Bought For One Night: The Sheikh's Offer by Holly Rayner Read Free Book Online

against a tight throat, and decided to be honest with Zane. He was already a fan of my work; I didn’t need to try and impress him any further.
     
    “To be frank, I almost did write you off.”
     
    He gave me a curious eyebrow. “You did?”
     
    “Oh yeah. It was a hard ‘no’ when Katherine first read me the proposal.”
     
    He paused a moment, and then asked quietly, “May I ask why you changed your mind?”
     
    We turned a corner, heading down a new hallway that was shorter than the rest.
     
    “My phone isn’t exactly ringing off the hook these days,” I confessed. “Things can change fast in Hollywood and, well, it seems I’m at the ‘ebb’ portion of the ‘ebb and flow’ of things. I decided, since being a risk-taker is what got me this far, that I should take another risk with you and say yes.”
     
    Zane’s brow furrowed, as if he smelled something unpleasant. “That is unbelievable. Why would anyone not want to give you work? You are the most talented actress working in America today. They should all be clawing each other’s eyes out at the chance to hire you.”
     
    I laughed and felt my cheeks flush. Zane’s eyes glittered at the sight.
     
    “You’re too kind,” I replied. “More talented women than I have been chewed up by this same machine for a hundred years now. It’s just the way things are.”
     
    “My father hated that phrase.”
     
    “Oh?”
     
    “There was a lot wrong with Al-Dali when he took the throne,” started Zane, tilting his head as he recalled the memory. “My grandfather was a much more militarily-minded man, and left a lot of messes to clean up when he passed. My father said my grandfather’s staff and advisors liked to use that phrase when he questioned some outdated or illogical practice. He said as soon as he heard it spoken when he confronted someone, he knew he had to upheave everything and change it.”
     
    “Wow,” I breathed. “He must have been a brave man. That sounds like the set-up to some Shakespearian-level conflict.”
     
    For a hot second, I worried that my use of humor as a defense mechanism had gotten me in trouble once again. But Zane only laughed, his handsome face lighting up.
     
    “It does, doesn’t it?” he chuckled.
     
    “But it also sounds like that didn’t happen in real life.”
     
    “No,” he chuckled. “Thankfully, things went much more reasonably for my father. Once he showed them things could be different—that ‘the way things were’ was always temporary—most people couldn’t wait to follow him into a peaceful future. To my recollection, my father never lost a single staff member to violence. He worked to be peaceful.”
     
    “And you’re maintaining your father’s legacy?”
     
    “Well, I’m trying,” the Sheikh replied, suddenly humble, a flush of red in his cheeks. “But that is a subject for another time. Right now, I have one more room to show you.”
     
    We stopped in front of a set of double doors that, while made from the same dark carved wood as the rest of the interior, looked significantly newer. Zane gripped both golden doorknobs and turned back to smile at me.
     
    The wry smile that appeared on Zane’s face—gorgeous as it was—suddenly brought back all the fear and anxiety I had been feeling during the landing at the airport. Was this the moment when the Sheikh, with all his pleasantness and drop-dead-handsome looks, would reveal that he was just another sleazeball with money to throw around? Something was behind that door, and it was just as likely a bedroom as anything. Anxiety bubbled in my gut, and the rehearsed speech I’d been mulling over came tumbling out like a word salad.
     
    “Zane, I appreciate your proposal, but this isn’t the type of…thing I am.” I shook my head. “Girl I am. Thing I do. This isn’t the type of thing I do.”
     
    But the Sheikh only smiled, bemused. He twisted the doorknobs and dramatically swung both doors open at the same time,