In The Arms Of The Sheikh

Kazim put the car in drive. For the first time in days, his eyes were dancing. ‘All I can say is, she’d better be blonde!’

He stayed in that frivolous mood all through the flight back to London, to the despair of Martin and Tom Soltano, Kazim’s American Head of Security. By the time they had been in the air an hour, Martin Page was holding onto his temper so hard it squeaked. And then Kazim said something so outrageous that he exploded.

‘You are joking?’

Kazim raised his haughty profile from the file he was frowning through and his eyebrows rose.

‘I never joke about the diary.’

It was all too nearly true. In the last crowded years, Kazim had shuttled round the world, bringing his particular brand of high intellect and measured calm to conflicts from desert to inner city. It was an important schedule and a responsible one. But it did not make for a lot of laughs.

Martin, who organised most of it, knew all about that. Now he jumped up and flung a poster sized chart down on the table in front of Kazim. It showed his appointments, day by day, for six months ahead. Martin stabbed a finger at the week Kazim had been talking about. ‘Just look. You haven’t got time.’

Kazim stayed serene, as he always did. It was one of his most irritating characteristics. ‘Then I will make time.’

Martin swung round and looked at him broodingly. ‘Maybe you’re so good at making peace because everyone in the room ends up hating you.’

Tom Soltano gave a choke of laughter, which he converted quickly into a cough.

Kazim said calmly, ‘There is always a solution.’

But Martin was too wound up to stop. ‘Look at that month. New York, Paris, Saraq, Indonesia, Turkey. You can’t be certain you will even make Dominic’s wedding, let alone run the show.’

Kazim smiled. He had a beautiful smile. It lit his eyes, turning the stern face to melting charm in the flick of an eyelash. That smile made women adore him. Martin regarded it with deep suspicion.

‘But I am not going to run Dominic’s wedding,’ said Kazim mildly. ‘He has asked me to be his best man. That is all. I gather I stand there holding the wedding rings. How time-consuming can it be?’

Martin stared at him, speechless. American Tom was more forthright.

‘Have you been to an English wedding?’

Kazim al Saraq was brilliant and powerful, with an arrogantly sculpted profile and enough oil wells to mean that people generally did not argue with him. But the other two were his closest associates. They never remembered the oil wells and ignored the profile.

After a few seconds in which he tried and failed to outstare them, Kazim became ever so slightly defensive. ‘An English wedding? Naturally.’

‘A big one? With aunts in hats? Mothers in tears?’ pressed his security adviser with feeling.

Kazim’s lips twitched. ‘Weddings aren’t so different across cultures,’ he said dryly. ‘Mothers in tears are standard from Bombay to Baffin Island.’

All three men contemplated the thought. All three shuddered.

Then Tom pulled himself together. ‘I guess you’re right about mothers,’ he admitted. ‘But the British best man is unique. And it’s a lot more than holding a couple of rings, believe me. I’ve done it.’

Martin nodded. ‘Listen to the man.’

Kazim smiled reluctantly. ‘Okay. Go ahead. Terrify me.’

The other two looked at each other.

‘Well,’ said Tom with relish. ‘You’re responsible for the groom. I mean responsible. You have to give him the party of his life. Even when he’s married he supposed to look back on it as his last days of freedom. That sort of party.’

‘And then you sober him up the next day and get him to church,’ interjected Martin.

Kazim waved that aside. ‘Dominic will be in training for his South Pole expedition. There will be no drunkenness. So no sobering up.’ There was a gleam of fun that they hadn’t seen for ages. ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

‘Okay,’ said Martin. ‘How’s this? He’ll have all his mates acting as ushers. You won’t know them and half of them won’t know each other, but you have to tell them what to do. And keep control of the pageboys and flower girls and bridesmaids.’

‘You mean: run the show,’ said Kazim, still infuriatingly calm. ‘I can do that. What else do I do with my life?’

Martin cast his eyes to heaven.

Tom said kindly, ‘You tell Martin and me what to do and we run the show.’

Martin stopped looking heavenwards. ‘That is so true.’

Tom was earnest. ‘Best man is a hands-on kinda thing, Kazim. I’d have to advise against it. You’d be out there as a sitting target.’

Martin nodded. ‘And you wouldn’t be able to wave a hand and say, “Let it be so”, either. You’d have to roll up your sleeves, spit on your hands and get stuck in yourself. No one to delegate to.’

Kazim remained unmoved.

Martin almost danced with irritation. But the Princeton man stuck to his point. ‘Like—you have to run the speeches at the meal after the ceremony,’ he pursued. ‘Hell, you have to make the worst one yourself.’

Kazim was suddenly frosty. ‘I make speeches all the time.’

‘Not like this,’ said Martin with feeling. ‘You have to tell jokes.’

For a moment Tom forgot about the threatening email in his Immediate Action folder. ‘Do you know any stories about Dominic Templeton-Burke that will make a bunch of strangers laugh, Kazim?’ he asked curiously.

For the first time, Kazim paled. The other two saw it with satisfaction.

‘And what about bridesmaids?’ added Tom, beginning to enjoy himself. ‘You do know you’re supposed to escort the chief bridesmaid down the aisle after the bride and groom and all the aunts say what a lovely couple you make.’

‘Yup,’ said Martin with relish. ‘There’ll be a party afterwards, right? Okay, then. You have to dance with the ugliest bridesmaid. And keep on dancing with her whenever she’s on her own.’

‘Make sure none of the pageboys throws up over the wedding presents,’ added Tom, who had indeed been a best man several times. ‘Introduce people. Keep the two mothers-in-law from each other’s throats and the fathers-in-law from the brandy bottle. Send the happy couple off with a smile, having made sure that nobody vandalises their car first.’

Kazim looked appalled. But he gave an uneasy laugh. ‘You’re exaggerating.’

Martin shook his head. ‘Not a word of a lie.’

Kazim straightened his shoulders. ‘Tom did it and survived. It can’t be that bad.’

The other two looked at each other again.

‘Worse,’ they said in unison.

They spent an enjoyable ten minutes telling him the worst wedding disasters either of them could remember.