The Sheikh's Undoing Read Online Free PDF Page A

last candidate for any erotic thoughts. So how was it that he suddenly found his attention riveted on a pair of slender thighs which were outlined with delectable precision beneath the blue of her denim skirt?
    With an effort, he dragged his gaze away and settled back in the seat. ‘I pay you enough already—as well you know,’ he said. ‘How far is it?’
    ‘Far enough,’ said Isobel softly, ‘for you to close your eyes and sleep.’
And stop annoying me with your infuriating comments
.
    ‘I’m not sleepy.’
    ‘Sure?’
    ‘Quite sure,’ he mumbled, but something in her voice was oddly soothing, so he found himself yawning—and seconds later he was fast asleep.
    Isobel drove in a silence punctuated only by the low, steady sound of Tariq’s breathing. She tried to concentrate on her driving and on the new green buds which were pushing through the hedgerows—but it wasn’t easy. Her attention kept wandering and she felt oddly light-headed. She kept telling herself it was because her usual routine had been thrown out of kilter—and not because of the disturbing proximity of her boss.
    But that wouldn’t have been true. Something had happened to her and she couldn’t work out what it was. Why should she suddenly start feeling self-conscious and
peculiar
in Tariq’s company? Why couldn’t she seem to stop her eyes from straying to the powerful shafts of his thighs and then drifting upwards to the narrow jut of his hips?
    She shook her head. She’d been alone with Tariq many, many times before. She had shared train, plane and car journeys with him on various business trips. But never like this. Not in such cramped and humble confines, with him fast asleep beside her, his legs spread out in front of him. Almost as if they were any normal couple, just driving along.
    Impatiently, she shook her head.
    Normal?
That was the last adjective which could ever be applied to Tariq. He was a royal sheikh from the ancient House of Khayarzah and one of the wealthiest men on the planet.
    Sometimes it still seemed incredible to Isobel thatsomeone like her should have ended up working so closely for such a powerful man. She could tell that people were often surprised when she told them what she did for a living. That he who could have anyone should have chosen her. What did
she
have that a thousand more well-connected women didn’t have? That was what everyone always wanted to know.
    Deep down, she suspected it was because he trusted her in a way that he trusted few people. And why did he trust her? Hard to say. Probably because she had met him when he was young—at school—before the true extent of his power and position had really sunk in. Before he’d realised the influence he wielded.
    She’d been just ten at the time—a solitary and rather serious child. Her mother, Anna, had been the school nurse at one of England’s most prestigious boarding schools—a job she’d been lucky to get since it provided a place to live as well as a steady income. Anna was a single mother and her daughter Isobel illegitimate. Times had changed, and not having a father no longer carried any stigma, but it certainly had back then—back in the day.
    Isobel had borne the brunt of it, of course. She remembered the way she’d always flinched with embarrassment whenever the question had been asked:
What does your father do?
There had been a thousand ways she had sought to answer without giving away the shaming fact that she
didn’t actually know
.
    As a consequence, she’d always felt slightly
less than
—a feeling which hadn’t been helped by growing up surrounded by some of the wealthiest children in the world. She’d been educated among them, but she hadnever really been one of them—those pampered products of the privileged classes.
    But Tariq had been different from all the other pupils. His olive skin and black eyes had made him stand out like a handful of sparkling jewels thrown down onto a sheet of plain white paper. Sent to