“Do you think we will suit?” he asked.
She was more than a little shocked by the fact that she’d been the one kissing him. “Yes.”
“As do I. We will begin tonight. I will send my car for you at seven. You will spend the evening with me at my house. We will share dinner and work out the final details.” He glanced at his watch. “I have a conference call in fifteen minutes. If you will get me the file?”
Kiley nodded, grabbed her pad and walked out of his office. As she stood by her own much-smaller desk, she had the sudden urge to break into hysterical laughter. Be careful what you wish for, she thought, not sure if she should celebrate or run for the hills.
Now that she had won the handsome Prince Rafiq of Lucia-Serrat, however temporarily…whatever was she going to do with him?
Chapter 2
Kiley wasn’t sure what she should wear on her first night as mistress.
Honestly, she couldn’t even think the question without wanting to giggle like a teenager or throw up from sheer panic. Second thoughts didn’t describe her roller coaster of emotion. Fear, excitement, worry and the pressing need to scream. A mistress? Her? She was the most normal woman on the planet. Her idea of wild living was to pay for a pedicure instead of doing it herself. How could she seriously consider being Rafiq’s mistress?
And yet she had. She’d offered and he’d accepted and sometime very soon they were going to have sex.
She couldn’t imagine it. Not with Rafiq. Not with any man, really. She’d thought about being intimate with Eric, but that was different. She hadn’t worried about anything. She’d known he would be gentle and loving and exciting.
“Talk about wrong,” she said aloud as she studied the contents of her closet.
Eric had turned out to be Toad Boy and was out of her life forever. Now she was the soon-to-be mistress of a fabulously wealthy sheik prince. A thought she couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around.
Not that she wasn’t grateful he’d agreed to help her out. She intended to enjoy every moment of her revenge. That goal probably made her a bad person, but she was willing to live with it. The condition of her soul was a little less worrying at this moment than what to wear.
She had plenty of work clothes and tons of casual stuff—jeans, shirts, khaki skirts. But no real mistress wear. Not that she could identify mistress wear. It wasn’t as if there was a section on it in InStyle magazine. But she had a feeling jeans and a cotton blouse weren’t going to cut it and she didn’t want to wear an outfit Rafiq had seen at the office.
After flipping through every item on a hanger, she settled on a simple blue short-sleeved dress and high-heeled sandals. She’d fake-tanned the previous week for her wedding, and there was still enough color on her legs that she didn’t have to worry about pantyhose. Earrings and a quick application of lip gloss completed the look.
She still had a few minutes until the car was due to arrive. Kiley walked into the living room of her apartment and spent the time packing up what few remaining wedding presents she had yet to return.
Touching items she and Eric had picked out and put on their gift registry made her sad. Where had things gone wrong? What clues had she missed? Okay, her friends telling her Eric had hit on them was a big one. Why hadn’t she listened?
“I’ll take responsibility for being stupid about that,” she murmured as she closed the box and picked up packing tape. “But not for what he did. He was the cheating, lying jerk in all this, not me.”
She heard a car pull up and glanced out the window. Sure enough, there was a large, black limo right there in front of her door. As it was unlikely to be for any of her neighbors, Kiley put down the packing tape and picked up her purse.
Five minutes later she’d met Arnold, the very nice driver, and had been escorted to the huge back seat of the vehicle. The only other time she’d been in a limo had been for her high school prom, and she and her date had been one of the three couples sharing it. This was very different.
There was a bar, a TV and enough floor space for a Pilates workout. “This is so not like my world,” she murmured as she buckled up.
A voice in her head asked if she knew what on earth she was doing. Kiley was ready to go with no on that one. She didn’t. Not really. Being a mistress was an intellectual concept she didn’t want to think about. Actually being one, in the flesh, so to speak, was a very scary reality she wasn’t prepared to deal with.
Although she would have to later that evening.
“I went to Rafiq,” she reminded herself. “I’m the one who wanted this. Wanted him.”
And she still did. Revenge was all she had left.
Traffic was surprisingly light for a workday evening, and less than forty minutes later the limo drove down a long, narrow driveway that opened up in front of a wood-and-glass single-story house.
Tropical plants lined the walkway and provided a shaded entry. High walls on both sides offered privacy. When Arnold opened the rear door of the car, Kiley could hear the sound of the ocean.
“Have a nice evening,” he said as she smiled at him. “I’ll be waiting to take you home when you’re finished.”
Finished with what, she wanted to ask but didn’t. Better not to know for sure.
She walked along the flagstone path to the huge double doors. Before she could find the bell and press it, the door opened and Rafiq stood in front of her.
He might have spoken. She wasn’t sure. His lips moved, so there was probably sound, but she didn’t hear it. She couldn’t think, could barely breathe as she stared at him.