job. His work had been excellent. It was the reason Caz had signed a contract with Tremont, Burnside and Macomb.
Megan O’Connell didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. She knew it, too. Hadn’t she admitted it to Simpson? You’d never win a lawsuit, Simpson said he’d told her, and she’d countered by saying she didn’t care about winning.
Impugning Suliyam’s name in the press and, worse still, in business and financial circles, would be enough for her.
Caz couldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t let it happen. He’d spent the last five years readying his people for emergence from the past, but some among them would grasp any opportunity to end the progress he’d made. There were too many factions aligned against him. One whiff of scandal, one headline…
“Are you deaf, Sheikh Qasim? Or have you decided you made a mistake, conversing with a mere female?”
She was all but breathing fire now. Her face was flushed, her eyes were wide and dark; her hair was coming undone and tumbling around her face in wild curls. The suit and shoes were still ugly as sin but from the neck up, she looked like a woman who’d just risen from bed.
His bed.
The thought was unsettling. She was beautiful, yes, but her heart wasn’t a woman’s heart. She was intent on blackmail, and he was the target.
“It was your Mr. Simpson who made the mistake, Miss O’Connell, by letting things go too far.”
Megan blinked. “What things?”
“It serves no purpose to pretend innocence.” Caz folded his arms. “I told you, I know about your threats. Your Mr. Simpson—”
“He is not my anything!”
“He is your boss.”
“He’s a fool. So what?”
“He did what he could to keep the peace.”
“Excuse me?”
“He was foolish to try. As soon as you began demanding undue credit for the little work you did, helping to draft that proposal—”
“Helping?” Megan gave a brittle laugh. “I wrote that proposal.”
“No, you did not.”
“Damn it!” Megan could almost feel the adrenaline racing through her veins. A couple of hours ago, she’d have voted Jerry Simpson Idiot of the Year. What a mistake that would have been. The barbarian barring the door was winner of the title, hands down. “You know what? I’ve had it.” Resolutely she started toward the door again. “You get out of my way.”
He bared his teeth in a smile. “Or?” he said pleasantly.
“Or I’ll go right through you.”
He laughed. The son of a bitch laughed! Oh, how she wanted to slap that arrogant smirk from his all-too-perfect face.
Unfortunately, she could hardly blame him. Talk about empty threats! She could no more go through him than through a brick wall.
The Sheikh of the Endless Names was big. Six foot two, six foot three. He was as tall as any of her brothers and she’d never been able to go through them in a zillion touch football games. She’d hardly ever managed to go around them, except with a bit of subterfuge.
And then there were those shoulders wide enough to fill the doorway. The muscles that bulged even under his expensive suit. Except, they didn’t bulge. They rippled.
Rippled? Megan did a mental blink. Who cared if his muscles undulated? The Prince of All He Surveyed was a male chauvinist jerk, and she’d be damned if she’d stand here and take his verbal abuse one more second.
“Perhaps it’s the custom to detain women by force in your country,” she said coldly.
That got a response! Red patches bloomed on his cheeks. The man didn’t like hearing the truth. Good. She could use that to her advantage.
“Or maybe it’s the only way you can get women to pay attention to you. You know, snatch them up, carry them off, lock them up—”
“You’re trying my patience, Miss O’Connell.”
“And you’re trying mine.”
“I promise you, I won’t take much more.”
‘‘And I promise you—’’
That was as far as she got. He reached for her, wrapped his hands around her arms and lifted her to her toes. His fingers pressed into her flesh and his eyes…Whoa, his eyes! Cold as that sea-ice again. He was angry. Enraged. Megan could see it, feel it, even smell his fury in the male musk coming off him.
She’d never seen or sensed such passion in a man before.
What would he be like in bed?
The 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
