Sheikh Without a Heart

And treating her with barely concealed contempt when he wasn’t looking at her with lust in his wintry eyes.

Rachel knew that look.

A woman who wore an outfit like this, who served drinks in a casino, was fair game.

She hated everything about her job. The customers. The atmosphere. The clink of the chips.

This awful costume.

She’d balked at wearing it until her boss said, “You want the job? Do what you’re told and stop bitching.”

The girls she worked with were even more direct.

“You wanna be Miss High and Mighty,” one of them told her, “go pick up dirty dishes at the all-the-pigs-can-eat buffet.”

Rachel had already done a turn like that. You couldn’t pay the rent and support Suki—because Suki certainly hadn’t supported herself—you couldn’t pay the rent or anything else with what she’d earned clearing tables.

So each day she gritted her teeth, hid herself inside this sleazy costume and went to work where men pretty much figured she was available for lots more than taking their drink orders.

She hated it, but then, that was how men were. No big surprise there.

Then Rami had moved in. After a few months, when she couldn’t stand living with either him or Suki anymore, Rachel had confronted her sister and demanded she and her boyfriend find a place of their own.

Suki had burst into tears and said she couldn’t do that. She was in trouble …

That “trouble” had changed everything.

Rachel could no more have tossed Suki out than she could have flown to the moon, and—and—

“Have you lost the ability to speak, Rachel Donnelly? I have no time to waste.”

No time, Rachel thought, no time …

Oh, God!

She’d been so caught up in what was happening that she’d almost forgotten the hour.

The wall clock read six-fifteen.

She’d gotten off work two hours ago, same as always. Which meant that the reason she’d stayed in Vegas was going to turn up at the door in forty-five minutes.

She’d never been sure what she was going to do if and when this moment came.

She was sure now.

She was sure of something else, too.

Rami’s brother knew nothing.