She lifted the lid off and began to lay the pieces out. It was a cathartic and nostalgic act; one she had completed many times with her own sisters.
“You say you worked for Zami?”
“Yes,” she agreed, keeping her eyes averted.
“What was your function?” He pushed, curiosity obviously inherent to both men’s character.
“My function?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m a concierge. I work for an agency. We make visits to Vegas easier for celebrities or VIPs.”
“In what ways?”
“Any way,” she said with a shrug. “I once had a singer who just wanted me to watch her rehearse. She’s very, very famous, but, as it turns out, completely riddled by insecurities. She had become so sick of hearing from her management team how amazing she was yada yada yada that she asked me to give her my honest opinion.”
He lifted his brows. “And?”
“She was amazing.” Olivia grinned. “Every bit as fantastic as the music videos would have you believe.”
“Who was it?” He held the dice out and Olivia took them.
“Thanks,” she murmured, shaking them in her hand. She skittled them into the centre of the board. “Ten’s the number to beat.”
He picked them up and rolled them. “Six. Don’t get too confident. I am letting you relax on purpose.”
She sent him a look of exaggerated fear and then grinned.
“So?” He prompted.
She caught the thread of his question. “I can’t say.” At his pained look, she laughed. “We take our clients’ privacy very seriously.”
“And my brother was your client.”
“Yes.”
“What was your purpose?”
“I already told you…” She frowned.
“No.” He moved her piece along the board and then rolled. “I understand what your job is. However, my brother, as the heir to Dashan, can never go anywhere without a small band of servants. You might have noticed them? Enormous men, dressed in black. Usually carrying guns.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“So why did he need you?”
Olivia watched as he slipped his own piece down the board. “I think he was anticipating that there might be some media interest in his visit. My job was to make sure he went relatively unnoticed.”
“And how did you manage this?”
By keeping him in bed, she thought with a small flash of remembered desire in her gut. “Ah. Trade secrets.”
“He wanted, I suppose, to keep my name out of the media, too.”
“I presume so,” she agreed.
“My problems have become an embarrassment to both him and our father.”
Olivia’s gaze startled to his face. “I never got that impression,” she responded with honesty.
“My brother would not have expressed his innermost thoughts to a woman sent to serve him,” Ra’if said, unconsciously inflicting pain on her. “He does not share easily, particularly not with those he perceives as his lesser.”