herself to it. She wasn’t like her mother, who’d cheerfully handed her life over to a man so he could do with it as he chose. She wasn’t like her sister, Fallon, whose beauty had been her ticket to independence. She wasn’t like her sister, Bree, who seemed content to drift through life.
No, Megan had thought as she yanked open the ladies’ room door, no, she’d taken a different path. Two degrees. Hard work. A steady climb to the top in a field as removed from the glittery world of chance in which she’d grown up as night was from day.
Was she really going to toss it all aside to make a feminist point?
She wasn’t.
She wasn’t going to sue anyone, or complain to anyone, or do much of anything except, when she got past her fury, swallow her pride and tell Jerry she’d thought things over and—and—
God, apologizing would hurt! But she’d do it. She’d do it. Nobody had ever said life was easy.
So Megan had stayed in the ladies’ room until she figured the coast was clear. Then she’d started for her office, brewed a pot of coffee, dug out her secret stash of Godiva and spent the next hour mainlining caffeine while she thought up imaginative ways to rid the world of men.
A little before ten, the PA she shared with three other analysts popped her head in.
“He’s here,” she’d whispered.
No need to ask who. Only one visitor was expected this morning. Plus, Sally had that look teenage girls got in the presence of rock stars.
“I’m happy for you,” Megan replied.
“Mr. Simpson says…he says he would like you to stay where you are.”
“I would like Mr. Simpson in the path of a speeding train,” Megan said pleasantly, “but we do not always get what we want.”
“Megan,” Sally said with urgency, “you’re wired. All that coffee…and, oh wow, you put away half that box of chocolate. You know what happens when you have too much caffeine!”
She knew. She got edgy. She got irritable. She talked too much. A good thing she realized all that, or she’d show up in the boardroom despite what Simpson would like. Hell, she’d show up because of what he’d like.
Yes, it was a good thing she knew Sally was right. Staying put was a good idea.
“Tell Mr. Simpson I’ll stay right here.”
Sally gave her a worried look. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
A lie. She hadn’t been fine. More coffee, more chocolate, and she’d tried not to think about the fact that as she sat obediently in her cubbyhole of an office, Jerry Simpson and His Highness, the Sheikh of Smugness, were probably enjoying a good laugh at her expense.
And why, she’d thought, should she let that happen? She could show her face, just to prove she might be down but she wasn’t defeated.
So she’d combed her hair, straightened her panty hose, smoothed down the skirt of her navy suit and headed for the boardroom.
By the time she’d finally strolled in, the formal handshakes and greetings were over. Jerry Simpson saw her and glowered but what could he do about it without making a scene? The sheikh hadn’t even noticed, surrounded as he was by his adoring fans and his pathetic minions.
Megan had tossed Jerry a thousand-watt smile meant to let him suffer as he tried to figure out why she’d showed up. Then she’d headed for the buffet table, where she’d sipped more coffee before switching to Mimosas.
No caffeine there. Only little bubbles.
All she had to do was hang in long enough to make Simpson squirm. Once the sheikh and his henchmen departed, she could start the ugly business of crawling back into her boss’s good graces, though she doubted he’d let her get that far anytime this decade.
Well, no rush. The sheikh wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. Everyone was having too much fun. She could hear Jerry’s voice, and a deeper, huskier one she assumed was the sheikh’s. She could hear occasional trills of girlish laughter, too, punctuated by loud male ha-ha-ha’s.
Like, for instance, right now. A giggle, a ha-ha, a simpering, “That’s so clever, Your Highness!”
Megan swung around and stared at Geraldine McBride. Geraldine, simpering? All two hundred tweedy pounds of her?
Megan snorted.
She didn’t mean to. She just couldn’t help it, not while she was envisioning the Pooh-Bah riding an Arabian stallion with Geraldine flung across the saddle in front of him.
She snorted again. Unfortunately the second snort erupted during a second’s pause in the babble of voices. Heads turned in her direction. Jerry looked as if he wanted to kill her. The sheikh looked—
Mmm-mmm-mmm. He looked spectacular. You had to give him that. The tabloids were right. The man was gorgeous. They had his eye-color wrong, though. It wasn’t gray. The color reminded her of charcoal. Or slate.
Or storm clouds. That’s how cold those eyes were as they fixed on her.
There was no mistaking that expression. He didn’t like her. Not in the slightest. Jerry must have told him she’d been a problem.
So be it.
I don’t like you, either, she thought coolly, and couldn’t resist raising her glass in mocking salute before she turned away.
Why care what the sheikh thought? Why care what Jerry thought? Why care what anybody thought? She had her own life to live, her own independence to enjoy—
“Miss O’Connell,” a deep voice said.
Megan swung around. The sheikh was coming toward her, his walk slow, deliberate and masculine enough to make her heart bump up into her throat, which was silly. There was nothing to be afraid of, except losing her job, and that wouldn’t happen if she used her head.
He reached her side. Oh, yes. He was definitely easy on the eyes. Tall, lean, the hint of a well-muscled body under that expensive suit.
D and D, she thought, and her heart gave another little bump. What she and Bree always joked about.
Dark and Dangerous.
He gave her what the people at the other end of the room would surely think was a smile. It wasn’t. That look in his eyes was colder than ever, cold enough to make the hair rise on the nape of her neck. How could such a gorgeous man be such a mean son of a bitch?
Megan drew herself up. “Your Mightiness.”
His eyes bored into hers again. Then he lifted his hand. That was all. No wave, no turning around, nothing but that upraised hand. It was enough. Someone said something—her boss, maybe, or one of the sheikh’s henchmen—and people headed for the door.
Scant seconds later, the room was empty.
Megan smiled sweetly. “Must be nice, being emperor
