Challenging The Doctor Sheikh. Amalie Berlin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a man was...exceedingly handsome?

      Though Dakan had a roguish quality to his appearance that probably instilled this reaction in everyone who saw him. And he was a doctor too, like his brother, that much she knew. Doctor. Prince. Adonis in a superbly cut charcoal suit.

      There were probably words he expected her to say now.

      Think of words. Any words. English words even.

      I’m Nira and I like long walks on the beach and...

      Not those words.

      “I didn’t know we were meeting today, Prince Dakan.” There. Words. Should she have said “Your Highness?” That probably was one of the things she should’ve learned when preparing for the trip, but Zahir had just gone by his name, never once using his title. But here among the magnificent ogival arches and vaulted ceilings? It felt wrong to call this man Dakan, and Mr. Al Rahal wasn’t any better than Mr. Universe.

      But his collar, with two buttons open, displayed the kind of wide muscled neck that let you know his shoulders and chest would have the same definition... Mr. Universe probably suited him.

      “I suppose it was incorrect to expect you’d be waiting there for me to get round to meeting you. Aren’t you on the clock, Ms. Hathaway?” Unconcealed exasperation rang in his tone, even here among the now unnervingly quiet area of the arcade. It helped clear her fuzzy head. Being falsely accused was so rarely a turn-on.

      “Oh, no. I’m not on the clock. I’d never charge a client billable hours without working. My firm only charges billable hours, not days, and only when someone is actively working on a project. The first days I was here I organized the workspace and all the equipment, got everything set up within the system to make sure the backups happened, but today I ran out of things to do. I’ve done some light sketching out of ideas, but—”

      “Let’s go back to the flat where we can speak without stopping commerce,” he cut in, bidding Nira to look around them with a simple glance. Practically everyone in the arcade stood watching them, a sea of wide eyes, alert to the point of horror. Which explained the quietness.

      They might not understand what was being said—she honestly had no idea how many everyday citizens in Mamlakat Almas would know enough English to translate this conversation—but tone was universally understood. She’d angered the Prince. Nothing good ever came from angering a prince in his own country. Never mind how wrong it felt to be anything even resembling rude or disrespectful. She’d be horrified on her behalf too if she weren’t already horrified.

      “Of course, yes, I’m sorry. You’re right.” She gestured for him to go as he wished, shifted her bag of purchases to her other shoulder and fell into step behind him as he wound through the opening crowds.

      Some combination of height, shoulders, and royalty was what made him imposing. These were his subjects, that’s why everyone moved. And he was possibly her employer while the project continued, so that explained why she felt a bit...off now too.

      It had nothing to do with the expanse of his shoulders. Besides, no way were they that wide anyway, the suit jacket only made them seem so formidable and square that it added to all the other authority rolling off the man.

      They stepped out into the sunshine and the thick scent of spices and incense dispersed with the normal city smells and another low odor she couldn’t put her finger on. She’d been smelling it since she’d arrived, something earthy and warm. It wasn’t the sea, though she smelled the fresh salt air too. Mamlakat Almas was a coastal city ringed by rugged desert and mountainous terrain. Maybe it was the desert. Did sand have a smell?

      She tried to keep her eyes down as they hurried back to her lavish—and temporary—penthouse flat. Not because she didn’t want to look around, really there was little Nira wanted more than to look around. And not because she felt intimidated, although having her possible new boss angry with her didn’t make her feel like singing.

      It was a way of making herself invisible. There was power in eye contact, and this country—as much as she wanted to be here—still felt foreign to her. Being able to blend in was a kind of social invisibility she’d long coveted. The ability to not stand out. She could do that here if she figured out what was socially and culturally expected of her. Blending in wasn’t something she’d ever really done at home. She’d always looked different, felt different.

      By the time they got inside, Nira had picked up more of the Prince’s frustration, but the beautiful interior of the building helped her at least.

      Speaking might just help them both. Heavy silences made everything worse.

      “I love this building. It’s like they plucked the interior of some glorious old nineteen-twenties New York building and encased it in glass. I expected the flat to carry on the same style, but it’s completely modern. Floor-to-ceiling windows, clean, straight lines—gorgeous, but two completely different styles blended together.”

      Dakan stopped in front of the lift, pressed the button, then folded his arms. In the polished brass on the lift doors she met his reflected gaze and did the only sensible thing she could think of—she continued babbling.

      Maybe he just needed more encouragement to break the ice.

      “Take this lift door, for example. It’s definitely art nouveau.” She reached out to trace her fingers along the polished brass design, tracing the flowing curlicues symbolic of peacock feathers, “and I’d say it’s actually from the period—not a replica. The way the design is incised into the metal like a patterned window screen.”

      She looked directly at him again, and her stomach bottomed out once more as if she were in the lift already, all hope that he’d take the hint diminishing.

      Nothing but a slight lift of his dark brows came in response. Was that a sign of interest for her to continue, or some kind of hint for her to shut up?

      Probably to shut up.

      He checked that the button to summon the lift was still lit.

      Definitely to shut up.

      Had she really made him so angry by not waiting around, doing nothing, with no idea of when he might swing by? She’d left once to go to the bazaar close by, it wasn’t like she’d taken a desert trek by camel to skinny-dip at some oasis. And she wasn’t on the clock anyway. Her company had no billable code for sitting around, doing nothing.

      She should probably shut up.

      In a moment.

      “I’ve seen those cut screens in all of the admittedly few places I’ve been to here. The bedroom in the flat has the eastern wall of windows with these pliable die-cut screens that roll down from the ceiling like you might expect a window blind to do. It makes waking up a pleasure, softens the sunshine into little patches of light to ease you into the brightness of the day.”

      A bell pinged and the lift doors slid open.

      Still no response. And that was top-notch architectural geekery too, completely wasted on this man. Everyone at her firm would’ve been interested in her description of the building details. In fact, her fellow architect geeks had already flooded her daily social media posts with pictures of the building or skyline, always asking for more detail. Because it was interesting. And beautiful. And unexpected.

      He stepped into the lift, and СКАЧАТЬ