Felicia was very good at her job because she had been doing it all her life.
She had been taught to smile for the cameras alongside Susannah, her long-suffering mother, long before she could even walk. She had on many occasions sat in the family lounge with spin doctors and PR people as they had debated how her father’s multiple affairs and the trashy headlines and exposés should best be dealt with.
There had even been times when they had come to her school. Felicia could remember sitting in the headmaster’s office with her parents, being reminded that cameras would be on them when they left. She had been told what to do as they walked, as a family, to the waiting car.
‘Remember to smile, Felicia.’
‘Susannah, hold his hand as you walk to the car and don’t forget to laugh when he whispers to you.’
And her mother had done as she was told. Susannah had done everything that had been asked of her. But in the end it had all been to no avail. When Felicia was fourteen her father had decided to update to a younger model and had walked out on them.
A legal wrangle had ensued.
The lovely private boarding school that had been such a haven for her had disappeared when the school fees hadn’t been paid, and with it had gone Felicia’s friends and her beloved pony.
Susannah had fallen apart, and it had been up to her daughter to be strong. They had rented a small house while waiting for the money to be sorted out and Felicia had enrolled in the local school—but she hadn’t fit in. Her dreams of being a vet had long gone by then, and she’d left school at sixteen. She had taken an office job to help with the rent.
Those days were gone now.
Felicia was highly sought-after, and her troubleshooting talents were coveted by the rich and famous. Her mother lived in a house that Felicia had bought and paid for, and Felicia owned her own flat.
Some questioned how she could defend these men—but, really, Felicia was just doing what she’d been taught.
The only difference was that now she was paid.
And paid handsomely.
She ran a comb through her dark blonde hair, touched up her lip gloss and added a slick of mascara to bring out the green of her eyes. As she headed out Anu told her to take a seat. Guessing the newspaper article would soon be taken down, she took a few quick screenshots on her phone as Sheikh Kedah now kept her waiting.
Oh, well! She had done the same to him.
Working with this type of man, Felicia had found that it was terribly important to establish early on that his ego had to be put aside and that from this point on she ran the show. It was even more vital to establish that they weren’t suddenly best friends and, given the reputations of the men she dealt with, to make it clear they would never be lovers.
Felicia would be very nice at first, of course, while he told her what was going on, but then her smile would fade and she’d tell him what had to be done if he wanted to come out of this intact.
The truth was that Felicia despised these men.
She just knew, from wretched experience, how to deal with them.
‘You might want to put your phone away,’ Anu suggested.
Felicia was about to decline politely when a rich, deep and heavily accented voice spoke for her.
‘I’m sure Ms Hamilton is just keeping up to date with the news.’
She looked up.
She had prepared thoroughly for this moment—determined not to let such a superfluous thing as his stunning looks sideswipe her. She had examined many photos to render herself immune to him. Only no photograph could fully capture the beauty of Sheikh Kedah in the flesh.
He was wearing an exquisitely cut dark suit and tie, but they were mere details for she had little interest in his attire. And it was not the caramel of his skin against his white shirt or his thick glossy black hair that forced her to try to remember to breathe. Nor was it cheekbones that looked as if Michelangelo himself had spent a couple of days sculpting them to perfection. Even sulky full lips that did not smile hardly mattered, for Felicia was caught in the trap of his eyes.
They were thickly lashed and a rich shade of chocolate-brown with golden flecks and—unlike most of her clients—he met her gaze steadily.
Oh, she was extremely good at her job. For, despite the jolt to her senses, Felicia did not let her reaction reveal itself to him and instead stood up, utterly composed.
‘Come through,’ he said.
And she smiled.
Widely.
She had a smile that took men’s breath away. It was a smile so seemingly open that hardened reporters would thrust their microphones a little closer and their lenses would zoom in, so certain were they that it would waver.
It never did.
And long ago she had trained herself not to blush.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Felicia said as she walked towards him. ‘The traffic was terrible.’