Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1) Read Online Free PDF

and the girl at the front desk didn't say a word. She just looked at me, sympathetically, but she didn't say a word." Chloe's mom wailed, the slightest hint of Scandinavian roots now creeping into her accent. "Should I ring some people back home? My father – he has some connections in the government, or at least he did…"
    There was a brief pause as the unknown man considered what she'd just said. "That –." He paused again, tentatively, as though unsure what the correct response was. "That might not be the worst idea, but don't do it yet. Hold off, use it as a last resort."
    "And do what in the meantime – just wait while he is locked up in some prison on the other side of the world?"
    "Yes," the man said sadly. "That's the only thing you can do."
    "I told him he should never have taken that flight back home – I told him just to resign…" She broke off, once again, into sobs.
    "I know, I know," the old man said reassuringly. "You'll get him back."
    "When?"
    "That," the man's hands came into view, and Chloe watched through the banisters as he spread them in a gesture that suggested he had no idea, "I can't tell you."
    Chloe's stomach sank; it was the last thing she wanted to hear. All she cared about was when her father was coming home. It had been a week of walking around on eggshells, desperately wanting to ask her mother what was really going on, but chickening out at the last moment when she saw her mother's eyes red-ringed with sadness. Without being consciously aware of her actions, Chloe stood up and started padding downstairs, simply lost in her desire to know the truth. She had a right to know where her father was, and the explanation of a sudden ‘business trip’ had long ago worn thin.
    "Then why shouldn't I ask my father's friends to do what they can now?" her mother asked the man desperately.
    "You can."
    "But you think I shouldn't…"
    "I do."
    "Why? What makes you think that doing nothing is the right response? What if they lock him up forever – what then? How am I going to care for Chloe alone without her father?"
    "You won't be alone, Marte, I promise you that. My wife and I will do everything we can to support you – and you have family, too."
    "It's not money I'm worried about," she cried angrily. "It's my daughter being raised without her father around. Can you imagine what effect that will have?"
    "I –."
    She interrupted his response immediately. "Anyway, now you're saying that he might be gone for the long-term?"
    "Marte – we don't know anything yet. He's been gone a week, but he might turn up on the next flight from Riyadh, or he might come back in a month's time. But you shouldn't panic, that won't help –."
    "My husband's in some Saudi jail, and you're telling me not to panic?" Chloe's mom screamed at her houseguest at the precise moment Chloe herself ran into the living room.
    "What do you mean, Dad's in jail?" Chloe whimpered. "You told me he was on a business trip – you lied!" Standin half the room away from her mother, Chloe raised an accusatory finger.
    "Chloe…" her mother began, shocked at the sudden entrance of her daughter, who she'd thought was sleeping. "Chloe, I didn't mean you to hear that."
    "So it's true? Dad's in jail?"
    "Chloe, sit down," her grandfather – Chloe suddenly realized what the source of that familiar voice was – said solemnly. Overawed by the tone of command in his powerful, deep voice, she did as she was bid.
    "We don't know anything," the Middle Eastern man with the salt-and-pepper beard said sadly. "But it was wrong of us to hide the truth from you."
    Chloe's mom looked at him gratefully, as though he'd said the words she had been unable to. "That's right, Chloe, I'm sorry…" She broke off, the stricken look on her face appealing to her daughter for understanding.
    "But when's he coming back?" Chloe asked, terrified all of a sudden that she might never see her father again. "What's he done?"
    Chloe's mother knelt down so she was at the same