by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
"I have lots of work to do myself," she said absently, glancing up and down the long hallway. "You know, paperwork. Answering e-mail. That sort of thing."
"I wouldn't think of keeping you from your duties," Hassan said, his own eyes everywhere but on her.
"Good night," Elena said softly, and then she made the mistake of looking Hassan in the eye, just as he made the mistake of looking squarely at her. The emotions the simple eye contact roused were unexpected, but they shouldn't have been. She felt that gaze in her gut, in her weakening knees. In her heart.
"Of course," he said, a soft smile turning up the corners of his wicked mouth. "Rashid can wait."
Elena reached out and grabbed the front of Hassan's shirt and gave a gentle tug. "So can my paperwork."
He fell into the room, pushed the door closed behind him, and locked it, before taking her into his arms.
Elena buried her face against his shoulder. How could she want him, still? How could she ache for him?
"I'll just stay a little while," Hassan said as he walked her toward the hallway.
"Uh-huh," Elena murmured against his neck. "I can make you dinner, later." Much later.
"Are you a good cook?"
She laughed. "Not really."
"That's all right," Hassan said as he tossed her onto the bed, where she bounced lightly. "Cooking is a
highly overrated skill."
Chapter 10
Elena practically ran down the hallway. She was late, but by no more than fifteen minutes. It was a miracle she was here at all. She'd overslept, the first pair of panty hose she'd put on had run, and Hassan had not wanted to let her leave. Wearing coveralls instead of her gray suit would have saved her at least ten minutes, but this was not a coveralls day.
She hadn't intended to take Hassan home with her last night, after a long Saturday at the ranch and a quiet Sunday ride home. They had said, more than once, that their affair was just for one night. It would be too complicated to expect anything more.
But when the time had come to say goodbye.. .they hadn't. She felt like a kid again. Just five more minutes, just one more time.. .the thought made her smile as she burst into the office.
Kitty's head snapped up.
"Are they waiting?"
Kitty nodded.
Elena muttered a foul word and threw open the door to her office. Her father, Umair, Rahman Oil's lawyer Khalid, and Akram, Yusuf Rahman's advisor, all looked her way as the door opened. Arif and Taysir, her father's friends who were visiting from Maloun, were also present. Chairs had been brought in, and the men had gathered around her desk. The new contracts were spread across the desktop.
"I'm sorry I'm late," she said crisply, sparing a glance for her openly disapproving father.
"That's quite all right," Arif said, giving her a smarmy smile she could have done without.
"Is everything in order?" she asked, knowing they had started on time without her. Her father never waited for anyone or anything.
"So far," Yusuf Rahman said coolly.
Umair glanced up at her and smiled. Thank goodness for his friendly face! "Did you go to the ranch this weekend?"
Elena nodded, hoping she didn't blush.
"The weather was awful, and it looked like the worst of it was out that way."
"Quite a storm," she said, taking up a position behind Umair's chair. He tried to stand and give her his seat, but she dismissed the gesture with a wave of her hand. She was much too tightly wound to sit.
Elena watched as the papers she had already perused passed from one hand to the other. She would like to think that one day her father and his cronies would come to trust her judgment, but deep inside she knew that would never happen. As CEO she was much more than a figurehead, but she didn't have complete power here, and she never would.
Years ago, fresh out of college and full of dreams, she and Johnny had planned to strike out on their own. They knew Yusuf Rahman would not approve of his daughter marrying the Texan, and besides.. .they'd wanted to make their own way, fulfill their own dreams. After Johnny's death, those dreams hadn't seemed so real, anymore. Had all her dreams died with him? She'd never looked at it that way before, but perhaps that was true. She'd given up, so easily.
Cade didn't approve of her working for her father. That was the obstacle that kept them from being close, the way a brother and sister should be. He always told her she could do better, and got angry when she did not agree.
Hassan made her realize that there was a world beyond Rahman Oil, a life waiting beyond her heartache and her determination. Had she settled for less than she should have? This weekend made her wonder.
Rashid had not been happy with Hassan's less than informative report, nor had he been pleased that the phone call came a day and a half late. If big brother knew that Hassan had actually slept with Elena, he would be furious and most likely order him home. But that was only one reason for not telling Rashid everything. His relationship with Elena was none of Rashid's business.
In order to impress Elena, he wore one of his best suits. In order to woo her, he carried a dozen perfect red roses. She'd told him to drop by her office in the afternoon, but he couldn't possibly wait another three or four hours. A smile flitted across his face. Elena Rahman, CEO, fearless lover, tender heart, was such an amazing woman. He had never known anyone like her.
He stepped into the outer office as Elena's door opened. For a moment he wondered if perhaps she sensed his presence. He had begun to think they were that close, that spiritually intimate.
But it was a man who stepped out of her office, and then another. Elena was in the midst of the crowd, and when she saw him, and the roses, her smile dimmed and her face paled. He knew her, and the kind of men she worked with, well enough to know what caused her distress. She had struggled to earn the respect of the men she worked with. A grinning man showing up with roses, especially when that man was here on business, that would make them all whisper, wouldn't it?
Hassan turned to Kitty. "You have been so kind to me, so hospitable," he said, offering the flowers. "My way of saying thank you."
Without rising from her chair, Kitty took the roses and smiled widely. "Thank you, Mr. Kamal. Why, you might make a Southern gentleman after all."
Elena worked her way to the front of the crowd. "Mr. Kamal. I wasn't expecting you until this afternoon." When she was clear of the crowd of men exiting her office, she lifted her eyebrows accusingly.
"I am anxious to get another look at the refinery. I apologize if the time is inconvenient."
Elena stepped aside and introduced him to the men. All of them were Arab, he noted, though they were dressed as he was, in expensive, conservative suits. Most likely all of them were Malounian. He knew Umair, of course. Hassan shook hands with Umair, and issued the proper greetings to the others. The last man to exit the office was a short, stocky, gray-haired man with a scowl on his bearded face. There was something familiar about that face...
"Mr. Kamal," Elena said as she gestured to the last man to exit her office. "I'd like you to meet my father, Yusuf Rahman."
Finally! Hassan offered a traditional greeting. "Assalam alekom," and bowed slightly. When he straightened and looked Yusuf Rahman in the eye he remembered where he had seen that face before.
Yusuf Rahman was El-Malak.
"I've been looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Rahman," Hassan said calmly.
The Brothers of Darkness despised the Royal family of Tamir, but Rahman's expression remained aloof, without emotion. "It's a pleasure. I hope my daughter has been accommodating during your visit."
Poor choice of words, given the timing, but Hassan did not react. "She's been most helpful," he said. This was the man he needed to get close to, this was the reason for his journey to Texas. If he were to find the prince, it would be through El-Malak. "But of course I have been hoping to meet with you personally. Elena seems quite knowledgeable about the business, but she is, of course, only a woman." He could not make himself glance her way. Sh
e would be furious, and rightly so.
Yusuf Rahman was not at all offended. As Hassan had suspected, El-Malak thought like an old-world Arab. Women were inferior, and should be subservient at all times.
"It would be my great pleasure to meet with you over dinner," Hassan said, nodding at Rahman. "Elena, too, of course," he added in an offhanded manner. "Leon's?"
It looked as if Rahman were about to refuse, and then reconsidered. "My house," he said. "Eight o'clock." He gave Elena a tight smile. "Just the three of us. I'm sure we can accomplish more in the privacy of my home than we would in a crowded restaurant."
"I would be delighted." Hassan finally made himself look at Elena. She was furious, her eyes hard as emeralds, her lips thin and her nostrils flaring slightly. Perhaps one day he would have the opportunity to explain to her that he had no choice but to play the game...if she would listen.
"Only a woman," Elena muttered, yanking off the jacket to her gray suit and tossing it over the back of her leather chair. "Why am I surprised? I knew who he was, I should have known how his feeble, antiquated, testosterone-damaged brain worked."
Kitty walked into the room with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bouquet of red roses in the other. "I believe these were intended for you," she said with a sly smile, wagging the long-stemmed beauties.
"Keep them," Elena said sharply. "I don't have time for that kind of nonsense."
"But the sheik looks so cute, and he has that great smile, and..."
Elena placed both hands on the desk and leaned toward Kitty. "Only a woman," she said slowly and distinctly.
"Okay," Kitty conceded, placing the cup of steaming coffee on Elena's desk. "So the hunky sheik needs a little work. What man doesn't?"
Elena shook her head and reached for the coffee. "A little work? How about a complete overhaul."
She tried not to show that she was disappointed. She never should have expected better of him. Hassan was what he was—an old-world Arab who would be more at home in the nineteenth century than the twenty-first. Just because he had a romantic soul, and made love as if he were dying of thirst and she was the only water on the planet, and just because he sometimes smiled like he could see into her soul...that changed nothing.
Had she actually let one.. .make that two.. .nights of great sex make her see something in Hassan that didn't exist? No. She had seen that something long before they'd become lovers. Intimacy only made the pain of his betrayal sharper, deeper.
Dinner was going to be a disaster. How could she sit calmly across the table from Hassan now that he had shown his true colors?
"I dread tonight," she said, shaking her head. "I can't believe Dad said yes! A few days ago he wanted me to talk to Hassan and then get rid of him. Why did he change his mind?"
"Money," Kitty said. She bent her head to smell the roses she still cradled in her hands. "In case you haven't noticed, your father has been a little obsessed with the subject, lately."
"I know. And we're doing so well."
"Yeah, but the assets are pretty tied up. There's not much liquid, at the moment."
"Enough," Elena said, sipping at the hot coffee.
Kitty snatched a vase from the closet, collected water for the roses, and arranged the flowers there on Elena's desk.
"Such a thoughtful gift," she said sweetly, her eyes on one particular rose. "Funny, but I don't recall any other business associates showing up with flowers and a come-hither grin. Your father has sent flowers on your birthday before, but never red roses. This.. .this is different."
"Mind your own business," Elena muttered halfheartedly.
"I always do," Kitty said with an innocent air.
"Ha!"
The roses perfectly arranged in the crystal vase, Kitty stepped back and admired them. "Tonight should be interesting."
"Interesting?"
Kitty smiled. "I would love to be a fly on the wall."
Elena sighed. Hassan had left with the others, that coward. She suspected he would not be by this afternoon, as he had originally planned. If he valued his life, he'd give her time to calm down before he showed his face here again.
"Any words of wisdom?"
"Yeah," Kitty said as she turned and headed for the doorway. "Don't wear the red dress. Your father would hate it."
"Don't worry." The baggy black. Definitely the baggy black.
"And hold your tongue." The woman cast a wicked glance over her shoulder. "Well, until the proper moment, anyway."
"Thanks," Elena said dryly as she took her chair.
Kitty stopped in the doorway, her smile fading. "And after you've made Kamal pay a little, forgive the poor guy. He definitely has potential."
Elena shook her head, and started to tell Kitty to come back and fetch the damn roses, but she waited too long. Kitty left the office, closing the door behind her.
* * *
He should have called Rashid again, once he'd identified Yusuf Raman as EI-Malak. But he hadn't, and he wouldn't. Not yet. Once it was proven beyond a doubt that Rahman Oil was a front for the Brothers of Darkness, Hassan would no longer be in charge of the investigation. He would be pushed aside, in favor of those who had been trained to fight terrorists, and Elena would be caught in the crossfire.
First he would prove that Elena was not involved, then he would call Rashid. There was no other way.
He wanted, so much, to believe that Elena was completely innocent. She was a tender, sweet woman who wouldn't harm another living soul. All he had to do was prove it.
"You look lovely," he said, taking his eyes from the road just long enough to glance at her, sitting in the passenger's seat so cool and beautiful.
"Bite me," she said, not so much as glancing his way.
The flowers he had offered when he'd picked her up had been tossed unceremoniously onto her couch. No water. No vase. Not a word. She definitely had not invited him in.
But he couldn't apologize, not yet. Things were likely to get worse before they got better.
"Tell me about your father."
For a moment he thought she was going to ignore him. When she spoke, her voice was low. "My father is a very determined man. He knows what he wants and he goes after it with everything he's got."
"That is an admirable trait."
"Sometimes he goes too far," she added. "He will bowl over people as if they mean nothing, in order to get what he wants. I think he's that way because he grew up poor and made his own fortune. People who have to work for their wealth are sometimes deathly afraid of losing it. You wouldn't know about that," she added curtly.
"Neither would you."
She shrugged her shoulders. "True enough, but then what does that matter? I am, after all, only a woman."
Hassan sighed. "That did come out rather badly," he admitted. "I was only trying to..."
"Insult me?" she interrupted. "Drag me down? Humiliate me in front of the people I work with?"
"No." He muttered a curse beneath his breath. "Perhaps I was trying to impress your father."
"Well, you didn't impress me."
"Didn't you tell me that he would have the final say in whether or not a partner is invited into the business?"
"Yes, but..."
"And didn't you tell me that your father was an old-fashioned man?"
"Yes. What does that..."
"So if I want to stay, I need to find my way into his good graces. Do you not think that he might be more willing to invite a man whose thinking is like his own into the business, than a man whose thinking is more like yours? He would be outnumbered then. Would he like that, Elena?" he snapped, losing his patience.
"No," she admitted.
"Have I ever insulted you before?"
"Well, you did think I was my secretary."
"An honest mistake."
He glanced to the side and caught a hint of a smile.
Perhaps he could add a touch of the truth to his part of the conversation. "When my business here is done, no matter what the outcome,
I don't want to walk away from you and forget this past week. I will do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary, to.. .to protect you."
"I don't need protecting," she protested.
"You do."
"I'm perfectly capable..." She stopped speaking when he swerved off the road and into a gas station parking lot. He pulled to the side of the building and put the vehicle into park so he could turn to Elena and give her his full attention.
"There is nothing wrong with a man's need to protect his woman."
Her eyes widened. "I am not your woman."
Hassan angrily unfastened his seat belt. As it flipped back into place he reached across the space that separated him from Elena and placed his hands on her face. She would not turn away from him, not this time.
"You are," he said softly. "Now is not the time to have this conversation," he added angrily, "but you are my woman."
"Do you do this everywhere you go?" she asked, her voice not so tough, her eyes softening as he watched. "Find a woman, romance the socks off of her, tell her she's yours, make her..."
"No," he interrupted. "I have never, not once in my entire life, claimed a woman as mine the way I claim you now."
She tried to shake her head. "You are such a liar," she said softly.
"But not about this," he said, leaning toward Elena to give her a quick, deep kiss she did not turn away from. "Not about this."
Chapter 11
Yusuf Rahman had made his fortune the hard way, and as a self-made man he'd always felt obligated to display his wealth in his home. The Rahman house was a Georgian mansion, solid and rich and cold. Very cold. It was the chill Elena had always felt most deeply, when she'd come home. Living away at school for so many years, the dormitories had been more home than this house.
The dining room was no exception. The table was long, well polished mahogany, the setting fine china and silver. The fresh flowers at the center were lovely.. .though not as lovely as the bouquet Hassan had given her tonight, the bouquet she had carelessly tossed onto the couch. The three of them sat at a table that could comfortably hold twenty. Yusuf Rahman sat in his place at the head of the table, Elena on his left, Hassan on his right.