Dreadful Penny

Chapter 1

The light filling the Learjet's interior turned harsh. The desert below was an unforgiving bright brown, and the Gulf, a flat vague blue. Everyone inside the cabin not yet wearing sunglasses now put them on, except for Penny, as though she had nothing to hide.

"We've received clearance to land," the pilot said over the intercom. "Seatbelts, please."

She slipped off Timur's lap and reached across his torso to secure his buckle, her hands petite against his girth.

"You see how she spoils me," Timur said to the others in his ponderous English. She knew her action had slightly embarrassed him, but that he still enjoyed the fawning. He allowed a rare smile across his broad, fleshy face. The big, stocky frame of his had gone to fat, making him look like the spoiled son of a long line of steppe horsemen.

He was rich, dictatorial and enjoyed treating women as amusements—a habit Penny leveraged, a narrow advantage that would disappear if she couldn't keep him guessing. She maintained a steady campaign of little brazen gestures, like buckling his seatbelt in front of his men, all to surprise him with her confidence without challenging his writ.

"I can't help myself," she said.

"Go sit," he said with a low chuckle. As Penny returned to the chair across from him, the Kazakh's meaty hand slapped her haunch. Timur was still hooked on her. For now.

Since first meeting him six weeks ago, Penny had pulled, juggled and teased Timur's passing moods and wants, while fending off the skepticism of his minions. The billionaire pretended to treat her with the same indifference as he showed to his mistresses and the jealous wife he kept cooped up in some gilded cage in Kazakhstan. But Penny had made a quick study of Timur Buribaev, and he had welcomed her into his life.

That took more than looks and sexual availability. Plenty of women deployed those, and many of them would literally commit murder to be the rich Kazakh's favorite. But only Penny was here; only she had been admitted to this entourage catching a ride on his private jet.

The whale was hooked but Penny was only the lure. Somewhere below, amid that featureless desert, her colleague Stack had one hand on the harpoon and the other ready to pull the chain. Knowing that Stack was already waiting for them was the one thing that made Penny nervous. Even now she had to remind herself that everything was in place; everything was okay. She was still the best. For six grueling weeks she had been perfect, avoiding any missteps to become a billionaire's preferred plaything.

The weak links were always the other people in Fuad's organization.

The private jet bumped and jostled on air pockets. She pretended to look anxious, squeezing Timur's big hand.

Outside her window, Dubai's towers sprouted like a dark forest above the haze. Timur's plane was not landing at Dubai International, but at the newer al-Maktoum airport. It was smaller, surrounded by frenetic construction, a maze of concrete, but it catered to arrivals preferring discretion.

Kasym Shokay, seated beside his boss, addressed Timur in the sonorous Khazak language while keeping his dark eyes on her. Kasym had recently overheard her flatter the big man with a few Russian endearments. Penny's Russian was terrible. Nonetheless, since then the lieutenant would only address his boss in Kazakh, knowing she couldn't understand a word.

Kasym had protested about Timur's bringing her along for this trip, but Penny had planted her little passive-aggressive whispers in Timur's ear. And Timur Buribaev, chairman and president of the thirty-two-billion-dollar KazPetro Corporation, didn't take to having a lieutenant question his personal lifestyle.