Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1) Read Free Page B

needed money spent on it for a long time. We were bought out by a consortium of Middle Eastern investors a couple of years ago and, well," she spread out her hands, "you can see how much they've invested."
    Chloe certainly could, and the more she walked around the hotel, the more she realized that she hadn't picked up upon a single flaw – very unusual, given how critical she usually was. She had to hand it to the manager, he might be an overbearing old ass, but he knew how to run a hotel. It put her mind at ease.
    "Can you show me to the Presidential Suite please, Katie? How close is mine?"
    "Your suite?" Katie asked, clearly impressed. "It's on the same floor. If you don't mind me asking…" she began, before falling silent as if worried she was about to broach a topic that she shouldn't.
    "Yes?" Chloe prompted, knowing what the question would be.
    "Well – you're quite young, aren't you?"
    "Twenty-six," Chloe agreed.
    "So…" Katie prevaricated, still beating around the bush.
    "So, how did I get a job like this?" Chloe asked, smiling and putting the girl out of her misery.
    "Exactly," Katie agreed gratefully.
    "To be honest, I got lucky. I was doing a job just like yours four years ago, but at the Winchester Hotel. It's another Kingsland hotel, and from time to time I did a favor for the concierge there. I guess I was good at it."
    "Do you have to be, you know, pretty?" Katie asked, a little less nervously.
    "What do you mean?"
    "Well – look at you. If you don't mind me saying, you're gorgeous!" Katie exclaimed excitedly. "Do you think that would be a problem?"
    "For you?" Chloe asked, surprised. "Hell no, honey, you're hot!"
    "But there must be an element of looks to it?" Katie pressed.
    "Perhaps," Chloe allowed. "But let me tell you, Kingsland doesn't just let you stroll into a position like this. I've been training for four years now, and this is the first time I've been given a hotel of my own."
    "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I wasn't trying to imply that you got the job because of the way you look!" Katie apologized, looking mortified.
    "No, no, that's not what I meant," Chloe hastened to add. "Of course, they train you to do the normal day-to-day activities, but there's a whole lot more than that – they sent me on a three-month course to Switzerland just to learn how to present myself: how do my hair, my makeup, even how to use a fish knife…" She laughed. "It was nuts, but definitely worthwhile."
    Katie was looking up at Chloe with a glow of almost unhealthy hero worship, and it made Chloe feel slightly uncomfortable – she clearly had no idea how nervous she was at the prospect of taking on her own hotel. When they'd asked whether she thought she was ready to make the step up, she'd had to say yes – of course she had. Now she was here, it was an entirely different proposition.
    The girl opened the door to the Presidential Suite just by laying her hand on it and pushing forward.
    "How did you do that?" Chloe asked, intrigued. "Isn't there a key card?"
    "Nope!" Katie replied, a smug look on her face. "We're the first hotel in the world to use it – keyless entry. Apparently it's a Japanese technology, but it's pretty cool, right?"
    "How does it work?" Chloe asked – she hadn't noticed Katie do anything at all to actually open the door.
    "That's the clever bit. There are three sensors – here, here and there." She pointed each out in turn. "The camera up there takes a facial reading that is about 99.8% accurate."
    "What about the other 0.2%?" Chloe asked, worried. She couldn't imagine explaining to some of her extremely wealthy clients that they were only 99.8% secure…
    "There's a sensor running through the door handle that measures people's individual electric fields and another sensor overhead which takes body temperature readings. It's basically impossible to cheat all three – there's something like a one in fifty trillion chance of something going wrong."
    "Great," Chloe said, relieved. "But wouldn't