For all she knew, woman in Qasim’s country wore potato sacks. So what? She wore suits, sensible heels, and panty hose. Why on earth would she change that? Why would she change anything about herself for this job or this man?
Megan took her suitcase from the shelf and began tossing garments into it.
She knew who she was.
Soon, so would the sheikh.
Three days later, sitting in her rooms in Qasim’s palace, she wondered at the innocence of that assessment.
Who was she? A woman in a harem, that was who. All right. Not a harem. She was in the women’s quarters, but it came to the same thing.
It turned out there was no hotel in Suliyam’s capital city. Qasim had explained that as they’d been whisked from the airport to his palace.
She had to admit the palace was magnificent, gleaming under the hot sun like something out of a fairy tale. Her rooms were handsome: large, airy and elegant, with tiled floors and Moorish windows, and the view of a tranquil pond in a beautiful courtyard garden was to die for.
It was all perfect, except for the fact that she’d been relegated to the women’s quarters.
“The what?” she’d said the first day, her voice rising in disbelief as Qasim led her along a series of corridors to a set of enormous double doors.
“The women’s quarters, and keep your voice down. It’s bad enough I’m permitting you to walk beside me where others can see us.”
The arrogance of the remark had put a slow burn in her belly. And what “others” was he talking about? The bowing minions who’d greeted them on the front steps? The stony-faced guards who looked like leftovers from a bad late-night movie?
Megan had stopped in her tracks. “I don’t give a damn about others, and I am not going to be relegated to purgatory just so you can maintain the status quo.”
“You understood the rules when you came here.”
“So did you. I’m your financial consultant, not a member of your harem.”
He’d given a long-suffering sigh, as if her irritation were nothing more than he’d expected.
“I’m simply ensuring my people show you the necessary respect.”
“And that means I have to live like Scheherazade? Next thing you’ll tell me is that I’m going to have a eunuch around to make sure I behave!”
“Sorry,” he’d said, so straight-faced that she’d almost believed him, “I fired the last eunuch a couple of months ago.” His hand had closed on her elbow. “My grandfather was the last to keep a harem. Now, stop arguing and keep walking.”
“You can’t give me orders!”
His hand had tightened on her arm. “Use that tone to me again,” he’d said in a low voice, “and you’ll learn what purgatory really is.”
“I already know. It’s being here, with you.”
“Is that supposed to upset me, Megan? It doesn’t. I don’t give a damn what you think of me or this place, just as long as you do your job.” He’d opened the doors to the rooms that were now hers; a covey of giggling women had rushed forward to surround her. “Your servants,” Qasim had said dryly, as if he knew being presented with servants would only add to her bad temper. While the ladies in question oohed and ahhed and touched her blue wool suit with exploratory hands, he’d bent forward and put his mouth to her ear so only she could hear him. “You want to know the truth, kalila? I think what angers you is that you know you’ll be far away from me.”
When pigs fly, she’d have told him, but the women had started trying to strip off her jacket and while she was fending them off, Qasim shut the doors and left her.
Now it was what she’d come to think of as Day Three of her Incarceration. She’d come all this distance to do her job, but she hadn’t done a damned thing except pace her rooms and the garden outside.
And she’d had enough.
Megan shot to her feet, went out to the garden, opened the gate and marched down to the sea. The women rushed after her, crying out in distress. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to leave her cage.
She ignored them.
At least she could breathe down here. Why had she tolerated such treatment? To come all this way only to be treated like a prisoner?
A sea bird called out overhead, but its cry offered no answers.
The situation was intolerable.
“Intolerable,” Megan snapped.
She turned on her heel and retraced her steps back to the garden, to her rooms, to the double doors that she yanked open so she could march past the astonished guards while her women danced around her wringing their hands and wailing…
And stopped dead when she saw, just ahead, the Great Hall she remembered from the night of their arrival.
The Great Hall, and Qasim.
Qasim, and a woman.
A beautiful woman, even at a distance, petite and delicate with midnight-black hair that fell to her waist. Her gown was pale peach, so delicate it might have been spun from sunlight. She stood close to Qasim, bodies almost touching, her hands on his shoulders, her face turned up to his.
He’s going to kiss her, Megan thought.
For the first time in her life, she understood what people meant when they said anguish could feel like a knife wound to the heart.
She must have made a sound because Qasim turned and saw her. She waited, unmoving. He would say something. Do something. Acknowledge her presence, come to her and explain that what she saw—what she thought she saw—was nothing.
Instead, he turned back to the woman, brought her hands to his mouth, put his arm around her waist and led her up a wide staircase. Led her to his bed. Where else would a man take a woman who looked at him with stars in her eyes?
Megan’s servants surrounded her, scolding and tut-tutting and tugging at her hands. She let them lead her back to her rooms but when the doors closed behind her, she tore free of them, cursing Qasim and her own stupidity for being upset over something that should never have upset her, ranting in words that probably would have surprised her brothers.
The women watched her, wide-eyed, whispering among themselves and keeping their distance which, for some stupid reason, only increased her fury. Finally she snatched up a small porcelain vase and hurled it at the wall.
That got her audience moving.
“La, la,” one said while another wagged her finger. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that meant “no,” but “no” wasn’t going to work.
Qasim had ignored her here for three endless days, all so he could play games with another woman.
Enough. She’d come here to do a job. If she wasn’t going to do it, she was going to go home.
Megan stormed to the doors and yanked them open. The guards looked at her as if she were the last person on earth they ever wanted to see again.
“I want to see the king. Damn it, don’t look at me as if you’re both deaf. Surely one of you understands what I’m saying. I want to see your precious sheikh. Qasim. Do you hear me? You are to take me to—”
“Good afternoon, Miss O’Connell.”
The guards snapped to attention, then parted to reveal Hakim. Her serving women gasped and fell to the floor around her, doubled over like plump, silk-swathed hassocks.
“Stand up,” Megan snapped, “you shouldn’t kneel to any man!”
The women didn’t move. They had no idea what she was saying but Hakim did. His eyes were cold as he clapped his hands and barked out a command that sent the women scuttling away.
“It is unwise to interfere in matters you don’t comprehend, Miss O’Connell.”
“Take me to your king.”
“That is why I’ve come. His highness wishes to see you.”
“It’s a damned good thing he does.”
“My lord does not like his women to use rough language.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not his woman. Where is he?”
“He waits for me to bring you to him.”
God, the man was insufferable! Almost as arrogant as Qasim but then,
Qasim probably wouldn’t employ him otherwise. They started toward the Great Hall. Halfway there, Megan swept past the aide. Walking behind him, even if he were leading her somewhere, infuriated her.
She could hardly wait to confront Qasim. She’d tell the mighty Pooh-Bah what she thought of him, his harem, his servants and his country. Then she’d give him a choice. Put her to work or send her home. She’d be damned if she’d spend another day feeling useless while he did who knew what…
While he took a woman with long black hair to his bed.
They reached the Great Hall. Megan started toward the stairs. Hakim stepped in front of her.
“My lord waits for you outside.”
“Your lord,” Megan mimicked coldly.
Hakim’s eyes flashed as she brushed past him. The guards at the huge entrance doors flung the doors wide. Megan stepped out into the sunlight, clattered down the steps…and stopped.
A Humvee stood in the curved driveway, engine purring, rear door open. Qasim stood next to it, Qasim dressed in white linen trousers and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled back, so beautiful, so desert-fierce with the sun beating down on his dark head that she felt her bones turn liquid.
A smile curved his lips as she started down the steps, and she remembered how those lips had felt against hers, how the hand he held out had felt against her breast the last time they’d been together.
“Megan,” he said, and the truth shot through her quicksilver, the realization that part of her anger, all of it, lay in knowing that he hadn’t come to her, come for her, and in knowing now that it was because he had someone else.
How could she have hidden that truth from herself? How could she want a man like him?
Her heart turned to stone. She’d never been a fool for a man and she’d be damned if she’d start now.
She took a breath, let it out and took another. Then, smiling, she went down the steps. When she reached him, she put her hand in his. He started to raise it to his lips but she remembered that scene a little while ago, the woman a breath from him, her hands against his mouth, and she pulled her hand down and gave him a vigorous handshake.
“Sheikh Qasim,” she said politely. “It’s good to see you. I’d started to think you’d changed your mind about working with me.”
One dark eyebrow rose in a questioning arch. “Certainly not. In fact…” He motioned to the open door of the Hummer. “We’re on our way to our first meeting this morning.”
“I’m glad to hear it, but you might have done me the courtesy of telling me so in advance.”
“My apologies,” he said, climbing into the Hummer after her. He closed the door, tapped lightly on a glass partition that separated them from the driver and the vehicle shifted gears and started forward. “I’ve been busy.”
“Yes. So I noticed.”
He looked at her. “Sorry?”
“Nothing.” She looked down at her skirt and smoothed it over her knees. “I want to talk about the rooms you’ve given me.”
“Aren’t they to your liking?”
“No, they’re not. They’re very handsome, but I resent being kept prisoner.”
He’d looked uneasy a minute ago. Now, he sat back and laughed.
“The women’s quarters are hardly a prison.”
“They are to me. I came here to work. Instead I’ve spent my time doing nothing in an isolated part of the palace.”
“I’m sorry about that, too. Some things came up that had to be dealt with.”
“Yes. So I noticed.”
She wanted to bite off her tongue, but it was too late.
“Am I missing something here, Megan?”
“Only that I’d like to get busy on our project.”
“Of course. And since today seems to be my day for apologies, let me make one more. I should have explained why I put you in the women’s quarters. It was for your own sake. I wanted to be sure my people understand our relationship. You’re unmarried, you see, and a foreigner.”
“And?”
“And, it’s important we avoid any hint of impropriety.”
“Ah. Then I take it that the woman I saw you with a little while ago is married as well as Suliyamese, or that you don’t give a damn about any hints of impropriety where she’s concerned.”
Qasim looked surprised. Dear God, so was she! Had she really said something so stupid? His eyes darkened; they locked on hers and she felt a flood of heat rise in her face.
“I’m only asking as a matter of curiosity,” she said stiffly. “You keep telling me about all these customs and traditions…”
“Alayna is one of us, yes.”
One of us. Who was he kidding? The lady was more than that.
“But she isn’t married.”
“I see. In other words, it’s all right for you to be seen with an unmarried woman as long as that woman isn’t me?”
Qasim looked at her for an endless few seconds. Then he gave her a slow, sexy grin. “Are you jealous, kalila?”
“Certainly not. I told you, I’m just—”
“Curious.” He sighed, as if a weight were on his shoulders, and his smile faded. “Alayna is my cousin.”
His cousin. That gorgeous creature was his cousin. Why did she feel such a sense of relief? Qasim could have a dozen beautiful women around him, for all she cared.
“I would have introduced you, but Alayna has some personal problems just now. That was why she came to see me. To discuss them.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
Qasim reached for her hand. She let him take it—it would have been ridiculous to try and tug it back—and tried to pretend she didn’t feel the rush of heat his touch sent racing along her skin.
“I should not have neglected you these past days, Megan. It’s just that I had many things to attend to.”
Things like assuring Alayna that he would find a way to keep her from having to marry a man who had been chosen for her, that she could, instead, marry a man she loved. That, alone, had involved him for two days. And, after that, the careful plans he’d made for the first meeting he and Megan would attend had started coming apart.
It would be the most difficult of the meetings because it involved Ahmet, one of the most powerful traditionalists in Suliyam. Caz had arranged to meet with Ahmet and his men here, in the palace, to make no mention of Megan’s presence beforehand.
But Ahmet had phoned yesterday to say he’d fallen ill and couldn’t travel. Would Qasim bring the meeting to him, at his ancestral home deep in the mountains beyond the vast desert that stretched away from the sea?
“It would be a generous thing to do, my lord,” Ahmet had said in a wheezing voice.
The wheeze struck Caz as overdone. He suspected the suggestion had less to do with illness and more to do with a power play, but going to Ahmet instead of demanding the man come to him was a gesture of respect that could help his cause.
The change in venue meant he’d had to tell Ahmet he was bringing a woman with him.
Ahmet had responded with outrage and disbelief. “How could such a thing be?” he’d said.
Caz had lied through his teeth. The woman was a clerk, he told him, sent by the company she worked for to keep their records organized. It was, he added, customary for western firms to employ females in positions too unimportant to be filled by men.
“Ah.” Ahmet had chuckled. “Now I see. She is a meaningless creature.”
“Absolutely,” Qasim had answered, though he’d wanted to laugh. Megan O’Connell, meaningless? Wouldn’t she love to hear that? She wouldn’t; he wasn’t stupid.
As for the traditions she’d encounter on this journey…Caz looked at her now, sitting beside him in the Hummer, dressed in that ridiculous wool suit and sensible pumps, and almost groaned.
If she thought the arrangements at his palace were restrictive, he could only guess at how she’d react to life in the territory ruled by Ahmet.
He felt a vague sense of unease, taking her on this trip
, but if she behaved herself, things would go well. And he’d see to it she behaved herself, like it or not.
He wasn’t looking forward to dealing with what came next. He’d always thought of himself as fearless. After all, death came to every man eventually. Why quake when a lion decides you look like dinner, which had happened to him on a photographic safari in South Africa? Why run when an assassin came at you out of the dark, as one had in the uncertain days after his father’s death?
The trouble was, dealing with lions and assassins was easier than dealing with the temper of the woman beside him. So far, the only way he’d found to deal with her anger was to take her in his arms, and that was proving more dangerous than anything he’d ever done before.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going, or is it another of your deep, dark secrets?”
She had a half smile on her lips. Apparently she’d decided to forgive him. Too bad the smile wasn’t going to last.
“We’re driving to my helicopter.”
“Your what?”
She was still smiling, but she was also looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had.
“It would take days to make the trip by land. It’s only a couple of hours by air.” He hesitated. “Megan. This place we’re going to…You’ll have to make some accommodations.”
She gave a little sigh, but she wasn’t angry. Not yet. “What now? Won’t walking behind you be enough?”
“We’re flying into an ancient city. Tradition—”
“Don’t tell me.” She flashed that smile again. “If you expect me to fold myself in half and bow—”
“That might not be a bad idea,” he said. She shot him a look that made him laugh. “I’m joking. But…” His gaze drifted over her, then returned to her face. “You can’t enter Ahmet’s lands dressed like that.”
The smile flickered. “Ahmet’s a fashion maven?”
“You must wear what he thinks is appropriate for a woman as a sign of respect.”
The smile died. Caz sighed; trouble lay directly ahead.
“And what would you like me to wear, Sheikh Qasim? Sackcloth and ashes?”
“The women of his village dress traditionally.”
“There’s that word again.”
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