“In what?”
“Marine biology.”
“Marine biology. That’s how you know all about the oil spill.”
“Yes. My doctoral dissertation was on the long-term effects of oil spills on marine life. The results were not good.”
“But we have scientists, too,” she said. “They say that so long as we clear up properly, everything will be normal again within a few years.”
“Is that what you pay them to say?”
“No!” She met his enquiring gaze squarely. “No. At least… not as far as I know.”
Sheikh Khaled nodded. “My research was self-funded. There was no external pressure to come up with the ‘right’ results. And believe me, no one would have been happier than I to know that the human greed for oil was not destroying the world around it.”
“I would be happy to know that, too,” she asserted firmly.
He looked at her for a long moment. “Very well,” he said at last. “See for yourself.”
He unlocked the door and held it open for her.
She nodded at the brass plaque. “‘The Al Mayim Collection.’ Is it yours?”
“It is the collection from my country, Saqat al Mayim. But since the collection focuses on the marine specimens found in our waters, it seemed appropriate to give it that name. Al Mayim is the Arabic word for the sea.”
“The Natural History Museum has a collection from Saqat?”
“Of course. They have specimens here from all over the globe, but this collection is at the heart of my research.”
As Olivia entered the room, she saw shelf after shelf of jars and trays containing all kinds of fantastical and faintly gruesome creatures.
“What is your research?”
“I’m making a collection of all the indigenous marine life in the Persian Gulf. There are many species unique to the Gulf and several whose natural habitat is found only in the Gulf and the Great Barrier Reef.” He shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal tanned forearms. Beautifully muscular tanned forearms that had nothing to do with the reason she was here.
Olivia dragged her eyes away from the sheikh’s arms and tried to come up with a sensible question. “Isn’t the Great Barrier Reef endangered too?”
“Everywhere that human activity reaches is endangered. But they have done some good work in recent years to protect the reef.”
“Do you have coral in Saqat as well?”
He grinned. “See.” He took her to another part of the room and swept his hand carelessly along the row, where hundreds of specimens of coral in all colors and shapes were stored.
She gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yes. More beautiful at the bottom of the sea.”
“You dive?” She shook her head. “Stupid question. Of course you would have to.”
“I learned as a child. It was years before I bothered with scuba equipment.”
He had already moved on to the next shelf of specimens. Olivia followed in fascination. He was totally absorbed in the work, describing to her the smallest details of feeding habits and breeding colonies. She barely understood half of what he was saying. Preserved fish and crustaceans were not the sort of subjects that easily held her attention. But Sheikh Khaled—or Dr. Saqat—was an object of profound interest to Olivia. She was entranced by the way his eyes narrowed slightly when he focused on some minute feature of the specimen he was describing to her. She watched the way he handled the tiniest glass jar with delicacy and precision, and noticed the sure touch of his long fingers when he reached out to stroke the coral. He would know how to touch a woman.
She shook her head firmly, throwing out the rogue thought. She had no business wondering how Sheikh Khaled would touch a woman. As penance, she forced herself to listen carefully to his final lecture on the significance of Saqati marine life and the potential for irreversible damage from an oil spill in the region.
“Look at this.” He pointed to an enormous tank containing the preserved body of a creature quite unlike anything Olivia had ever seen before.
“What is it?” She ran her fingers along the glass of the tank and peered closer. It was at least two meters long with a fish-like tail but no other fins.
“A dugong. In your language it is known as a sea-cow.”
“Is it a fish?” It was incredibly ugly, whatever it was.
“No, it’s a marine mammal. See, here, on top of its head. Those are its nostrils.” Olivia looked where the sheikh was pointing and saw the two holes in its skin.
“So it breathes?”
“Like you and me. They can survive underwater for several minutes at a time and dive to thirty or forty meters. But they need to come up for air.”
“Wow.” Olivia gave him a quick glance. His face was set in hard lines. This wasn’t just a hobby for him. He cared about the unprepossessing dugong just as much as the pretty coral or the spiny mollusks.
“How have they been affected by the oil spills in the Gulf?”
He sighed. “Loss of feeding environment.”