The Middle East functions as a recurring node in the novel’s geography of wealth, mobility, and obligation. It is not developed as a detailed local setting, but as a destination where Enrique Montero’s multinational business responsibilities become especially visible and where commercial distance intensifies personal anxiety.

Definition and Setting

The Middle East appears primarily through the international operations of the Montero business empire. After graduating from Harvard University, Enrique Montero helped his father manage shipping lines, real estate, hotels, and food chains, taking control of overseas operations and traveling by private jet across different continents every week. His work transformed the family’s multimillion-dollar enterprises into businesses worth billions and expanded them across the world, placing the Middle East within a network of corporate movement rather than outside it.

The region therefore belongs to the novel’s high-capital landscape: private aircraft, multinational negotiations, and investments that cross national borders. Geography is repeatedly compressed by Enrique’s schedule. Countries and continents become places he reaches for business, while the same mobility separates him from the people whose calls and expectations continue to follow him.

Business Activity and Participants

The most concrete Middle Eastern episode places Enrique in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for an oil-and-gas venture with Riyadh International Oil Holding Company. He is attending a business meeting with his personal assistant, Greg, when his attention turns sharply away from the presentation. The setting establishes him as an international executive negotiating major energy interests, while Greg’s presence shows the administrative structure supporting Enrique’s public authority.

The Middle East is also anticipated as the destination of Enrique’s upcoming trip. His father announces that Enrique is preparing to travel there during the weekend, and he personally undertakes arrangements connected with Enrique and Sophia Castello’s impending marriage because Enrique is occupied with that business journey. The juxtaposition is central: the family treats the wedding as an obligation requiring immediate organization, while Enrique’s commercial commitments pull him toward another continent.

Distance and Private Anxiety

In Riyadh, Enrique repeatedly calls Sophia Castello after she fails to answer. He begins calling at 2 p.m. Saudi time, corresponding to 7 a.m. in New York, and had deliberately waited earlier so as not to disturb her sleep. By 5 p.m. he has called more than twenty times and sent ten text messages. His Rolex confirms the passing hours, but the clock also becomes an instrument of emotional escalation: business time continues in the meeting room while his attention is fixed on a private silence in New York.

Enrique’s agitation disrupts his professional role. Greg notices that his employer is not paying attention to the presentations and cannot put down his iPhone. The scene turns international travel into a form of emotional confinement. Enrique can cross continents quickly by private jet, yet he cannot overcome the smaller distance created by an unanswered phone. The Middle East thus becomes the place where his authority in business is set against his lack of control over Sophia’s immediate response.

Narrative Significance

The region’s significance lies in how it links capital, movement, and intimacy. Enrique’s work carries him from one continent to another, and Sophia’s business training is itself part of this global corporate system: Draco Valiente even suggests that she travel to Italy so he can train her personally instead of leaving her at Enrique’s office. Against this background, the Middle East represents the scale of the business world that governs the characters’ schedules and family decisions.

At the same time, the Riyadh episode exposes the limits of that power. Enrique can oversee international ventures and participate in oil-and-gas negotiations, but his emotional focus narrows to Sophia’s unanswered phone. The contrast gives the Middle East a structural role rather than a merely geographic one: it is the farthest visible point of Enrique’s professional reach and the setting in which personal jealousy, concern, and dependence break through his executive composure.