His Irresistible Darling (7 page)

She took a deep calming breath and looked out of the window to the long stretch of sun-drenched beach and sparkling deep blue sea. She smiled longingly at the children laughing and running away from the breaking waves. It was a game she and her brother had played on many happy holidays when they were children, before he’d grown too old for such childish games and instead discovered girls and got his driving licence. She loved this journey to and from work on the metro and chose to take it despite having the car.

She was still captivated by the warm colours of the island set in an enviable position just off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. There were pockets of perfectly manicured greenery amongst the cool high-rise glass jungle metropolis but the main colours of the land were the warm reds, browns and burnt orange of the mountains and dunes, which set the perfect contrasting natural backdrop to the business district of central Dubain. The dry heat had hit her like a solid wall when she’d first stepped out of the air-conditioned airport but she’d quickly acclimatised and now shivered when she thought of the bitter, hard winters of her home in the isolated Yorkshire moors—although she did miss the greenery. The people of Dubain were welcoming in the extreme and smiled encouragingly at her when she tried to speak Arabic with mixed success. She rested her forehead against the window.

She was distantly aware of her neighbour clearing his throat. “I’m Jake by the way.” Her napping was interrupted by the sound of an American accent. She turned and met a friendly smile and shook his offered hand.

“Oh hello. I’m Pippa. Pip.”

“Nice to finally meet you,” he said before continuing, “I’ve seen you quite a few times on the tram. I think we must live and work near each other. I’ve been meaning to work up the courage to introduce myself. When you fell into my lap I thought it was as good a sign as any that I should finally say hello. So, hello.”

She felt herself blush again. “I really am sorry about that. I think I fell over that lady’s bag,” she said, nodding over the aisle.

“No worries. Sadly, it’s not every day that a beautiful woman falls into my arms.” He offered her a boyish grin.

“Well, thanks for catching me. So you’re American?”

“Yep. Born in upstate New York. I’ve just moved over here and started work at Goldbergs as a trader; I tried for a New York post but they wanted more experience so I thought I might as well gain it here.”

“Well, welcome to Dubain. I’ve only been her a few months too, so I know it can be quite daunting and difficult to meet people our age.”

As they continued to chat, Pip tried to keep an eye out for her stop. Having nearly missed the tram, there was no way she was going to miss her stop, but she was enjoying Jake’s easy company.

“So have you managed to do any sightseeing yet?” she asked.

“No. Not yet I’m ashamed to say. I haven’t really got my head around the language either.”

“Well, most people have a really good understanding of English. The children start learning it straight from primary school and I think they’re starting to teach their parents too. Just try a few words a ‘
shukran
’ here and there, and most people will be happy with that,” she suggested helpfully. “Once you get settled, you should definitely take the cable car up to the summit of Mount Gaiza. The views from the top are apparently outstanding; sunset is supposed to be the best time to go.”

He pursed his lips. “You haven’t been up yet?”

“Oh no, erm. I’m not such a fan of cable cars,” she admitted to him before continuing, “I keep meaning to see if there is a track I could drive up and then hike the rest of the way to the summit.”

“Sounds good. Maybe you’d let me come with you. I’m a good hiker. Spent many a happy vacation hiking and skiing in the Appalachian Mountains back home.”

“Yeah? I learnt to snowboard there when I was travelling a couple of years back—at the ski mountain resort. Do you know it?”

Jake’s face lit up. “You’re kidding? It’s my favourite place to ski! Er…so, I was thinking of taking the ferry over to Dubai one weekend and trying out that purpose-built snow centre. Maybe we could do that together too?”

Pip stammered, “Oh er, yeah sure.”

“Sorry. I’m being a pushy American, aren’t I? I just haven’t met anyone yet that’s under the age of forty and that I can speak to without looking like an idiot.”

“It’s fine, honestly, and sounds like a great plan for one weekend.”

“So where do you work, Pip?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Right there,” she said, pointing over his shoulder.

She watched him turn and look over to the tallest of the glass skyscrapers in the distance she had pointed towards.

He turned back to her and arched a brow. “You work for
him
?” He nodded his head back towards the tall glass tower, his face a mixture of horror and admiration.

“I do indeed. So do you know Jumal?” she asked.

“Oh no, not personally. I’ve just heard about his rep at work. Is he as bad as they all say?” He was looking at her like she was his hero for working with the mighty Jumal Aldabbagh.

“Worse,” she told him, “and if I don’t get off now he’s likely to stab me in the loo with the toilet brush.”

At his bemused look she added, “Private joke.” And she moved to gather her belongings together. She stood and her new friend offered a gentlemanly hand for her as he moved into the aisle.

“Oh, here’s my card,” she said, digging it out of her handbag and handing it to him. “Email or call me. If you fancy it, my friend is organising my twenty-first birthday party next weekend. I don’t have all the details about what she’s planning, but I’ll give you her contact details and you’d be very welcome if you like.”

“Sure. That’d be great,” he said eagerly. “Good to meet you, Pip.”

“And you,” she replied, smiling. “Gotta go, see ya,” she called to him, looking back over her shoulder as she jumped off the metro.

***

“Here you go, sir.”

Jumal glanced up from his work as the file of papers landed heavily with a “thwack” on his desk next to his hand. For the last hour he’d been trying to concentrate on a new business proposition but failing miserably.

He sighed inwardly and pulled his chair closer to his desk, trying to hide his body’s inappropriate reaction to her, which was now annoyingly automatic. He reached for his glass of water on his desk simply to give him time to get control.

“What’s that?” he finally asked, his eyes focused back on his laptop.

“My summary of the Dubai government contract as you asked, sir.”

He looked up to meet her eyes and saw her gulp. Christ was he that scary? He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms and tilting his head.

He raised a brow at her. “You’ve done it? Already, after the night we had?” He didn’t bother to try to keep the surprise from his voice.

“Well, er yes. You said you wanted it done. So it’s done. I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“You couldn’t sleep either huh?”

“What?” she gasped, clearly startled by his disclosure.

Recovering quickly from his slip, he straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. “Nothing. Okay well, I’ll have a read over this today. That’s all.”

Pip gave him a quick nod and walked or rather stormed back to her desk, no doubt pissed off at him now that he had the emotional barrier back in place and hadn’t even uttered a word of thanks for her efforts in completing the task so quickly. What an ungrateful bastard he was.

***

Pip slumped back down in her chair and began typing impatiently on her computer. She needed to file this feeling for the next time her heart when berserk when Jumal walked by her desk…

“You keep mumbling under your breath people are going to talk, sweetie,” Melina said across the desks.

“I hate him. Ungrateful bastard.”

“Ah right, well maybe I can brighten up your day. Reception called for you whilst you were in there. They have a package for you.”

“A package? But I’m not expecting anything—oooh maybe it’s a present for my birthday from Matt and Ana.” She smiled, pushing up excitedly from her desk.

“Maybe.” Melina smiled at her mischievously. Her friend knew something and wasn’t for telling.

Pip felt some trepidation as she stepped into the lift again; she fiddled with her blouse and straightened her skirt on her way down to reception, assuring herself that her luck couldn’t be so bad as to get stuck again. The engineers had assured her that the problem was fixed.

She let out a relieved sigh as she stepped out into the cool, sand-coloured marble-tiled reception area of Jumal’s elegant building and glanced up towards the cloudless sky, visible through the atrium, and offered a silent prayer of thanks.

Those prayers were quickly forgotten as she spotted Jake nervously pacing and swinging her lunch box. The man was no doubt uncomfortable under the snake-like gaze of the receptionist, also known as the office gossip.

She approached him but he hadn’t noticed her yet so she tapped him on the shoulder. “Jake.”

He spun around to face her, hitting her in the leg with the lunch box. “Oh. Shit I’m sorry!” he blurted out apologetically. “Er, hi. You forgot this in your rush this morning,” he said, thrusting the lunch box at her.

Oh good grief, there was no good way for
that
comment to be interpreted and news would likely spread around the office like wildfire that Pippa Darling had been with a man! She gently took hold of his arm and led him away from the reception area.

“Thanks, it’s sweet of you to bring it for me. I’m forever forgetting and losing things.” She rolled her eyes and smiled at him and decided that he was definitely cute in an all-American clean-cut boyish way—the polar opposite of Jumal.

“No problem.” She watched him shift his weight from side to side. “Actually, I wondered if you’d like to go and have a coffee with me?”

“Oh, erm, sure that would be lovely. There’s a nice café in the mezzanine near the waterfall; it will have some shade.” She took her lunch box from him and swung it as she walked past reception and called back over her shoulder, “Reeta, can you tell Melina that I’m taking an early lunch? Thanks.”

Oh well, she thought, in for a penny in for a pound.

***

The sparkling waters of the Gulf did nothing to lighten Jumal’s mood as he sat back in his chair, steepled his hands and tried to fight the growing unease settling in his stomach, having analysed Pippa’s review of the Dubai contract.

He’d gone over it again and again to try to allay his fears but without success. There was no getting around it. She’d messed up big time. The only question was whether it had been done deliberately and he found it abhorrent that he couldn’t trust his own judgement on this. Never before had he second-guessed his gut reaction to something but the fallout from this could be catastrophic for his business. He needed a second opinion.

“So,” he said, turning his chair to face Malik who had just finished reading. “Do you agree with me?”

Malik looked up from the papers and shook his head, his face giving away his disbelief.

“I just don’t know why she’d do it,” he said, clearly as shocked as Jumal had been on first reading Pippa’s report and cross-referencing the contract. “She couldn’t have missed it by mistake; it’s too obvious.”

He watched his friend run a hand roughly through his hair before throwing the report back on his desk and slumping back in his chair.

“She didn’t miss it,” he declared, confidently. “She knew it was there and didn’t bring it to my attention intentionally. She’s too good to miss it.” He spat out the last words.

“But Jumal, that’s industrial espionage or something. I mean she’s… she’s…”

“I know.”

“Just—” Jumal watched him shake his head again “—wow. So what are you going to do now? Are you going to call the board in?” Malik asked.

“No. I’ll deal with it myself. Privately,” he added to make sure Malik knew it was to go no further than his office.

Picking up his mobile phone, Jumal ran his fingers quickly over the numbers; waiting for it to connect, he sat back again in his chair, swinging back around to face the view.

“We need to talk… No it can’t. My office, now.”

***

“Jeez, Pip Squeak, you landed on your feet when you got this gig. My work experience was at a pig farm in Halifax. This is beautiful.” Pip smiled back over at James in total agreement and tucked her hair back around her ears, securing it under her baseball cap. Drop-tops were great
unless
you had long hair, but she loved the feeling of the cooling breeze rushing around her as she drove home along the coastal road from the airport. Of course, it had taken her a while to get used to driving on the
wrong
side of the road and she’d had occasional mishaps that no one needed to know about…

She smiled over at the friend she’d known for years since he’d become one of the partners at the village’s veterinary practice back home. He was slightly older than she was but they shared a wicked sense of humour and both excelled at teasing her brother mercilessly. It meant a lot to her that he’d taken some of his holiday time to come and visit with her. “I know, right. Wait till you see the pool and gym facilities at the club. You’ll be in heaven—not to mention our beaches,” she yelled, pointing over to her side where the surfers were already taking advantage of the crashing waves.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, leaning forward and rummaging in his rucksack, “here you go, as per your order.”

Pip squealed with delight at the package of sweeties he deposited in her lap.

“I love you, I love you,” she screamed and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Dubain has lots to offer but no good sweets or chocolate. Oh speaking of food,” she said, searching in her door pocket with one hand before glancing down.

“Hey, watch the road, you nutter,” he shouted, grabbing for the steering wheel.

“Here you go.” She handed him a small parcel wrapped in a napkin. “I thought you’d be hungry after the horrid plane food. It’s a local delicacy called fatayer. It’s like a meat pie. You’ll love it.”

He chuckled unwrapping it. “I already love it. A meat pie called
fat
ayer. Ingenious.”