Riyadh, Saudi Arabia appears as a temporary but consequential node in the international business world dominated by Enrique. The city is not developed as a fully described local setting; instead, it functions as the site of an oil-and-gas venture, a demanding meeting, and the emotional rupture caused by Sophia’s silence. Its narrative importance comes from the way distance fails to separate commercial power from intimate control: even while Enrique is conducting international business, his attention is pulled toward his fiancée’s unanswered phone.

Business Setting and Global Reach

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is associated with Enrique’s work for the Riyadh International Oil Holding Company. He is there for an oil-and-gas venture, attending a business meeting with his personal assistant, Greg. The setting extends the scale of Enrique’s professional life beyond the businesses he helps manage in the United States and across other continents. After graduating from Harvard University, Enrique joined his father in running shipping lines, real estate, hotels, and food chains; by the age of twenty-seven, he had taken control of much of the international operation, doubled the companies’ profits annually, and expanded them across different continents.

The city therefore belongs to a recurring geography of private jets, multinational investment, and rapid movement between commercial centers. Enrique’s business empire makes distance appear administratively manageable: he travels between continents each week, conducts negotiations in Riyadh, and expects to return to New York as soon as circumstances require. Yet the same mobility that demonstrates his power also exposes the limits of his control when personal communication breaks down.

The Meeting and Sophia’s Silence

During the Riyadh meeting, Enrique repeatedly calls Sophia after she fails to answer her phone. He begins calling at 2 p.m. Riyadh time, which is 7 a.m. in New York, deliberately waiting until he believes she will be awake. By 5 p.m. he has called more than twenty times and sent ten text messages. His attention shifts away from the presentations, and Greg notices that he is preoccupied with his iPhone rather than the business before him.

The physical distance between Riyadh and New York intensifies the scene’s central contrast. Enrique is surrounded by the formal machinery of an oil venture, but the unanswered phone becomes more urgent than the negotiations. Riyadh thus marks a value shift from professional command to emotional alarm. His corporate role requires concentration and patience, while his relationship with Sophia produces immediate suspicion and impatience; the meeting continues around him, but his imagination is already elsewhere.

Return to New York and Consequences

The crisis becomes actionable when Greg realizes that Enrique is panicking because his fiancée has kissed another man. Enrique cancels his lunch engagement for the following day with the King of Saudi Arabia, despite knowing the importance of the business venture, and rushes back to New York. The decision gives Riyadh a direct causal role in the plot: the city is where a major commercial commitment is abandoned because Enrique interprets Sophia’s absence and subsequent behavior as a threat to their relationship.

After reaching New York at 8 p.m. the following night, Enrique goes first to his mansion to bathe and change clothes, then travels to Sophia’s hotel suite. He brings flowers and chocolates and intends to surprise her. The gesture combines romantic pursuit with the possessive urgency that began in Riyadh. His return transforms a remote business trip into a confrontation with the instability of his engagement.

Narrative Significance

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia represents the scale and privilege of Enrique’s world, but it also reveals how little that scale protects him from jealousy. The city’s oil-and-gas negotiations connect the romance to global capital, while the repeated calls connect global mobility to surveillance and emotional dependence. Enrique can redirect private aircraft and cancel a meeting with a royal business partner, yet he cannot compel Sophia to answer her phone. The location’s significance lies precisely in that contradiction: Riyadh is a place where Enrique possesses extraordinary economic reach, but where his intimate anxiety makes him feel powerless.