“And,” she said, her chin lifting, daring him to say anything judgmental, “after I’d lost a hundred bucks, I quit.”
Nick lifted his brows. “Interesting.”
“I couldn’t see the sense in losing more money.”
“Ah. And you figured why bother betting unless you had a better chance of winning.”
“Something like that.”
“Suppose somebody offered you the chance to make a bet where you controlled the odds.”
Something had changed in his smile. It made her uncomfortable. This whole conversation made her uncomfortable. She knew it was ridiculous, but talking about his wanting to sleep with her made her less uneasy than talking about bets and stakes and odds.
“Well,” she said, “that, um, that would be, um, interesting.”
Not as interesting as the way he was looking at her. His gaze was intense, as if she were the only thing in the universe worthy of his attention. It was flattering. It was disturbing. It reminded her of something she’d almost forgotten.
Once, just after her mother had married Jonas and gone to live at Espada, she’d visited the ranch and gone horseback riding in the hills that surrounded it. She’d dismounted beside a clear-running stream, tied the reins to a tree branch, strolled maybe a hundred yards—and come almost face-to-face with a cougar.
The cat had looked at her. She’d looked at the cat. And when it finally hissed and melted into the trees, she’d known that she’d gotten away because it had chosen to let her go, not because she’d been brave enough to stare it down.
That was how she felt now. Her heart gave a little shiver. As if she’d gone for an innocent stroll and ended up face-to-face with a cougar.
Nick reached back, slid open a drawer in the desk, took something from it. A coin, she saw. A bright silver coin. He smiled, tossed it, caught it in his hand. “Heads or tails,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s time I went home. Good night, Nick. It’s certainly been—”
“Scared?”
She sighed, rolled her eyes, folded her arms over her chest. “Heads.”
“Heads it is.” The coin spun through the air. Nick caught it, showed it to her. “Good guess. How about another try?”
“Oh, for heaven’s…Heads.”
He tossed the coin again, caught it, held out his hand. The silver piece lay, heads up, in his palm.
“Great,” she said with an artificial smile.
“One last time.” Nick tossed the coin. It spun like quicksilver before he caught it and closed his fingers around it. “What’s it going to be this time? Heads or tails?”
“This is…Okay, I’ll humor you. Tails. It has to be. I remember enough of my college stats course to know that the odds of it coming up heads again are…”
He opened his hand. She blinked.
“…One in six,” she said, and frowned. “How’d you do that?”
He smiled, tossed the coin to her. She caught it, examined it, then looked at him.
“Heads on both sides,” she said. “It’s a phony.”
“The gentleman who gave it to me preferred to refer to it as a device for assuring a positive outcome.”
Nick grinned. She almost smiled back at him. He had, she thought, a wonderful smile…but then she thought of the cougar, of how she could never have matched either its strength or its cunning, and she felt more like running than smiling.
“If there’s a point here,” she said carefully, “I don’t get it.”
He rose to his feet, came slowly toward her, his smile gone. The room seemed to have reduced in size until there was barely space in it for the both of them. Foolishly, she held out the coin. Nick shook his head, took her hand, folded her fingers around it.
“Keep it,” he said softly.
“I—I don’t want it. I don’t—”
“Amanda.” He clasped her shoulders, slid his hands down her arms, twined his fingers with hers. “We’re going to make a bet, you and I.” A slow, sexy smile curled across his mouth. “A bet that will assure you of a positive outcome.”
“Nick, I told you. I don’t gamble. Just that one time…”
“You’re going to give me a week of your life.”
Her eyes widened. “A week of my—”
“One week.” He kissed her, his mouth tender, soft against hers. “Just seven days.”
“Nick, listen to me. You can’t just—”
“When the week ends, I’ll sign a contract with Benning Designs.”
“Damn you!” Amanda jerked her hands free. “Haven’t you heard a word I said? I won’t sleep with you for a contract.”
“No,” he said softly, “I’m sure you won’t.”
“Great. We understand each other. Now, I’m going to open this door. And you’re not going to stop me.”
“I’ll sign the contract whether you’ve slept with me or not.”
“What?” She moved past him, dragged a hand through her hair. “What is this? Another quaint custom straight from the homeland? I wasn’t born yesterday. Do you really think I believe life is like that coin of yours? Heads on both sides?” She frowned, opened her hand and looked at the quarter. “Where’d you get this anyway?”
Nick sighed. “It’s a long, dull story.”
“Amazing.” She smiled brightly. “I just happen to be in the mood for a long, dull story.”
“I was sixteen, and I stopped to watch a guy working a three-card-monte game in Greenwich Village. Each time he thought a mark—”
“A what?”
“A player.” Nick grinned. “Or, more accurately, a loser. Whenever he thought a loser was going to leave, he’d take a coin from his pocket, show it and say, ‘Call it. Double or nothing.’ It never came up anything but heads.”
“And the reason the Heir to the Imperial Throne was standing on a corner, betting against a street hustler, was…?”
“Well, it was fun.”
“Fun,” she said dryly.
“Yeah. I was at a private prep school.”
“Of course,” Amanda said politely.
“My tuition was paid, but my father was strict about my allowance. I wanted more money for something—I don’t recall what. And my mother was in Europe, making a movie. Anyway, I was pretty good with cards. It was a weekend and I had nothing better to do—”
“So you went down to the village and got hustled.” She narrowed her eyes at him. He had to have invented the story. The Lion of the Desert, a cardsharp? “And, what? The guy gave you the coin?”
He laughed softly. “I paid him twenty bucks for it. I figured it made a great souvenir.”
“Uh-huh. He hustled you. And now you’re trying to hustle me. Did you really think I’d fall for that?” Amanda tossed the coin on the desk. “The ‘you give me a week and I’ll give you a contract’ routine?”
“Well, no.” Nick put one hand on the wall beside her and slid the other around the back of her head. “Actually, I didn’t.”
“Ha,” she said, and tried to pretend she didn’t feel the drift of his fingers along the nape of her neck. “I knew there was a catch.”
He gave her the kind of smile that made her heart try to wedge its way into her throat. “I meant what I said. You’ll give me a week. If we become lovers, you get the contract. If we don’t…” He took her hand and brought it to his mouth. “If we don’t, you still get the contract.” His eyes met hers, and what she saw in them made her feel dizzy. “But if you do give yourself to me,” he said softly, “then you’ll agree to be my mistress. To be available only to me, accessible only to me, for as long as it suits us both.” A quick smile angled across his mouth. “Despite what you may think, I believe in equality of the sexes.”
His words, the way he was looking at her, conjured up images more erotic than anything she’d ever experienced in a man’s arm. Talk, that was all it was. Not even Nicholas al Rashid could really expect her to accept such a proposition.
“I mean every word,?
? he said softly.
She tilted her head up, stared into his eyes and knew, with breathtaking certainty, that he did.
He turned her hand over, brought it to his mouth again, kissed the soft flesh at the base of her thumb. “Are you afraid to trust yourself?”
Amanda laughed. “Such modesty. Do you really think—”
He kissed her even though he knew it was a mistake. The last thing a wise man would do right now was give Amanda Benning graphic proof of how sure he was he’d win the bet.
But he’d underestimated her. She made a little sound as their mouths met, but that soft, sweet whisper of breath was the only sign she gave of the emotional storm he knew raged within her. It made what lay ahead all the more exciting.
“You’re very sure of yourself, Lord Rashid.”
“As are you, Ms. Benning.” He smiled. “You’ll be a worthy adversary.”
“If I were to accept your proposition. But it’s out of the question. It’s so outlandish.”
“Is it?”