Praise for
by Sandra Marton
“This first book of the O’Connell series, Keir O’Connell’s Mistress, vibrates with charismatic characters and a tight, page-turning plot. No one delivers consistent must-reads like Sandra Marton!”
—Romantic Times
“Romance does not get better than a Sandra Marton story. The Sicilian Surrender has power and passion evident in the strength and compassion of an exquisite hero and the heroine’s courage to create a new life. Together they are a formidable couple.”
—Romantic Times
More praise for Sandra Marton
“When passion ignites in the tale it is really hot enough to burn!”
—A Romance Review on Marriage on the Edge
“Powerful characterizations, intense emotions, sizzling sensual chemistry and a flair for the unexpected…Ms. Marton has a unique way of pulling readers deep into the story right from the beginning.”
—The Best Reviews onCole Cameron’s Revenge
“The Pregnant Mistress…has sensational characters, a superb storyline, sensual scenes and an intense conflict.”
—Romantic Times
Dear Reader,
Some images and ideas are impossible to resist. A while back, I read an article about a woman who’d risen to the highest ranks in the corporate world and how difficult it had been for her to get there. She talked about the men who’d insisted on seeing her solely as an unqualified female, and about the one man who’d never viewed her that way…the man she fell in love with and eventually married.
And I thought, what if that man had not been so open-minded? What if he, too, had seen her as nothing but trouble—but trouble in the best possible way? What if he were a sheikh, sexy and gorgeous and arrogant as hell? And what if fate brought them together, despite their initial dislike of each other, and forced them into a marriage neither wants?
Welcome to The Sheikh’s Convenient Bride, and to a love affair hot enough to set the desert on fire.
With love,
Sandra Marton
THE SHEIKH’S CONVENIENT BRIDE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
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.
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