ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (9 page)

After they were done, he leaned back in his chair and sipped at his water, wishing it was some liquor. “You’re really giving me the brush off right now, aren’t you?”

She put on that plastic smile again as she put the papers away in her briefcase. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh,” he said with a laugh, “I’m pretty sure you do. You don’t like me?”

“You’re our client. I like you as much as I need to in order to get my job done.”

“What if I was to ask you out to dinner?”

“I’d have to decline.”

“Why’s that?” he asked, tilting his head.

She gave him a genuine smile this time and folded her hands on the table. “Because I don’t like you.”

Bryan burst out laughing and slapped the table. Others seated around them looked over, but he ignored them. Let them look. It’s not like they didn’t know who was sitting next to them. They were welcome.

“Well I like you. If you don’t come to dinner, come to one of my games, huh? Like a thank you. Bring a friend. I’ll get you a couple tickets.”

“Sure,” she said. “I have a friend that would like that.”

A friend. Bryan chuckled and sipped his drink. Oh yeah, this one was going to be fun to crack. A challenge. He’d have her by tomorrow.

“You’re lying!” Maggie’s friend Stacy nearly shouted the words at her. “You actually met him? Like met him met him? You talked, and he talked back and everything?”

Maggie waggled her brows mischievously and took a sip of her coffee. They sat in Stacy’s kitchen, nearly huddled over their coffee cups as they chatted about their day. “Get this,” Maggie said, knowing she had Stacy on the hook, “he was actually flirting with me.”

Stacy slapped her hand on the counter. “Get out! No! Are you serious right now? Bryan Stappler hit on you?”

“Right?” Maggie said, warming her hands around the cup. “That’s weird, right?”

Stacy tilted her head and stopped herself from sipping her coffee to ask, “Why would that be weird?”

“Well I mean, c’mon.” Maggie waved a hand down her side as if she was on display on some gameshow. “This? He could have anyone. No one chooses this when they could have anyone.”

Stacy leaned in conspiratorially. “Maybe that’s why he wants it?”

Maggie looked at her as though she couldn’t have been more bored with the conversation. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Hey, you tell me. You said he was flirting with you. Guys love a challenge.”

Suddenly Stacy gasped. “Did you give in? Did you have sex with him?”

“Stacy, no, would you get ahold of yourself? When would we have slept together? We had lunch. For work. At a restaurant. There were people around.”

“And a tablecloth?”

Maggie laughed and had to set down her coffee cup lest she spill it all over herself. “We did not have sex under the tablecloth.”

When Stacy opened her mouth to say something else, Maggie cut it off with a raise of her hand. “No! We didn’t have sex at all, anywhere. And I’m not going to. You know his reputation just as well as I do.”

Stacy gave a thoughtful frown and shrugged a shoulder. “Sure, but still. Could be fun.”

“You sleep with him then.”

Stacy laughed. “Right, when would I get the chance?”

Maggie had been waiting the whole conversation to spring it on her. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the two tickets to Bryan’s next game. “How about two nights from now?”

“Shut up!” Stacy screamed and grabbed the tickets. “Oh, shut up! These are floor seats, are you kidding me right now? Are we going? Are we really going?”

“Hey, I may not sleep with the guy, but there’s nothing wrong with getting some free tickets, right?” Maggie said, not a little proud of herself. She ran her tongue over her front teeth and sipped her coffee. It tasted like self-satisfaction. It was delicious.

“Maggie,” Stacy said, holding the tickets to her chest.

“Yes?”

“I want to be you when I grow up.”

Maggie laughed again and once more had to set her coffee cup down.

The next two days went by quickly, yet somehow slowly at the same time. Maggie was swamped with work, but she kept finding herself thinking about Bryan. At first she was confused about why he would flirt with her. Stacy had a point about guys liking a challenge, but why would she be a challenge for him? She wasn’t anything, especially not compared to the girls she’d seen him with on TV or in the tabloids.

The man loved his women. Never stuck with one for more than a week. It was an ongoing joke in the office about his most long-term relationship was a model he saw twice in two weeks before breaking it off. It was ridiculous. He was a playboy that didn’t respect anyone, not even himself.

After that, she even doubted whether he had been flirting with her at all. By the time the game came around, she had convinced herself he hadn’t flirted with her at all. She’d somehow made it all up. She had the tickets because he was being nice, and she’d read too much into it.

Stacy was there in her team jersey, giddy like a little girl on Christmas. They found their seats, and Maggie couldn’t stop from feeling excited. She’d been to a few games before. Perks of the job. Nothing like this though.

It was surreal to be sitting there, level with the court. It was one of those things that was just never meant to be seen like that, like when she was stopped in traffic on the freeway. The pavement of the freeway was always seen passing as a blur. Whenever she could look out of her car window and see the freeway in all of its detail, it gave her this odd feeling of being out of place. Of not belonging where she was. Looking behind the curtain.

That was how she felt at the game, and it only got worse when the players ran out onto the court and started warming up. Stacy just laughed and giggled, stomping her feet quickly in her excitement. Maggie, though, just couldn’t get over how weird it felt.

When the game started, it was like being a part of it. She was there, could see the players in all of their detail instead of the slight blurs they were from far away. It was incredible.

After the second quarter, she had a surprise she hadn’t anticipated at all. Three men came down the aisle and stopped by their seats. One of the men asked to see their tickets. Maggie’s heart jumped into her throat. Were they in trouble? Somehow she instantly convinced herself that they had been sitting in the wrong seats this whole time. She knew it was unreal! Some things were just too good to be true.

She and Stacy pulled their tickets out of their pockets and produced them. After the man looked them over, he gave a nod and a smile and handed them back. Maggie only had time to think about how odd this was when the man waved to someone else up at the top of the stairs. A small team of people came down with a small table, flowers, candles, and food. They placed a pitcher of beer and two glasses, hot dogs, bbq chicken, fries, and an assortment of other things on the table in front of Maggie and Stacy.

During the game Maggie had noticed there were no seats in front of her and Stacy. She’d thought it weird but paid it no mind. Now it made sense.

Across from her, sitting on the bench, sweating and drinking his water was Bryan. He just sat there, elbows on his knees, grinning at her. She didn’t know if he could see her mouth well enough, but she mouthed a few choice words for him.

All she could do was try her best to hide her embarrassment at the attention. Meanwhile, Stacy was just gobbling it all up, laughing and waving at everyone around her who was staring. Maggie didn’t want to seem rude, so she ate and had a beer. Truth be told, it was pretty good. Not that she’d ever admit as much to Bryan.

After the game all Maggie wanted to do was get out of there, but a number of people milled about the floor seats chatting and asking Maggie and Stacy about the food. Stacy was only too happy to talk about it, despite how much Maggie wanted to go. She didn’t know if they just took a long time, or if Bryan had rushed his time in the showers, but when she saw him crossing the court over towards them, she knew it was too late to duck out gracefully. She swore under her breath and turned her head away.

“What is it?” Stacy asked. When she looked over and saw Maggie looking away, she immediately put her head on a swivel. “Bryan,” she shouted excited. “Hi! Great game.”

“Hey,” he said. “Your Maggie’s friend, right?”

“Yes,” Stacy said, surprised to hear that he knew who she was. Stacy gave Maggie a quick backhand across her shoulder. “I’m Stacy.”

Maggie turned around and gave him a polite smile. Real smooth, mister. He knew full well that Maggie had never mentioned her, but by making Stacy feel special, she would welcome his presence. The guy knew what he was doing.

“The food was your doing,” Maggie said, making sure it didn’t sound like a question.

“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling at her.

“Well I thought it was great,” Stacy said, grinning sweetly at him.

Maggie had seen Stacy flirt with guys before, it was no surprise. She loved the attention, and she was a pretty, slender blonde, so most guys loved her attention, too. Bryan, though, didn’t even seem like he heard her speak.

“You enjoy the game?” he asked Maggie.

“It was okay,” Maggie said. “You were kind of sloppy tossing that 3-pointer under such pressure.”

Bryan chuckled and shrugged a shoulder. “Johns recovered it. No big loss.”

“It was a dumb move.”

“Sometimes you just gotta take the shot,” he said slyly.

“Yeah, and when you act without thinking, you’re lucky if it even bounces off the rim.” Maggie took Stacy by the hand. “Enjoy your evening.”

As Maggie turned to leave, dragging Stacy behind her, Bryan opened his arms wide. “What, you’re leaving?”

“You gave me tickets to the game. I watched the game.” She looked at him from over her shoulder. “I never agreed to do anything else with you.”

“I at least thought—“

“That was your fault, not mine.”

“Not even the rim,” Bryan called out, laughing.

Maggie had to turn her head away from an infuriated Stacy. No need to let her offended friend see her smile.

Bryan sat alone in his hotel room that night for the first time in a long time. That was not supposed to happen. She turned him down. She had actually turned him down. No one said no to him. Not women, not men, especially not people that worked for him! He gave her tickets to a game, gave her the extra step with the food and the flowers. It was like having dinner together without listening to her blather on about her life. Who needs that drama?

Yet, after, she couldn’t have been less interested in hanging out with him if she had tried. The thing that really confused him was that she wasn’t playing hard to get. She was genuinely disinterested in all of this stuff. This wasn’t the normal gold-diggers he was used to dealing with.

Now, her friend Stacy, she was an easy mark if he ever saw one. A part of him was tempted to just go after her since he knew he could have her, but it just didn’t strike him as something satisfying. The fact that he knew he could have her made her worthless to him. He really was losing his taste for all of this.

This Maggie chick, though, was something else. She was a challenge. He liked that. He wasn’t about to give this up without a fight. After that night, he put a plan into motion. He started by sending Maggie flowers at work with a card. He tried to call her after that, but she was busy and unable to answer. Not to be daunted, he sent out an assistant to buy her some earrings and see they were delivered. His assistant returned later that day with the earrings saying she refused them. Bryan couldn’t believe a woman would just refuse earrings, so he fired his assistant.

Knowing that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, he sent her gifts himself. Shoes, dresses from the latest trendy fashion designer, more jewelry. In a moment of frustration he even gave her some gift certificates to a local ice-cream shop. That one got him an email from her. All it said was, “Ice cream? Really?” When he replied asking if she’d have dinner with him, he didn’t receive a reply.

After a week of this, he knew he was running out of time. They were going to have to start traveling for games soon, and he wouldn’t be able to follow up on any of his advances if she were to accept. Desperate times required desperate measures and he wasn’t about to lose.

He finally called up his publicist and insisted that her assistant meet with him for lunch to discuss the details of their deal, or he’d fire her firm. The woman was at a complete loss and scrambled to do his bidding. As he knew she would. They arranged the lunch to take place the next day. When he hung up the phone, he knew he had this in the bag. He’d give her so many things she’d have to sleep with him.

Bryan walked over to the stereo and cranked up the music. He grinned at himself in the mirror, flexing and admiring his muscles. This was totally going to work. Serves her right for thinking she could refuse this!

The nerve! How dare that spoiled brat of a man stoop to such levels just to get her to go out to lunch with him. It was cute at first. She’d never admit this to him to his face since she was so mad at him she could barely see straight at the moment, but it was.

The flowers, the ice-cream seemed a bit desperate and almost like a fat joke, but she realized it was the desperate act of a man without any ideas left. Some of the presents had become a bit too lavish for her. The jewelry, the watches, the clothes. She found it odd and a bit creepy how he knew her size so well already. But now this. This was too much.

Her boss called her into the office and she was absolutely furious. “What did you say to him?” she immediately accused her, before Maggie could even get a word in. “What game are you playing? He’s one of our biggest clients. So big, in fact, that without him we don’t have a firm. If we lost him our reputation would plummet.”

What could Maggie say to that? Sorry? That wasn’t really something she should have to apologize for, and really, why should she? The guy was doting on her. She never asked for it, she never wanted this sort of treatment!

When she got to the restaurant he insisted on meeting at, she found him sitting at a table propped against the wall, his feet up on the seat next to his, chewing on a toothpick. He had the audacity to actually look proud of himself. Did he really think he won?