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How a Pretend Wedding Became the Real Thing
In A Bed of Sand by Laura Wright, Rita
Thompson decides to plan a fake wedding without inviting the fake groom. This brilliant
plan is conconcted as a means of reuniting aliented family members. Unfortunately, however,
the fake groom actually shows up, all dressed up and ready to go.
The "groom" is Rita's boss, the devastingly handsome Sheikh Sakir Al-Nayhalm of the desert
land of Emand. He chastises Rita for announcing their marriage, since they
are not engaged...and have never even rubbed up against each other.
But that is no matter, because as luck would have it, Sakir is in a unique quandary
himself. He needs to find a woman to temporarily marry him for three weeks.
He explains it thusly: "I must go to my homeland for three weeks, and I need you there with me
as my wife. Your...little plan here has given me the idea. Marriage shows stability,
reliability, and this--though it is of no interest to me--is important for the businessmen
in my country."
Naturally Rita agrees to this contrived plan (which, by the way, could only be workable in
a romance novel) and travels with her new "husband" to his homeland.
Sakir fully intends to treat Rita as a business associate, nothing more, but predictably he
begins to see her in a new light. She has a fiery spirit, a requirement of every romance novel
heroine, and Sakir likes her fire so much that he...yes, he expresses a desire to "stoke
the fire within her." And to the relief of readers who wished they had hit the
sheets much earlier than Chapter 11, he finally does just that.
By the end of the story, Sakir's relentless moodiness subsides just in time for him to
realize his deep love for Rita, along with a desire to have a wedding that he's actually expected
to show up for.
Now that's love.
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