Sheikh's Hired Mistress (16 page)

"I just don't think that I'm the best person for this job," she said lamely. "Why not ask Brooke to come in from Brussels, or heck, William's really close, he's just in Dubai."

"Apparently I have not made myself clear," he said sharply. "You were the one at the dinner with me tonight, and you were the one who caught the Sheikh's attention. Because of that, you have a responsibility to your job to see this through. He wanted your expertise, and he is going to get it."

When Berry saw that there was no talking her boss out of it, she sighed, slumping back against the seat.

"Anyway, what's the matter?" Farnsworth asked crossly. "You're getting paid to appraise a few small items that are either going to be inoffensive or outright amazing. You are doing it on the company dime, and you are spending time with the head of the country. Surely your standards are a bit high?"

"You wouldn't understand," she said, and it was true. There was no way that she could explain the mess, first at the souk, and then at the dinner.

At the heart of it, her fast mouth had got her into this, and at the end of it, she hoped that her fast mouth could get her out of it as well.

***

That night in his penthouse apartment, Rasul wondered what the hell he was doing. He stripped to his skin, stretching out on his wide empty bed.

It usually wasn't this empty. There was a time not all that long ago when he would have had a different woman in it every week, gorgeous blondes, sultry redheads, wide-eyed brunettes. Then at some point in the last year, it had all gone dull. Nothing was exciting anymore, and he wondered, more bored than anything else, if it was time to give in and settle down.

Just a few weeks ago, Rasul had started to consider what he might look for in a suitable sheikha, a woman to be both his wife and the lady of his country, as he was the lord. He considered qualities like birth, wealth, biddable temperament, things that would make for a stable and uneventful partnership.

None of those qualities would have led him to the woman that he now knew was called Berry. He would never have thought that he wanted a woman so tall or slender, with hair that picked up points of brown fire and whose clear green eyes could snap with rage.

He couldn't explain it to himself, not really. When he had a free day, Rasul sometimes liked to go down into the souk. It was something his father had done, and his grandfather as well. The men of his dynasty had always kept a close ear on what was going on among their people, and he suspected that this was the tradition that had aided them in that goal.

He had been wandering around, thinking of nothing much, when he heard a spirited bidding war going on. Rasul stopped to casually see what the fuss was about, and he was surprised to see that the woman who was coming out on top was a foreigner. For some reason, when she glanced over at him, he could feel his heart beat faster in his chest, as if something subtle but real had changed his world forever.

That was when he decided that he had to get involved, though afterward, he had realized he might have done so in a rather foolish way.

When he bought the statue for her, he expected her to be pleased. In his experience, women loved gifts, though he had to admit that a camel statue was hardly the most romantic thing in the world. He had vaguely thought that the statue would be a jumping off point, where he could take her to dinner, and then perhaps more if they were both suited.

Of course it hadn't turned out that way. Instead of an assignation with a striking woman, he had ended up sitting on a bench discussing relationships with her. Rasul couldn't remember the last time he had spent so much time with a woman, speaking to her about something so placid.

Before he was even vaguely ready for her to go, she had ducked through the crowd, leaving him holding a camel statue that he had not wanted in the first place. As rejections went, it was a mild one, but he felt a pang at never seeing her again.

He had thought about her every day for the last few weeks, and when he saw her in the crowd, his heart had skipped a beat. Had he finally lost his mind and ended up hallucinating the beautiful foreigner?

Then his eyes took in the expensive dress that seemed to skim her elegant curves, and he took in the silver-haired man that she whispered so insistently to.

Rasul had nearly skipped giving his speech altogether. He wasn't sure that he could go out onto the stage and see such a beautiful woman chained to such an old man. Despite her cutting words, he had admired her independence at the souk, and to see her turn out to be such a hypocrite stung in a way he didn't like.

Rasul had been planning to avoid her when the mingling and dancing started, but something drew him to her like a nail to a magnet. He had told himself that he knew better to go confront a woman who boiled his blood like this one did, but it was inevitable.

At first he had been furious, and then when he found out about her deception, that fury had spiked and then finally faded to confusion. He was a man who was well used to women falling down at his feet. If his looks didn't convince them, oftentimes simply his fame or his wealth would do it. He had never been in a situation where they didn't.

And yet … and yet there was Berry.

She was as gorgeous in a simple dusty dress at the souk as she was in a sparkling cocktail dress, and no matter where she was, she wasn't afraid to let those gorgeous eyes spit fire at anyone who displeased her. That alone would have drawn his attention, but some part of him was becoming convinced that there was more to it than that.

As he drifted off to sleep that night, he found himself dreaming of her lush mouth. Could it curve into a smile as well as it could curve into a sneer? What would she look like when that same mouth had been freshly kissed?

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