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“Did you never hear the saying, ‘When in Rome…’”
“Roman women had more status than they do here.”
“That’s changing.”
Megan folded her arms. “Not that I can see!”
A muscle knotted in Caz’s jaw. “Must you fight me over everything?” His voice hardened. “You insisted you were the right person for this job. Are you?”
She swung toward him, ready to take him on, but the look on his face stopped her. Besides, he was right. Why wave a red flag in front of a bull? It just made her uneasy to give up her western suit for a caftan, and wasn’t that silly? She’d still be the same woman…
She would, wouldn’t she?
“Megan?”
Reluctantly she nodded. “Yes. All right. If I have to—’’
“Good. I’ve told my driver to stop just before we reach the helipad. He’ll set up a small tent. You can use it as a dressing room.” Caz hesitated. “There’s one other thing.”
“Now what?”
“I’ve explained that you’re a clerk.”
Her eyes widened. She looked, he thought, as if he’d slapped her.
“Are you crazy? I am not going to let you pass me off as—”
She gasped as he reached out and caught her by the shoulders.
“What do you want them to think, damn it? In their world, there’s only one reason a man would take a woman with him on such a trip.”
“I have three degrees,” she said, knowing how foolish she sounded, knowing, too, that she could not, would not let him relegate her to the role he’d clearly intended for her all along. “I will not—”
“You will do as you’re told. Or—”
“Stop threatening me! You won’t send me back home. You can’t.” Her eyes were bright with challenge. “You need me, Qasim, and you know it.”
“You’re right,” he said through clenched teeth. “I need you here, but there’s another solution.” Heat slammed through his blood as he pulled her into his arms. “I’ll simply let them think you belong to me.”
His mouth claimed hers. She struggled, but only for the time it took him to nip her bottom lip and slide his tongue into her mouth. Then she made a little sound of surrender and arched against him, returning his kisses, crying out when he put his hand under her jacket, cupped her breast, felt the nipple rise and thrust against his palm.
He let her go so abruptly that she fell back in the seat. He had to; otherwise, he knew he’d have pushed up her skirt, freed himself, taken her, taken her, taken her…
She stared at him, her eyes bright with angry tears.
“I despise you,” she whispered, and Caz decided that made a lot of sense because right now, he despised himself, too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE helicopter flew over a land that was as untamed as it was beautiful.
Undulating waves of golden sand. Vivid patches of dark green, guarding sapphire-blue pools of water. A vulture with black-tipped wings, soaring in lazy circles and once, most startling of all, a herd of horses galloped under the dark shadow of the ’copter as it passed over them.
Megan had questions about the land, the animals that lived on it, the village they were flying to, but there was no one to ask. Qasim sat across from her in icy removal, reading papers he’d taken from his briefcase as soon as they’d boarded.
She was on her own.
Well, that was fine with her. She had her own notes to read through, and any questions she had about where they were going would be answered soon enough. For a little while, she lost herself in facts and figures, but they began to blur and, finally, she closed her notebook and put it away.
