"I wondered if you were currently looking for a mistress,"
Kiley Hendrick said quietly.
Prince Rafiq of Lucia-Serrat stared at the woman sitting
across from him. He had thought the biggest surprise of
his Monday had been to find Kiley at her desk that
morning, instead of on her honeymoon.
He had been wrong. "You speak of yourself?" he asked.
She nodded, keeping her gaze firmly on the pad of paper
she clutched on her lap.
He hadn't seen his secretary in five days. She'd taken off
part of the previous week to prepare for her impending
marriage. "I take it the wedding on Saturday was not a
success," he said. "There was no wedding." She raised her
head and stared directly at him. "Eric and I are no longer
together."
"I see."
He allowed his gaze to return to her tightly clenched
hands and saw that the modest diamond engagement ring was
no longer on her left hand. A thin indentation on her pale
skin was the only proof it had existed at all.
"I know that you are currently between, ah, women," she
said and blushed. "That is, I sent the final gifts and
letter so I thought that you had broken up." She pressed
her lips together as if not sure how to continue.
"I am no longer seeing Carmen," he offered helpfully.
Kiley nodded. "Yes. I thought so. And while I know you
usually have one or two candidates waiting in the wings, I
wondered if you would consider me. Even though I'm not
your usual type."
He had a type? "Meaning?"
She released her death grip on her pad of paper and
shifted in her seat. "Glamorous. Beautiful. Sophisticated.
I'm okay looking, but not in their league. But you've only
seen me in work clothes. I clean up pretty well. I'm
smart, I have a sense of humor." She paused and bit her
lower lip. "I've never had a conversation like this. I
don't know what you're looking for when you pick a woman
for, um, well, that."
"My bed?"
The blush returned. She swallowed but didn't look
away. "Right. Your bed."
Rafiq had not discussed things so openly before, either.
He leaned back in his chair and considered what he looked
for in a mistress.
"Obviously some physical beauty," he said, more to himself
than her. "But that is less important than one might
think. Intelligence and humor are required. Not every
waking moment is spent making love. There is plenty of
time for conversation."
He thought of Carmen's shrill demands. "An even temper
would be desirable."
"You've known me for two years," Kiley reminded him. "I've
never gotten angry."
"Agreed." She had not. She was efficient, organized and
very much responsible for the ease with which his workday
progressed. But his mistress?
While Kiley was attractive and he would admit to finding
pleasure in watching her move, he had never considered
that more than a bonus. Beautiful, sensual women were easy
to find. An excellent assistant was not.
The most sensible course was to politely thank her for the
offer, then refuse the invitation. He would —
"There will be advantages," she said, as if trying to
convince him. "I understand your work. We can discuss it,
if you'd like. Plus I won't mind if you have to stay at
the office late."
"Most likely you will be working late with me," he said,
wondering why this was so important to her. What had
pushed the normally reserved Kiley to make such an
outrageous — for her, at least — request?
"Yes, there is that." She cleared her throat. "I don't
know what else to say. I just hope you'll consider me."
He had never been approached so openly by a woman intent
on joining him in his bed. He would have bet a
considerable part of his fortune that she was not the type
to be interested in an affair. He still believed that.
"Why do you want to do this?" he asked.
Kiley returned her attention to him. Her dark-blue eyes
flashed with pain. "Revenge."
"A noble motive. I assume this revenge is because of your
fiancé?"
"Yes. Eric."
She paused, as if considering how much to tell him. Rafiq
could guess the basic scenario, but he wanted to hear it
from her. He wanted to gauge her emotions and her intent.
While she chose her words, he looked at her. Really
looked — not at the ever-present secretary who anticipated
his needs and made his life flow pleasantly, but at the
woman.
She was of average height — perhaps five foot four or five
inches. Her hair, worn short and layered, was the color of
gold. Or perhaps the north-shore beaches of Lucia-Serrat
at sunset. Her large eyes dominated her face. He'd noticed
how the deep blue darkened or lightened with her mood. He
had always been able to tell if she was annoyed with him.
She was delicately built, small-boned, with curves that
intrigued him. Now he took in the slight swell of her
breasts and the shape of her calves below the hem of her
knee-length skirt.
She was attractive, he thought. He found her easy to be
with. She did not scream or annoy him. Like every other
woman of his acquaintance, she wanted something from him.
Unlike the others, she had been honest from the first.
But did he want her in his bed? "He cheated," Kiley said
at last, obviously fighting tears. "I'm sure you guessed
that. He spared me the cliché of the groom sleeping with
the bride's maid-of-honor-slash-best friend, but he more
than made up for it in other ways. He had sex with most of
the women in his law school class, his neighbors, my
neighbor, along with countless others. He propositioned
two of my friends. At the time, they tried to tell me, but
I wouldn't listen. Talk about stupid."
She spoke lightly, as if the words had no meaning. But he
heard the pain in her voice and saw it in her eyes.
"You did not believe them?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I was fooled right up until last
Friday morning when I walked in on him and a woman from
his study group." She blinked rapidly as if holding in
tears. "That wasn't even the worst of it. He c-came after
me and told me it didn't mean anything." She paused to
swallow, the tears closer to the surface now.
"He never was very original. Then he told me that he was
doing it for me. That he wanted to treat me with reverence
and respect. So he kept that side of himself away from me."
She looked at Rafiq. "My idea of loving someone, of
feeling reverence, isn't to cheat on her over and over
again."
"You canceled the wedding." If Rafiq had planned to
attend, he would have known before now. But an outof-town
commitment had caused him to send his regrets.
"Eric was shocked, if you can believe it," Kiley said.
"He actually thought I'd still go through with it because
it was the next day and we had 250 people coming.
Everything was paid for. But I wouldn't do it. I loved him
and I thought he loved me and I was wrong. Getting married
at that point would only make things worse. So I canceled."
She dropped her head and stared at the pad of paper on her
lap. "My mom and I made phone calls. We couldn't get
everyone, so I went to the church the next morning and
told them as they arrived." She took a deep breath. "It
was horrible."
"You? Not Eric?"
She shook her head. "He took the tickets for our honeymoon
in Hawaii and left with his flavor of the week. I hope
they get rashes. And stung by jellyfish."
Her courage surprised him. She could easily have sent a
family member to stand at the church, but she'd done it
herself.
"Why me?" he asked.
For the first time since walking into his office, a smile
tugged at her lips. "You're a prince, Rafiq. That makes
you the best candidate around."
"Ah. I see." He could discern out the rest of it. "Eric
has accepted a job with the law firm I use. Therefore he
will attend some of the same functions I do. As my
mistress, you would go with me."
"Exactly. Eric doesn't like you," she added. "I think he's
jealous. He's tried to get me to quit a few times, but I
refused. He would talk about the women in your life as if
they were sluts or something but I'm starting to believe
he was envious. He wants what you have. Or maybe he wants
to be you. I don't know and I don't care. But I'm
convinced that my being your mistress will destroy him."
Rafiq considered her words. He had only met Kiley's fiancé
one or two times. He'd never formed an opinion of the man
until now.
"Do you want him destroyed?" he asked.
She nodded. "Then I want to walk away and forget he ever
existed." She looked at him. "There's another reason I
came to you. You're a good man. You'd never treat a woman
the way Eric treated me. You'd simply end things without
any of the lies."
Her assessment of his character was interesting. He could
name twenty people who would do their best to convince her
he was the biggest bastard on the planet. But she was also
right — he'd never lied to a woman. He'd never stooped to
trickery or deception.
Was he considering her offer? Did he want Kiley as his
mistress? He wouldn't mind her in his bed, despite the
complications. He liked her. The proposition had
possibilities.
"There are logistics to be considered," he said. "If we
decide to move forward with this."
They were discussing things so calmly, Kiley thought, more
than a little amazed by the turn of events. She was
willing to admit she was still emotionally numb from the
shock of Eric's betrayal, but even as she'd imagined a
thousand ways this conversation could go, she'd never
thought it would be so rational. Maybe this sort of thing
happened to Rafiq all the time, but it was a definite
first for her. Still, she was determined. She could
forgive a lot of things, but not betrayal on that level.
Not ever.
To think that Eric had tried to make her feel guilty about
enjoying her job with Rafiq when Eric had been cheating on
her. She'd been so careful not to talk about her boss and
she'd always gone out of her way to reassure Eric. Just
the thought of it made her want to throw something.
He had even complained about Rafiq's generous gift of
Baccarat crystal. A gift she currently had boxed up in her
office to return to her boss.