Sweet Revenge

a relief that she could still laugh as she took her seat and strapped in. “Pounds sterling. Anything less, with the background you’ve invented for yourself, would be an insult.”
    “In that case we’d better start with this.” He took a box out of his pocket. The ring inside it made Adrianne pull her hand back. Philip merely took it in his and slipped the diamond on her third finger. Her reaction was precisely the reason he’d waited until the last minute. This way she’d have little chance to argue. “You can consider it part of the cover if you like.”
    It was more than five carats, and from its icy white fire, Adrianne thought it would be Russian, of the finest water. Like the best diamonds, it was both passionate and aloof. Against the stark black of her
abaaya
it shot flame—and made her want more than she should have. “A costly deception.”
    “The jeweler assured me he’d be more than happy to buy it back.”
    She looked up quickly at that, and saw his grin just before his mouth covered hers. There was fire here, too, climbing higher even as the plane bumped to earth. For a moment she wanted to forget everything but this, the promise on her finger, the seduction of the kiss.
    “I’ll go first.” After taking a long breath, she unhookedher belt. “Be careful, Philip. I don’t want your blood on The Sun and the Moon.”
    “In two weeks we have a date in Paris with a bottle of champagne.”
    “Make it a magnum,” she told him, then veiled her face.
    It had changed. Even knowing that the oil boom had swept through Jaquir in the seventies, knowing that the West had pushed its way through hadn’t prepared her for the huddle of buildings, some shiny with steel and glass, or the roads smoothly paved to accommodate the now heavy traffic. When she had left, the tallest building in Karfia, the capital of Jaquir, had been the water tower. Now it was dwarfed by office buildings and hotels. Still, despite the modern highways and glittering glass, it seemed as though the city could, if Allah decreed, slip back into the desert.
    There were huge Mercedes trucks barreling down the highway. Freighters crammed the port while shipments waiting for clearance lined the docks. She knew that Jaquir straddled the political fence, managing through skill, guile, and money to placate its neighbors in the East and its nervous backers in the West. War raged close by the borders, but Jaquir, at least on the surface, clung to neutrality.
    It had stayed so much the same. As they drove into town, Adrianne saw that in spite of the buildings, the modern roads, and the stubborn struggle of Western expatriates, Jaquir was as Jaquir wished to be. She had seen that at the airport, as women, loaded down with baggage, bedding, and strollers were herded into separate buses and ushered through a door marked WOMEN AND FAMILIES , always policed by men barking orders. She saw it now as the minarets on the mosque pierced through the pristine blue sky.
    Noon prayer call was over, so the shops and markets were open. Though she kept her window up, she could almost hear the hum of activity, the cadence of Arabic, the click of prayer beads. Women wandered the stalls, in groups or accompanied by a male relation. Policing the streets, jealously guarding the religious laws were the
matawain
with their straggly henna-tipped beards and camel whips. Through the tinted window of her limo Adrianne watched one advanceon a Western woman who’d had the bad sense to push up her sleeves and reveal her arms.
    No, it may have been the last years of the twentieth century, but Jaquir had changed little.
    Date palms lined the road. So did Mercedes, Rolls Royces, and limos. The House of Dior boasted two doors, one for males, one for females. She caught the glint of precious stones beaming in the midday sun in a shop window. There was a donkey, laden with dust, being led by a man in a white
throbe
and broken sandals.
    Here much of the housing was made of mud, and no more permanent than the desert sand. Yet flowers climbed the walls. Windows were latticed, always latticed, to hide the women within—not because they were prized and revered, Adrianne thought, but because they were considered foolish creatures, victims of their own uncontrollable sexual drive.
    Men, robed and turbaned, sat on red carpets eating sandwiches.
Shwarma.
Odd that the taste of the spiced lamb on flat bread came back to her, she mused.
    The limo passed through the market and climbed.