Promised to a Sheik Read Free Page A

the weekend?” Ginger Walton asked, as the two sat down at the small table in the break room.
    Haley Mercado, who for the past six months had been pretending to be Daisy Parker, smiled at Ginger. The auburn-haired, blue-eyed young woman had, in the past couple of months, become a good friend.“Yeah, I’m working tonight, then I’m working tomorrow night.”
    Ginger laughed. “Me, too. At least working all these hours keeps us out of trouble, right?”
    â€œRight,” Haley replied, although nothing could be further from the truth in her case. She was in a world of trouble.
    Working undercover for the FBI, Haley was not only pretending to be somebody she wasn’t, she was also tied emotionally and by blood to one of the most powerful families in the Texas Mafia. And that was just the beginning of her woes.
    â€œJust think,” Ginger continued as she opened a bag of potato chips. “Maybe someday we’ll be here waiting tables with tired feet and sore backs and our Prince Charmings will waltz in and take us away from all this.”
    Haley snorted in appropriate Daisy-like fashion. “Honey, I gave up on the notion of Prince Charming a long time ago,” she exclaimed in the thick accent she’d adopted for her new persona.
    â€œNot me,” Ginger replied, a dreamy expression in her eyes. “I’m not looking for a man to take care of me or anything like that,” she hurriedly added. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. But it would be nice to have somebody special to share my life with, somebody who adored me as much as I adored him.”
    Ginger’s words stirred a memory in Haley, one she rarely allowed to surface in her mind. A single night of passion spent in the arms of the man she’d lovedfrom afar for years. Her heart ached as she thought of the consequence of that night.
    She shoved away the memory, knowing that to indulge herself in thoughts of the past and that man would only make her life now more difficult. And things were difficult enough already.
    â€œWhere does Harvey have you stationed for tomorrow night?” Ginger asked.
    â€œThe Men’s Grill,” Haley replied.
    â€œLucky you, the tips are always good in there,” Ginger replied.
    Yeah, lucky me, Haley thought. She’d already told her contacts at the FBI that she was assigned to the grill the following night. That meant when she came to work the next evening she’d be wired, and her goal would be to record any conversations that might take place that could bring down the Mafia.
    The temporary Men’s Grill was the place where power was wielded, deals were made, and bargains were sealed. In the smoky confines of the private bar and restaurant, “the family” met to conduct business.
    â€œThe family” included members of her family, the Mercados, and part of her deal with the FBI was that she would help tumble the Mafia in exchange for immunity for her father, Johnny, and her brother, Ricky.
    However, there was one man Haley hoped to bring to his knees. Frank Del Brio. His very name caused a chill of fear to race up her spine. Fear coupled with rage.
    Since the death of Carmine Mercado, the head of the “family,” there had been rumors that her brotherwas the logical choice to take his place. Haley had also heard rumors that Frank Del Brio was acting as if he was already the new don.
    But that wasn’t why Haley wanted to see him arrested and locked up for the rest of his life.
    Frank Del Brio had briefly been her fiancé. It had been because of him that she’d had to fake her own death and was now working with the FBI. He’d been responsible for her estrangement from her family, for the plastic surgery she’d undergone to transform her features and for the murder of her mother.
    â€œHey, am I paying you two to sit in here all night?” Harvey Small, the manager of the Lone Star Country Club,