Sandra Marton - The Sheikh's Convenient Bride

Was that the genie in the bottle he’d be setting loose, once he began implementing his plans back home? Maybe, and maybe he’d regret it, but you couldn’t lead a nation into the twenty-first century without granting rights and privileges to all its citizens.

Even women.

Surely they wouldn’t all turn out like…

No. He wasn’t going to think about Megan O’Connell. He’d wasted too much time on her already. All in all, this day had been a mess.

First that abominable meeting this morning. He’d taken one look at the buffet table, the champagne, the people staring at him and he’d been tempted to turn and walk out. He hadn’t, of course. He was his nation’s emissary. Manners, protocol, were everything.

How come he’d forgotten that with the woman? He’d lost it with her and he knew it but, damn it, she’d deserved it. That temper. Those threats…

Those eyes, that mouth, the certainty that the body beneath the awful suit was meant for pleasure…

“Hell,” Caz said, and stepped harder on the gas.

Business. That was what he had to concentrate on tonight.

It was what he’d wanted to concentrate on this morning, but Simpson had screwed it up. Instead of serious discussion with the man who’d written that excellent proposal, he’d had to endure an eternity of all those people fawning over him.

Bad enough his own countrymen insisted on treating him as if he were Elvis risen from the dead. That, at least, was understandable. It was tradition, the same tradition, unchanged for centuries, that would make implementing his plans a rough sell. His advisors would look aghast at his determination to create a modern infrastructure in Suliyam by opening it to foreign investors. He intended to commit much of his own vast fortune to the plan, as well.

His people would balk, protest, tell him such things could not be done.

It was tradition.

And it was tradition, too, that said he could not possibly bring a woman into Suliyam as his financial advisor.

He had explained all of that to Simpson from the first. He knew there were bright, well-educated women in the west. Hadn’t his mother been one of them? But Suliyam wasn’t ready for such things. He supposed it was one of the reasons his parents’ marriage had fallen apart.

He hadn’t told that to Simpson, of course, but he’d made it clear he would not be able to work with anyone but a man.

‘‘No problem, your worship,’’ Simpson had said.

“I am not called by that title,” Caz had told him pleasantly. “Please, just address me as Sheikh Qasim.”

Hakim had given him a look that meant he didn’t approve. Caz had ignored him. Hakim was devoted and loyal, but he believed in the old ways and those days were coming to an end.

“I will assign my best person to write this proposal, your majesty,” Simpson had replied.

Caz put on his signal light and shot across three lanes of traffic to the exit ramp.

He’d given up correcting the little man. What did it matter how Simpson addressed him as long as he found the right man to get the job done?

He had. The proposal was everything Caz had hoped for and more. He’d searched hard for the right firm to handle the account, narrowed his choices to three and asked them to come up with written proposals for the best possible utilization of investment funds in Suliyam.

Three months later, each company had submitted a fine proposal. Still, making the final decision had been easy. The T S and M report stood head and shoulders above the others. Caz knew he’d found his man.

Simpson was an annoyance, but Frank Fisher, whose name was on the proposal, was brilliant. He was the right person for the job: logical, methodical, pragmatic.

All the things Megan O’Connell wasn’t.

The woman was a creature of temper and temperament, all blistering heat one moment and bone-chilling ice the next. Their encounter proved, as if proof were necessary, that she could not possibly have written the document in question.

It took no great genius to figure out that Simpson was right about her.

She’d accept the money Caz had offered and be grateful for it. The thought of paying her off infuriated him, but sometimes the old saying was right. Better to placate the occasional jackal than to lose the entire flock.

Caz glanced at his watch. Almost seven. He was meeting Fisher for dinner. He hadn’t intended to bother with such a meeting—Fisher was making the flight to Suliyam with him tomorrow, so there’d be plenty of time to talk—but Fisher hadn’t been present this morning. He was tying up loose ends on another account, Simpson said.

No problem, Caz had answered.

But he’d reconsidered. He really did want to meet Fisher as soon as possible. There was always the faint chance they wouldn’t hit it off. If Fisher were anything like Simpson, for instance. If Caz intimidated him simply by being there, they’d never be able to work together.

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