‘How did you make it happen?’ he asked again of the woman sitting alongside him in the back seat. Sera looked composed and serene, as always, but if he wasn’t mistaken another layer of that cloak of sadness was gone, he was sure, and the corners of her mouth were turned up just the slightest fraction, as if she were just the tiniest bit pleased with herself as she contemplated his question.
She gave a tiny shrug. ‘I liked meeting them. Strong women, determined to make a difference in their lives, working hard to achieve it.’
They had to be, Rafiq decided, for them to be doing what they were doing. But that still didn’t answer the question that was uppermost in his mind. ‘But Suleman said the women’s council would most likely take its time. How did you manage to get their agreement to go to contract today?’
And Sera almost smiled, the merest shadow of a smile, and it was more than just the sloping rays of the sun’s setting light playing upon her perfect features.
‘You made it easier, to start with, for the women were almost beside themselves with your offer,’ she told him. ‘The previous offer had seemed a dream come true for all of them, a validation of everything they had hoped for, but your offer to double it was like a gift from the gods. They would be doubly blessed, and Abizah’s pleas to wait seemed to have been vindicated.
‘Yet still,’ she continued softly, ‘some thought that perhaps they should seek a counter-offer from the other party, to see if they could increase the offer even more.’
He nodded. The fatted lamb. Hadn’t Suleman warned him of just such a likelihood? ‘But they decided not to go that route. What happened to change their minds?’
‘It was a close decision. The first vote was tied, and for a while all seemed to be at a stalemate. I guess they might have been waiting for me to offer more money, I don’t know, but I felt that was not my place as you had given me no such authority to do so. So instead we left behind the thoughts of contracts and we just talked, as women do, about the recent developments in the royal family: of Xavian’s—Zahir’s—unexpected abdication, and about Prince Kareef and the upcoming coronation.’
Rafiq battled to find an answer to his questions in what she was saying. If there was one to be found, it eluded him. But he did find satisfaction, and a grudging degree of respect, in the fact she hadn’t tried to increase his offer. It would have been easy enough for her to do so. After all, it wasn’t her money she’d be spending, and she knew how much he wanted the deal wrapped up. ‘And then what happened?’
And this time she did smile. Her hands crossed in her lap, and her eyes slanted ever so slightly towards him, as if sharing a secret joke. She was wearing an enigmatic smile that would have made the Mona Lisa proud. ‘I was thinking about that bolt of fabric sent to the palace and of what that meant to the people of Marrash.’
He scrambled to make sense of the connection. ‘And?’
Her smile broadened. ‘Because it’s one thing—a wonderful thing!—to be able to sell your goods to businesses that can afford them, wherever they are based in the world, but it seemed to me that there was a lingering disappointment in that room. Nothing would have been more important for the women of Marrash, nothing more satisfying while the eyes of the world were upon Qusay, than their fabrics being showcased during the coronation ceremony itself.’
‘But it’s too late to change that!’ Rafiq growled, raking one hand through his hair in frustration, turning his face to the window in disappointment mingled with disgust. The ceremony was just a few short days away. If Sera had offered the Marrashi fabrics a place in the coronation the contract would be unstuck before it could even be drawn up by the lawyers and he would be back where he started. Worse. He would have a disappointed and no doubt uncooperative business partner into the deal. ‘You can’t expect them to change the arrangements for the coronation at this short notice.’
‘I don’t!’ she came back, her reaction so vehement after all her meekness of before that he was suddenly reminded in one instant of how she once had been, years ago. Vibrant, and filled with life and laughter. And he swung his head back, the offence she’d taken at his words so plain on her features that he felt it like a slap to his own face.
She sat up, impossibly stiff and rigid against her seat, the smile he’d waited for and celebrated when it had finally arrived now vanquished. ‘It just seemed, from what was said while the women talked, that the women would really value their work being recognised and admired in their own country. They knew the collection would be sold to the highest bidder, and that made good economic sense to them, but they also needed to have their work showcased and celebrated by their own. The coronation seemed to them the perfect time that this might happen, while the eyes of the world were upon them. But, as you say, it is too late for that to happen now.’