Page 2 of The Sheikh and the Single Mom

“I agree.” Rashad turned to Hameed. “Have you identified the CEO of the company?”

“I have.” Hameed clicked to the next slide. “The founder and CEO is a woman named Nina Kendrick. She keeps a lean staff of employees, mostly on a freelance basis, and appears to run the company primarily on her own.”

Rashad leaned forward to examine the picture of Nina Kendrick that Hameed had put up on the screen. His first impression was that she was gorgeous. The picture, clearly a professional shot, showed Nina wearing a cream-colored blouse and standing in front of a blue background. She had curly blond hair, which was half loose around her shoulders and half pinned back on the sides. Her blue eyes sparkled, as though she were thinking of something deeply amusing, and the corners of her mouth were slightly lifted. If Rashad had met her in a club or at a conference, he might have flirted with her.

Nina Kendrick wasn’t an option for flirting, though. She was his rival, the main person standing between Rashad and the success of his business. No matter how beautiful she was, she was his competition first and foremost.

“Do you know why she runs the company on her own?” Rashad asked. “Do her profits not cover a staff?”

“According to her interviews, she chooses to maintain a small staff so that she can keep the app affordable,” Hameed said.

Rashad smiled at that. It meant that this Nina probably had a kind heart, which likely meant that she was trusting — and that he wouldn’t have too much trouble undercutting her. If that thought made him feel a little guilty, since Nina’s clear blue eyes were still smiling at him from the large screen, he didn’t dwell on that.

“Have you identified any opportunities to approach her?” Rashad asked next.

“I have.” Hameed flipped to the next slide, and Rashad smiled again. His second-in-command knew him well. “Ms. Kendrick is based in San Diego, where she’ll be attending a networking event for healthcare companies next week. That would be a good opportunity for you to approach her.”

“Perfect.” Rashad folded his hands. “I’ll have my travel coordinator make the arrangements. In the meantime, Hameed, please find out everything you can about Heartbeat and Nina Kendrick. I want a full dossier by the time I meet Ms. Kendrick.”

“Of course.”

Rashad turned to Abdul and Amira. “Do either of you have anything to add before I make the arrangements?”

Abdul shook his head, but Amira looked thoughtful again.

“What’s your plan for dealing with Ms. Kendrick?”

“It depends,” Rashad said. “After I get to know her, I’ll either use the information I gather to undercut her company in the open market, or I’ll offer a buyout if her app has anything that we can use.”

Amira nodded. “All right. Keep us updated.”

“I will.” Rashad got to his feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with the developers to get to.”

“I’ll join you.” Abdul got to his feet.

“Perfect. Let’s go.”

As Rashad and Abdul made their way downstairs to their next meeting, Rashad found that he was having trouble getting the image of Nina Kendrick out of his mind. He was no stranger to beautiful women, but something about her stayed with him. Perhaps it was the way her eyes sparkled or the confidence with which she held herself as a female founder in a male-dominated industry. Soft heart or no, Nina would be a worthy opponent, and Rashad found that he was looking forward to meeting her.

If he felt a little bad about putting her out of business, well, that would soon be forgotten. Rashad cared about nothing more than he cared about his company. He’d poured more than a decade of his life into Health Trackr, to the exclusion of anything else. After all, why should he have hobbies, a social life, or a family of his own when he could chase the thrill of expanding his business beyond what anyone had expected?

By the time Rashad was sitting down for the meeting with the developers, he was more or less able to put the picture of Nina out of his mind. He would meet her soon enough, and he’d put her out of business not long after that.

That was just the way things worked.

CHAPTER 2

NINA

Nina Kendrick pulled into her driveway and leaned back in her seat, taking a deep breath. It had been a long day, filled with meetings and endless hours of coding — just like every day was. Well, no one got to be a success in the world of app development unless they were willing to put in the work — which Nina was. After studying biology in college, she’d mixed her scientific knowledge with coding skills extracted from hours of self-study and online courses and founded a successful healthcare app, Heartbeat.

Nina was incredibly proud of all her hard work — she just wished she had a little more time with her babies. Her kids, Kate and Miles, adorable three-year-old twins, were the lights of her life and were the only reason she left work at a reasonable time and refused to go in on the weekends. Before they were born, she’d barely left the office.

Nina pulled out her keys as she climbed the steps to her front door. She lived with her twins in a ranch-style house in one of San Diego’s sunny, palm-lined suburbs, where the kids could walk to their preschool and she could drive easily toHeartbeat’s office. Inside, Kate and Miles were sitting on the couch in matching dinosaur pajamas, snuggled up on either side of Amanda, their long-term babysitter. At the sight of Nina, they both sprang to their feet and rushed her like tiny twin bulls, blond heads bobbing at knee level.

“Mommy, Mommy!” Miles shouted joyfully.

“Hi,” Kate replied a little more quietly, beaming up at her mother as though the sun had finally come out after days of rain.

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