Birthday Bride (Romance , No 3511)

Rating:
Summary: She's deliberately petty & childish, but men do that to us
Review: Claudia is having an early mid-life crisis. She's lost her job, been dumped by her fiance, had her apartment robbed and, worst of all, she's turning 30. Headed for a getaway visiting friends in a remote desert country, she runs into the most obnoxious man she thinks she's ever met. David, burned by a failed marriage to a shallow career woman, immediately lumps Claudia into that same category and is unbearably rude when he finds her staring at him in the airport then seated next to him for the long flight. He's headed to the same country as Claudia to negotiate a big contracting job for his company. To their horror, they find that they are both on their way to spend time with the same friends while there. Trying not to be so mutually irritating, the two find themselves stranded in the desert by plane trouble and at the mercy of the sheikh. They must pretend to be husband and wife to get out of their predicament and to satisfy the sheikh's moral standards. Difficult, when each has started to notice some very appealing things about the other. Both eventually give in to the passion that has developed between them but neither is willing to talk of committment. When Claudia's vacation is over, she unhappily walks away from David and goes back to the "real world" where she has a new job waiting. David has been through this before--his real wife left him for another man who could further her career. He got over his wife, but Claudia? Claudia is something altogether different. When he heads back to London after her, how long will it be before one of them breaks down and calls the other to admit that their brief pretend marriage just wasn't enough? END