brandished her purse. ‘Promise me …’
‘I thought Sheikhs were supposed to pay?’ He spoke lightly to restore her mood, but she only blushed again and looked away. He guessed she was concerned she had overstepped the mark and had lost the job without a hand being played. What would the papers have to say about this? he wondered as he gave his word.
‘Thank you. And as for Sheikhs,’ she admitted shyly, ‘I really don’t know—you’re my first.’
And your last, he thought fiercely.
‘Muta assif, Casey Michaels,’ he intoned in a deceptively calm voice. ‘Please accept my apologies if I have insulted you.’
‘No insult,’ she hurried to assure him. ‘It’s just that I’m used to paying my own way.’
‘You should never apologise for that.’ He held the door for her.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE limousine had gone home to bed, and in its place was a blood red Lamborghini.
‘You wanted to go shopping didn’t you?’ Raffa prompted, when Casey remained rooted to the spot, staring at the fabulous vehicle in confusion.
‘Of course I do, but—’
‘But what?’
But it was a small car where they’d almost be touching—where they’d be sharing the same air, the same breath. ‘Is the boot big enough?’
‘For one business suit?’ Raffa looked at her sideways.
What to say? She couldn’t admit that she didn’t trust herself to sit so close to him without her brain scrambling and something addled coming out of her mouth.
‘The shops don’t stay open all night.’
She took the prompt as a warning to get a move on, and made her way to the open door where, with as much grace as she could muster, she performed the contortions required to insert a reasonably well-upholstered body into a letter-box-sized opening.
‘It’s a moulded seat,’ Raffa explained helpfully as she bumped her hips in a dozen different places.
Moulded around Tinkerbell’s bottom, Casey presumed, forcing her own rather more ample curves into the available space. ‘Lovely …’ She beamed, remembering not to flinch as Raffa settled himself beside her.
He was being helpful, she reminded herself. He didn’t need to do this.
And she didn’t need to stare at his strong, capable hands on the wheel, or his legs … But she could see the muscles in his thighs working as he operated the vehicle, and they were really gripping her attention. She raised her chin in time to see Raffa lower what to her would be around a month’s worth of wages in designer sunglasses past the obstacle of his ridiculously long eyelashes and part-way down his nose. Far too late now to evade his laser stare.
‘It is a very big shopping mall. Give me a clue as to what you need and I’ll decide where to park up.’
‘Just a serviceable suit.’
‘Which you’ll wear with flip-flops? Don’t waste my time,’ he warned, settling his sunglasses into position. ‘Remember the five “P’s”.’
‘The five what?’ She turned to look at him in bewilderment.
‘Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.’
‘Of course …’ What? ‘I won’t,’ she assured him.
As Raffa gunned the engine and released the brake her full attention returned to his face. He hated shopping; she could understand that—he was a man. But maybe, just maybe, she could use this opportunity to turn the shopping trip into an advantage …’I can’t wait to get star—’
The rest of Casey’s sentence was lost in the roar of the colossal engine as the Lamborghini took off. G-Force knocked her back in her seat, rendering conversation impossible.
He would give Casey the same chance he’d given all the other candidates.
And then …?
She’d fail, and he’d send her home, of course.
His lips tugged as his body argued with this sombre inner counsel. It would be interesting to see which half of him won through in the end.
He drew into the extensive car park, where a valet was waiting to park the car. ‘Money?’ he prompted, before Casey got out. He was still prepared to help her, but she had plumbed the pockets of her jeans, coming up with a handful of screwed-up notes and some spare change, which she now showed him. He stared at it dubiously. ‘Are you sure that’s enough?’
‘It’s plenty for what I need,’ she told him, jutting out her chin. ‘It’s more than I usually spend …’
He raised a brow and said nothing.
He followed her inside as his silent guards peeled out of the following cars. This was a first for them, he mused as he left the order of the car park behind for the bustle and glamour of an up-market mall. He motioned his guards to remain in the background as Casey consulted the mall guide. Having looked around to get her bearings, she headed off.
He followed her with interest. Shopping malls in A’Qaban were for exclusive labels only. Most of the shops didn’t reveal anything so vulgar as the cost of an article, and though personally he hated floating prices, with increasing wealth they had become a fact of life in the country. The general consensus was, if you had to ask the price, chances were you couldn’t afford it. To him that was not only insulting, but open to misuse, allowing prices to be thought up on a whim. It was on his list of things to change—but not today, because this was Casey Michaels’s day and his concerns were all for her.
He had brought Casey to A’Qaban to test her business acumen, not to humiliate her, he reminded himself, staying right behind her. If it got anywhere close to that, he’d step in.
He waited in the shadows of the first boutique to see how she got on. The shop specialised in clothes he thought far too old for her. As he had feared, the misnamed ‘assistants’ were dismissive of Casey, and barely looked her way as she searched the rails. He felt insulted and angry on her behalf. He wasn’t surprised to see a photograph of the late Sheikh, a distant relative of his, still hanging on the wall. Attitudes here were still in the Dark Ages. He intended A’Qaban to be a country of equal opportunity, where everyone would be treated with respect. The employees here had some shocks in store when that happened, but for now Casey was stuck with the ancient regime, and it pained him to see her embarrassment when she came out of the shop.
‘I’m sorry to keep you, Raffa, but there’s nothing I like in here.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ Seeing her face fall, and knowing she couldn’t afford anything in the shop, he nudged Casey into the shadows, where no one could see what they were doing.
She turned her face up to him, staring at him warily.
‘Call it an advance on your
