Sandra Marton - The Sheikh's Convenient Bride

Of course there would.

If only her worm of a boss hadn’t waited until today to break the news.

She’d come in early, eight o’clock, to make sure she was ready for the meeting with the sheikh. She’d even checked with the caterer to make sure he’d be coming on time, bringing little sandwiches and pastries, the brand of coffee the sheikh was known to favor, the champagne and the juice. Fresh juice, she’d reminded the caterer, and vintage champagne.

By 8:10, she knew everything was ready. The caterer. The boardroom. The manager of this Los Angeles branch of Tremont, Burnside and Macomb, Jerry Simpson.

Quarter past eight, Jerry had stepped into her office, a smile on his pudgy face and a Starbucks’ container in his outstretched hand.

“For you,” he’d said.

She almost said Thanks, but I’ve been drinking coffee for two hours straight…But why turn down the friendly gesture? Jerry never came in early. He never brought her coffee. Mostly he never smiled. He never sat down beside her desk, either, the way he did as she took the container from him.

With the benefit of hindsight, Megan realized that warning bells should have gone off right there and then. Fool that she was, she’d simply figured Jerry was there early so they could get ready for the important meeting together.

“How was your weekend?” Jerry said.

She’d spent it on Nantucket Island at her brother’s wedding, so it was easy to smile and say “Great,” because it had been. He smiled back, said that was good to hear and didn’t she look wonderful and oh, by the way, he was giving the Suliyam account to Frank Fisher.

Megan blinked. She told herself she’d misunderstood. How could he give her client to somebody else? Maybe she’d had too much champagne at Cullen’s wedding, too little sleep, too many cups of coffee to try to get her brain in gear after the alarm went off this morning.

Simpson couldn’t have said what she’d thought he’d said, so she gave a little laugh.

“For a minute there, Jerry, I thought you said—”

“I did,” Simpson replied, and she looked beyond his smarmy smile and saw that he was telling the truth.

“But that’s impossible,” she said slowly, while she tried to make sense of what was happening. “Suliyam commissioned a study—’’

“The sheikh commissioned it.”

“Whatever. The point is—’’

“It’s an important detail, Megan.” Simpson smoothed his hand over the pinstripes straining across his tiny potbelly. “His Highness speaks for his country.”

“I don’t see what that—’’

“To all intents and purposes, he is Suliyam.”

“The point is,” Megan said impatiently, “I did all the work on this report. I did it because you said the king would be my client, if he signed on—”

“I never told you that. I simply asked you to prepare the proposal.”

Megan narrowed her eyes. “It’s standard practice in this firm that the person who works up the data for a client gets that client.”

“You are not a partner, Megan.”

“A formality, Jerry. You know that.”

“His Highness wants someone with authority.”

“Well, that’s easily resolved. Make me a partner now instead of waiting until July.”

“Megan.” Simpson got to his feet, an unconvincing smile of sympathy curving his thin lips. “I’m truly sorry this has happened, but—”

“It hasn’t happened. Not yet. All the partners have to do is vote me in and tell the sheikh I’m more than capable of—”

“You’re a woman.”

That had stopped her. “Excuse me?”

Simpson gave a deep sigh. “It’s nothing personal. It’s not you per se. It’s only that—”

“That what?” She was still trying to sound civil. Not an easy thing when your wimp of a boss told you the job you’d been counting on, an assignment so sweet it had every other accountant in the office panting for it, wasn’t going to be yours after all. “Come on, Jerry. What has my being a woman to do with anything?”

“Actually,” her boss said, smoothly avoiding the question, “it’s for the best. I need you to handle a new client. Rod Barry, the big Hollywood director.”

“The Sheikh of Suliyam is the client I want.” Megan rose from her chair and put her hands on her hips. “He’s the client you promised me.”

“Barry’s a tough cookie. It’ll take special skills to work with him. You’re the only one I can count on to do the job. Do the great work I know you’ll do and you’re up for a partnership next year.” Simpson stuck out his hand. “Congratulations.”

If Megan had been born yesterday, maybe she’d have fallen for the whole routine, but twenty-eight years of living, a dual degree in economics and accounting, a master’s degree in finance and a hard-won slip of paper that said she was a Certified Public Accountant meant she was neither innocent, stupid, nor easily bought off.

And then there was that little remark about her being female.

Her boss was trying to bribe her into accepting her fate. Why? The truth was, he had the authority to take this job away from her. Why would he be trying to buy her off? There had to be a reason.

“Back up a little,” Megan said slowly. “You said I was a woman and that was a problem.”

“I didn’t say that. Not exactly. All I meant was—”

“Why is it a problem?”

Simpson folded his lips in so they all but disappeared. “Suliyam is a kingdom.”

“I’m fully aware of that. There’s a description of Suliyam’s structure in my proposal.”

“It has no constitution, no elected representatives—”

“Damn it, Jerry, that’s what a kingdom is! I spent three months doing the research.”

“Then you also know that its people live by traditions that might seem a bit, ah, old-fashioned to us.”

“Would you please get to the point?”

Simpson’s attempts to avoid the issue vanished. ‘‘You don’t want to handle the new account, then the best I can do is assign you to Frank Fisher as his assistant. He’ll go to Suliyam, you’ll stay here and execute the orders he sends.’’

‘‘No way am I going to play second fiddle to Fisher!’’

‘‘This discussion is over, Megan. You’re off the account. The sheikh wants it that way, and that’s the way it will be.’’

“The sheikh,” Megan said coldly, “is an idiot.”

Simpson had turned a deathly shade of white. He shot a look at her office door as if he expected to see the sheikh standing there with a sword in his hand.

“You see?” he hissed. “Aside from anything else, there’s one reason you’re not suitable for this assignment.”

Dumb, Megan told herself, dumb, dumb, dumb!

“You know I’d never say such a thing to him.”

“You’d never get the chance.” Simpson stuck out his jaw. “Or didn’t you notice, when you did your research, that women don’t have the same privileges there as they do here? They have no status in the sheikh’s world. Not as we understand it, anyway.”

“What women have here,” Megan said coldly, “aren’t privileges, they’re rights. As for the sheikh…he spends as much time in the west as he does in his own country. He deals with women ambassadors at the United Nation. You can’t actually mean—”

“Our representative will have to work at his side. Deal with his people. Do you think, for one minute, those men agree to sit down with a woman, much less take criticism and suggestions from her?”

“What I think is that it’s time they joined the twenty-first century.”

“Getting them to do that isn’t the function of Tremont, Burnside and Macomb.”

“I also think,” Megan said in a dangerously soft voice, “that you’d better join this century, too. I’m sure you’ve heard of anti-discrimination laws.”