Sandra Marton - The Sheikh's Convenient Bride

‘‘Who?’’

“Frank Fisher. From the office.”

“Frank?” Her mind buzzed with questions. Why was he calling her? And why did he sound so…panicked?

“Look, I hate to bother you, but—but, uh, I guess Mr. Simpson spoke to you about, uh, about things.”

Mr. Simpson? Her eyes narrowed. “If you mean, did he tell me that you’re stealing my work and claiming it as your own, yes. He spoke to me about, uh, things.”

“Hey. I didn’t steal anything. This wasn’t my idea, it was Mr. Simpson’s.”

Oh, hell. Frank was right, it wasn’t his fault. It would have been nice if he’d spoken up and told the Worm he wouldn’t take credit for something that wasn’t his, but Frank was spineless. Everyone in the office knew it. Intelligent, but spineless. Simpson had chosen him wisely.

“Forget it,” she said wearily.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

A horn bleated behind her. She looked in the mirror, saw, through the water racing down the rear window, a small, low, obscenely expensive sports car. Typically L.A., and no doubt driven by a typically L.A. jerk who thought the car would make him look more important than he really was. She couldn’t see the driver, thanks to the rain, but she didn’t have to. She knew the type.

“Yeah, well, it’s good of you to call, Frank. I mean, the apology doesn’t change anything, but—”

“The apology?” Frank cleared his throat. “Uh, right, right. I’m glad you understand but actually—actually, I called to ask you something.”

Megan frowned. “What?”

“Well,” Frank said, and paused. “Well, see, I was reading through your—through my—through the proposal—”

Megan felt the blood start to drum in her ears. “Get to it, Frank. What do you want?”

“There are a couple of things here I don’t quite follow…”

Frank began to babble. A couple of minutes later, it was clear there were lots of things he didn’t follow. Like, for instance, the entire purpose of her suggestions for the investments the sheikh was seeking.

“He’s rich, right?”

“Stinking rich,” Megan agreed.

“And they’ve already got oil coming out of the faucets in Suminan, right?”

“Suliyam. Yes, the oil’s pumping. But there’s more to be found, and there are minerals in the mountains…”

And what was she doing, giving Frank a quick education based on her research? The man was an idiot. Why should she help him? Damn it, the jerk behind her was beeping his horn again.

“What?” she snarled, shooting an angry look in the mirror. Did Mr. Impatient expect her to fly over the cars ahead of her?

“I need answers, Megan. That’s what.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Frank.”

“Yeah, but I need answers.” Frank’s voice cracked. “And soon. I’m meeting the sh—I’m meeting my client in less than an hour and, like I said, I just took a quick look at this proposal and—”

“And you’re in over your head,” Megan said sweetly, and hit the disconnect button so forcefully she thought she might have broken it.

The phone rang a second later. She ignored it. It rang again, and she grabbed the phone, shut it off and, for good measure, tossed it over her shoulder into the back seat.

This was why Simpson hadn’t fired her.

He needed her. All that crap about her staying in L.A. to assist Fisher was just that. Crap. She was going to stay here and force-feed everything to her replacement. Frank would get the scepter. She’d get the shaft.

“Forget it,” she snapped.

No way was she going to take that kind of treatment. What was with men, anyway? Three of them had tried to step on her today. Simpson. Fisher. And the sheikh.

“Don’t forget the sheikh, Megan,” she said out loud, but how could she possibly forget a man so despicable?

He’d kissed her. So what? It was a kiss. That was all, just a kiss. Okay, so he was good at it. Damned good, but why wouldn’t he be when he’d been with a zillion women? That was what he did. Made love to women, ordered his flunkies around, and sat on his butt the rest of the time, counting his money, figuring out ways to make it grow.

What else would a rich, incredibly good-looking Prince of the Desert do with his life?

To think that such a man believed he could buy her…

The idiot behind her hit his horn again. This time, it was a long, long blast that seemed to go on forever.

Megan looked in the mirror.

“Go on,” she snarled, “pass me if you can, you idiot!”

The horn blared again. Megan cursed, put down her window just enough so she could stick out her hand and make the universal sign of displeasure. She’d never done such a thing before in her life but oh, it felt good!

The driver behind her swung out, horn blasting in answer to her gesture. He cut in front of her, then put on the speed and zoomed away, in and out of the smallest possible breaks in traffic until he vanished from sight.

“Are you really in such an all-fired hurry to get to hell?” she yelled.

Then she put up her window, glared straight ahead and wished nothing but life’s worst on the Worm, the Sheikh, Frank Fisher, and the idiot driving the Lamborghini.

California drivers were not only fools, they were foolhardy.

The mood he was in, Caz had half a mind to force the VW onto the shoulder of the freeway, yank open the driver’s door and tell the cretin behind the wheel that making a crude gesture to a stranger wasn’t a good idea.

Luckily for the cretin, he was in a hurry.

The traffic had been bumper to bumper. When it finally loosened up, he’d waited for the guy ahead to start moving. He hadn’t. Or maybe she hadn’t. Caz had pretty much generated a picture of who was behind the VW’s wheel. A woman. Middle-aged, peering over the steering wheel with trepidation, nervous about the rain.

The finger-in-the-air thing had changed his mind.

No gray-haired Nervous Nellie would make such a gesture. She wouldn’t yap on a cell phone while she was driving, either. At least, he thought he’d seen the driver holding a cell phone to her ear. It was hard to tell much of anything because of the rain, and who was it who’d said it never rained in Southern California?

Hell.

He had to calm down.

Driving fast would help. It always did. It was what he did at the end of virtually every meeting with his advisors back home, take one of his cars out on the straight black road that went from one end of Suliyam to the other.

From no place to nowhere, his mother used to say.

Caz always thought of her when he was in California. She’d left his father and come here, where she’d been born, when he was ten. She died when he was twelve, and he’d only spent summers with her for the intervening two years.

“Won’t you come home with me, Mama?” he’d ask at the end of each summer. And she’d hug him tightly and say she’d come home soon…

But she never did.

He’d hated her for a little while, when he was thirteen or fourteen and Hakim let slip that she’d left his father and him because she’d despised living in Suliyam. He hadn’t known that. His father had always told him his mother had gone back to her beloved California for a holiday, that she’d taken ill and had to stay there to get the proper medical care.

It turned out only part of that was true. She’d gotten sick and died in California, all right, but she hadn’t gone for a holiday. She’d abandoned everything. Her husband, her adopted country…

Her son.

Caz frowned, saw an opening in the next lane and shot into it.

It had all happened more than twenty years ago. Water under the bridge, as the Americans said.

He had more important things to think about.

Caz sighed. He was wound up like a spring about tonight’s dinner appointment. He had to relax. That woman was to blame for his bad mood. What an aggressive female! A feminist, to the core.