Nassir Khan, heir to the fortune of one of the wealthiest businessmen in Kuwait, finds a life of negotiating over vast quantities of money uninteresting. His wandering eye, always eager to find beautiful things everywhere he goes, lands upon Larissa, a Romanian former domestic worker to his father. She's no longer folding laundry or serving dinner on this yacht off the coast of Greece, but Nassir finds her enamoring even in spite of their setting.
Frumusețe în Toate Lucrurile
Spoiled rotten by money in Kensington, educated by the finest of English teachers in British schools in Kuwait, witness to stunning renaissance structures and art in Italy, Nassir Khan feels very victimized by the judgmental eyes of those around him who seek to question his ability to see beauty in all things. The peering, narrow eyes of those around him in the business world, many of which have seen him grow from a loud mouthed toddler in England to a ... still rather loud mouthed adult. Maybe not loud mouthed—perhaps snarky is the correct word. But Nassir does not see the world in the way his cynical tone would suggest. On the contrary, he loves everything around him. It's unbearable for him to sit through endless meetings discussing the ins and outs of building massive skyscrapers when there is already gorgeous architecture around them to be seen.
He is acutely aware of his own image within this world that he was born into and is currently expected to succeed his father in. Even at the age of 31, he is a prissy adolescent, with a raucous youth spent in London, partying to the remnants of whatever was left of the grime scene even though he grew up in a different world to the artists he so enjoyed. Nassir Khan, the boy who really likes vodka, tablets handed to him by mysterious girls in velour bikini tops in clubs, and waking up somewhere in South America missing his passport and several thousand pounds. But he has matured a bit since then, and far be it for these distinguished international businessmen and Kuwaiti elite to prohibit
Faisal Khan's
son from fulfilling his prescribed destiny. No, the only person that could really stop Nassir from putting his round peg in the square hole of the business of making ungodly sums of money was Nassir himself. And boy, was he rapidly approaching making some rather nuclear decisions so he could do so.
But that could come later. Right now, he is on a slightly more sophisticated partying vessel in the form of French textile magnate Frédéric Besson's yacht off the coast of an island in Greece whose name has skipped Nassir's mind. Right now, Nassir is going to have a manageable—but sizable—quantity of fancy alcohol and admire everybody on board. Frédéric's CFO Penelope, the girl in the flashy bodysuit serving alcohol, Penelope's cousin (Bridgette? Bridget? Bernadette?), even Frédéric himself. In the warm glow of fancy vodka, everybody could be beautiful to Nassir, even the old bastards with obscene amounts of money unable to buy taste and unwilling to get rid of their potentially cancerous hairy moles. Nassir was in one of his moods, where he was in love with everybody, and wanted everybody to love him back, even if they were all complete strangers. And to be certain, they nearly all were.
One vaguely, confusingly familiar face emerges from the lower decks of the boat. Hazel eyes, rimmed on her upper lids with black eyeliner and fake lashes (one of which is hanging on by a thread on the inner corner), full lips coated in glossy mauve, and wavy chocolate brown hair tied back into a messy ponytail at the back of her head. Oh, he is
in love.
But more pressingly, in a state of mild frustration as he tries to place her in his mind. She may be on this yacht now, collarbones ever so slightly obscured by the straps of a silver chrome bikini top, long legs in go-go boots now, but this isn't how he knows her. No, it's something far more mundane.
He motions her over with his hand, trying not to seem rude or demanding but his slightly mushy brain demands an answer. She raises a curved eyebrow, then heads over his direction.
"Is there something I can help you with?" she asks, blunt but not intending to be particularly rude. Her accent, not Southern European but not Slavic either, shifts the pieces slightly in his brain.
"Yes, sorry! I recognize you, but I'm a little bit tipsy and I'm struggling to place you," he replies, London accent thicker with the vodka and booming sounds of the partygoers around him.
"Don't worry, I recognize you," she says with a laugh. "Nassir Khan, yes?"
"Yes!"
"I'm Larisa. A few years ago, I worked in your father's house in Kuwait. Obviously, I've since left," she says with a chuckle, flipping a piece of fringe from her eyes.
"Yes, I gathered that," he says, laughing. "I've since moved into that house. He's semi-retired, back in Pakistan. He's become a bit more religious."
"I read that a bit online since I left. I had to go back to Romania a few years ago before he retired, but I do remember you visiting Kuwait," she says, still standing before him, leading to be at his level. Suddenly aware of this inequality, Nassir begins to gesture for her to sit on the chair beside him.
"I'm sure I was a right buffoon when I came to visit," he laughs sheepishly. "Clearly, I'm still a bit of a buffoon now. On a ... slightly seedy yacht."
She shrugs. "Well, I'm right there beside you."
Blush colors his cheeks. Right buffoon indeed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything—"
"Don't worry, it's fine. We're here together, aren't we? I'm not embarrassed. I'm sure 21-year-old me in Kuwait would be embarrassed of me now, but I'm well. Are you well, now that you're the one in Kuwait?"
"I suppose," he says with a shrug. "A bit entitled and bratty of me to complain about it. But it is a change. Do you miss it?"
"Sometimes. But I did miss Europe. Well, I missed Romania. I get to experience Europe now. Even if it's on 'seedy yachts'."
She gives a blinding smile, and he returns his own. He doesn't remember too much of Larisa. He remembers Zahir, the young man who constantly did all the heavy-lifting and yard work, lean and strong from years of working in the rice fields, dark skin beaten on by the boiling Bengali sun. He was lucky enough to inherit Zahir, the witty little bastard (literally—but Nassir would never joke about the poor lad's parentage), the object of his desire for many of the fleeting weeks he would spend in his father's estate. Larisa was always pretty, with a nice accent and perceptive eyes, but he was too fixated elsewhere. Now, on this boat in an unknown location, Nassir fixates on her.
"If you don't mind me asking, what do you do on these seedy yachts?" he asks as if he's a schoolboy gossiping with a friend.
"Mostly serve drinks, but if you're asking if I've had sex for money, it depends on your definition of sex," she answers bluntly.
"Oh! Good to know."
"It's mostly stripping and sometimes using my hands," she explains, shaking her aforementioned hands. He leans closer to her, eager to share a secret.
