Hired: The Sheikh's Secretary Mistress by Lucy Monroe (HP 2747)

Back Cover:

Sheikh Amir bin Faruq al Zorha lives in New York, but the desert is where his heart lies. Now it's time for him to marry….

Grace Brown, Amir's plain but indispensable assistant, isn't exactly queen material. No matter how tempted Amir is to take her innocence, she's off-limits. Until he returns to his homeland, where the barbarian prince replaces the businessman—and resolves that Grace will be his!

Spoiler Warning: All my reviews contain spoilers to some degree  

Favourite Scene: (the heroine's utter ignorance/innocence is funny, so is her slamming shut the Joys of Sex)

When her breathing had become more erratic, she’d wondered if she was developing asthma. When her womb clenched and that place between her thighs that had never been touched by anyone but a doctor’s clinical hand pulsed with some nameless need, she’d thought she was having muscle spasms.

She’d been mortified when she took her symptoms to the doctor only to be told by the kindly, but elderly GP that she was in lust.

She hadn’t believed him, thinking he just didn’t have a believable diagnosis for the things she’d been experiencing. But then, the next day, Amir had touched her…something very innocent, but it had sent all of her senses careening at once. Nerve endings she’d had no idea even existed within her had started buzzing and she’d been forced to stifle the insane urge to touch him back. Not so innocently.

Feeling like an idiot, she’d tried to read The Joy of Sex to figure out what was happening to her, but the book was clearly targeted toward sexually active people and she wasn’t one. When she’d gotten to the chapter on light bondage, she’d about had a heart attack and slammed it shut, hidden it deep in a cabinet and never taken it out again.

Another Fav Scene: (I love how he runs when he finds out the heroine is leaving)

Amir burst out laughing. He should probably be offended, but he found their behavior too amusing. The competition between father and son was fierce. “You two bet a camel on whether I would figure out my feelings for Grace?”

“The bet was on whether or not you would figure it out before she left you,” his brother said, still looking unnaturally—for him—amused as he answered his mobile phone.

“Grace is not going anywhere,” Amir growled.

His brother clicked his phone shut. “I beg to differ with you. She’s just ordered the plane to be readied.”

Amir was headed out the door to the rare sound of his brother’s laughter while his father demanded to know when the wedding was to be.

“As soon as Grace agrees to have me,” he called back over his shoulder before taking the stairs to the next floor two at a time.

  
My Review:

The heroine is the personal assistant to the sheikh hero (who lives in New York).  She's been in love with him five years and she's a romantic, a virgin, who hasn't gotten involved with anyone else.  When the hero decides he needs to get married (largely so that he distracts himself and doesn't take his virginal secretary on any horizontal or vertical surface he can find), the heroine is asked to find the wife for him!  She takes this as the final straw and decides to resign after she finds him a wife, because she does want to make sure he picks the right woman and leads a happy life (I like how selfless her love is).  The hero is floored that he's losing his PA who is his very best friend and whom he respects and likes so much.  He decides that since he's going to lose her anyway, there's no longer a need to hold back, he convinces himself he'll actually be doing her a favour if he is her first lover.  His family loves the h and would be happy for the H to open his eyes and choose to marry her!          

Whew!  This is another great book by Lucy Monroe.  Wow, the relationship between the H/h is so full of caring and sexual tension.  You need to throw a hose in their direction before they even kiss.  When he walks in on her bath, he can't make himself leave, it's ridiculously good.  I couldn't quite believe that the heroine had never been on a date or kissed at age 20, let alone at age 25.  The hero had the heroine as his secretary for five years, and it hurt for her to see him with other women, but hey at least the hero at all times was attracted to her but burying his feelings and at the end wished he'd realized sooner and spent those five years with her. 

My Rating: 4/5 stars, very very good.  Of course I'm a big "once you set eyes on your heroine you don't go sleeping with other women" person, so I regretted that the heroine had to be in love for five unhappy years seeing him with other women, but at least the hero noticed her for that entire time and was suffering too.