Mistress Of The Sheikh. Sandra Marton

money. It comes with too many strings attached.”

      “Taking alimony from that ex of yours, then.”

      “Even more strings,” Amanda said, and sighed. This was not a good idea. She could feel it in her bones—but only an idiot would walk away from an opportunity like this. “Okay,” she said before she could talk herself out of it again, “I’ll try.”

      “Good girl.” Dawn looped her arm through Amanda’s. The women walked slowly from the terrace into the living room. “Mandy, you know this makes sense. Doing the interior design for Sheikh Nicholas al Rashid’s Fifth Avenue penthouse will splash your name everywhere it counts.”

      “Still, even if your brother agrees—”

      “He has to. You’re my birthday gift to him, remember?”

      “Won’t he care that he’ll be my first client?”

      “Your first New York client.”

      “Well, yeah. But I didn’t really work when I lived in Dallas. You know how Paul felt about my having a career.”

      “Once I tell Nick you designed for Jonas Baron, and for Tyler and Caitlin Kincaid, he’ll be sold.”

      Amanda came to a dead stop. “Are you nuts? Me, decorate my stepfather’s house? Jonas would probably shoot anybody who tried to move a chair!”

      “You did your mother’s sitting room, didn’t you?”

      “Sure. But that was different. It was one room—”

      “The room’s in the Baron house, right?”

      “Dawn, come on. That’s hardly—”

      “Well, what about the Kincaids?”

      “All I did was rip out some of the froufrou, replace it with pieces Tyler had in his house in Atlanta and suggest a couple of new things. That’s hardly the same as redoing a fourteen-room penthouse.”

      Dawn slapped her hands on her hips. “For heaven’s sake, Mandy, will you let me handle this? What do you want me to say? ‘Nick, this is Amanda. Remember her? The last time you met, you chewed her out for being a bad influence on me. Now she’s going to spend a big chunk of your money doing something you really don’t want done, and by the way, you’re her very first real client.”’

      Amanda couldn’t help it. She laughed. “I guess it doesn’t sound like much of a recommendation.”

      “No, it doesn’t. And I thought we both just agreed you need this job.”

      “You’re right,” Amanda said glumly, “I do.”

      “Darned right, you do. At least redo the suite Nicky lets me use whenever I’m in town. Did you ever see such awful kitsch?” Dawn gave Amanda a quick hug when she smiled. “That’s better. Just let me do the talking, okay?”

      “Okay.”

      Dawn quickened her pace as they started up the wide staircase that led to the second floor. “We’ll have to hurry. You put on that slinky red dress, fix your hair, spritz on some perfume and get ready to convince my brother he’d be crazy to turn up his regal nose at the chance to have this place done by the one, the only, the incredible Amanda Benning.”

      “You ever think about going into PR?”

      “You can put me on the payroll after the first time your name shows up in the—oh, damn! We never finished our tour. You haven’t seen Nick’s suite.”

      “That’s all right.” Amanda patted the pocket of her silk trousers. “I’ll transfer my camera into my evening bag.”

      “No, don’t do that.” Dawn shuddered dramatically as she opened the door to her rooms. “If Nick sees you taking pictures, he’ll figure you for a media spy and…” She grinned and sliced her hand across her throat. “How’s this? You shower first, get dressed, then grab a quick look. His rooms are at the other end of the hall.”

      “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Amanda said quickly. “What if the sheikh comes in while I’m poking around?”

      “He won’t. Nicky promised he’d be on time, but he’s always late. He hates stuff like this. You know, public appearances, being the center of attention. The longer he can delay his entrance, the better he likes it.”

      Amanda thought about the walking ego who’d shoved his way into her room, unasked and unannounced.

      “I’ll bet,” she said, and softened the words with a smile. “But I’d still feel more comfortable if you were with me.”

      “I promise I’ll join you just as soon as I turn myself into the gorgeous, desirable creature we both know I am. Okay?”

      Amanda hesitated, told herself she was being an idiot, then nodded. “Okay.”

      “Good.” Dawn kicked off her shoes. “In that case, the shower’s all yours.”

      Twenty minutes later, Amanda paused outside the door to the sheikh’s rooms.

      If anybody took her pulse right now, they’d probably enter the result in the record books. She could feel it galloping like a runaway horse, but why wouldn’t it?

      It wasn’t every day she sneaked into a man’s bedroom to take pictures and make notes. Into the bedroom of a man who demanded people address him as “Lord”. A man to whom other men bowed.

      Instinct told her to turn tail and run. Necessity told her to stop being a coward. She was wasting time, and there really wasn’t much to waste. Ten minutes, if Dawn was wrong and the sheikh showed up promptly.

      She ran a nervous hand through the short, pale gold hair that framed her face, took the tiny digital camera from her evening purse and tapped at the door.

      “Sheikh Rashid?”

      There was no answer. The only sounds that carried through the vastness of the penthouse were snatches of baroque music from the quartet setting up in the library far below.

      Amanda straightened her shoulders, opened the door and stepped inside the room.

      It was clearly a man’s domain. Dawn had said her brother hadn’t changed any of the furnishings in the penthouse and Amanda could believe that—everywhere but here. This one room bore a stamp that she instantly knew was the sheikh’s.

      She didn’t know why she would think it. Asked to describe a room Nicholas al Rashid would design for himself, she’d have come up with mahogany furniture. Dark crimson walls. Velvet drapes.

      These walls were pale blue silk. The furniture was satin-finished rosewood, and the tall windows had been left unadorned to frame the view of Central Park. The carpet was Persian, she was sure, and old enough to date back to a century when that had been the name of the country in which it had been made.

      A sleek portable computer sat open on a low table.

      The room spoke of simplicity and elegance. It spoke, too, of a time older than memory that flowed into a time yet to come.

      Amanda began taking photos. The room. The bed. The open windows and the view beyond. She worked quickly while images of the sheikh flashed through her mind. She could see him in this room, tall and leanly muscled, stiff with regal arrogance. He belonged here.

      Then she saw the oil painting on the wall. She hesitated, then walked toward it, eyes lifted to the canvas.

      The room was a sham. All the sophistication, the urbanity…a lie, all of it. This was the real man, the one she’d met that night, and never mind the jeans and T-shirt he’d worn then, and the nonsense about his half-American ancestry.

      The painting was of Nicholas al Rashid dressed in desert robes of white trimmed with gold, seated on the back of a white horse that looked as wild as he did. One hand held the reins; the other lay on the pommel