The Sheik's Mysterious Mistress Page 0,3

because you have an assistant who asked the wrong person or question. Not to mention the security risks associated with asking someone a question that might be outside of their clearance area. The work you do is completely confidential and revealing something to the wrong person, even accidentally, could be a serious breach in security.” She was really getting into the swing of this, she thought. That last comment was on the fly, not from her notes, but it sounded really good.

Hassan sat back, amused but trying to hide it. He’d never interviewed someone who was trying to dissuade him from hiring them. “Please continue.”

She glanced down at her notes, looking very earnest and confident that she shouldn’t do the job. “I don’t know the first thing about diplomacy. You work with so many people and my honesty might slip out and ruin a plan you’ve been working hard to develop.” She realized that he was listening to her and not getting angry. Was she convincing him? “I really don’t get out much, I’m a horrible introvert and you need someone who is good around people, someone who prefers to be surrounded by others and gets energized by being around people. I actually avoid crowds, preferring a good book. Or even a not so good book,” she said with complete honesty and a grimace because most of the books she read were what she called “brain candy” and Dana was unapologetic about her reading preferences. “So all the parties and functions you need to attend, well, I’d be trying to get out of them as much as possible not to mention being unable to converse intelligently on the latest best seller or cerebral tome of which the media thinks is the next best mind game to success.”

“Is there anything else?”

“My language skills are only passable,” she explained lamely, worried about the amusement she was starting to detect in his voice and those damnable grey eyes that kept luring her out of her focus. “I’m pretty good in French and English and of course I can speak Arabic,” she admitted. “But other languages I struggle with.”

Hassan nodded, paying more attention to her dancing brown eyes than her words, although he was still amused by her approach. “Anything else?”

“Well…” she couldn’t think of anything else. Glancing down, she read through all of her notes and nothing else made sense. She glanced up at him, wishing this were true but it was all she could think of. “I don’t really like you.”

Hassan was stunned at first. Then threw his head back and laughed, delighted with her refreshing attitude.

Dana grimaced and thought quickly. “Okay, so it isn’t that I don’t really like you so much as I disagree with several of your policies. Number one is the fact that your country’s wealth is resting on the oil underneath your ground and that’s a fossil fuel that is changing the whole weather pattern of the earth and I’d much rather drive an electric vehicle than damage the environment any longer…” she knew she wasn’t getting through to him and her voice slowly faltered to an awkward halt.

“You start immediately,” he said and stood up. “There are several meetings this afternoon. You will sit in on them and take notes. Talk to Omar about the other issues with the meetings and he’ll fill you in,” he replied.

With that, he walked over to his desk, picking up several documents and handing them to her with instructions on what to do with each. Dana listened, stunned and horrified for several minutes before she realized that she should be writing down everything he was telling her. She’d already missed the first few instructions but scrambled quickly to turn things around, writing as fast as her fingers could move.

Ten minutes later, she walked out of his office with her arms filled with files, contracts and instructions that she dumped onto her already crowded desk in her miniscule office. As she stood back and looked at everything, she was stunned that the man had so much to do. Okay, so he ran a country. Literally ran a country. But doesn’t he delegate anything?

And why in the world had he hired her? Hadn’t he listened to anything she’d said? She was completely inappropriate for the job. Good grief, she’d more than convinced herself that she was an idiot so why hadn’t he even blinked at the problems she’d presented to him about her taking on the role.

With a sigh, she started with