Down Range - Lindsay McKenna Mills & Boon M&B

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it was a setup, he would have expected an Arabic woman or someone who spoke his native language. Still, he’d never had this combustible attraction with a woman before and he wondered if any part of their relationship had been architected. She hadn’t been the first woman to approach him in the bar, but she was the first woman who he’d been interested in talking with.

      “You never said what you did for a living,” he said. A test. Would she lie?

      “I’m an event coordinator,” she said, sleep heavy in her voice.

      Was she evading his question? He didn’t detect anything in her voice. He didn’t want their connection to have been a fraud. He wanted her to like him for him. The thought was desperate, perhaps a remnant of the relationship he had wanted before becoming the emir. “Do you focus on certain types of events?”

      Sarah yawned and rolled over to face him. She opened her eyes and he was caught by the shades of brown in her irises, flecks the color of sand and of cedar.

      “Do you really want to hear about this? Most people find what I do boring. Unless it’s a bride and it’s her wedding. Those conversations last well over an hour.”

      He found nothing about her boring. But if she was here to pry information from him, he wanted to know it now. “Tell me about it. I bet I won’t find it boring.”

      She tilted her head up to look at him and brushed some of her long brown hair away from her face. “I started my business about four years ago. It’s still small, but we’re growing every year. I take any contracts I think I can do well. I’ve done dog birthday parties, a Pi Day event and a divorce party where the client wanted every menu item to include strawberries, which her ex had been allergic to.”

      Saafir laughed.

      Sarah drummed her fingers on his chest. “I’ve done some charity events to raise money for a local substance abuse support group.” She brought her hand to her mouth in thought. “I’ve turned away a few elaborate weddings, but I did take an important contract recently. If it goes well, it will be great to have on my resume for other jobs. It’s already been a wild experience.”

      She must be referring to the trade summit contract. “What was the contracted event?” he pressed. He could have dropped his line of questioning, but he wanted to know if this was a happy coincidence that they’d met and not that she was a spy. He expected a spy to lie, flat out and without so much as a blink.

      Sarah shifted, appearing uncomfortable. “I’ve been asked to keep the details private. It’s an important client.”

      Unless she was a world-class liar who could lie even while naked, she didn’t know he was the important client.

      Saafir couldn’t stand the thought of her showing up with breakfast Monday morning and realizing he was the emir of Qamsar. Being fastidious about security, Adham had booked this hotel under Saafir’s mother’s maiden name, Barr, the name Saafir used when he wasn’t representing himself as the emir, two days earlier than he was expected to arrive in the United States.

      “Is your client someone famous?” he asked, wondering how trustworthy she was. He hated testing her. If she admitted something, it was akin to entrapment.

      “I can’t discuss that,” she said, her tone serious. She slid her leg off him and he grabbed her thigh.

      He didn’t want to lose the closeness and his questions were making her uncomfortable.

      He gave her credit for integrity and discretion in not revealing his name. Another woman might have bragged about the connection or caved under the pressure and given away more about the event.

      “This is Washington, D.C. You have me thinking it’s someone infamous,” Saafir said.

      Sarah laughed. “Isn’t everyone in D.C. infamous?”

      Saafir smiled, pleased she hadn’t given away any details of the contract. He didn’t want to ruin the moment. He would tell her in the morning who he was and hope she forgave him.

      * * *

      Sarah was walking on air as she entered her apartment building and tiptoed up the stairs. She didn’t want to risk the neighbors complaining about the early morning disturbance. The sun had begun to rise and though she’d had little sleep, she wasn’t tired.

      For the first time in months, she’d had fun. She was awake and alive and she’d had a wonderful time with a man. A handsome man who had treated her like a queen. His sexual appetite had been insatiable and she’d been as surprised about her response to him. She’d wanted him as much and as often as he’d wanted her. It had been the best birthday she’d had in years. Maybe this was the beginning of a new chapter in her life.

      When she told Krista and Molly about the night, she felt confident she had done everything right. She hadn’t lingered too long or created an awkward morning situation. A quick kiss on his forehead and she’d dressed and bolted.

      She pulled her keys out of her handbag and froze when she found the door ajar. Had she forgotten to pull it closed behind her? Another more distressing thought raced through her mind. Alec had bailed on rehab and had broken into her home. It wouldn’t be the first time.

      Sarah pushed open the door and turned on the light, expecting to find her ex-husband passed out on the floor.

      If Alec had been here, he had been in a rage. Her home was destroyed. The stuffing from her couch was bursting from the cushions, papers were strewn across the floor and dishes and glasses were smashed on the ground. Her granite countertops were scratched and chipped. Red spray paint covered her furniture and the carpet. A nasty word was scrawled across the wall in blinding orange.

      A sob caught in her throat. She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t turn away, either. Who had done this? Another thought tripped her shock into fear. The person who had done this could still be inside.

      Why would someone do this? She had nothing worth stealing, except maybe her computer, a five-year-old laptop she used for work. Her jobs! She would be lost without her lists and spreadsheets. Had they been destroyed, as well?

      Torn between wanting to run inside and to run away, she hesitated for a moment. But then logic prevailed and she rushed out of her apartment and down to the street level. Fumbling for her phone, she took four tries to dial 9-1-1.

      Sarah held her cell phone and listened to the caterer apologize for the tenth time. She didn’t need to apologize. She needed to get to the meeting so Sarah would have the breakfast spread ready when the trade committee arrived.

      Months of preparing and rechecking and confirming—and yet the meeting room was in a state of chaos. She blamed whoever had ransacked her apartment. She had located some of her printed documents on the event, but some were missing in the mess. Her laptop had been smashed. It was with a computer repair and data recovery company, but they’d told her it was unlikely they’d recover anything since the hard drive had been removed and mangled.

      Alec’s whereabouts had been confirmed as still in the rehab facility, and Sarah felt guilty for suspecting that he could have vandalized her place. Holding him accountable for her problems wasn’t fair. She had to take responsibility for the successes and failures in her life. The way the day was shaping up, the first meeting would be a big check in the fail column. She couldn’t let Owen down. He’d stuck his neck out getting her this job.

      Without the benefit of her notes, Sarah was relying on memory for the event details. She’d decided to temporarily stay with Molly who had helped her reconstruct what she could remember. Sarah was missing huge chunks of information that would be needed at the worst possible time. This was the biggest event she had ever planned: a week-long series of meetings, hotel accommodations, meals and entertainment.

      Her resume-boosting event was quickly turning into a reputation smasher.

      Sarah needed to stay unemotional and think

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