First Star I See Tonight

  No, that wasn’t quite right, either.

  He had to be attentive when he was with her, but not guarded. The opposite of guarded, really. He didn’t pull his punches. Didn’t even consider it. He was always polite, even to women who grated on him, but with her, he was like a junior high bully insulting a girl just to see if he could make her cry. But there were no tears from Mister Piper Dove. She could more than hold her own.

  She came out of the pantry. Nobody who wasn’t smart graduated from the University of Illinois with a double major, and he chalked up her intelligence as another irritant. Considering his own dismal academic record, his attraction to brainy women was ironic. But his lousy grades had been the result of too many hours on the practice field, not stupidity.

  Piper got the coffeepot working without a tutorial. She was lying about her male conquests. Or maybe not, because there was definitely something about her. By the time she’d poured her coffee, he’d figured it out.

  It was the challenge.

  The way she carried herself, the way she charged after what she wanted. She was a woman who attacked life instead of waiting for it to unfold around her. And her general imperviousness to him had stirred up some kind of primitive bullshit need to conquer. Which was exactly what other men saw in her. A test of their masculinity.

  He doubted she understood that, but even if she did, he couldn’t see her playing the bitch card. She didn’t care enough about attracting men to deliberately make herself difficult. Her life centered around her job, and men were nothing more to her than a necessary inconvenience. Because of that . . .

  He was going to nail her.

  The thought came out of nowhere . . . or maybe it had been lurking in his subconscious all along. He wanted to take her right now. Against the sink. On the counter. Strip her naked and reassert the natural order of things. Male over female.

  The sting in his wounded hand restored his sanity. He was disgusted with himself. Where the hell had that come from?

  She set down her coffee mug. “What did I do now?”

  He realized he was scowling. “Breathe.”

  “Deepest apologies.” She raised her mug toward him, unscathed by his rudeness. “You did a noble thing today, Mr. Graham, whether you wanted to or not. Saving Jada from an untimely death is good karma.”

  “Stop calling me Mr. Graham.” He didn’t mess with his female employees. Ever. Didn’t need to. And he wouldn’t mess with Esmerelda. Not yet. Not while she was working for him. But the minute her job ended, she was fair game. Before he saw the last of her, he intended to show her which one of them was the better man.

  ***

  Piper yawned and stepped into the hallway, her travel mug in hand. Even though it was Sunday morning and she’d worked until three, she couldn’t afford the luxury of sleeping in. She needed to get to her office.

  The door to Jada’s apartment opened, and a slender, dark-haired woman carrying a backpack emerged. “You’re our new neighbor,” the woman said as she spotted Piper.

  “Piper Dove.”

  “I’m Karah Franklin.”

  This must be Jada’s mother, although she looked more like an older sister. Dark, curly hair swirled to her shoulders, and her warm brown skin didn’t require even a touch of makeup. The woman’s beauty suggested Coop hadn’t given her a free apartment simply because he’d been friends with her husband but because they were lovers. She looked enough like Kerry Washington to qualify as a movie star girlfriend.

  Karah shifted her backpack to her shoulder. “Jada told me you’d moved in. If she bothers you, let me know.”

  Piper remembered the sight of Coop sprawled in the alley yesterday morning. “She’s no bother. She seems like a terrific kid.”

  “Have you actually met her?”

  Piper smiled. “We have an understanding.”

  “I’m working and going to school to get my accounting degree, so I can’t keep track of her the way I should.” Guilt oozed from every part of her. “Right now, I’m heading for the library.”

  Piper noticed the woman’s tired eyes. Not Coop’s current lover, then, because if she were, he wouldn’t let her work so hard. “That sounds tough.”

  “It could be a lot worse. Anyway, nice to meet you.”

  “You, too.”

  When Piper reached her office, she finished her lukewarm coffee while she talked to Jen on the phone about Berni. Then she turned on her computer. Her job at Spiral was temporary, and she had to keep marketing herself. She’d been using her Web site to post tips on self-defense, credit card fraud, and personal security, putting to use everything she’d learned from her father and from the classes she’d taken in the past few years. Now she intended to take some of that information and put it in a flyer as an additional promotion for her business.

  She wanted important clients—law firms, big insurance companies that investigated disability fraud. Until that happened, the fastest money she could make was based on suspicion. She typed away:

  HOW DO YOU KNOW IF HE’S CHEATING?

  IS SHE REALLY OUT WITH HER GIRLFRIENDS?

  She began laying out the signs of a cheating partner—too many late nights at work, unexplained phone hang-ups, new interest in personal grooming. She’d hand-deliver the flyer to hair salons, sports bars, coffeehouses—whatever businesses would let her display it. And every flyer would be printed with her logo and phone number.

  The phone rang. It was Jen again. “Guess who’s coming to town?” her friend chirped. “Princess Somebody from one of the big oil countries. Along with her retinue. Over fifty people! They need some female drivers.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “From Dumb Ass. I just heard him talking about it with one of the reporters. Apparently the princess decided to drop a few zillion on the Mag Mile instead of Rodeo Drive. Piper, these Middle Eastern royals tip big!”

  “I am so on this!” Piper exclaimed.

  She reached one of her father’s old pals, who gave her the number of the owner of a limo company that worked with visiting VIPs, and landed the job. She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d juggle the royals and Cooper Graham, but she’d figure it out.

  ***

  Tuesday morning, she was at O’Hare sitting behind the wheel of a black SUV. She’d never seen herself as a chauffeur, but the job sounded interesting, the pay was decent, and the lure of a big tip at the end made this a no-brainer. She was supposed to meet with Graham that afternoon to talk about the club’s Web site, but she had more than enough time before then to get whomever she was driving from the airport to the downtown Peninsula Hotel.

  The royal family, she’d learned, had something like fifteen thousand members, either highnesses or royal highnesses depending on whether or not they were in line for the throne. They always traveled with a huge retinue: other family members, military guards, servants, and—it was said—briefcases stuffed with cash. She sincerely hoped some of that would be coming her way in the form of a huge tip when the job was over.

  Their private jet turned out to be a 747, and their VIP status let them avoid the lines at passport control. An armada of SUVs and half a dozen cargo vans for luggage waited for them. When the retinue emerged, only the servants were in traditional Islamic dress. The female royals—at least a dozen of them, ranging from teens to late middle age—wore the latest designer fashions. Diamonds glittered, spindly Louboutins clicked on the asphalt, Hermès bags swung at their sides.

  The Middle East’s most pampered princesses had come to town.

  7

  Piper opened the back door of the SUV for a beautiful woman in her forties with big designer sunglasses propped on top of a mane of luxurious dark hair. She wore a vibrant purple Chanel jacket, a short black leather skirt, and stilettos that looked like surface-to-air missiles.

  They’d barely pulled away before the woman took out her cell and began an intense conversation in Arabic. Piper had a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but she’d been instructed not to address
any of the royals, which was a major bummer. The woman didn’t once look at her—not that she projected hostility. Piper was simply invisible.

  By the time the motorcade arrived at the Peninsula, Piper’s jaw ached from the effort of keeping her mouth closed. She’d been given the sixth position in the line of limos, an indication that her passenger wasn’t the ranking princess. The woman exited without acknowledging her, but as she disappeared into the hotel, one of the Realm’s grim-faced officials ordered Piper to wait.

  She waited. Half an hour passed. An hour. The guard barked at her like a dog when she finally got out to run inside and use the hotel restroom. “I ordered you to wait!”

  “Be right back.” As she bolted through the lobby, she remembered that slavery hadn’t been abolished in the Realm until 1962.

  When she came out, a servant girl was sitting in the backseat. She was young, with a round face and soulful dark eyes. Unlike the royals, she was traditionally dressed in a plain gray abaya and navy hijab. Piper apologized for keeping her waiting, something that seemed to startle the girl. “Is not a problem.”

  Piper was happy to hear her speak English, and since she hadn’t been given orders not to address the servants, she introduced herself. “I’m Piper.”

  “I am Faiza,” the girl said shyly. “Her Highness, Princess Kefaya, has sent me to get these shoes.” She held up a page torn from a glossy French fashion magazine that pictured a pair of T-strap leather stiletto sandals. “You will take me to get them, please.”

  “Sure. Where do we go?”

  “Where they have these shoes.”

  “Do you know the name of the store?”

  “Her Highness did not tell me.”

  “Can you call her and ask?”

  Faiza could not have looked more horrified. “Oh, no. That is not what we do. You will take me to find the shoes, please.”

  Piper held out her hand for the magazine page. It bore a prominent YSL logo. She pulled out her phone and discovered a Saint Laurent boutique in the Waldorf a couple of blocks away.

  “Do you like your work?” she asked the girl as she turned onto Rush.

  The question seemed to confuse her. “Work is to work.” And then, as if she’d said the wrong thing, she went on nervously, “Her Highness, Princess Kefaya, never strikes me, and I only have to share my bed with one other servant, so it is very good.”

  But she didn’t sound as if it were all that good, and Piper got the message. Speaking about her employment could get Faiza into trouble. Still, Piper couldn’t miss the yearning in those dark, soulful eyes as they gazed out at the young girls striding along the city sidewalks with their trendy backpacks and confident gaits.

  She’d planned to circle the Waldorf while Faiza made her purchase, but Faiza begged her to come inside. The struggle between the girl’s natural timidity and her determination to do her job made it impossible to refuse. Piper reluctantly turned the SUV over to one of the Waldorf’s valets and went with her.

  The designer boutique with its white marble floors, soaring ceilings, and array of luxury goods bore no resemblance to the DSW where Piper shopped. This place smelled of perfume and privilege. Faiza handed the magazine page back to Piper. “Her Highness needs in every color, please.”

  “Every color?” While Piper was processing that, a young, beautifully groomed clerk approached. She was clearly drawn more by Faiza’s traditional garb than by Piper’s chauffeur’s uniform—white blouse, dark slacks, and a black blazer she’d found at Goodwill yesterday. The clerk’s eagerness suggested word had gotten out that the richest of the world’s royals were in Chicago.

  But as anxious as the clerk was to help, she could only produce the shoe in two of its five colors, which sent Faiza into so much distress that her hands shook as she opened a zippered pouch and pulled out a thick wad of U.S. currency—a meaty stack of hundred-dollar bills that would be mere pocket change to a family worth more than a trillion dollars.

  When the transaction was complete, Faiza returned the leftover cash to her bag, meticulously folding the receipt. She clutched the bag to her chest as they left the boutique, her forehead puckered with worry lines that had no place on such a young face.

  Piper got back on her phone and forty-five minutes later helped Faiza purchase a red pair from Barneys. But even that wasn’t good enough. “You do not understand.” Faiza twisted her fingers around the clasp of her bag. “I cannot fail Her Highness. She must have all the shoes.”

  Piper blared her horn at an overly aggressive taxi driver. “Don’t you think five pairs is a little piggy?”

  Faiza didn’t understand, which was just as well.

  Piper’s meeting with Graham wasn’t for three hours, which should give her enough time to drive out to a suburban Nordstrom where she’d located the final two pairs, grab them, get Faiza back to the Peninsula, then make it to Spiral. Piper forced a smile. “Let’s go.”

  As they sped west out of the city, Faiza grew less guarded and more like the nineteen-year-old she was. Piper told her a little about her job with Graham and learned Faiza was Pakistani, as well as a devout Muslim who’d gone to the Realm at fourteen to find work and to visit the country’s holy cities so she could pray for the parents and sister she’d lost. Instead, she’d ended up enduring brutally long hours and what Piper regarded as a kind of imprisonment, since her passport had been taken from her when she’d first been employed, and she hadn’t seen it since.

  Faiza repeatedly checked her bag for the receipts. Some of the country’s royals had a reputation for abusing their servants, and Piper didn’t like to imagine what might happen if the receipts didn’t reconcile with the cash Faiza carried.

  The Nordstrom that carried the shoes was located in Stars territory in the far western suburbs. The clock was ticking, and the clerk took forever to ring up the purchase. But as long as the traffic gods were kind, Piper could still make it back in time for her meeting.

  They weren’t. An accident on the Reagan Tollway brought traffic to a standstill, and since Graham had refused to give her his cell number, she couldn’t even call him. She could only stew.

  The traffic inched forward, then stopped again. Inched and stopped. Before long, Piper’s shoulders were so tense her muscles screamed. She took a few deep breaths. Nothing she did would make the traffic go faster. She concentrated on her passenger. “If you could do anything you wanted, Faiza, what would it be?”

  Seconds ticked past before she replied. “Dreams are foolish for someone like me.”

  Piper realized the question had been unintentionally cruel. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Faiza released a long, slow breath of her own. “I would go to Canada and study to be a nurse. One who helps babies born too early, the way my sister was born. But those kinds of dreams are not meant to be.” She spoke matter-of-factly. This was no bid for pity.

  “Why Canada?”

  “My father’s sister lives there. She is my only family, but I have not seen her since I was a child.”

  “Do you stay in contact? Talk to her on the phone?”

  “I do not have a telephone. I have not been able to speak with her for almost two years.”

  “Would you like to use mine?” Piper said impulsively.

  She heard Faiza’s sharp intake of breath. “You would let me do that?”

  “Sure.” Piper already had so many money troubles, what did a few more dollars on her cell bill matter? “Do you know her number?”

  “Oh, yes. I have memorized it. But if anybody knew . . .”

  “They’re not going to find out from me.” She tossed her cell in the backseat and told Faiza how to use it.

  The aunt must have answered, because a joyous, rapid-fire conversation in what Piper assumed was Urdu followed. As the conversation went on, the traffic finally began to move, and by the time Faiza returned her phone, they were back on the Eisenhower.

  “My khala has been so worried about me.” Faiza’s voice was choked wit
h tears. “She dreams that I can come to live with her, but I have no money, no way to get there.”

  Piper’s cell rang. She wasn’t supposed to take personal calls when she was driving, but she couldn’t ignore this one, and she put it on speaker.

  “Interesting,” a familiar male voice said. “Here I am sitting in my office waiting for a meeting that was supposed to start ten minutes ago, yet I’m still alone.”

  “I’m stuck in traffic.” Before he could upbraid her, she went on the offensive. “If you hadn’t refused to give me your cell number, I would have called.”

  “Stuck in traffic is not an excuse. It’s a sign of bad planning.”

  “I’ll send that to Oprah as an inspirational quote.”

  “I liked it better when you were pretending to be in love with me.”

  “My meds kicked in.”

  He snorted.

  She gnawed at her bottom lip and looked at the clock on the dashboard. “If I’d had your cell number—”

  “I told you. If you need me, call my agent.”

  “I thought you were being sarcastic.”

  “I’m never sarcastic.”

  “Not exactly true, but . . . I’ll be there in thirty-five minutes.”

  “At which time I’ll be at the gym.” The call went dead.

  As Piper disconnected, Faiza spoke up, clearly incredulous. “You were talking to your employer, the American football player? So disrespectfully?”

  “He annoyed me.”

  “But surely you will be punished.”

  Almost certainly. But not in the way Faiza meant. “Employers here can’t do anything but fire you.”

  “This is a very strange, very wonderful country.” Faiza radiated goodness in a way Piper could only admire, and the wistfulness in her voice was heartwrenching.

  They finally reached the hotel. Faiza touched Piper’s shoulder. “Thank you for what you have done, my friend. I shall pray for you every night.”

  That seemed a little excessive, but Piper wasn’t one to turn down anyone’s prayers.