Free Stealing From The Sheikh - A Sheikh Romance Novel (Irresistible Sheikhs Book 3) by Holly Rayner

that she would have a little over an hour and a half to get ready for her date. Normally that would be more than enough, but Riley thought that she could take an entire day at the spa, being styled and beautified, and still feel intimidated by this particular date.
     
    “He asked me out when I was in a bunch of special effects makeup,” she reminded herself, parking her car and shutting off the engine. “He’s not expecting a Kardashian.”
     
    Riley hurried to her bedroom as soon as she got through the front door of her apartment and plunged into preparing herself for the date. She took a quick shower, stepping out as soon as she had her hair clean and her skin scrubbed, even though the aches in her neck and back made her want to stay under the flowing hot water for just a little while longer. As she showered, Riley remembered Alex—and her deal with him.
     
    “Oh, Christ,” she said with a groan, leaning against the wall. Alex would be all ears once he found out she had a date with the executive producer. Once more she debated whether she should message Mansour and call things off. After a moment, though, the temptation to see what he would be like, to explore the connection she’d felt with him, overwhelmed her sense of caution. “I just won’t tell him,” Riley told herself with a shrug. “At this point it’s none of Alex’s business, and anyway it’s not like Mansour would tell me anything important about the movie on a first date.”
     
    She wrapped her hair in a towel and hurried out of the bathroom to confront her closet. As she had feared, nothing seemed to be quite good enough for a date with an executive producer. Riley sighed, eventually deciding on one of the nicest dresses in her wardrobe, which she still suspected wouldn’t be good enough.
     
    She hung the dress on the door to the bathroom and set to work on her makeup. “I doubt he wants me to look like some vixen,” she said, staring at her face in the mirror as she considered the makeup at her disposal. She decided to keep her features as natural as possible: she applied a neutral eye shadow, a coral-toned lip stain, and just a little bit of blush, blending everything with a little pressed powder to soften it. She spritzed a tiny amount of perfume on at her pulse points and debated how to style her hair.
     
    As she was considering it, Riley thought about Mansour, and about what Jessica had said about him. “What if she was just teasing me? What if he really is just one of the production crew?” Jessica might have thought it would be a fun prank—and Riley didn’t know the other actress well enough to be able to say either way. She went back into her bedroom and opened up her laptop, took a deep breath and typed in Mansour’s name.
     
    At the top of the result page, Riley’s gaze lit on a picture of Mansour; it was undeniably him, in the same jeans and tee shirt she’d seen him in on the day of the audition. “Well that answers one question, at least,” Riley said, nodding slowly. Her date was definitely the executive producer.
     
    Scrolling down the results, she saw something that made her pause. Top 20 Richest Faces in Hollywood You Won’t Recognize . Riley frowned and clicked on the link, skimming down the article until she came to the section on Mansour. “If you saw Sheikh Mansour bin Shariq on the street, you’d never guess that he’s one of the wealthiest men in Hollywood—even beyond the money an executive producer makes. Family money gave him the means to start his own animation company at the age of twenty-one. He sold his company to Wonder Studios when he was barely out of film school…”
     
    Riley shook her head and re-read the section. She had reasoned that Mansour was a bit young for the power and prestige that came along with being an executive producer, but the extent of Mansour’s success was still amazing to her. She sat back, staring at the screen, her heart pounding in her chest.
     
    “Okay, so