Page 41 of The Devil Wears Orange
Inside the car, the navy-blue interior is retrofitted with leather seats, plush pillows lean into corners, and there’s a bar filledwith juice and water bottles. As the highway gives way to the city, with buildings so tall they catch light in the sunshine like diamonds, the car pulls into a private bridge that leads to a hotel situated on its own island. I read about this 7-star hotel a Sheik designed. The building curves like a sail, and beyond it, the ocean is clear blue.
The white noise of a fountain greets me as it spurts water upwards. By the front entrance, staff wait for us. A female staffer steps out from the line to offer a few drops of a scented liquid to cleanse my hands. I bring my fingertips to my nose. Rosehip. A man offers a traditional tea poured from an Arabic teapot, black and green in color with a tall spout. The warm cup in my hands is whisked away after a few sips of the hot liquid. I’m sure I look very much like the Wicked Witch of the West melting right before them. I need something cold to drink.
Rashid heads to an escalator inside the hotel and, hand outstretched, motions for me. I sprint across the carpet and climb onboard ahead of him. Above me, the atrium’s blue and white colors swirl, and I nearly trip from the dizzying effect when the escalator arrives at the top. Several people trail behind, while others run ahead to greet us at the elevator.
“I have a standing reservation here,” Rashid explains.
I nod, half-listening, half enthralled by the opulent ceiling stories above me. He beckons me into an elevator, and we swoosh up to a corridor on the 44thfloor. The door to the suite is already open, and we waltz into a marbled entranceway that houses an iron-railing staircase. The scent of orchids wafts to my nose. While I’m lost in wonderment, Rashid strides past.
“This is enormous,” I say. When he said he has a standing reservation, does it mean he lives here? I’ve always fantasized about being Eloise but have never actually met one.
Rashid glances around, and a small look of wonder catches on his face as though cognizant of my reaction. “I suppose. I wasafraid you’d be disappointed that we aren’t in the penthouse. That’s usually reserved for my father. The bedrooms are up the stairs.”
Bedrooms? Plural?
“Would you care for room service?”
“Don’t you mean mansion service?” I chuckle. Rashid smiles politely, and I wipe away the awkward smile. “No, it’s been a long day. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a long bath and a nap.”
He stares at me, a look of intrigue on his face, and I contemplate what has him so mesmerized.
Finally, he says, “Very well,” and moves toward me in measured steps.
I scurry backward until I’m pressed flat against the wall. Is he going to carry me up the steps? Draw a bath for me? Bathe me?
“Excuse me,” he says and raises his hand above me to push a small button on the wall.
Within moments, a young man arrives.
Rashid says, “Hamed, draw a bath for Ms. Milton, please.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Hamed is young enough for me to draw him a bath and wrap in a burrito towel. As he quietly ascends, with Rashid and I following, I examine Hamed’s thinness, his jacket too big for his small frame, his hands tiny, dark, and delicate.
Outside a room, Rashid says, “I’ll leave you, then,” and carries on down the corridor.
I stare after him, hoping to get a glimpse into his world, but I can discern very little in the split second it takes for him to open and close the door.
The guest bedroom is the size of my New York apartment. My luggage has already arrived, and neatly placed by the closet but my valise holding my shoes is missing.Crap!I was in such ahurry and terrorized by the image of the driver’s gun that I didn’t do my compulsory sweep of the hotel room.
A noise draws my attention elsewhere and, with the bathroom door ajar, I study Hamed as he marches back and forth in preparation, laying down towels and running water in a tub. Scented oils, floral with strong notes of lavender, drift into the bedroom. Next to the bed is a telephone, silver and modern in design, and so sleek it barely looks like a phone. Another consequence from me being so flustered when Rashid’s man, a gun strapped to his waist, banged at my hotel room in Monaco is that I immediately forgot I had dropped my phone in the toilet. I have no way to reach Jack or the authorities if needed. At the private airfield, I made a show of speaking to everyone, ensuring I’d be remembered just in case. The thought ofin casemakes me shudder, and I contemplate the sequence of events I didn’t want to dwell on earlier –in casethey kill me on the plane and dump my body somewhere it can never be found.In casethey strip me of my identity and imprison me in a foreign land. All the scenarios are equally dark, but by the time the plane touched down in Dubai, I believed I had nothing to worry about. If Rashid was onto me, he would have done something already.
I lift the receiver and dial “0” for the hotel operator. A male voice comes on the line and says in a soft tone, “Hello.”
“Uh, hello?” I say and wonder how it is that I recognize the voice. “I’d like to place a long-distance call to 44 for Britain and the number—” I halt, recognizing the background noise behind the operator that eerily sounds very much like mine. “Hamed?” I say finally into the phone, then turn to the direction of the bathroom.
“Yes,” Hamed says from the bathroom doorway and looks at me with a phone clutched to his ear. “Do you have the number?”
All outgoing calls are being monitored.I slam the phone down. How much would I have given away on a phone callto Jack?Everything.“I just remembered my parents are on a plane. I’ll try again later.”
“Yes, Ms. Milton,” he says with a smile, unperturbed by the encounter.
From the doorway, I survey how Hamed meticulously rolls towels and places them strategically about the tub. “Have you worked for the Prince long?” I ask Hamed and eye him to gauge what his facial expression will reveal.
He nods. “His Highness employs me in-between the school years.”
Hmmm, that came out relatively easy.
