Sandra Marton - Mistress Of The Sheikh

Amanda felt her face, then her body, start to burn under that arrogant scrutiny. She wanted to cover herself, put her arms over her breasts, but she sensed that to do so would give him even more of an advantage than he already had.

“Get out of my room,” she said, her voice trembling.

Instead, his eyes moved over her again, this time with almost agonizing slowness. “Just look at you,” he said very softly.

The words were coated with derision—derision, and something else. Amanda could hear it in his voice. She could read it in the way his eyes darkened. There was more to the message than the disparagement of American women and their morality. Despite her lack of experience, she knew that what he’d left unspoken was a statement of want and desire, raw and primitive and male.

It was three in the morning. She was alone in her room with a man twice her size, a man who wore his anger like a second skin…

A man more beautiful, and overwhelmingly masculine, than any she’d ever imagined or known in her entire life.

To her horror, she’d felt her body begin to quicken. A slow heat coiled low in her belly; her breasts lifted and her nipples began to harden so that she almost gasped at the feel of them thrusting against the thin cotton of her T-shirt.

He saw it, too.

His eyes went to her breasts, lingered, then lifted to her face. Amanda felt her heart leap into her throat as he took a step forward.

“Sire.”

He moved toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. The heat in her belly swept into her blood.

“Sire!”

Amanda blinked. A little man in a shiny black suit had come into the room. He scuttled toward the sheikh, laid his hand on the sheikh’s muscled forearm.

“My lord, I have located your sister.”

The sheikh turned to the man. “Where is she?”

The little man looked at his hand, lying against the sheikh’s tanned skin, and snatched it back. “Forgive me, sire. I did not mean to touch—”

“I asked you a question.”

Abdul dropped to his knees and lowered his head until his brow almost touched the floor. “She awaits your will, Lord Rashid, in the office of the Dean of Students.”

That had done it. The sight of the old man, kneeling in obeisance to a surly tyrant, the thought of Dawn, awaiting the bully’s will…

Amanda’s vision cleared.

“Get out,” she’d said fiercely, “before I have you thrown out. You’re nothing but a—a savage. And I pity Dawn, or any woman, who has anything to do with you.”

The sheikh’s mouth had twisted, the hard, handsome face taking on the look of a predator about to claim its prey.

“Sire,” the little man had whispered, and without another word, Nicholas al Rashid had spun on his heel and walked out of the room.

Amanda had never seen him again.

He’d taken Dawn out of school, enrolled her in a small women’s college. But the two of them had remained friends through Amanda’s change of careers, through her marriage and divorce.

Over the years, her encounter with the sheikh had faded from her memory.

Almost.

There were still times she awoke in the night with the feel of his eyes on her, the scent of him in her nostrils—

“Mandy,” Dawn said, “your face is like an open book.”

Amanda jerked her head up. Dawn grinned.

“You’re still mortified, thinking about how Nicky stormed into our room all those years ago, when he was trying to find me.”

Amanda cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes, I am. And you know, the more I think about this, the more convinced I am it’s not going to work.”

“What’s not going to work? I told you, he won’t remember you. And even if he does—”

“Dawn,” Amanda said, reaching for the purse she’d dropped on one of the glass-topped tables on the enormous terrace, “I appreciate what you’ve tried to do for me. Honestly, I do. But—”

“But you don’t need this job.”

“Of course I need it. But—”

“You don’t,” Dawn said, striking a pose, “because you’re going to make your name in New York by waving a magic wand. ‘Hocus-pocus, I now pronounce me the decorator of the decade.’”

“Come on, Dawn,” Amanda said with a little smile.

“Not that it matters, because you’ve found a way to pay your rent without working.”

Amanda laughed.

“Well, what, then? Have you changed your mind about taking money from your mother?”

“Taking it from my stepfather, you mean.” Amanda grimaced. “I don’t want Jonas Baron’s money. It comes with too many strings attached.”

“Taking alimony from that ex of yours, then.”

“Even more strings,” Amanda said, and sighed. This was not a good idea. She could feel it in her bones—but only an idiot would walk away from an opportunity like this. “Okay,” she said before she could talk herself out of it again, “I’ll try.”

“Good girl.” Dawn looped her arm through Amanda’s. The women walked slowly from the terrace into the living room. “Mandy, you know this makes sense. Doing the interior design for Sheikh Nicholas al Rashid’s Fifth Avenue penthouse will splash your name everywhere it counts.”

“Still, even if your brother agrees—”

“He has to. You’re my birthday gift to him, remember?”

“Won’t he care that he’ll be my first client?”

“Your first New York client.”

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t really work when I lived in Dallas. You know how Paul felt about my having a career.”

“Once I tell Nick you designed for Jonas Baron, and for Tyler and Caitlin Kincaid, he’ll be sold.”

Amanda came to a dead stop. “Are you nuts? Me, decorate my stepfather’s house? Jonas would probably shoot anybody who tried to move a chair!”

“You did your mother’s sitting room, didn’t you?”

“Sure. But that was different. It was one room—”

“The room’s in the Baron house, right?”

“Dawn, come on. That’s hardly—”

“Well, what about the Kincaids?”

“All I did was rip out some of the froufrou, replace it with pieces Tyler had in his house in Atlanta and suggest a couple of new things. That’s hardly the same as redoing a fourteen-room penthouse.”

Dawn slapped her hands on her hips. “For heaven’s sake, Mandy, will you let me handle this? What do you want me to say? ‘Nick, this is Amanda. Remember her? The last time you met, you chewed her out for being a bad influence on me. Now she’s going to spend a big chunk of your money doing something you really don’t want done, and by the way, you’re her very first real client.”’

Amanda couldn’t help it. She laughed. “I guess it doesn’t sound like much of a recommendation.”

“No, it doesn’t. And I thought we both just agreed you need this job.”

“You’re right,” Amanda said glumly, “I do.”

“Darned right, you do. At least redo the suite Nicky lets me use whenever I’m in town. Did you ever see such awful kitsch?” Dawn gave Amanda a quick hug when she smiled. “That’s better. Just let me do the talking, okay?”

“Okay.”

Dawn quickened her pace as they started up the wide staircase that led to the second floor. “We’ll have to hurry. You put on that slinky red dress, fix your hair, spritz on some perfume and get ready to convince my brother he’d be crazy to turn up his regal nose at the chance to have this place done by the one, the only, the incredible Amanda Benning.”

“You ever think about going into PR?”

“You can put me on the payroll after the first time your name shows up in the—oh, damn! We never finished our tour. You haven’t seen Nick’s suite.”

“That’s all right.” Amanda patted the pocket of her silk trousers. “I’ll transfer my camera into my evening bag.”