Page 11 of The Sheikh's Fake Bride Scheme

“That’s right,” Kareem said. “My father is King Hassan.”

“Well, I mean, admittedly I don’t know anything about how things work in your country,” Keira said. “But I would imagine you’d need the approval of the king. I couldn’t put on the Spritzer Cup without notifying the Governor of Nevada and getting his blessing first, and this seems like a similar situation. I think you’re going to have to tell your father what’s going on.”

“Oh, you don’t know my father,” Kareem said. “There’s no world in which I discuss this with him and he decides to cooperate. No, I’m going to have to simply do it on my own and hope he comes around after the fact.”

Keira shrugged. If he thought that was best, who was she to argue? After all, she knew nothing about the inner workings of Qalmar politics.

She swirled her martini slowly, stirring it with the stick of olives. Then she pulled the stick out and sucked one of the vodka-saturated olives into her mouth, giving herself time to think about what he had said. If Kevin had been here, he would have made some comment about the type of drink she’d chosen. He would have insisted that everyone involved with racing ought to drink beer, and he would have ordered her one without waiting to see what she thought about that.

Kevin had spent his entire life trying to make Keira fit into his vision of her role in the family. And so had her parents.

If she helped Kareem now — God, was she truly considering helping him? — she would really be putting her mark on the sport. Establishing a race in Qalmar, a totally new venue… that was something that she would be able to claim as her own for the rest of her life. It would make the ProBar cup look like small potatoes, especially if the Qalmar race succeeded and became a major event on the world stage.

But could they pull it off if King Hassan didn’t approve? Going against a king seemed like a bigger task than Keira could hope to take on.

“What will happen when your father finds out?” she asked him. This was the real sticking point. If there was a risk of anyone who’d been involved in the race getting into serious trouble, Keira couldn’t involve herself.

“Worst-case scenario, he’ll shut it down,” Kareem said.

“You don’t think he’d retaliate? I mean, you’re asking me to help you plan this thing. If he learned I’d been involved, would he be angry enough to take some sort of action against me?”

“Oh, no, definitely not,” Kareem assured her. “You can trust me on that. I’ve been disappointing my father all my life, and every time he finds out about it, he just moves to cut me off in some way. If he finds out about this, he’ll put a stop to it, but he’ll assume the whole thing is my fault. He won’t blame anyone else who was involved.”

Keira nodded. “In that case, I can consult on the project,” she said. “In fact, it sounds exciting. I’d like to help you. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll be able to help — after this race is over, I’m going back to Iowa for a few weeks.”

“Iowa is your home?”

“That’s right. I have a few weeks off before the next event I need to work on, so I’ll be taking some downtime.”

Kareem frowned thoughtfully. “What event is that? I’m not aware of another race.”

“No, it isn’t a race,” Keira said. “It’s a publicity event, in Chicago — a chance for sponsors and racers to connect, but we also position it as an opportunity for fans to meet their favorite drivers.” A knot formed in her stomach at the thought of that event, one of her least favorites of the year. It should have been a good time, but she knew there would be the usual arguments with her family when she tried to convince Kevin to take part. He would insist that there was no good reason for him to be involved, and, as usual, the rest of the family would take his side. Then, when he wasn’t given any new sponsorship deals heading into the summer season, they would blame Keira and demand toknow why she hadn’t done a better job arranging meetings for him with potential benefactors.

“So you have some time off,” Kareem said. He had a faraway look in his eyes.

“What are you thinking?” Keira asked him.

“I’m thinking it might be a suitable time for you to come to Qalmar with me and help me get my event off the ground,” he said.

Keira laughed. “You want me to take off to Qalmar? Just like that?”

“Do you have a passport?”

“Sure I do, but… are you serious?”

“Why not? You were just going to go back to Iowa. You said it yourself. Wouldn’t you rather get away for a little while? It’ll be difficult for you to help me with this if we’re on separate continents, but if you’re right there, on the ground, that will make it easy. Come on — you’re exactly who I need. You’ve got experience establishing new races and maintaining old ones. You know the recipe for success. I don’t think I can do this without you, Keira.”

She shook her head slowly. “You’re saying that to try to convince me. You know you could do it without me.”

“I don’t,” he countered. “Not really. This is going to be a challenge for me. I don’t know if I’m going to be successful or not. And the reason I came to Las Vegas in the first place was in hopes of meeting with some people who had already found success at this, and how lucky was I that the first person I met was you? It’s as if it was meant to be.”

He smiled at her, his eyes shining.

He’s dangerous, Keira thought.

This was a man who knew how to charm people in order to get what he wanted. For all she knew, all sheikhs could do that — maybe it was something the royal family trained its sons in. Or maybe it was just Kareem himself. Maybe what she was experiencing right now had nothing to do with the fact that he was royal. Maybe it was nothing more than his natural charisma.

If that was the case, she definitely shouldn’t consider traveling all the way to Qalmar with him.

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