thought shocked her. She didn’t think about men that way. Oh, she could joke with her sisters, sit in a bar sipping a glass of white wine and giggle with them over the buns on one guy, the biceps on the next, but she’d never looked at a man and actually wondered what it would be like to sleep with him.
That was exactly what she was doing now.
What if the sheikh turned all that rage into desire? If he were lying above her, holding her this same way, holding her so she couldn’t turn away from him, so she didn’t want to turn away from him, so she could feel the heat of his body against hers?
She felt her heart do a slow, unsteady roll.
‘‘Let go,’’ she said, and thanked whatever gods were watching that her voice didn’t tremble.
He didn’t. Not right away. He went on looking at her and her heart did that same little turn again because something changed in his eyes and she knew he was thinking the same thing, seeing her as she saw him, not here in this office but in a wide, soft bed, their bodies slick with sweat, their mouths fused.
Her pulse went crazy—but not as crazy as that thought.
“I said, let go!” she repeated, and twisted free of his hands.
A moment passed. She could hear the rasp of his breath. Then his expression changed and it was as if nothing had happened.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said.
Megan nodded. “I agree.”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Fifty thousand, Miss O’Connell. Surely that’s ample payment for the time you’d like me to think you put in on this project.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you offering me a bribe?”
“I’m offering you payment for the job you claim to have done.”
“My God, you are! You think you can buy my silence!”
His eyes darkened. “Let’s not make a melodrama out of this. You’ve threatened to derail a project that’s of great importance to me. I’m simply suggesting there’s no need for you to do that.” He smiled, and she wanted to wipe the smile off his face. “I don’t carry a checkbook with me, of course—”
“Of course.”
“But I will have a courier deliver a check to you here within—”
“No!”
“Ah. You’d rather we kept the transaction private.” He reached in his breast pocket, took out a small leather notebook and a pen. “If you’ll give me your home address—”
“I am not for sale, Sheikh Qasim!”
Caz looked up. The woman’s face was white, except for two slashes of crimson across those elegant cheekbones. She was going to be more difficult to deal with than he’d anticipated.
“How much?” he said coldly.
“I just told you, I am not—”
“One hundred thousand.”
“Are you deaf? I said—”
“I’m weary of this game, Miss O’Connell, and of your act. Name your price.”
She laughed. Laughed! At him! And edged toward the door, still laughing, as if he were a lunatic howling at the moon.
“Goodbye, your Mightiness. It’s been interest—”
She gasped as he grabbed her shoulders and swung her toward him.
“How dare you laugh at me?” he growled.
“Take your hands off me.”
“You’re a fool, Miss O’Connell. Did you really think you could threaten me and get away with it?”
Megan looked up into eyes filled with hostility. She knew that this was the moment to tell the sheikh that her threat, as he called it, had been made in the heat of the moment, that there’d be no lawsuit because Simpson, damn his soul, was right. The only thing she’d win, if she sued, was a reputation as a troublemaker, and that would mark the end of her corporate career.
That was the logical thing to do.
Logic, however, had nothing to do with what she felt at that moment.
The sheikh obviously thought he ruled the universe. Well, why wouldn’t he? During her research, she’d learned that women were treated like dirt in his country. Well, she was a woman, but she didn’t have to bow to this man. She was an American citizen, and she didn’t have to take this nonsense.
“I asked you a question,” he said. “Did you think—’’
“What I think,” Megan said, enunciating each word with precision, “is that you’re a tyrant. You’re so used to people treating you like a god, to you treating them as if they were your property—’’
“Stop it! How dare you?”
“What you mean,” she said, her voice trembling, “is how dare a woman speak to you this way? Isn’t that right, Sheikh Qasim? I’m a female. A worthless creature. And you are absolutely certain that women are only good for one thing.”
Caz could feel the anger rushing through him. Control, he told himself, control…but this woman needed a lesson.
“It’s time somebody showed you what women really are,” she said, and those few words pushed him over the edge.
“At least we agree on something,” he answered, and before she could twist her head away, his mouth came down over hers.
His kiss was harsh. Dominating. He was a man intent on proving his strength and her weakness, his power to subdue her.
Megan fought back. Hard. When he tried to open her mouth with his, she sank her teeth into his bottom lip. He grunted, turned, pushed her back against the wall; she shoved against his chest, freed her hands, beat them against his shoulders…
And then, in a heartbeat, it all changed.
Later, she’d think back and remember the sudden stillness in the room, as if the universe was holding its breath. Now all she knew was the feel of his mouth as it softened on hers, the gentling of his hands as they slid up her shoulders, her throat, into her hair.
It was happening again. What she’d felt minutes ago, except now it was real. She was in his arms, her body pressed to his, and what was happening had everything to do with desire instead of anger, with wanting instead of hating.
She moaned, parted her lips to the feathery brush of his tongue, let him take possession of her mouth. Of her senses.
He said something in a language she didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. She understood all the rest. What he wanted. What she wanted, and when he angled his mouth over hers, took the kiss deeper and deeper until she felt the earth spinning away, Megan raised her arms, wound them around his neck. He ran a hand down her spine, cupped her bottom, lifted her into him, into his heat, his hardness…
Someone knocked at the door. The sound was like a clap of thunder exploding within the confines of the quiet room.
Caz’s hands fell away from her. He stepped back; her eyes flew open. Breathing hard, they stared at each other like partners who’d lost their footing in some intricate dance.
The knock at the door sounded again. A voice called out. It took Caz seemingly endless seconds to realize it was Hakim, calling his name.
“Sire? Sire, forgive me for disturbing you…”
Caz stared at the O’Connell woman. What in hell had just happened? A shared hallucination? An aberration? His gaze hardened. There were those among his people who would say she was not just a liar and a cheat but a