went with Miss Darling, in his office, with a blow to the head using the hole punch!”
She strolled down the short hallway, passing the large glass-fronted boardroom and pondered why she’d ever reasoned that working for Jumal Aldabbagh would be such a coup. Maybe she’d hit her head harder than she thought when she’d fallen from her horse last Christmas. It would explain a lot, like why she couldn’t stop having naughty thoughts about the bloody annoying man, despite her best efforts. Was there a pill to take for it?! Seriously, weren’t crushes supposed to be over and done with once you were out of your teenage years?
She let out a short humourless laugh and shook her head as she recalled their meeting last December when she’d used her powers of persuasion and excellent negotiation skills to convince Jumal to take her on for her year working in industry as part of her degree.
“Please, please, please, please, pretty PURLEEEASE, Jumal,” she’d begged, while jumping around him like a caffeine-addicted Tigger.
“No,” he’d responded curtly.
But no Darling would give up that easily.
Unperturbed, she’d continued, “But you’d be getting an almost business graduate as your PA for free, and I know Greta’s left you in the lurch.” She’d tilted her head. “Please.” She’d batted her lashes shamelessly.
“No.”
“Why not?” she’d pressed, hands on hips, stepping directly in front of him to stop his escape.
“Because I don’t want to and I don’t have to explain myself.”
She’d continued to bounce around him as he’d tried to dodge her and walk away.
“But it would be good PR for your company. You know, a good deal and you being supportive of young business talent.” So okay, she’d been blowing her own trumpet slightly, but she’d continued undeterred. “And it would show everyone who hates you—” she’d paused at his icy questioning stare and held her hand up “—in a purely business sense of course,” she’d added quickly, “that you are in fact human.”
She’d grabbed his forearm to stop his long stride. “Please, you won’t regret it. I promise.”
She only had herself to blame, she thought, coming back to the present and taking a deep, soothing breath, not bothering to knock as she entered his large office. “You called, sir?” She knew he hated it when she called him “sir” so of course she did it all the time. She pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose in a useless attempt to distract herself and calm her racing pulse. The glasses made her look even younger than she was, or so she’d been told. She just hoped that it meant he wouldn’t yell at her for quite so long this time. She closed the door behind her so that the whole office wouldn’t have to hear today’s rant. Then again, an open door would give her a quicker escape route…
“What’s this?”
She jerked her head back up to see Jumal pointing to his laptop screen, not even bothering to look up and acknowledge her presence.
Look at me, notice me, she begged silently, but quickly cut off her ridiculously needy thoughts.
She closed the distance, ignoring the fabulous twinkling of the Persian Gulf vista from the top of his glass empire. At times when Jumal was out of the office, she loved standing at his floor-to-ceiling tinted windows to try to make out the tall buildings of Dubai across the Gulf. Dubai was always busy with a mixture of smaller local fishing boats, dwarfed by the larger luxury yachts of the fabulously wealthy inhabitants of Dubain and its close neighbour. There were huge super tankers ferrying oil from the terminals, and of course the city-sized naval ships in the docks of JAA Enterprises just up the coast.
Just a few more months then you’re done, she chanted to herself. And then you can cause him bodily harm, she added with satisfaction, knowing that Luke, another one of her brother’s friends, who was reputed to be the best criminal lawyer in London, would surely enter a successful plea of diminished responsibility.
Jumal finally lifted his head and narrowed his eyes in annoyance, interrupting her murderous musings. “What are you smirking at?”
“Oh. Er, sorry, sir. What did you say?” she asked, shaking her head.
“I said, ‘What. Is. This?’” He emphasised each word individually, pointing at the screen again like she was an imbecile.
She bit her lip and managed to stop herself from replying, “Why, it’s a C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R, sir.” Instead she continued around to his side of the desk.