ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance

by Knight, Kylie

  "Those days are over, sweetie. I have a good feeling about this operator gig."

  It wasn't what Amanda had really wanted to do, but it paid a living wage, and the hours were pretty regular. There were worse ways to live. "Me too," she said. "Let's get some ice cream to go with these."

  She had a long list of things she needed to buy with her first paycheck, most as basic as toilet paper and detergent. Helen argued with her, but Amanda insisted. "You've been paying for all that for months now, the whole time I was working at Crud-Mart. It's my turn."

  "I don't really mind, Mandy."

  "But I do."

  "Okay, okay. But I'm buying the wine for dinner tonight. We have to celebrate your first paycheck!"

  Helen had been an awfully good friend to Amanda, sharing what she had, taking up the slack without ever making Amanda feel small. When she cooked, she always cooked enough for several meals and then told Amanda, "I made way too much spaghetti; can you help me eat it?" or "I got the wrong kind of soup. Do you want it?" or just, "I just don't like leftovers very much; can you finish this?" Amanda had promised herself that one day she was going to do something super nice for Helen, something to say "thank you" for all the kindness.

  And tonight she was going to make dinner. She was buying a roasting chicken, some new potatoes, and fixings for a big, beautiful salad. With Amanda's wine, it would be a feast. And there would be strawberries and ice cream for dessert.

  Life was starting to seem good again.

  On the way home Helen said, "So you're going to have to tell me all about the jobs you did. Do you have any stock tips? Were you privy to any insider information?" she teased.

  "Buy low, sell high."

  "Rude thing."

  Amanda laughed. "Mostly it was me trying not to screw anything up. It's fairly dull stuff."

  "You think of all that money being glamorous, and the people--"

  "It's really not." Amanda told her about the Forlanie call, and imitated Mr. Spitty. Helen got to laughing so hard she could barely get her shopping bags up the stairs. "It was actually kind of interesting, though," she admitted. "They talked about their resorts; they have them all over, the Caribbean, Mexico, the Canadian Rockies, Hawaii, even in Japan and a couple of European spots. Very nice places. High end, you know?"

  "Hey, maybe you can get an employee discount."

  "Even if I worked for them I probably couldn't."

  "Damn."

  "I know, right? But it was kind of fun to listen to them talk about their resorts and the amenities at each one, like the spa they're building at their resort in Japan where you'll be able to bathe in thermal pools all winter, even with snow on the ground. I Googled it, and it's a really gorgeous area, but now I've forgotten the name of the town. It's outside Tokyo, I think, in the mountains."

  "That sounds great. Hey, maybe someday, right?"

  "Yeah, we can put that on our To Do list, right under World Peace." Amanda didn't say that she'd also looked up Bill McConnell, too, and had been a little disappointed to find some photos that suggested that he was about sixty. Nice looking and all, but not really fantasy material for her, though she knew a few women who would have been willing to overlook his age for the kind of money he must have had.

  She and Helen had a nice dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, and put a DVD on. "Ah, this is the life," Helen observed.

  "Right, stuck at home with me on Saturday night."

  Helen shrugged. "Sometimes it's good to hang out with your girls, y'know. Anyway, I'm in no hurry to get back out there after Todd."

  They both chugged the rest of the wine in their glasses. It was part of the Todd drinking game. One drink when his law firm was mentioned, two when the phrase "ambulance chaser" came up, and if anyone mentioned his name, they chugged. Helen said it was one way to make the memory of her time with him tolerable.

  "Still, it's not time to settle down with cats."

  "Oh you don't know that for sure. We all have our internal clocks, Mandy, and mine may be ticking down towards a comely Maine Coon, or a Siamese with shapely ankles."

  "I'm still hopeful."

  "And so you should be. You're only thirty. You're not over the hill yet, like me."

  "You're only thirty-one!"

  "A well-seasoned thirty one."

  "You're a nut," Amanda told her, but it was said with great fondness.

  When she arrived at work on Monday, Amanda was surprised to find a note from her supervisor stuck to her monitor. "Come see me," it read.

  Okay, she thought, and tried to tell herself that he was going to congratulate her for a great first week. She stowed her things, then went to his office.

  "You wanted to see me?"

  "Yeah, I did. What went on during the Forlanie call?"

  "I... I'm sorry, I don't understand the question."

  His already small eyes narrowed alarmingly. "I've gotten two calls about you, one from a research analyst who says you cut him off, and the other from the assistant to the CEO wanting to know your name. So what went on?"

  "The CEO dismissed that analyst, and Mr. Kingman told me to disconnect him and not to allow him back in queue, so nothing that happened there was my doing, sir," she said, trying to sound firm and unruffled. She wasn't sure she was succeeding, but she kept her chin up, and forced herself to look Mr. Kolin in the eye. The small, evil-looking eye.

  "And the CEO wanting to know your name?"

  "He already knew my name. He asked me before the call began. He said he liked to use the operator's name to make the company seem friendlier. I have no idea why anyone would call to ask. Did they say anything else?"

  "No, but that was enough to raise a red flag." Clearly Kolin didn't like being questioned in return.

  "A red flag for no reason?"

  "Now look, Missy--"

  "Mr. Kolin, I didn't do anything I wasn't told to do. You can listen to the recording of the call if you don't believe me. I was told to get rid of that analyst, and I don't know why the Forlanie people called here."

  He glared at her and she thought, Swell, I'm going to get fired after a week. "Is there anything else?"

  "I'll be watching you."

  "Ye, of course, sir." She turned and walked out. Her knees wobbled a little out in the hallway, but she made it back to her cubicle without showing how rattled she was.

  Melanie came by with her schedule for the week. "Hey, what's up?"

  "What d'you mean?"

  "The pig-man is fuming."

  "It's nothing, just a misunderstanding. And don't be offensive to pigs."

  "Well keep your head down. You've got a busy week, lots of calls."

  Melanie was right. Amanda's schedule was full for the week. She hadn't expected to get this much work, but she supposed it helped that it was earnings call time. She began to look over the scripts she'd been given.

  About an hour later, Melanie was back. She handed Amanda a new schedule, one with only six calls on it. "What is this?" she asked.

  "Look, I'm sorry. He called me in and told me to give you this revised schedule. He wants the other one back."

  "This isn't right."

  Melanie avoided her eyes. "I can't-- I'm sorry, Amanda." She grabbed the first stack of papers and ran out the door.

  Amanda stared at the schedule. Six calls. So unfair. She'd done a good job, and now she was being penalized for it.

  But no, she wasn't being penalized for doing her job. When she started her training, Mr. Kolin had been very, very attentive. Too attentive for Amanda's liking, making her profoundly uncomfortable. She hadn't responded to him, and lately he'd pulled back, becoming more businesslike. She'd thought it was over, but she realized at that moment that he'd only been looking for some excuse to come at her a different way.

  "Fine," she said, out loud. "Just. Fine." She grabbed the revised schedule and marched down to Kolin's office. Just as she got there, Mrs. Tonetti from accounts waylaid her.

  "Amanda, you're just the person I wanted to se
e. I've had the nicest phone call from Bob McConnell. He seems to think you're just the best thing since sliced bread and he's made me swear to him that you will the operator for all the Forlanie calls from now on."

  "I... didn't know you would do that."

  "For an account like Forlanie, you bet we will. Unless you have a problem with that. Please tell me you don't have a problem with that."

  Amanda made a helpless gesture. "I don't, but Mr. Kolin might."

  Mrs. Tonetti's face turned stony. "What's he done?"

  Amanda told her about their interview, and about the schedule change. "I didn't do anything wrong," she insisted.

  Mrs. Tonetti steered her into one of the conference rooms and closed the door. "Amanda, I need you to tell me if Mr. Kolin has ever been... ungentlemanly with you."

  Amanda's mouth dropped open. "I... He's been... He's been quite friendly to me in the past, though today he was angry with me for no reason that I could see." She knew what Mrs. Tonetti meant, but in all honesty couldn't say more than what she had said.

  Then Mrs. Tonetti dropped the delicacy and asked straight out, "Has he ever touched you?"

  "No. Never."

  "All right, then. Let's go talk to him."

  Even though she'd been about to bang on his door and ask for an explanation of her cut hours, Amanda now didn't want even to see his face. She felt crawly inside. "Okay." Her voice had gotten very small.

  Mrs. Tonetti led the way, knocked on Kolin's office door, and stuck her head in. "Greg, do you have a minute? I have some good news."

  "I could use some good news," he said. His face fell when he saw Amanda enter behind Mrs. Tonetti.

  "Well, then you'll be happy to hear that Amanda has already done this company proud. I had a long conversation just now with Bill McConnell of Forlanie, and he is so impressed with Amanda that he has made me promise she will do every one of Forlanie's calls in the future." She half turned. "Well done, Amanda!" she said, then turned and stared at Kolin.

  "That’s... very good, yes," he managed. "Well done."

  "Thank you both."

  "I ran into Amanda in the hallway and made her come in here with me so we could both see your face when you got the good news. But we got to talking, and I think there might be a mix-up. Amanda tells me that there's a scheduling problem; was that it?" she asked Amanda.

  "I think there's been some confusion," Amanda replied, taking her cue from Mrs. Tonetti. I had a schedule on my desk earlier, and then it disappeared and I found this one." She handed it to Kolin who was glaring again. How was it possible for anyone's eyes to be so tiny? "I'd already started work on the first one. If it was a mistake and this is the schedule I'm supposed to have, then of course I'll handle it, but I did want to check first."

  "The first one was a very heavy workload," Kolin told them. "It should have been given to a more experienced girl."

  "Oh, I see," Mrs. Tonetti said. Again she turned to Amanda. "Did it seem to heavy to you?"

  "It was busy," she admitted. "But nothing I didn't think I could manage."

  "Well there, isn't she amazing? You just give her that schedule and let's see what our girl can do."

  Kolin's lips disappeared as he swapped schedules with Amanda. "If there's any problem," he said, and it sounded more like a warning than an offer of help.

  "I'm sure it'll be fine," she said. "I should go now. I'm putting together a database of call information for each company so I can have everything available to me when I need it."

  "You'll go far, Amanda. Won't she Greg?"

  "She sure will," Kolin replied in something just this side of a growl.

  "Amanda, there's something for you at the front desk, I believe," Mrs. Tonetti told her.

  Amanda thanked them both and retreated.

  The "something" at the desk was a vase of miniature mauve roses. The card read, "With thanks from Forlanie Resorts Group," a nicely impersonal personal touch. "Wow," she breathed.

  Gretchen, the receptionist, said, "Pretty flowers."

  "I'm stunned."

  Gretchen shrugged. "The account managers get them a lot. Not many operators do."

  "All righty, then." Amanda grabbed the vase and carried them back to her cubicle. It was only Monday and she felt like she'd already worked a full week.

  Amanda's work weeks stayed heavy after her interview with Mrs. Tonetti and Mr. Kolin. Some days were nearly back-to-back calls, and she had the feeling that if Kolin couldn't punish her with less work, he was going to try to drown her with more. The truth was that she'd never worked so hard in her life. She came in early to run through her scripts and stayed late to update her database.

  She was also making a lot of money. Within the first two months at the Agency she paid off everything that she'd borrowed from Helen, and was beginning to get a start on her credit card debt. It was an enormous load off her mind.

  After the quarterly calls she had several in-house calls with Forlanie. The participants got to know her and many of them greeted her by name as they checked into their conferences. Every time she did one of their calls she found herself hoping that Bill McConnell would be attending, though he never was.

  The next time she spoke to Donnie Kingman he thanked her for her help. "Lansdale is a loose cannon. I'm sorry you had to take the heat for us." All the gruffness had left his voice.

  "It got straightened out, so no harm done, sir. The flowers were a very thoughtful touch."

  "Flowers?"

  "The bouquet of mini roses with the thank you note."

  There was a short silence, then Kingman said, "Oh, right, the roses. Glad you liked them."

  "It absolutely wasn't necessary."

  "We do like to show our appreciation," he told her. He sounded amused for some reason.

  "In the future, how shall I handle Mr. Lansdale?"

  "Can you arrange to have his meds adjusted?"

  "I... uh..." She hadn't expected that from an executive.

  "Don't worry, we deal with him on a call-by-call basis. Some days he's fine, some days I'll let you know that he needs to be deep-sixed, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "You're a smart gal, Amanda."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "What color were the roses?"

  "Mauve."

  "Mauve. Good. Carry on, then."

  Amanda lasted eighteen months. In spite of Mrs. Tonetti’s help, Greg Kolin found ways to make Amanda’s life a nightmare. Finally she gave notice. She would do one more quarter of earnings calls and then she’d be leaving for good.

  On her last call with Forlanie, she said good-bye to both Donnie Kingman and Bill McConnell. Both men expressed regrets and wished her well. She realized that she was going to miss them both, but especially Bill McConnell. They’d had some interesting conversations before and after the calls she handled for his company, and she’d started to think of him as a fatherly sort of friend she simply hadn’t met yet.

  At the end of the last conference call, Donnie came on the line to thank her and said, “Amanda, do you have anything else lined up?”

  “Not really. I have a couple of leads, but I’m still looking.”

  “I would like to invite you to interview with Forlanie’s investor relations department. I always have room on my staff for smart, personable, hard-working people. Interested?”

  She was so taken aback she hardly knew what to say. “I— If you think I’d be a good fit, yes, of course I’d be interested.”

  “Great.” He gave her his assistant’s email address and told her to write and ask for an appointment. “Don’t forget to mention that I told you to do it. Claire is pretty ferocious.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Sure ‘nuff,” he said and clicked off.

  She told Helen about it when she got home that night.

  “I knew that Forlanie guy would be good for you. They like you. I’m betting they’re thrilled that you’re getting canned so they can snatch you up.”

  “Oh stop. It’s
not a done deal.”

  “I’m guessing it pretty much is. Just don’t screw the pooch,” Helen warned with a laugh.

  “I’ll do my best,” Amanda told her. “But you know me; you can’t take me anywhere nice.” Even if it wasn’t a sure thing, she was happy to have a job interview lined up. And to work for Forlanie? It had to be better than dealing with Greg. Donnie had never been anything but completely gentlemanly with her, and Bill McConnell had always been such fun to talk to. Not that she expected she’d be talking to him very much even if she was working for his company, but it was nice to think that maybe he’d come and seek her out for a chat very occasionally.

  As Helen predicted, the job turned out to be a sure thing. Ferocious Claire was perfectly charming to Amanda. She said, “Oh you’re the woman Donnie is so enthusiastic about! Let me get you all set up with the application and an appointment.”

  While she was filling out the application, Claire said, “Donnie is in his office right now, and said to send you in when you finish with that.” Then she gave Amanda a thumbs-up.

  Donnie was exactly what Amanda had imagined. He was short and stocky, with blue-black hair and sharp dark eyes that missed nothing. There was a sense of furious energy that swirled around him.