Читать книгу Engaged To The Sheikh - Sue Swift - Страница 8

Selina Carrington’s hobby was breaking hearts, and she’d just spotted fresh prey.

Two stools away at a seaside bar, he was blocked from her direct view by a touchy-feely couple in the heated throes of romance. Just as well; Selina preferred to observe him covertly, watching his reflection in the mirror behind the bar’s glittering shelves of bottles and glasses.

Ignoring the gentle sea breezes and the moonlit night, Selina’s target held a cell phone clamped to his head. Speaking in a foreign tongue she couldn’t identify, he was conducting business loudly enough to mask the soft sigh of nearby ocean waves.

A jazz combo started to set up at the other end of the bamboo-paneled room. As the guitarist tuned his instrument, Selina’s prey swung around on his bar stool, a glare crossing his otherwise handsome face.

Handsome was good; in fact, handsome was essential. She never bothered with nerds. Taking them down was neither fun nor kind, but handsome, arrogant asses were legitimate victims. This one was a dead ringer for George Clooney and, without a doubt, knew it.

Selina finished her mojito and smiled. The bartender stopped polishing glasses to ask, “Another?”

“Thanks, Janis.” Selina read the bartender’s name from the tag pinned to the young woman’s white blouse.

While Janis mashed fresh mint leaves, she asked, “Just arrived, ma’am?”

“It’s Selina, and yes,” she said. “What’s there to do around here?” She sucked on an ice cube.

Janis sported a short rasta hairstyle, a Jamaican accent and a wide, white smile. “Anything and everything, mon. We pride ourselves on providing de complete resort experience. You can walk by de ocean or swim in it, sail on it, or even parasail above it.”

“Parasailing sounds fun.”

Janis’s hands remained busy as she clinked ice, poured, stirred. “It is. Scary-excitin’, ya know what I mean?” She winked. She put the fresh drink in front of Selina while clearing the drained glass.

The couple next to Selina left, arms around each other’s waists, and Janis scooped up the two twenties that lay on the bar.

Selina sipped. The drink slid, cool and sweet, down her throat. “Mmm, this is good. The fresh mint leaves make all the dif—”

“Pardon me.” A male voice broke into their conversation, distinguished by a British accent and undisguised annoyance. “But just for kicks and giggles, how about a little service over here?”

Janis’s dark brows shot to the top of her forehead, disappearing beneath her jet-beaded rasta braids. Selina set down her glass and swiveled her bar stool toward the interruption.

Having finished his conversation, the Clooney clone now glowered at them down the length of the bar.

“Excuse me,” Janis said to Selina. As the bartender headed toward the man, she stopped, pulled a small towel from the belt on her black pants and wiped a puddle.

He tapped impatient fingers on the bar. Selina noticed that his nails weren’t merely manicured, but buffed. Her smile broadened. Not only arrogant, but her target was too wealthy, judging by the gleaming nails, expensive watch and bad attitude.

On top of all that—as if he weren’t enough of a jerk—he wore a diamond stud in his left ear. How last millennium.

This was getting better and better. The Clooney clone would be a perfect diversion while she was stuck on the Gulf Coast away from her job and her life.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Janis asked the clone.

“Oh, don’t give me that jibber-jabber, now that you’ve decided to do your job,” the clone snapped.

Janis leaned on the bar and smiled at the clone. “What can I bring you, suh?” Belying her deferential tone, she turned her head and winked at Selina, who stuck her fist over her mouth to keep from laughing.

“A…martini,” the clone said, as though the fate of the earth rested on his decision. “What kinds of vodka do you pour?”

Janis began to recite, “Grey Goose, Absolut, Stoli, Skyy—”

“Anything not made with potatoes, please. Wheat only. Thank you.” Clone waved a condescending hand as if ordering Janis away.

Pivoting toward Selina, Janis’s face contorted in a visible struggle to trap her laughter. Losing the fight, she dashed to a back room behind the bar. Selina heard a loud, snorting guffaw just as the door slapped shut.

Unfortunately for Selina’s decorum, Clooney clone now zeroed in on her. “Hallo, there,” he said in a low, soft voice. “You don’t come here often, do you?”

He actually pronounced the t in often. Gawd. Selina bit down hard on her lower lip while thinking, Control yourself. “Uh, no,” she said, affecting bland innocence. “How could you tell?”

“Oh, you’re easy,” he said.

Did he intend the insulting double entendre? Probably. Wondering how and when she’d cut him off at the knees, she raised her brows and openly surveyed him.

Wearing an open-necked white linen shirt with matching trousers, he looked cool and elegant even in the humid Florida night. His dark-amber skin contrasted with the linen, giving his elegance a savage undertone, as though a lion had wandered into the bar looking for a martini—wheat vodka only, nothing made with potatoes.

His blatant masculinity challenged her.

He’d be fun to take down.

“I also know that your visit here was unexpected,” he continued.

“Also true.” Selina gave him a come-hither look from under her lashes. “Even though you have the right accent, I didn’t know your last name was Holmes.”

He flashed the pearly whites at her. “You’re wearing a new dress I saw in the resort boutique, so your trip must have been impromptu.”

“Very good. You are very good…aren’t you?” She adjusted the scoop neckline of her red gauze dress, remembering she’d gone braless in the sultry Florida night. Trimmed with feathers, the floaty, sexy creation was unlike anything else in her closet, and now she took full advantage of its flirty design, exposing a little more of her décolletage and dipping forward so her target could get a better look at the goods.

He responded by leaning toward her, practically diving into the front of her dress. “You arrived here on the last ferry. You bought this pretty dress, took a shower, and then came down here.”

“You hit everything right.” She ran her fingers through her loose, damp hair, which would normally be blown dry and bound into a French twist.

“I’m here on business, but I’ll have plenty of time…” He winked at her.

She winked back. “Won’t your business associates take most of your attention?”

“I can lose them with no effort.” He again gestured dismissively.

“Them?” she asked.

“A real estate agent and his granddaughter. No one of importance.”

As Selina’s smile stretched wider, her grandfather entered the room and took the bar stool next to hers. He’d also freshened up and wore a loose polo-style shirt with khaki shorts.

“Oh, I’m glad to see you both here, already getting acquainted,” Grandpa Jerry said.

“I wouldn’t say we’re acquainted…yet,” Selina said sweetly.

Jerry patted her arm. “Sellie, I’d like you to meet Kam Asad.”

A flush rose beneath the Clooney clone’s swarthy skin. “You’re—”

She held out a hand. “Selina Carrington.” She smirked at him, enjoying his discomfiture. “So you’re Kam Asad. My grandfather tells me that you’re in the market for—”

“Shh!” He put a finger to his full lips. “This is high security.” He scowled at Jerry. “You told her?”

Selina liked him even less, if that was possible. No one dissed her grandfather in her presence without a slash from the knife-edge of her tongue.

“So what if he did, Mr. Superspy?” she asked. “What’s so high security about buying a house? I noticed you jibber-jabbering away on your cell phone a few minutes ago as if you had no secrets at all.”

Kam Asad’s flush deepened. “I was speaking in an Arabic dialect of my people. It is doubtful that anyone in this hemisphere understands it.”

An Arabic dialect of my people. Yeah, right. Who was this dude, Rudolph Valentino? “Cell phones aren’t exactly high security,” Selina said. “Anyone could be listening in—”

“Let’s start over.” Jerry, ever the suave salesman, interceded. “Selina, this is Kamar Asad. As you know, he’s in the market for some property in the D.C. area. Kam, this is my granddaughter, Selina.”

Selina corralled her naturally sarcastic mouth, saying only, “Pleased to meet you.” She extended her right hand.

“A pleasure for me, also.” Asad shook her hand once, then dropped it as though she were Typhoid Mary.

She glanced at her grandfather, well aware that inside Jerry’s mind, he was humming, “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match,” to the accompaniment of wedding bells.

She hoped that he wasn’t too stuck on the idea of seeing her with Kam Asad. There was something of the untamed, the wild, lurking behind Kam’s facade, she thought, before immediately chiding herself for her silly fantasies. Kam Asad was an ordinary man, even though he obviously thought he was a cut above the herd. But she knew better. All men were alike under the skin, whether or not that skin was handsome or ugly, old or young.

Selina didn’t like handsome men. She didn’t like any men, really, and few women, but she disliked handsome men most of all.

A memory of another too-handsome man flashed through her mind, but she banished it immediately to the furthest recesses of her brain.

The only man she did like, her grandfather, now nudged her with a gentle elbow. But before Jerry could speak, Janis reappeared with Kam’s martini. Sliding the glass onto a coaster on the bar, she said to Jerry, “Good evening, sir. Can I get something for you?”

“Whiskey or even a scotch,” Jerome said. “What brands do you pour?”

While Jerome Carrington and the bartender chatted about fine whiskies, Kamar took a moment to reexamine the granddaughter, Selina. He’d noticed her as soon as she’d walked into the bar and had planned to meet her after finishing his conversation with his father’s foreign minister.

Selina’s hair, an unusual shade of red-gold, would make her a standout in any gathering, he mused, and all the more so in the dimly lit bar. Though recently washed and still damp, her gleaming hair lit the night like a torch, swinging loose along her slender neck like a silken scarf.

He was a sucker for the long, bare throats of sexy American women. His lust for them approached an obsession. Perhaps it was because the females of his country were always shrouded, but American girls, with their anytime, anyplace, anywhere approach to lovemaking attracted him like no other women. Did Selina Carrington’s red hair reflect her sexuality? He promised himself that he’d find out, and soon.

She wasn’t afraid of male attention, either, judging by her attire, a feather-trimmed dress constructed of scraps and shreds of red fabric that floated and fluttered while concealing few of her body’s slender curves. Her unplanned trip had also prevented her from bringing makeup, and her petal-perfect complexion, set off by a few stray freckles, heightened her natural, sexy allure.

She’d be a worthy bedmate if she hadn’t come with her grandfather. Kamar liked women—many women—but he didn’t believe in fouling the nest. He never conducted liaisons with business contacts or their families. The world was his playground, and he’d found many willing partners. He didn’t fool around close to home.

A beautiful girl like her, there was probably a man in her life already.

And she was mouthy. Many American women were. Often a smart mouth on a woman repelled him, but Selina’s rosy lips were pretty enough that he’d prefer to silence her with a kiss.

Then again, here was Jerome Carrington. So, with a sigh, Kamar mentally classified the stunning Selina and her beautiful neck as off-limits.

But he could still talk to her, couldn’t he? “American women are usually such busy girls,” he told her. “It was kind of you to accompany your grandfather on this trip.”

She shrugged, and her low neckline dipped even further. “Grandpa Jerry thought I should get away.”

“Get away? From who or what?”

“I work for an ad agency, and we just presented one of our major clients with a new campaign.” Her smile was thin. “This was the first time I was responsible for the entire project.”

He didn’t care about her job, but girls liked it when one showed interest in their pastimes. “And what was this project about?”

“It’s an advertising campaign for a cereal called Corny Crunch.”

“Did you say horny crunch?” He gave her his most flirtatious smile.

“Like I haven’t heard that, oh, at least twenty times before.” Selina stirred her drink.

He’d try again. “What kind of, um, advertising campaign did you plan?”

“Breakdancing corn chips in cargo pants down to their ankles.” She grinned at him. A real smile this time, not a fake one.

Progress, he thought. “Very charming. But why would anyone over the age of twelve buy these horny crunchies?”

Her smile broadened. “They have lots of fiber and even some oats. That’ll lower your cholesterol. You ought to be thinking about that at your age.”

There was such a thing as too mouthy, Kamar discovered. “At my age? For your information, I have but twenty-eight years.”

“Oh, shouldn’t everyone think about maintaining good health?” Selina turned to her grandfather, who ambled closer, sipping whiskey from a cut crystal tumbler. “Grandpop, what do you think of Corny Crunch?”

“A great product,” he said. “Selina’s ad campaign will sell millions. Another coup for the marketing goddess.”

“Oh, so now you are a goddess,” Kamar said. “I should have known.”

She arched a perfectly plucked brow at him. “Why?”

“You have the demeanor of someone…exalted,” he said. “Goddess attitude, you might say.”

“Ouch.” Selina clapped a hand to her face with a mock frown. “I guess I deserved that.”

“You certainly did.” Her grandfather glowered at her.

Kamar smiled. “Speaking of business, when shall we begin?”

“How about tomorrow morning?” Jerome Carrington asked. “We’ll meet in the dining room at nine.”

“Aren’t there several restaurants in a resort like this one?” Selina asked.

“The barkeep will know.” Jerome caught the bartender’s eye. “Where’s the best place for breakfast?”

“There are a number of choices, sir. There are four restaurants and two cafés at La Torchere. The poolside café can become noisy with children at play, so I would recommend The Greenhouse for breakfast.”

“The Greenhouse?” Selina tilted her head to one side. “That sounds fun.”

Kamar frowned. “I do not know if I want to eat my breakfast in a greenhouse.”

“Why not?” Selina asked. “I’m sure they don’t grow potatoes in there.”

She caught the bartender’s eye, and both girls laughed. Azhib, he thought. Wonderful. Within a few hours of his arrival, he’d convinced two women he was a fool. And he was stuck here until a deal for the property could be struck.

“Do you know what’s going on here? Because I’m at sea.” Jerome looked from his granddaughter’s face to the bartender, and then to Kamar. “What’s this about potatoes?”

“Nothing,” Kamar said sourly. “The Greenhouse will be fine—9:00 a.m.?”

“I’ll make a reservation,” Jerome said, eyeing Kamar with an uneasy expression.

“Oh, no problem, sir.” Janis removed Kamar’s empty martini glass. “I’ll leave a note for the concierge before I go off shift. What would the name be?”

“The Asad party.” And without another word, Kamar stalked off.

“What bug’s up his rear?” Jerome asked.

“Maybe a potato bug,” Selina replied, and both women exploded with gales of laughter.