while working for Gerald. He’d been a jerk and more than willing to let her shoulder his responsibilities whenever possible. Was that enough training? She drew in a deep breath and opened the door leading to the suites of offices. She supposed she was about to find out.
The frosted-glass double doors led into a large, plush waiting area decorated with leather sofas and fabulous Impressionist paintings. It took her a second to realize that they were all originals. She found herself wanting to pause in front of the huge canvases, then remembered she was here to work, not admire, and approached the trim middle-aged man sitting behind an oversize desk. He looked up and smiled.
“Good morning, Your Highness. I’m Martin Wingbird. Prince Khalil told me you would be arriving this morning. May I have the honor of showing you to your office?”
The man was perfectly dressed in a tailored suit, and his accent was British. From what Dora had been able to figure out, much of the staff was international. While she was still living in the harem, Fatima had entertained her with stories about wild arguments between the two head chefs, one of whom was French, the other American and a woman. Apparently while they avoided blows, they weren’t above throwing the crockery at each other.
“Thank you, Mr. Wingbird.”
Behind the main reception desk, two corridors jutted out, one going left, the other right. Martin took the left corridor, walking briskly down a long, carpeted hallway. Dora hurried after him as best she could. She’d dressed in a long, straight skirt that came nearly to her ankles. While it was conservative enough to meet any exacting standards, it also prevented her from taking long strides.
They passed several large offices, complete with computers, faxes and copy machines. The desert might be only a half dozen or so miles away, but here in the palace, the staff had long moved into the modern age.
As they approached the end of the corridor, Dora saw two massive doors standing open. Three assistants, two men and a woman, worked in front of two more doors.
“Prince Khalil’s staff is here,” Martin Wingbird said. “And that door on the left leads to your office.”
He introduced the assistants, and she found that the lone female, a beautiful Asian woman named Eva, worked for her.
Dora had to smile. “I’m curious about the staffing arrangements,” she told Martin. “Do I have a woman working for me because no man would dare work for a woman in this country, or is it a matter of propriety? And if it’s the latter, what is to prevent the staff from crossing the line?”
Martin’s serious expression didn’t change, but she saw a flicker of humor in his blue eyes. “I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am.”
“How clever of you. In your position, I wouldn’t know, either.” She nodded. “Thank you for you help, Martin.”
“My pleasure, Your Highness.” He bowed once and left.
Eva had already opened the door to Dora’s office, and now the assistant led the way inside. Dora followed her into a plush space filled with French country-style furniture, paintings of flowers and a large spray of roses in a vase on the coffee table in front of a small sitting area. Windows gave her a view of a formal English garden.
She looked around at the bright colors in the Oriental rug and the little touches of lace on the throw pillows tossed casually on the sofa. “The room is so perfect, I want to believe it has been decorated just for me,” Dora said more to herself than to Eva. But that wasn’t possible. She and Khalil had spoken about her working for him less than forty-eight hours ago. The office couldn’t have been put together that quickly, could it?
“Prince Khalil arranged everything himself,” Eva said. “He spent all of yesterday overseeing everything.” She smiled. “Your husband was most particular about the furniture he chose and had many items sent back into storage before he approved this.”
Khalil? Her husband? The man who demanded his way in everything, most especially her submission to him? She couldn’t imagine him caring about decor, let alone picking out furniture and throw pillows.
Eva walked over to the desk and touched a few keys on the computer. “I’ve begun to work on your calendar,” she said. “You have two meetings scheduled for this afternoon. They’re to introduce you to the local presidents of two of our largest foreign banks.”
The woman kept speaking, but Dora could no longer hear the words. She’d gone into panic mode, wondering what on earth she’d thought when she’d told Khalil she’d wanted this particular job. She was going to fall on her butt and it was going to be very public and very—
“Your Highness?” Eva asked. “Is everything all right?”
The young woman was exceptionally pretty, with beautiful, thick hair cut in a fashionable wedge and a long jacket and skirt outlining a slender body.
“I’m fine,” Dora assured her. “Would you please upload files on those two presidents and their banks. I’m interested in their last yearly report, figures we have for the most recent two quarters, as well as copies of articles from local papers. I want to see what kind of press they’ve been getting in El Bahar. Oh, and general information on banking in general. The number of local versus foreign banks, the percent of citizens using local banks rather than foreign banks, any estimations on offshore accounts here.”
Eva scribbled notes as Dora talked. “Anything else, Your Highness?”
Dora sighed. “I know it’s important to address me respectfully, Eva, but we’re going to have to come up with something shorter than ‘Your Highness.”’
Eva smiled. “I’ll get right on all of this, ma’am.”
“You do that. Let me know when you start uploading files to my computer.”
Eva nodded and started to leave, but before she could pull the door shut behind her, Khalil appeared and pushed his way inside.
Her office was a big room, but Khalil stood well over six feet, and with him filling the space, the walls seemed to shrink together. Dora looked at her husband, half enjoying, half hating the swell of gladness that rushed through her. Despite the fact that he made her crazy, he was a very handsome man and easy to look at.
Today he wore a tailored suit that emphasized the powerful lines of his body…a body that she’d touched and tasted the previous evening until they were both breathless with desire. She’d kept true to her word and resisted him whenever he tried to make love with her. He’d also told the truth when he’d promised to seduce her night after night. They were playing a silly game, and she wasn’t sure when it was going to end, or how they were going to determine a winner. She only knew that she was ridiculously happy to see him and that she was going to do her best to keep him from knowing.
“Do you like it?” he asked, prowling around the room. “My office is right next door. I know you would have preferred something on your own, but there are proprieties. The king wasn’t sure about the wife of a prince going to work, even as a liaison.”
Dora hadn’t thought of that. “I’m sorry, Khalil. Did I make trouble between you and your father?”
He shrugged. “He came around.”
He paused in front of her desk and ran his fingers across the smooth surface. The deeply colored wood had been polished until it gleamed and reflected the
