“So tell me, why are we in Gibraltar?”
“A quick marriage.”
Maybe she rolls her pretty blue eyes, but it’s a little too dark to tell. “Story checks out, but I meant why do you have a house here?”
“I have houses in lots of places.”
“Okay, so you have a house in Gibraltar… just in case you needed to get married in a hurry. Wait, have you done this before? Am I wife number eight, Raif?” She turns her head over her shoulder, glancing down at the rocky hillside. “Did wife number seven meet a nasty accident down there?”
“That would be number five. Number seven met a watery demise after a mysterious fall from my yacht in San Tropez.”
“That’s good to know,” she says with a nod. “Note to self, when Raif offers to take you aboard, bring arm floats.”
“I never repeat my crime. Where’s the art, the creation in that?”
“So… how are you going to deal with me?”
“Very carefully.”
She nods. “I think I like the sound of that.”
“What about me? How are you going to deal with me?”
“Oh, I think you should sleep with one eye open.”
I chuckle. I won’t be able to close them in case I miss one inch—one moment of her.
“You’ve got a funny accent. It’s American one minute and a little bit Spanish the next. And that language you were speaking before. What was that?”
“Llanito. It’s the language of Gibraltar. At least, it was.”
“Oh, so you’re from here?”
“I was born here.”
“In the club, you spoke a bit of Arabic.”
“Is that a question?”
“Are you a bit of a… what’s that word again?” She glances at the sky as though the answer might be written there. “Polyglot!” she announces happily.
“I speak Llanito because I grew up here. Same goes for Spanish.”
“Makes sense. They’re part of the same landmass.”
“I also speak Arabic and a little French.”
“Show-off.”
“Not really. They’re languages gifted to me. Ones I grew up with that took no effort to learn.”
“But Arabic isn’t spoken here, is it?”
“There’s a Moroccan community. My mother was part of it.”
“Wait, is that why the registrar said your name like he did? Have I been saying it wrong?”
I shake my head. “I like the way you say it.”
