They talked for hours, trading stories, fairy tales, and scraps of history. After a time, Ramin called for wine, and by the time the party was winding down, they were both several glasses in. A little tipsy, Ramin looked at his watch.

“Ah, I’m afraid your company is entirely too pleasant,” he said with an embarrassed chuckle. “I’ve rather neglected my other guests. I was meant to meet someone tonight about funding an expedition.”

“Who needs funding?” Vanessa scoffed, a little more inebriated than he was. “A real archeologist will march out there with nothing but a shovel and a plan if they have to.”

“Really?” Ramin asked, amused.

“That’s what I’m going to do,” Vanessa confirmed proudly, finishing her glass.

“I thought you were just here to visit your mentor?”

“Well,” Vanessa turned pink, looking away. “That may have been a bit of a fabrication.”

Ramin raised an eyebrow.

“All right, it was a lie,” Vanessa gave in easily. “I’m lying to him, too. The truth is, I think I’ve found it! The tomb of Amanirenas!”

She covered her mouth as she realized she was talking too loudly and then continued in a stage whisper.

“It’s not even that far from here!” she said. “I’m planning to go out and look for it tomorrow. Just me and a shovel. I’m not going to let anyone else’s money or squeamishness get in my way this time.”

“You can’t really hope to search miles of the Nubian Desert on your own?” Ramin said with a frown.

“I don’t have a choice,” Vanessa said, hands in the air. “It’s a wild goose chase; everyone says so. If I made it official, no one would fund it. If I told Abraham, Professor Van Rees, he would try to fund it himself and last time he nearly went bankrupt! No, this time I’m going to be the one taking the risk, and just me.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly serious,” Vanessa confirmed, straightening up as much as she could after so much wine. “I’m going to find that tomb or die trying.”

“You realize that’s a very real possibility,” Ramin pointed out. Vanessa waved a hand dismissively.

“What about this,” he proposed. “I was planning to fund an expedition anyway. I’ll fund yours.”

Vanessa started to protest at once, but the Sheikh held up a hand to stop her.

“I know, I know, it can’t be official,” he said. “So, it will just be you and me, then. At least then you’ll have some equipment and a little backup. And we’ll share credit for the discovery. I’ve been involved in thousands of digs, but I’ve never actually found anything myself. It would be an incredible opportunity for me to actually be there when the tomb is found. What do you say?”

Vanessa stared at him hard, seeming for a moment perfectly sober as she judged his sincerity. She held out her hand.

“Deal,” she said, and he accepted, shaking on it.

“Deal,” he agreed.

She swayed against his shoulder, then, her moment of clarity passing.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful eyes?” she mumbled.

The evening drew to a close and Ramin located the professor, putting the still rather inebriated Vanessa into his care.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said, kissing her hand as he stepped away. “I do hope you remember me.”

“I think I’ll remember this evening for the rest of my life,” Vanessa said earnestly.

Abraham chuckled, shaking his head as he helped her into his rented car.

“I’ll make sure she remembers,” he told the Sheikh. “Good evening, and thank you, Your Highness.”

He climbed into the car beside Vanessa and she watched through the car window as they pulled away. Ramin remained on the curb, watching them go until they were out of sight.

“Well, you certainly had a good time,” Abraham said with a deep laugh as Vanessa sighed. She was beginning to sober up.

“Oh, I did,” she said honestly. “What a wonderful man. I’ve never met anyone outside of academia with such an extensive knowledge of Middle Eastern archeology. And such a good sense of humor! And he listened to me talk about Assyrian burial practices for what must have been an hour, and, you know, I think he was genuinely interested! He made the most fantastic point about the direction the bodies face in mass graveyards and he actually knew more about their spirituality in relation to death than I do! Oh, I could have talked to him forever…”

“I’m sure you could have,” Abraham said kindly. “Just be careful, my dear. I did tell you he’s a heartbreaker.”

“He can’t be that bad,” Vanessa said, refusing to believe it. “He certainly wasn’t making any passes at me. We just talked about history the whole time.”

“I’ve been living and working in his circle for a year now, girl,” Abraham said with the air of a scolding father. “The gossip in the city talks about practically nothing else but his affairs. I’ve seen the women come and go myself. However kind he seemed, you should be careful. He’ll try to take advantage of you; I’m certain.”

“He wasn’t like that,” Vanessa insisted, but she was less sure now.

Abraham insisted she stay with him rather than the hostel, and they picked up her things before returning to the apartment he kept downtown. It was a spacious and richly appointed home which Vanessa saw little of before she exhaustedly retired to the guest bedroom. She did wonder briefly how Abraham was doing so well. That consulting work must have been incredibly lucrative.

She fell into bed, but found herself restless, thinking about what Abraham had said. Eventually, she pulled out her laptop and ran a search on Ramin’s name, not expecting to find much. And at first, she didn’t.

International news outlets regarded him as a minor royal of little importance, mostly mentioned in conjunction either with his father or with his archeological exploits. But then she stumbled onto the local news sites, tabloids out of Khartoum and the Gulf states to which Ksatta-Galan was connected. They were filled with nothing but talk of Ramin and his romantic adventures.

Every week was a new dramatic breakup or exposé or interview with an old girlfriend. It seemed as though he’d hardly had a single relationship that lasted beyond a month or two. And no sooner had he started a new one than there were a dozen articles predicting when and how it would end.

She read for more than an hour, scrolling through article after article about his philandering before she finally closed the laptop and fell back into her sheets, frowning at the ceiling in dismay. None of what she’d seen of the Sheikh tonight seemed to match with what she was reading, but she could hardly ignore the plethora of evidence that proclaimed him a womanizer.

Oh well, she thought as she rolled over. So what if he was! She didn’t intend to let him run off with her heart, no matter how charming he was. This was just business. He was helping her discover the tomb in return for a claim to half the credit.

And even if he weren’t a playboy, she was planning to betray him by stealing from the tomb when they found it. It really wouldn’t do to be getting involved with someone in a situation like this. She’d just have to keep him at arm’s length. She could do that. She was sure of it.