Page 97 of Bred By the Sheikh

“Please tell her she isn’t allowed to forget me.”

“I’ll make certain she understands.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“You’re humoring me.”

“Only a little, Ms. Campbell.”

I headed toward my room to get ready.

At least someone in Tariq’s household was willing to admit it.

I ate the lunch Amanda had ordered me to eat before I started getting ready.

The gala gown waiting in the guest suite was deep teal, darker than the sapphire dress I’d worn to dinner but just as unforgiving of the idea that I could disappear inside fabric.

I stepped into it.

The dress fit close through my waist and hips before falling in a long clean line to the floor. The neckline framed my breasts without turning them into public property, and the color made my eyes look brighter against my pale skin.

My freckles showed across my shoulders.

I left them.

A stylist helped with my hair, smoothing the strawberry-blonde waves and pinning back one side while leaving most of it loose.

When she finished, I faced the mirror.

I still looked like me, just with better structural support and significantly more expensive fabric.

That helped.

The gala didn’t.

The ballroom had been transformed since the first day I walked through the corridor and asked Elias to move two stanchions.

Now light glowed through towering arrangements and glass. Music moved beneath the conversation. Guests crossed the room in eveningwear that made my rushed Omaha wardrobe feel like evidence from another life.

Amanda seemed completely at home.

I concentrated on staying near her.

Then Tariq entered.

Conversation nearest the entrance dipped as several heads turned toward him, then resumed.

He wore formal black eveningwear, his beard precise, his dark hair immaculate, and the same authority he carried into a meeting room multiplied by several hundred people.

Across the room, he found me anyway.

My stomach tightened.

Amanda was talking to someone beside me, so I had no legitimate reason to stare at him.

I did it for another second.

Then Tariq was pulled into greetings.