Embrace My Heart(22)

Minka waved a hand. “Definitely not trying to grab more work.”

Will nodded stiffly. “Then I’ll just wait to hear from you on when I can get back to my job.”

The room was silent as everyone watched Will leave.

Qasim pushed back from the table. “If there’s no more business, meeting adjourned. Minka? Stick around.”

“So? Was I right?” he asked her when they were alone. “Do you really have enough on your plate, or is this your way of telling me you want back in on organizing the charity weekend?”

“I swear I have enough to keep me busy. I only got the idea after seeing Vectra the other day and then going over those hotel projections Will dropped off.” Minka pushed at the edge of the legal pad before her on the table. “I just thought I’d be a better person to talk to her about it than Will.”

“Agreed.” Qasim left the table and went to pour himself a glass of cranberry juice from the bar cart.

Minka doodled on the pad while Qasim prepared his drink. “Can I ask you something?” She looked up, taking his silence as permission to continue. “Do you think Will’s the best person for this job?”

“Concerns?” Qasim’s interest in business was then very much back on track. He tilted back some of his juice and waited for Minka’s response.

“No, only it takes a certain amount of patience and finesse to put these events together. Maybe Will would like something different but doesn’t feel right asking after everything you’ve done for him already.”

Qasim came back to the table, sat on its edge. “I thought giving him something far removed from what he was used to might be the way to go.” He gave a skeptical smile. “You think I screwed up?”

Minka was quick to shake her head. “No, Will handled the job very well, in my opinion. Putting this event together isn’t easy. Hopefully, he’ll find his other responsibilities a breeze after this.”

“Yeah...his responsibilities have a lot of people concerned...I’ve never seen anyone cooler under pressure, and he’s been in some situations where ‘cool under pressure’ is a coveted skill,” he tacked on, not meaning to reveal quite so much.

Minka didn’t appear to notice her boss’s slip. “Well, he was in the army, too.” A smile illuminated Minka’s round, pretty face. “That’s where you guys met, right?”

The corner of Qasim’s mouth tilted upward while he studied the contents of his glass. “Where we met—where he saved my life. When he came to me down on his luck... I felt like I owed him.”

Minka held out her hands over the pad. “He saved your life, Sim. If that isn’t a reason to give somebody a job, I don’t know what is.”

Qasim laughed while Minka stood to collect her things.

“I should go smooth things over with him,” she said. “Do you think flowers would go over well?”

Qasim chuckled. “I know he likes Venus flytraps.”

“Ha! Okay then, so that’s a ‘no’ on the flowers.” She tapped her pad to the table and shifted her weight. “So was there anything else?”

Qasim returned his juice glass to the bar. “Nope. We’re good.”

“You sure? I’m here if you want to discuss anything else...like Vectra Bauer.”

Turning, Qasim narrowed his gaze and waited.

Minka rolled her eyes. “It’s obvious your head wasn’t in that meeting.”

“I’m good, Mink. Thanks for lending an ear.”

“Anytime.” Minka collected her things and left Qasim alone in the conference room.



Vectra swatted at the fuzz tickling her nose. It tickled something fierce, causing her to sneeze instead of laugh. The gesture awakened her, and she caught the source of her distress.

The sight of brown eyes, so similar to her shade but enhanced by a lighter hue that emphasized playful cunning, gazed back at her. At once, Vectra felt any anger she’d held for Oliver vanish. She pitied the woman her big brother finally set his sights on.

The girl is gonna have a hard time staying angry with this one, she thought.

At any rate, Oliver’s adorable yet devilish persona didn’t stop her from laying into him with blows from one of the pillows lining the cushioned headboard of her bed.

“You. Scared. Me. To. Death!” she cried, syncing her words with the blows from the pillow.

He laughed, covering his head to shield the hits. “I swear that was a sneeze and not a scream I heard!”

Vectra landed one more blow for good measure and then collapsed. “Why are you here and not laid up with one of your many sex kittens?”