The Sheikh's Convenient Bride

“To one that ends quickly, Sheikh Qasim.”

Her expression was defiant. He thought about pulling her into his arms again and changing that insolent look to a look of passion, but sanity prevailed.

“Good night, Megan.”

“Good night, Qasim.”

His brows lifted but he didn’t say anything. Still, as he stepped into the damp night, he laughed softly to himself. She was, as the Americans would say, some piece of work. Calling him by his given name. No honorific, no title…It was, he supposed, her way of making sure he knew she wasn’t impressed.

Caz turned up his collar, slipped behind the wheel of his Lamborghini and turned the ignition key.

These next weeks would be interesting, but they wouldn’t last forever. Someday, they would meet on different terms, he as a man, she as a woman. When they did, he’d put an end to all this nonsense. He’d take her to bed and keep her there until she begged for mercy, until the both of them sated their hunger and grew weary of each other.

He pulled away from the curb, his headlights boring into the darkness of the California night.

Someday, he’d have all of Megan O’Connell he wanted.

But not yet.

CHAPTER SIX

WHAT did you pack for a trip to a place that was still a mystery to the world?

Megan phoned Briana. Her sister wasn’t in, so she left a message on her voice mail.

Hi, Bree. I’m leaving for a place called Suliyam tomorrow early in the A.M. Details when I get back but boy, I wish you were there. Maybe you could help me figure out what to pack. Anyway, hope you’re having fun. Talk to you in a week or two.

Sighing, she headed for the bedroom, flung open the door to the closet and stared inside. Bree had more stamps and visas on her passport than any of them except, maybe, Sean. But the odds were that not even Bree could have advise her on what was right for this trip.

Maybe she should have listened to Qasim when he’d tried to give her advice, but she’d been so furious with him by then that listening to anything he had to say was beyond her.

Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, her mother would have warned, just as she had years ago when Megan was fourteen and moaning over the fact that nobody had asked her to a school dance. Fallon, a stunner at sixteen with boys tripping over each other in efforts to please her, had volunteered one of them as an escort.

“Tommy says he’d love to take you, Meg,” she’d said.

“He just wants to score points with you.”

“Maybe,” Fallon had said cheerfully. “But he’s cute, he’s nice, and you’ll have fun.”

“No, I won’t. Tell him to forget about it.”

Me

gan spent the night of the dance at home, looking sad and hoping for pity from her mother. Instead Mary had told her to stop sulking, followed by that no-nonsense advice about the folly of refusing something you really wanted, just to make a point.

Megan sighed and sank down on the edge of her bed.

Good counsel then. Great counsel now. Too bad she hadn’t been ready to admit it an hour ago.

She knew a bit about Suliyam’s culture, a lot about its finances and natural resources, thanks to her research, but that was it. What was the weather like, this time of year? What was its capital city like, and was that where they were going? What sort of hotel would she be in?

And what about that comment Qasim had made, that she wouldn’t be able to speak to him when they met with his people? He’d sounded dead serious. Not that it mattered. She’d change that first thing. There’d been no sense in saying so because it would just have led to a quarrel and that was all they’d done since they met.

Well, no. They’d done more than that. They’d turned each other on with a touch.

That last kiss had been enough to turn her inside out. It didn’t make sense. Qasim wasn’t her type.

Megan rolled her eyes.