“But your direction from the palace should matter more.” Robel clasped his hands together, his steely gaze making her feel small. A ripple of irritation rolled through her. She decided right then and there—she didn’t like this guy. He might be hot as hell, but she already sensed his controlling, asshole vibes.
“It does,” she said, trying to keep the strain of irritation out of her voice. “Trust me.”
“I’ll be taking a closer look at the event planning going forward.” His chair creaked as he leaned forward, reaching for a pen. “Consider me your event manager. We should exchange numbers to get started.”
Sondra’s mouth parted as he reached for a pad of paper. Disbelief circled inside her, along with frustration. What on God’s green earth was this?
“I’m sorry,” she sputtered. “But hang on a second. Event manager?”
His dark eyes snapped up to hers. “Yes. There can’t be any missteps like this guest list in the holiday celebrations.”
She took a calming breath, smoothing her palms over her thighs. “I understand that. But I am the event manager. Because I’m the event planner. There is no other manager.”
Robel’s featured tightened, like a parent getting ready to discipline. “Surely you aren’t against a little collaboration.”
“No.” She fought to contain the words she really wanted to say. You need this job. Don’t get fired on day four. She was just starting to get acclimated to the palace and its rhythms, though she’d been studying Maatkare and its traditions for over a month. Sheikh Yared had hired her during his visit to the States where he’d attended one of her very own events. He’d been so in love with the night that he hired her on the spot—and offered her a sum of money she couldn’t refuse. “But you need to know that I am the planner. Not you. I respect your input and your traditions. But I won’t be steamrolled out of doing my job by anyone. Your father hired me for a reason.”
Robel’s jaw twitched as he watched her, then he shoved the pad of paper her way. “Write your number down.”
Sondra fought a grin as she scribbled down her phone number. This felt like a victory. “You’re the first guy in Maatkare to ask me for my number,” she murmured without thinking. When her words caught up with her, she realized that had been a bad idea. The air shrank between them, and she offered a meek smile. “That’s a big deal, you know?”
Robel grunted, sliding the pad of paper toward his laptop. Sondra gnawed on the inside of her lip, trying to think of some way to lighten the mood. If this guy was gonna be lurking in her corner, then they needed to have a good working relationship. None of this angry-headmaster nonsense. They should be at least on amicable professional terms.
“I heard you broke your ankle,” she said. “I’m sorry that happened. Just let me know if you need anything.”
His eyes narrowed, almost like he was suspicious of the offer. “I’m fine. But thank you.”
She drummed her fingers on the arm rest of the chair. Part of her preparation for Maatkare had been brushing up on the royal family, too. She knew the twin girls well enough by now, since they tried to accompany her at every step. But the three brothers she’d only caught in passing, and each of them looked to be completely different from the others. Sesuna and Winta had told her enough about Robel, but beyond that, even Sheikh Yared himself had warned her of his eldest son’s serious responsibility as heir to the throne.
“Well, you know what they say,” she said, brushing a hand over her short tresses. She’d chopped it just before coming to Maatkare, a way of heralding new beginnings or something. “Sometimes setbacks are life’s biggest blessings. Maybe the accident was meant to be.”
His expression barely changed, but she caught a hint of go fuck yourself on his face. “No. It was an unfortunate setback at the worst possible time.” He sighed tersely. “But the unexpected is to be managed with planning and contingency plans. This is my contingency plan.”
“Ah. Yes. Well.” She clapped her hands together. Excellent. Her livelihood was his contingency plan. Can’t wait for him to hover endlessly and insert himself into every little thing I do. “Thanks for the chat, Robel. Looking forward to working with you.”
She stood, dismay and something else frothing inside her. She wasn’t pleased about Robel’s sudden interest in her work, but she couldn’t exactly say no either. It was his house, his country, his traditions.
She tugged Robel’s office door shut behind her, drawing a deep, cleansing breath.
All she had to do was pull off the grandest balancing act of her entire career, and the payout would be hers.
2
The natural progression of the Maatkaran holidays was a good transition for the new event planner. With most of the early events consisting of outdoor lunches and formal dinners, there wasn’t too much for her to oversee.
It was the events further down the line that worried Robel the most.
He’d been asking for a noontime meeting each day in his office. Partly so he wouldn’t have to hobble around on his crutches more than necessary, and partly because he wanted to see her in his space.
There was something extremely unbalancing about Sondra. She was friendly yet firm, gorgeous but not aloof. He wanted her. Maybe that was the most unbalancing of all. Made worse by the fact that he was a temporary cripple who couldn’t even walk to the bathroom unaided.
The only way that he could see to beat back the attraction was by being extra hard on her. Make her dislike him. That way he could be sure she wouldn’t come sniffing around.
Because if she came sniffing around, it would be hard to keep himself away.
Robel knew what he liked, and he liked women like Sondra. Round in all the right places. An hourglass temptation. Most times, having a dalliance wasn’t an issue. But having a dalliance with an employee seemed out of the question. And now? When he was steering this out-of-control ship of a holiday season back into port?
He couldn’t get involved with a palace employee ever, but least of all when he was fighting to stick to Maatkaran traditions during the most important time of year.
But after nearly a week of noontime meet-ups and only infrequent sightings outside of his office, his attraction to Sondra had become grating. Cumbersome. Damned inconvenient. It made walking that line between peer and prince even harder when he couldn’t stop undressing her in his mind.
Sondra had delivered a packet of plans for the next largest party—the result of much hard work and research, she’d proudly proclaimed earlier that day. At almost six p.m., he was just sitting down to thumb through the pages.
And from page one he knew that the past week of meetings hadn’t done an ounce of good.
Ice skating party in the gardens, involving the palatial pool.
European caroling party. Door-to-door service. English tunes.
Robel read through the attached event outlines for all the proposed ideas, shaking his head the whole time. Instead of calling her and blowing up about it as he wanted, he vowed to eat dinner first. Let it percolate. Then he’d give her a piece of his mind.
He hobbled to the dining room, where most of his family had gathered. It was one of the rare nights when they didn’t have a formal dinner to attend. Both Yonas and Noel looked up at him as he entered. Yonas grinned.
“There’s my favorite cripple brother,” he teased.
“Oh, stop it.” Robel tapped his way over to the large, wooden table. Sheikh Yared sat at the head of the table, squinting at his phone. Sesuna and Winta looked glum at either side of him. “How is everyone this evening?”
“Good,” the twins mumbled.
Noel sighed tersely, fiddling with his napkin. “Just a regular day in holiday paradise. There have been some issues in the kitchen. Apparently our new chef doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘tradition.’”
“Funny,” Robel said, plopping into the empty seat at the other end of the table. Yared glanced at him, grunted a hello, then continued jabbing his index finger at his phon
e. Probably texting their mother, if he knew that man and his bevy of faces. “The event planner doesn’t either.”
Yared grumbled, glancing up at his sons. “Are you speaking to me?”
“Indirectly,” Yonas said. “It seems my brothers are dissatisfied with the Human Resources department of the palace.”
Yared huffed, finishing up his business on his phone before setting it aside. He peered over the rim of his low glasses. “Now what’s the issue?”
Robel shared a glance with Noel. He knew his brother would go to bat for him. If he could share his grievances about the foreign staff hired for this year’s holiday celebrations with anyone, it was Noel.
“Where did you find these American employees?” Robel blurted out, fanning his napkin out over his lap. “They seem as far removed as possible from how we do things here.”
His father’s jaw worked from side to side. Robel could be honest with him, but he might have crossed the line.
“And that is precisely the point,” Yared said succinctly, his words rimmed with tension. “Furthermore, the holiday is not planned by men. And it sounds like a few men are trying to plan how these holidays go.”
Robel clenched and unclenched his jaw, mulling over his response. He and his father often butted heads on the topic of traditionalism. It wasn’t that his father didn’t respect the traditions of Maatkare. But when it counted most—like in their very first Christmas with Mother away from home—his father tended to let things slide and waver too much from the true heart of the season.
But his father was right. Robel couldn’t argue about the tradition of women planning the holidays. It had been that way since the beginning of Maatkare.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have brought in some women who might have adhered a bit more strongly to our ways,” Robel finally said through clenched teeth.
“Why do we want more of our ways when your mother isn’t even here to enjoy it?”
There was hurt in his father’s voice, which made Robel snap his mouth shut. The twins fidgeted uncomfortably, both frowning down at their plates. Yonas sighed dramatically, propping his arm up on the back of Sesuna’s chair.
“Can we dial down the issues, please?” Yonas pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I just want one holiday when I don’t witness a full-scale meltdown because someone disagrees with someone else’s choices.”
“Have you ever witnessed that?” Noel shot back. “You’re never home to witness anything.”
“Boys—” their father started.
“Oh, please,” Yonas sneered. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve been here. Or don’t you have eyes anymore?”
“I certainly do,” Noel muttered, swiping a piece of flatbread across his plate. He scooped up some hummus, and before he stuffed it in his mouth, he added, “It’s hard not to see how little you do around here.”
The air tightened over the dinner table. Yonas’s eyes narrowed. Their father sighed, slicing a hand through the air.
“Enough,” he said testily. Robel shook his head, reaching for flatbread for his plate. Storm clouds hung over the dinner table for a few more moments until Robel cleared his throat.
“I’m sure you won’t disagree, Father, that we should cancel the citywide ice-skating championship this woman has planned for us in two weeks.” He cast a sharp look at his father, while both Sesuna and Winta scoffed with indignation.
“No!” Sesuna cried out, while Winta crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t cancel that! That’s the best part of the holiday!”
“Oh. Perhaps that was your idea, then?” Robel arched a brow accusingly.
“Robel,” their father said, a weary edge to his voice. “That’s enough for now. We’re at dinner. Let’s just enjoy it.”
The Yared family ate in stifled amiability, but Robel couldn’t stop thinking about the absurd events Sondra had proposed. How could Sondra have been listening to a single word he’d said over the past week and still produce that proposal packet?
By the end of dinner, he was fuming again, and he tossed his napkin down before pushing himself up by the arm rests of his dining room chair. Grunting, he finagled the crutches into his arm pits and hobbled away, feeling more like a cripple than ever.
His crutches clicked down the long hallway leading toward the bedrooms. He wanted to talk to Sondra—now. But it was almost eight p.m. and who knew where she might be. Demanding she meet him for business now seemed…suspect. Maybe even inappropriate.
And maybe some of his darker thoughts danced that fine line of inappropriateness. But even though he had business to attend to, he was still a man. One who could recognize a beautiful woman even if she made poor event-planning choices.
Click tap. Click tap. He rounded the corner, the royal bedrooms further down the hall. A second later, Sondra whooshed into the hallway from a corridor just ahead, beelining for her bedroom door. She didn’t even see him before she slipped inside, the door clicking shut quietly behind her.
He paused, blinking. Now he knew precisely which guest room she was in.
Click tap. Click tap. He stood outside her door, his ankle throbbing. The time for more pain pills had come and gone. He should just go straight to his room and lie down, prop up his ankle, and calm the hell down about this.
But now that he knew she was so close…
Robel knocked before he could talk himself out of it. He studied the marbled floor tile as he waited. A slight scuffle behind the door, then the door creaked open slowly. Sondra peered out with wide eyes.
“Robel?”
The sight of her vaporized all the frustration that had been simmering since the afternoon. In fact, he was entirely unable to remember the small monologue he’d prepared during his stewing at dinner.
“Sondra. I’m sorry to bother—I just saw you come in here and thought maybe we could have a word.”
She straightened, the door swinging open slightly to reveal the room behind her. It was a palace guest room he’d seen plenty of times, but with her things occupying it—dresses laid out on the bed, a row of shoes tucked along a wall, books stacked on a dresser—it looked entirely new.
“Is everything okay?” Her brows knit together, and she stepped aside, gesturing for him to come inside. He maneuvered across the threshold, and she shut the door behind him. Fragrant silence filled the room; something like incense lingered in the air, but more than that, her womanliness weighed heavily in the room. His skin prickled. In a different world, he’d find the quickest route to pressing her against that soft king-sized bed.
“Yes.” He shoved the lascivious thoughts to the side, studying the wooden floors draped with golden and mauve rugs as though this might help clear his mind. All his vehemence had evaporated, only to be replaced with…the scent of lavender. The way her sweater hung off her shoulders. The roundness of her breasts under that ruched fabric.
“Come sit down. Get off that ankle, sheesh.” Sondra tipped her head toward the set of small arm chairs crowded around a low coffee table. She patted the back of one of them, urging him to rest. Robel heaved a sigh and obeyed her—his ankle was throbbing, and he couldn’t have this conversation while standing. He eased down into the chair as gently as he could, groaning slightly as he propped his foot up on the coffee table she brought nearer.
“That’s better,” she said. “Is it bothering you? You’re grinding your teeth.”
Robel stiffened. He hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. He scratched the back of his neck. “It’s a little painful, yes. I haven’t taken my pills today.”
“Why not?”
“Too busy.”
She tutted, heading for her dresser. “Can I at least give you some ibuprofen? Here.” She returned a moment later with a glass of water and two pills in her hand. “Take it.”
He didn’t dare contradict her. He scooped the pills up and swallowed them quickly. She settled into the seat across from him, looking pleased with herself.
“The mothering is unnecessary, but
thank you.” He downed the rest of the water and set the glass on the table. Truth be told, he liked that she looked out for him. Had since day one. It made it harder to write her off.
“Now what’s with the late visit?”
He checked his watch. It was buying him time to think of an appropriate excuse. It was more than just I dislike all your ideas. He could have told her that tomorrow. No…there was a little bit more to it than that.
“I had been thinking during dinner,” he began slowly, scanning her room. He noticed some papers next to her seat. An open pen. Maybe she’d been working. “When I saw you come in here, I thought it might be fine to drop by. It’s not too late, is it?”
“Of course not.” She waved her hand, tucking a leg underneath her on the chair. She reached for the notebook beside her. “I was just drawing up some more ideas actually.”
More ideas. His chest tightened. “Good. I had a chance to review your last batch, actually. They, uh…” He cleared his throat, yanking his gaze away from the perfect curve of her neck. “They weren’t quite what I was expecting.”
Her face hardened slightly. She flipped through pages in her notebook. “Oh? What exactly was the issue?”
He watched her for a moment. She wasn’t going to like this. “They’re not traditional enough.”
Sondra tipped her head, like quietly urging him to continue.
“We’ve spoken at length about what Maatkare needs. And a community ice-skating competition is not one of those things.”
Sondra flipped through pages, quiet so long that Robel wasn’t certain she’d even heard him. When she finally looked up, her pen was poised, eyes focused on him like a laser beam.
“All right then, Robel.” A brow lifted. “Tell me. What have Christmases been like in the past?”
3
Sondra transcribed just about every damn word the man uttered. It was easier that way—otherwise, bathed in the golden light of the bedroom, with all her sexy-adult-time incense burning, which for her signaled the relaxing end of her day, she might not be able to do anything other than stare at his perfect face.
Christmas with the Yared Sheikhs: The Complete Series Page 22