flowed over her body as if it was molded onto her and made her smooth lily-white skin stand out. As she reached up to brush some stray hairs off his shoulders, he rested his hands on her waist and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You look absolutely