Bought For One Night: The Sheikh's Offer

FOUR

  The night suddenly felt darker around me. The crime drama I was watching was excellent, just as everyone promised, but I couldn’t concentrate on it after seeing Jack’s trailer. My mind wandered back to Katherine’s visit, bringing with it doubt about the decisions I had made. I had promised that I wouldn’t be picky, but here I was, another day gone by without a contract to sign or a future to plan for. The feeling that I should have accepted one of them started to scratch at the back of my mind.

  A few were absolute no’s. I wasn’t going to insult myself by playing into Hollywood misogyny, so playing the mom of a man my age was out of the question, no matter how famous he was. The Lifetime movie was just a bad career move, my gut told me. There would be time for that descent later. If I jumped willingly into it now, I might never be able to climb back out. Katherine was hopeful for a rebound, but she couldn’t be sure of that any more than I could.

  Then there was the offer from the Sheikh of Al-Dali: a single night for a million dollars. It seemed crazy; even now I was half-sure it was a joke someone was playing on me. I had heard rumors that offers like that really existed within super-rich communities, but I had never expected to be handed one—especially during what seemed to be the collapse of my career. There was something uncomfortable about it, yet I couldn’t deny my interest.

  The money was calling me like a siren. It could help me through a lot right now and give me some breathing room to get back out into LA and mingle until I sweet-talked my way into some legitimate studio work. Once I got back in the saddle, I knew I could fix this.

  But could I actually go through with it? What would I do when he finally tried to lead me to the bedroom—if he put up any kind of pretense at all? Pretending the Sheikh wouldn’t be interested in sex would be more naïve than believing in Jack Lister. He may not have spelled it out in the offer, but if I got on that private plane and headed to Al-Dali, there was almost no chance that I wasn’t going to end up in his bedroom. Either that, or I’d have to reject him and face who knew what kind of legal troubles from being in breach of contract.

  If I said yes, things could end up worse for me than they already were. My reputation and credibility would be ruined forever if even a whisper of the arrangement reached the ears of the media.