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“Only the ten who are staying another night.”
Beth stared at him.
“I made it to the top ten?” she whispered. It was so unexpected she hugged the thought close to her chest.
The sheikh frowned at her. “You are not pleased?”
Beth’s feelings were so mixed up she hardly knew how she felt. “Um...are you sure it’s not a mistake?”
He snorted, then tilted his head, considering her. “You are different.”
A flutter went through her heart. “I am?”
“Yes.” Their eyes locked, and his gaze electrified her body, from her fingertips to her toes and everywhere between. “So will you come?”
No. She had to say no. She’d gotten the million dollars for Edith. Only a fool would press her luck—
“Of course,” she blurted out.
A slow-rising smile lifted his sensual lips. “This way, if you please, Dr. Farraday.”
Dr. Farraday. As Beth walked with him down the hotel hallway, his servant following behind, her heart fell back to her canvas sneakers.
Remembering how angry she’d been at him for not disclosing his identity in the garden, she felt ashamed. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
And if he found out—when he found out—
Oh, this was getting dangerously complicated. She’d never imagined he’d choose her to stay another night, not in a million years!
But one more day would mean another million for Edith’s research. Then tomorrow, she’d go home for sure. Surely she could fake it for another twenty-four hours. No one the wiser, and no one hurt.
But as she left the Paris hotel, going out into the bright sunlight where the limos waited, Beth barely noticed the paparazzi with their lifted cameras and shouted questions, and the bodyguards holding them back. Looking up at the handsome, powerful billionaire king beside her, she felt equal parts intoxicated—and afraid.
For the first time since she could remember, she’d been chosen for something. The king didn’t think Beth was ordinary. He thought she was different. That she was special.
The thought warmed her all over. Until she remembered he hadn’t chosen Beth.
He’d chosen Edith.
* * *
“You collected the Farraday woman from her hotel suite? Yourself?”
Khalid’s voice was shocked.
“I had no choice. She wouldn’t answer the phone.” Standing in the grand salon back at his Paris residence, Omar looked out irritably at the hordes of paparazzi now clustered outside the tall wrought-iron gates. Someone had tipped off the press about the bride market. Who? He wondered grimly. One of his scorned would-be brides? Or perhaps one of the ten he’d kept?
Perhaps Sia Lane, the movie star Dr. Farraday had called “downright mean,” had decided to hedge her bets with a little more publicity?
Whoever’d done it, the story had exploded instantly. It was too juicy for the media to treat it otherwise, with the famous playboy king of a small Middle Eastern kingdom bringi
ng women from around the globe to choose a queen. The story was making news everywhere.
It’s one camera short of a reality show, Dr. Farraday had said. She was right.
Dr. Edith Farraday. Just thinking of her warmed Omar. She’d looked shocked in the hotel suite two hours before, as if she’d never expected to be chosen.
Perhaps he’d been wrong to choose her. But how could he send away the one woman who was different—the one who made his body come alive? He’d told himself that all his initial concern was overcautious. So he was attracted to her. What of it?
