Page 14 of Sheikh's Accidental Pregnancy

“I have no plans to marry, and even if I did, you know as well as I do that flirting with a random waitress isn’t how a man like me finds a wife.” He took a sip from his glass. Fiddah shook her head. She had been trying to convince him to marry for years. Somehow, she hadn’t learned that the harder someone pushed him to do something, the more he resisted.

“So what, then? You will bury yourself in the company until your deathbed?”

“I like my job.”

“Too much! You need a life outside your job. You need a family.”

“I have one.”

“Of your own! I want great-grandchildren. Do not deny me that.”

Tariq was never going to win this argument. Fiddah was tenacious. But so was he. Rather than either of them giving in, they would argue in circles until his grandmother passed away. And then, he knew, he would long for another round. Perhaps this was why he and his grandmother got along so well.

“How about you pick a wife for me?” Tariq asked and grinned at her.

“Well, arranged marriagesaretraditional. But really, Tariq, is it so hard to court a woman?”

Tariq laughed gently and ran a hand through his hair.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sara turn her head in his direction, her attention drawn by his laugh, perhaps. Although he steadfastly didn’t look at her, his grandmother turned her head that way and smiled at the woman whose primary role seemed to be the burr under his saddle, pebble in his shoe, thorn in his side.

“Can you see me courting a woman?” Tariq asked Fiddah, pulling her attention back to their own table.

“Courting? Perhaps not. But choosing a woman and steamrolling her into marrying you? Yes.” The image she conjured up made Tariq smile. “Don’t you want love?” she asked.

“No.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t exist.” Tariq was determined to stick to his beliefs. What most people called love was simply heightened infatuation. As he took another sip from his glass, he noticed Sara try to eat an olive. It slipped out of her fingers and fell back to the plate. She could not walk like a normal person. She talked too much. Even eating a simple olive eluded her.

So why had she felt so good under his hands? Why had her mouth matched his so perfectly? Why hadn’t he been able to control himself? Tariq narrowed his eyes as he watched her tongue snake out to lick her lips before she reached for her drink. He wanted to taste her again. He wanted those lips on his mouth, and every other part of his body. Including the one pulsing in his trousers right now.

Sara leaned back in her chair looking happy and satisfied. Her relationship with food was almost erotic. He was simultaneously put off and turned on. He tried to focus on his grandmother, but his awareness of Sara would not be quashed.

Sara and her friends left the restaurant a few minutes later. As they passed his table, she seemed to deliberately avoid eye contact, but the other two women openly stared at him as they walked past. Tariq tipped his head in acknowledgment. It was only polite.

“Please stop staring at him,” Sara said to her friends. He wondered if she’d meant him to hear her. Probably.

“He’s just so handsome,” one of the women said dreamily.

His grandmother smiled at him serenely, and he suspected that she knew there was a little more to the situation than Sara being his brother’s assistant.

11

There was a lot of work that needed to be done to get the new oil field up and running. Sara’s workload tripled, and Amir told her they had to pull some long nights. After one of those long nights, she walked into his office to brief him on the report she had been working on and found him sitting on the sofa with Tariq discussing transportation options—pipeline or train. The brothers looked up when she walked in. It was the first time she had seen him since Saturday. She bowed to them but only Amir responded.

“You’re using rail to transport the construction equipment and material to the site already, right?” she asked as she set the heavy files on the desk. They both looked at her, and she realized that she had jumped right into their conversation.

“Yes,” Amir said. “But long term, a pipeline is safer and more cost effective.”

“Given your uncertainty about how much oil this new location will produce, does it make sense to construct a new pipeline this early? Oh, I actually came in to brief you on this report.” She handed Amir the file, but her gaze was trapped by Tariq’s. He wore an expressionless look as always, which annoyed her. Was he completely unflustered by their weekend encounter?

“Our field engineers estimate that wells in the El-Sultari region could produce one hundred barrels per day,” Sara stated.

“That’s hardly enough to make it worth drilling,” Amir said.

“We have much more productive wells already in operation,” Tariq said, leaning back in his chair. “Why would we spend money to develop a region with so little potential return?”

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