be for just a few minutes.”
“Not a problem,” he answered easily, thinking it was already so very Rou Tornell. Busy, busy, busy. So very self-important. He checked his smile as he followed the assistant through the door into the living room.
He’d taken just a few steps into the room when he spotted Rou at a corner desk in the lovely sitting room, a laptop open before her. She was wearing glasses today, her long blond hair unceremoniously tucked behind her ears. Blond, thin, bookish and tense, Rou Tornell exuded the warmth of an ice cube. Her personality was about as interesting. But she was successful, and reputedly the best in her field, and that’s what he needed.
The assistant disappeared, discreetly closing the door behind her.
“Good afternoon, Sheikh Fehr,” Rou greeted him as the door shut. “I’m in a bit of a rush, but I understand from Jamie that you’re apparently desperate to see me.”
Her frosty tone didn’t escape him and his lips compressed. Forget ice cube, try iceberg, he thought cynically, realizing she hadn’t changed, and she never would. “I wouldn’t say desperate, Dr. Tornell. Determined is probably more accurate.”
She leaned back in her chair, folded her hands together, her gaze stony. “I can’t imagine how I might be of service to you,” she added coolly, hating how her pulse was already too quick.
She didn’t like him. She’d never like him. And the only reason she’d agreed to see him today was out of courtesy to Sharif.
“It’s been a while,” he said, approaching. “Two years?”
“Three.” Rou felt a jolt as Zayed neared. He was even more magnetic than she’d remembered; she’d forgotten how he owned a room, how he seemed to become the room. And then there was his height, and his build, and how his clothes had been tailored to lovingly drape him. Her father had owned a room the same way, but then her father had been one of the greatest film stars of his day.
But Zayed was no film star, nor pop star. He was a sheikh who acted more Western than the most Western man. A sheikh with billions of his own, never mind his family’s fortune, a man who did what he pleased, when he pleased, and how he pleased. Even if he hurt others in the process.
Her jaw tightened and she flexed her fingers ever so slightly.
It still vexed her that he had hurt her. She shouldn’t have let a man like him have that kind of power. But then, she hadn’t thought he did.
Yet there was a positive that came out of the painful and humiliating episode. It was the insight she gleaned into his character, insight which became her second bestselling book, He’s No Prince: Detecting the Bad Boys, Players&Con Artists So You Can Find True Love.
“That long?” he answered with an equally cool smile. “It seems like just yesterday when we first met.”
“Does it? Probably not to Pippa. She’s had two babies since.” Rou’s gaze met his and held, even as her stomach squeezed into knots. God, she hated him. Hated that he’d hurt her, hated that he’d mocked her, hated that he’d made her realize she would never trust men, and never find true love of her own.
“Two for Lady Pippa? She’s been busy, hasn’t she?”
And just like that, Rou flashed back to the weekend they’d first met at her client Lady Pippa Collins’s wedding in Winchester. Sharif was to have been there, but at the last moment he couldn’t attend, and apparently his younger brother the Prince Zayed Fehr of Sarq had taken his place.
Pippa had been the one to introduce them during the reception. “Sheikh Fehr,” Pippa had said, stopping Rou in front of the sheikh’s table, “I couldn’t let you leave without meeting my dear friend Rou Tornell.”
Zayed Fehr had risen to his feet, and it was the most regal, elegant rise Rou had ever seen.
Like Sharif, he was tall, very tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist and at full height he stood easily a full head and a half taller than Rou, and she wasn’t short. And while Sharif was handsome, Zayed was alarmingly, unnervingly good-looking. Dark gold eyes. Jet-black hair. Smooth jaw not quite square but distinctly male, and it balanced his strong nose and high cheekbones. They were, she thought rather dizzily, cheekbones that a model would kill for. He must photograph beautifully. But then, he was model beautiful in person. Part of her knew she could never really trust him, as beautiful men were the most savage and selfish of all, but another part of her wanted to like him because he was, after all, Sharif’s brother.
“It’s because of Rou that we are all here,” Pippa added, beaming and patting Rou’s arm. “My darling Rou introduced me to Henry a year ago.”
Sheikh Fehr’s eyes had narrowed, gleamed, creases fanning at the corners of those magnificent eyes. The first sign that he wasn’t a lad of twenty, but a man in his prime, probably somewhere around thirty-two or thirty-three.
“How fortuitous,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting in the driest, most mocking voice Rou had ever heard. And she’d heard plenty. She was a psychologist after all.
Rou stiffened, but Pippa was oblivious, too giddy with happiness, and the bride smiled radiantly at the sheikh. “Rou—Dr. Tornell—has a true gift. I am—can you believe it?—her hundredth wedding. She’s introduced one hundred couples now, couples that all ended up in marriage.” Pippa turned to Rou. “I got it right, didn’t I?” And then ecstatic Pippa was off, as her new husband was gesturing for her to join him, which left Rou alone with the sheikh.
But then, to her surprise, Zayed had invited her to join him at his table, and somehow they’d spent the rest of the evening together. They’d talked for hours, and then danced, and then later they’d left the wedding reception and gone across the street to the little hotel bar and had a nightcap together.
She remembered everything about that night. The warmth of his body as they danced. The seductive red walls of the hotel bar. The balloon glass of orange liqueur that she’d cradled in her hands.
Zayed’s attention had been dazzling. He’d listened to her, laughed at her nervous jokes, talked about his work and a few of his recent investments, including a new resort on the coast in his country, Sarq.
Those hours together were delicious. It’d been ages since she’d been on a date, much less with a man like Zayed Fehr who made her feel beautiful and fascinating. She’d fallen for him, and she sensed he’d fallen for her, too. As he put her into a cab late that night, he’d brushed his lips across her cheek and she’d been sure, so sure, he’d call her for a real date, and soon.
But Zayed didn’t call. And she would have never known how he really felt about her if Sharif hadn’t accidentally sent her an e-mail that wasn’t meant for her. He’d meant to reply to Zayed. Instead he’d somehow sent it to her. Sharif caught his mistake before she did, phoning to apologize, phoning to beg her forgiveness, phoning to plead that she just delete the offending e-mail without reading it.
But Rou, ever curious, read the e-mail instead.
Spending the evening with her was like a night at a museum of science—dull, dull, dull, but you get through it by convincing yourself you’re doing a good deed. More unfortunately, I could tell she liked me but obviously the attraction wasn’t mutual. She has all the warmth and charm of a department store mannequin.
“You’re
