Читать книгу The Sheikh's Convenient Bride - Сандра Мартон, Sandra Marton - Страница 6

HE WAS a sheikh, the King of Suliyam, a small nation sitting on an incredible deposit of oil on the tip of the Bezerian Peninsula.

On top of that, he was tall, dark-haired, gray-eyed and gorgeous.

If you liked the type.

According to the tabloids and the TV celebrity-tell-all shows, most women did.

But Megan O’Connell wasn’t most women. Besides, tall, dark, handsome and disgustingly rich didn’t begin to make up for egotistical, self-centered, and arrogant.

Megan raised her coffee cup to her lips. Okay. Maybe that was superfluous. So what? Men like him were superfluous, too. What did the world need with penny-ante dictators who thought they were God’s gift to the female sex? To everybody on the planet, when you came down to it?

She’d never exchanged a word with the man but she didn’t have to, to know what he was like. Her boss—another egotistical jerk, though not a good-looking one—had transmitted the sheikh’s message to her this morning and it had been clear as glass.

She was a female. That made her a second-class citizen in his eyes. He, of course, was male. As if that weren’t enough, he was royalty.

Royalty. Megan’s lip curled with contempt. What he was, was a chauvinist pig. How come she was the only one who seemed to notice? She’d been watching him charm the little group at the other end of the boardroom for almost an hour, tilting his head when one of them spoke as if he really gave a damn what that person was saying.

If only they knew what an SOB like him could do to someone.

She had to admit, he seemed good at what he did. Holding the attention of a bunch of self-important partners and managers of a prestigious financial firm wasn’t easy but then, if you believed the Times, he was the leader of his nation’s cautious steps into modernity and development.

If you believed the Times. It seemed more logical to believe the tabloids. According to them, he was a playboy. A heartbreaker on three continents.

That, Megan thought, was undoubtedly closer to the truth.

The only thing she was sure of was that he was Qasim al Daud al Rashid, King of Suliyam since his father’s death and the Absolute Ruler of his People.

It was a title that would have gone over big a couple of generations ago. Too bad the sheikh didn’t seem to care that such nonsense was a joke now…though it didn’t seem a joke to what passed for the news media, or here in the Los Angeles offices of Tremont, Burnside and Macomb, Financial Advisors and Consultants.

Too bad she’d accepted the transfer from Boston, where nobody would have made this kind of fuss over a walking, talking anachronism.

“Oh, your highness,” a woman said, the words accompanied by a sigh that carried the length of the room.

His Highness, indeed. That was the proper way to address the king, according to the belly-crawling sycophants in his entourage. Megan drank the last of her coffee. No way would she ever call him that. If she had the misfortune to speak with the man—which she surely wouldn’t, after what had happened this morning—she’d sooner choke. His High and Mightiness was more like it. What else would you call a twenty-first century dictator leading a 16th century life? Someone who’d single-handedly set her career back five years?

The bastard.

To think she’d worked her tail off, researching and writing the proposal that had won him as a client. To think she’d spent days and evenings and weekends on the thing. To think she’d dreamed about what handling such a prestigious account would mean to her career, swallowed all those little hints that she’d be named a partner, believed they were soon to become reality.

Every bit of it had gone up in a puff of smoke this morning, when Simpson told her he was giving the Suliyam assignment to Frank Fisher instead of her.

Megan started to refill her cup, thought better of it—she was already flying on caffeine—and poured herself a Mimosa instead. The vintage Krug and fresh OJ were there because the sheikh supposedly liked an occasional Mimosa at brunch, thanks to the influence, some said, of the genes of his California-born mother.

He’d never know it but he was drinking them today, assuming he was drinking them, thanks to Megan’s research. She’d learned about the Mimosas and ordered the champagne and the orange juice.

If only she’d ordered strychnine instead.

Damn, she had to stop thinking this way. She had to stop thinking, period, or she’d say something, do something that would cost her her job.

As if she already hadn’t.

No. Why think like a defeatist? She wouldn’t lose her job. She’d put in too much time and effort at Tremont, Burnside and Macomb to let that happen. She would not let the decision made by The King of All He Surveyed ruin her career. There’d be other big accounts, other career-changing clients.

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.”

Simpson proved ready for that threat. “Anti-discrimination laws are valid only within the United States. There are place where even our female soldiers conform to local customs.”

“What the military does has nothing to do with the sheikh’s plan to raise capital to further develop Suliyam’s resources,” Megan snapped, though a lurch in her belly told her she’d just lost ground.

“It has everything to do with it.”

“I doubt if a judge would agree.”

Simpson slapped his hands on her desk and leaned toward her. “If you’re threatening to sue us, Miss O’Connell, go right ahead. Our attorneys will make mincemeat out of your case. The laws of Suliyam take precedence over American law when our employees live and work there.”

Was he right? Megan wasn’t sure. For all she knew, Simpson might have already trotted the issue past the company’s legal counsel.

“And, knowing the outcome, if you were still foolish enough to go ahead with a lawsuit,” Simpson added with smug self-assurance, ‘what would you put on your résumé? That you sued your employers rather than follow their wishes? How many jobs do you think that would get you?”

Zero, but Megan wasn’t going to admit that. “That’s blackmail!”

“It’s the truth. You’d be poison to any firm of financial advisors.”

Her stomach took another dip. He was right. Legally, you couldn’t pay a penalty for bringing an anti-discrimination lawsuit. Practically, things weren’t quite that simple.

Simpson smiled slyly. ‘‘Besides, we never really had this conversation. I only stopped by to thank you for the fine work you did on that proposal and to tell you, sadly enough, that you don’t have quite the experience you’d need to take on the job yourself. I’m sure you’ll gain a world of experience staying here in the States and being Fisher’s diligent assistant.” Her boss rocked up on his toes, which elevated him to at least five foot five. “Nothing wrong with any of that, Miss O’Connell. Nothing at all.”

Megan stared at him. He was a worm, but he was right. She probably didn’t have grounds for suing the company. Even if she did, doing so would end her career.

She was stuck. Cornered, with no valid options.

The logical thing was to choke back her rage, pin a smile to her lips and thank Simpson for telling her she was going to become a partner and that she’d be thrilled to take on an important new client in the film business.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. She’d always believed in playing by the rules and Jerry Simpson was telling her the rules didn’t mean a thing. He was beaming at her now, certain he had her beat.

He didn’t.

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “Wrong about me, Jerry. I’m not going to let you and the Prince of Darkness shove me aside.”

Simpson’s smile tilted. “Don’t be stupid, Megan. I just told you, you can’t win a suit against us.”

“Maybe not, but think of the publicity! It’ll be bad for you—we both know what the senior partners think about negative publicity. And it’ll be worse for the sheikh. Suliyam’s floating on a sea of oil and minerals, but once investors hear his backward little country’s up to its neck in a human rights lawsuit, I’ll bet they’ll gallop in the other direction.”

Simpson wasn’t smiling at all now. Good, Megan thought, and leaned in for the kill.

“You yank this job away from me,” she said, “I’ll see to it that Suliyam’s dirty linen is hung out for the world to see.” She stepped past her boss, then turned and faced him one last time. “Be sure and tell the exalted Pooh-Bah that, Mr. Simpson.”

It had seemed the perfect exit line and she’d stalked away, realizing too late that she’d abandoned her own office, not Simpson’s, but no way in hell would she have turned back.

As for her threat—she wouldn’t take that back, either, even though it was meaningless. She knew it and she didn’t doubt that Simpson knew it, too. He was an oily little worm but he wasn’t stupid.

Her career meant everything to her. She’d devoted herself to it. She wasn’t like her mother, who’d cheerfully handed her life over to a man so he could do with it as he chose. She wasn’t like her sister, Fallon, whose beauty had been her ticket to independence. She wasn’t like her sister, Bree, who seemed content to drift through life.

No, Megan had thought as she yanked open the ladies’ room door, no, she’d taken a different path. Two degrees. Hard work. A steady climb to the top in a field as removed from the glittery world of chance in which she’d grown up as night was from day.

Was she really going to toss it all aside to make a feminist point?

She wasn’t.

She wasn’t going to sue anyone, or complain to anyone, or do much of anything except, when she got past her fury, swallow her pride and tell Jerry she’d thought things over and—and—

God, apologizing would hurt! But she’d do it. She’d do it. Nobody had ever said life was easy.

So Megan had stayed in the ladies’ room until she figured the coast was clear. Then she’d started for her office, brewed a pot of coffee, dug out her secret stash of Godiva and spent the next hour mainlining caffeine while she thought up imaginative ways to rid the world of men.

A little before ten, the PA she shared with three other analysts popped her head in.

“He’s here,” she’d whispered.

No need to ask who. Only one visitor was expected this morning. Plus, Sally had that look teenage girls got in the presence of rock stars.

“I’m happy for you,” Megan replied.

“Mr. Simpson says…he says he would like you to stay where you are.”

“I would like Mr. Simpson in the path of a speeding train,” Megan said pleasantly, “but we do not always get what we want.”

“Megan,” Sally said with urgency, “you’re wired. All that coffee…and, oh wow, you put away half that box of chocolate. You know what happens when you have too much caffeine!”

She knew. She got edgy. She got irritable. She talked too much. A good thing she realized all that, or she’d show up in the boardroom despite what Simpson would like. Hell, she’d show up because of what he’d like.

Yes, it was a good thing she knew Sally was right. Staying put was a good idea.

“Tell Mr. Simpson I’ll stay right here.”

Sally gave her a worried look. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

A lie. She hadn’t been fine. More coffee, more chocolate, and she’d tried not to think about the fact that as she sat obediently in her cubbyhole of an office, Jerry Simpson and His Highness, the Sheikh of Smugness, were probably enjoying a good laugh at her expense.

And why, she’d thought, should she let that happen? She could show her face, just to prove she might be down but she wasn’t defeated.

So she’d combed her hair, straightened her panty hose, smoothed down the skirt of her navy suit and headed for the boardroom.

By the time she’d finally strolled in, the formal handshakes and greetings were over. Jerry Simpson saw her and glowered but what could he do about it without making a scene? The sheikh hadn’t even noticed, surrounded as he was by his adoring fans and his pathetic minions.

Megan had tossed Jerry a thousand-watt smile meant to let him suffer as he tried to figure out why she’d showed up. Then she’d headed for the buffet table, where she’d sipped more coffee before switching to Mimosas.

No caffeine there. Only little bubbles.

All she had to do was hang in long enough to make Simpson squirm. Once the sheikh and his henchmen departed, she could start the ugly business of crawling back into her boss’s good graces, though she doubted he’d let her get that far anytime this decade.

Well, no rush. The sheikh wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. Everyone was having too much fun. She could hear Jerry’s voice, and a deeper, huskier one she assumed was the sheikh’s. She could hear occasional trills of girlish laughter, too, punctuated by loud male ha-ha-ha’s.

Like, for instance, right now. A giggle, a ha-ha, a simpering, “That’s so clever, Your Highness!”

Megan swung around and stared at Geraldine McBride. Geraldine, simpering? All two hundred tweedy pounds of her?

Megan snorted.

She didn’t mean to. She just couldn’t help it, not while she was envisioning the Pooh-Bah riding an Arabian stallion with Geraldine flung across the saddle in front of him.

She snorted again. Unfortunately the second snort erupted during a second’s pause in the babble of voices. Heads turned in her direction. Jerry looked as if he wanted to kill her. The sheikh looked—

Mmm-mmm-mmm. He looked spectacular. You had to give him that. The tabloids were right. The man was gorgeous. They had his eye-color wrong, though. It wasn’t gray. The color reminded her of charcoal. Or slate.

Or storm clouds. That’s how cold those eyes were as they fixed on her.

There was no mistaking that expression. He didn’t like her. Not in the slightest. Jerry must have told him she’d been a problem.

So be it.

I don’t like you, either, she thought coolly, and couldn’t resist raising her glass in mocking salute before she turned away.

Why care what the sheikh thought? Why care what Jerry thought? Why care what anybody thought? She had her own life to live, her own independence to enjoy—

“Miss O’Connell,” a deep voice said.

Megan swung around. The sheikh was coming toward her, his walk slow, deliberate and masculine enough to make her heart bump up into her throat, which was silly. There was nothing to be afraid of, except losing her job, and that wouldn’t happen if she used her head.

He reached her side. Oh, yes. He was definitely easy on the eyes. Tall, lean, the hint of a well-muscled body under that expensive suit.

D and D, she thought, and her heart gave another little bump. What she and Bree always joked about.

Dark and Dangerous.

He gave her what the people at the other end of the room would surely think was a smile. It wasn’t. That look in his eyes was colder than ever, cold enough to make the hair rise on the nape of her neck. How could such a gorgeous man be such a mean son of a bitch?

Megan drew herself up. “Your Mightiness.”

His eyes bored into hers again. Then he lifted his hand. That was all. No wave, no turning around, nothing but that upraised hand. It was enough. Someone said something—her boss, maybe, or one of the sheikh’s henchmen—and people headed for the door.

Scant seconds later, the room was empty.

Megan smiled sweetly. “Must be nice, being emperor of the universe.”

“It must be equally nice, not caring what people think of you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

His gaze moved over her, from her hair to her toes and then back up again. “You’re drunk.”

“I am not.”

“Put down that glass.”

Megan’s eyebrows. “What?”

“I said, put the glass down.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Someone should have told you what to do a long time ago,” he said grimly. “Then you’d know better than to try to threaten me.”

“Threaten you? Are you insane? I most assuredly did not—”

“For the last time, Miss O’Connell, put the glass down.”

Megan’s jaw shot forward. “For the last time, oh mighty king, stop trying to order me ar—”

Her words ended in a startled yelp as Sheikh Qasim al Daud al Rashid, King of Suliyam and Absolute Ruler of his People, picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder and marched from the room.