The Sheikh's Convenient Bride

“I, um, I wasn’t getting along with the client. And, uh, and I decided it was in everyone’s best interest if I just—’’

“Remember when we were kids? And I sort of borrowed one of Fallon’s skirts? And she’d told me a zillion times to stay out of her closet?”

“Bree. Whatever you’re trying to say—”

“I burned a hole in it. Well, Donny Hucksacker burned a hole in it, trying to show how grown up he was by smoking a cigarette, except he dropped it and…Okay, okay, I’ll get to the point. I was terrified of letting Fallon know what I’d done, and you took pity on me and said you’d take the blame, and you tried to but it didn’t work because she took one look at your face and—’

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Where are you going with this?”

“I’m just pointing out that you are the world’s worst liar. Whatever happened with you and that client was a lot more than not getting along.”

Megan stared at her sister. “Aren’t you supposed to phone the airline every hour?”

“I called them twenty minutes ago.”

“Right. Well—well, I just remembered, I have an appointment with that headhunter.”

“On Sunday?” Bree smiled sweetly. “I don’t think so.”

“Look here, Briana—”

“Look here, yourself, Megan Nicole O’Connell! When are you going to tell me what’s going on, huh? A month ago, you left this cryptic message on my answering machine—”

“There was nothing cryptic about it.”

“Oh, give me a break.” Bree raised her eyebrows as well as her voice. ‘“Hi, this is Megan. I’m leaving for a place you never heard of and coming back who knows when, and, be still my heart, I’ll be working with a guy who’s absolutely D and D…’”

“I never said that!”

Briana flashed a triumphant smile. “You didn’t have to. You went to Suliyam, and your client was Sheikh Qasim Something-or-Other, and me oh my, if he isn’t Dark and Dangerous, nobody is.”

Megan slapped her hands on her hips. “How do you know all that?”

“It was in one of those business magazines, an article about him working with a consultant from T, B and M. And there was a picture of the guy and after I wiped the drool off my chin I said to myself, ‘Self, big sister Megan is off in the wilds with a stud.’” Briana slapped her hands on her hips, too. “And before you say, ‘You? Reading a business magazine,’ the answer is yes, me, reading a business magazine. I was at the dentist’s and all the Cosmos and Elles were gone.”

“Now who’s the liar?”

“Don’t try and change the subject. Is he?”

Megan sighed. The right answer was, “Is he what?” But she’d only be delaying things. Her sister could be as persistent as a dog with a bone.

“Yes. He is. D and D to the core.”

“I knew it!”

“So what? Being dark and dangerous isn’t everything.”

“Oh.”

The “oh” was filled with meaning. Megan refused to take the bait. Instead she yanked open a cupboard and took out two plates.

“Here. Make yourself useful. Set the table so that we can eat as soon as the pizza gets here.”

“Something happened,” Bree said. “Between you and the sheikh.”

“I told you what happened,” Megan said, bustling around the kitchen as if it were the size of a skating rink instead of a closet. “We didn’t get along. For heaven’s sake, are you just going to stand there? Take these napkins. Take extras. Take—”

“You and he had a thing going.”