ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (94 page)

“Unacceptable!”

Rahm’s father’s voice was so deep, so enraged, so full of betrayal and menace it fairly shook the flat screen computer monitor on his desk. “Father,” Rahm said, bowing slightly, almost imperceptibly, as he stood in front of the web cam for his weekly follow-up call with his father, Rahmad “Rahm” Farzik the First. “I take full responsibility for losing the MeTime account. I was preoccupied with last week’s acquisition of the—”

“Spare me the excuses,” his father bellowed, accent thick as his rich, oily beard and the “thawb,” or flowing off-white tunic, he wore from chin to toe. His head was covered in a matching “Keffiyeh,” or scarf, a sumptuous gold ring securing it to his head. Thick reading glasses, used to peruse Rahm’s spreadsheets for the month, was his only nod to western wear.

Behind him were the trappings of his opulent office, including priceless artwork and commendations from the various international organizations he belonged to, mostly at the behest of his completely westernized sun. The sky outside his double-high palace doors a brilliant blue over the tiny peninsula of Hahmsuit, towering palms lining the walkway along his office balcony.

“Part of being a man,” his father continued, pacing the marble tiled floor of his opulent office, his corpulent frame an ode to his sumptuous lifestyle, “is owning up to one’s failures.”

“I hardly consider missing out on one tech company a failure,” Rahm blurted before he could think better of it.

On the screen, broadcasting from the other side of the world, is father paused in his pacing and turned toward the camera recording his every move. “It’s not the company I’m concerned with,” his father hissed. “It’s losing out to Xavier Stanton.”

“Of Stanton Investments?” Rahm asked. “I didn’t see him at the presentation.”

“Not him,” growled the elder Farzik. “His daughter!”

Rahm racked his brain before remembering the sexy redhead’s last name was, indeed, Stanton. “Carly?”

“Indeed, son.”

Now Rahm paced, mind whirling with the possibilities. How could he have missed the fact that Carly shared a last name with his father’s biggest business rival, Xavier Stanton. Head of Stanton Investing, Xavier and Rahmad Farzik had a long history of rival acquisitions extending back as long as Rahm’s father had been investing in western and other international companies.

“Father,” he said, bowing more humbly – and sincerely – before the blinking blue web cam on his own computer monitor. “I had no idea. Of course I would have made more of an effort if I’d known—”

“You should make an effort every time, son,” Rahmad Farzik said, voice still steely but quieter this time. “No matter who the other bidders are, you should win every account. Isn’t that what I sent you to America to do?”

Rahm nodded again, face warm with shame. “Yes, father,” he said, sounding very much like the supplicating young man who, only a few short years earlier, had begged his father to let him start his own investment firm, Platinum Dunes, in the west.

“Or have you been indulging too often, and focusing too little?”

“No father,” Rahm lied, avoiding the harsh glare of his father’s beady, coal black eyes peering back at him through the giant flat screen monitor.

An awkward silence followed, during which Rahm knew his father was stewing. When at last it was broken, his father’s voice – and terms – were unwavering. “Find out all you can about Carly Stanton,” he ordered. “Her company, her recent acquisitions and what she’s going to invest in next.”

Rahm peered back at his father’s face in the computer screen, nonplussed. “But how can I do that, father?” he asked.

At last the elder Farzik smiled. “Why, just do what you do best, son – seduce her.”

Rahm felt the cold dread of fear grip his heart. He had seduced many a woman since his time in America, but always for fun – never business. He had been eager to seduce Carly Stanton anyway. She possessed everything he wanted in a sexual conquest: the exotic allure of pale, glowing skin and red hair, endless legs and an hourglass figure, the air of independence he loved to squash and the smart mouth he loved to silence. And yet the thought of getting closer to her for something as boring as “inside information” somehow quieted the raging fires of desire he’d felt for her upon their first meeting.

And yet, duty called. Nodding, bowing, hands pressed together in supplication, he peered back into his father’s eyes. “Yes, father,” he said. “Of course, father.”

“And son,” his father said, voice light with the sudden tone of victory. “Don’t disappoint me again, or I shall shut down your little American adventure sooner than I would a fallow oil field.”

The words chilled Rahm to the bone, making him bow even lower to avoid his father’s cruel, all-seeing eyes. “Yes, father,” he said, reaching out beneath the camera’s view to click his mouse and end the weekly video conference call before his father, the sheik, could impose anymore decrees.

Only when the screen went blank and he knew the signal was terminated did Rahm rise to his full height and reaching into the sleek, stainless steel dorm fridge beneath his desk to grab a beer. Popping the cap, he felt the frustration of the call roll off him in waves.

His office was vast and sprawling, like the rest of his penthouse apartment high atop the Luxe condominium at the southernmost tip of South Beach. Pressing the French doors open, he traded the dark, cold expanse of his home office for the sprawling balcony that wrapped around his exclusive 6,000-square feet penthouse.

The sultry warmth of the tropical climate bathed his swarthy skin in a lush mixture of salt spray and cool, ocean breezes. Beneath him crashed the aqua blue waves of the Atlantic Ocean onto the shores of a white, unlined beach. He watched them while he sipped his beer, the vehemence of his father’s call retreating with every distant crash and pull of another salty blue wave.

In time, the beer was gone and so was his anguish. He had a full week before he was forced to call his father again and, despite his initial reluctance over the chore at hand, Rahm now embraced the opportunity to seduce Carly Stanton in a more official capacity.

In fact, as he returned to his office for another beer, Rahm was downright looking forward to it…

“Rahm?”

Carly stood, turning from the bar, eyes meeting the sultry brownness of her business rival’s amid the swirling throng at the El Tropicale nightclub. It was a retro 80s-slash-Latin bar off the beaten path, little more than a warehouse full of throbbing singles and strobe lights and blaring music from a live band that played an eclectic blend of 80s music and salsa hits.

She was on her third mojito of the night, skin aglow with perspiration and heaven only knew what her hair must have looked like, and yet she couldn’t help feeling a rush of pleasure – or maybe just adrenaline – at finding Rahm leaning against the same bar.

“Carly?” he asked with the same breathless surprise as she had. He looked casual and relaxed, to say nothing of drop dead sexy, in a black dress shirt unbuttoned to reveal his hairless, firm chest and maroon slacks that caresses his long, athletic legs. “What are you doing here?”

Although she had her drink and was leaving the bar, destined to return to her table full of rowdy single coworkers, Carly lingered to drink in the sexy hunk currently peering back at her as if she was the only woman in the room. “I could ask you the same thing,” she purred, feeling the warm glow of sweet Caribbean rum through her veins. “Shouldn’t you be on to your next acquisition by now?”

His grin was spontaneous and broad, lighting up an already flushed face. “I liked the view in South Beach so much,” he said, inching imperceptibly closer along the smooth, polished bar railing toward her. “I thought I might… stick around.”

She chuckled at the obvious come on. Or was it so obvious? Despite her prowess in boardrooms and at negotiating tables, Carly was strictly amateur when it came to dating. She’d had little experience in high school, preferring to graduate early and go on to college and receive her MBA in record time. Even in college she’d dated little, preferring random hookups in off campus bars to satisfy her lustful desires before going back to her 70-hour a week academic grind.

Even after college, she’d yearned for, but had yet to achieve, the stability of a steady boyfriend. While there had been prospects, most had bailed on her after only a few months. Not that she could blame them. In Carly’s world, her work always came first – forcing her to sacrifice nearly everything else in her life, love most of all.

She could blame her father for that. Xavier Stanton had instilled in his only child the need for success at all costs. Giving her little in the way of financial benefit but much in the school of hard knocks, Carly’s father had taught her the insatiable need for more – more success, more contacts, more investment, more success. As a result, Carly was a success addict, and rarely took time off from her favorite addiction to indulge herself in a little nightlife.

Tonight was the rare exception, a bachelorette party for one of the girls in Accounting. She’d agreed to the invitation under duress, her personal assistant Avery Hightower reminding her it had been nearly six months since Carly’s last night out with “the girls,” her one and only source for fun outside the office.

Alarmed that it had been so long, Carly reluctantly agreed, only to find herself standing in front of her newest business rival all the same. She smirked, pausing to sip her drink as he studied her every move. Flattered, she tried to hide the blush that quickly crept to her face with a playful toss of her long, red hair. “I’m glad you stuck around to enjoy the… view,” she purred, full lips never too far away from her drink straw. “South Beach can be addictive.”

He nodded, reaching for a rocks glass full of two fingers of a rich looking amber liquid and nothing else. Their eyes met, the moment slowing down and his penetrating gaze making Carly feel like she was the only woman in the room. Hell, as if they were alone in the vast, throbbing, glitzy, sultry nightclub. “That’s not exactly the view I was referring to, Carly.”

His words did not exactly shock her, though she felt a current run up and down her body just the same. The look in his eyes, predatory and hungry, telegraphed his cheesy come-on line from a mile away, and yet it landed in a receptive place. Perhaps Carly was buzzed, her three mojitos well beyond the nightly limit of a glass of wine she allowed herself after getting home from the office at nine most evenings.

Perhaps she was just lonely, her last “indiscretion” occurring over a year earlier with a blind date Gena in Sales had hooked her up with. He’d been handsome, and young, but delightfully inexperienced in bed and a real clinger-on once she’d tried to explain to him that she’d made a “mistake” by indulging in a workplace romance. Luckily he’d only been an intern, on loan from the local MBA program, so she’d only had to endure the indignity of his puppy love for a few weeks after their single night together.

Since then her bed had been empty, save for the rare occasions when she shared it with one of the half-dozen toys from the “fun drawer” in her nightstand. Still none of those compared to the real, rock hard, solid and sexy man standing a few feet away – and closer all the time.

“Are your lines always this cheesy?” she finally asked over the noise of the six-piece salsa band, currently belting out a horn-tinged version of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.
How appropriate,
Carly thought to herself as she tried to navigate the torturous waters of flirtation.

“Only when I’m tongue tied by beautiful redheads,” Rahm chuckled, lifting the rocks glass to his lips and pausing to read her response. In return he received another blush from Carly’s face, a sight that clearly made him smile before tossing back his drink and signaling the bartender for another.

She watched the way the bartender snapped to attention, as if he’d been hovering and waiting for Rahm to order. It was a subtle thing but, in a swirling nightclub full of hundreds of people, a sure sign that wherever he went, Rahm Farzik got what he wanted.

Am I what he wants tonight?
Carly couldn’t help wonder to herself as she sipped her mojito while Rahm waited for his drink. She had no intention of giving him what he wanted tonight – that was Negotiating 101, of course – but she had to admit the thought of giving in to Rahm was temptation enough to make her panties moist beneath her shimmering black cocktail dress.

He turned to her then, catching her in mid-ogle as she admired the slim, athletic physique beneath the fine tailored clothes. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said, voice so warm and sultry and smooth and near she realized he had somehow managed to inch face to face with her between paying for and picking up his drink.

Rather than flinch and step back, as she might have with a handsome stranger, she leaned in closer and winked merrily over her rapidly disappearing drink. “Oh no,” she giggled playfully, wagging a finger in his face. “I’m not letting you into my mind quite that easily.”

Rahm smirked, a devilish curve of those thick, ruby lips that entranced her more than they should have. “Well then,” he said, reaching out a hand to gently caress her arm. “If you won’t let me into your mind, where will you let me in, Carly?”

Carly’s skin was warm and fragrant as they left the nightclub together, if not quite arm in arm then certainly side by side. The sidewalk was quiet after the raucous nightclub, which he’d only endured because his intel on Carly assured him she would be there that night.

Even so, a few shots of Jack Daniels, his new American favorite whiskey, had made the horrible salsa band and the throbbing crowd tolerable. Now that he had successfully talked Carly into letting him walk her home, and she’d navigated the treacherous waters of leaving her work friends behind, the night held untold pleasures as its sultry embrace warmed Rahm’s already flushed skin.

“Do they follow you everywhere?” Carly asked, her eyes peering over her shoulder at the two bodyguards following a block behind.

He nodded. “Unfortunately,” he said, admiring her flushed skin as she admired them. “Why, do they bother you?”