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“No.” She caught the tip of his finger between her teeth as he stroked it over her mouth. “I just…I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”
Why should that make him feel so happy? “Are the men in California blind?”
She laughed softly. “It’s not them, it’s me. I’ve been so focused on my career. You know. College. Grad school. Scrambling up the corporate ladder—”
“Difficult, I’d bet, when some men are busy sawing through the rungs.” Megan’s surprise showed on her face, and Caz tapped the tip of her nose with his finger. “Now who’s being a chauvinist, kalila? Don’t you think I know that it’s tough being a woman in a man’s world?”
“Do you, really? I thought—I mean, from the things you said that day in my office…”
“What I said was the truth. Most of my countrymen aren’t prepared to see women as equals. Not the ones who live in—what do you call it? The sticks. Not them.”
“And you want to change that.”
“Yes. Absolutely. I have changed it, at least a little, in Suliyam City.”
“But not in your palace.”
“There, too.”
“No way.” Megan sat up and pulled the blankets to her chin. “You put me in the harem, remember? There’s nothing equal about that.”
“That was tradition.”
“And that’s a clever way of saying one thing and doing another.”
“Hey.” Caz grabbed her and tugged her down next to him. “Are we going to quarrel?”
Were they? She looked at him and the little sparks of anger that had come to life died away. How could she quarrel with this man now? She was in his arms again, looking up at him, seeing her reflection in his eyes…
And feeling an emotion so overwhelming it terrified her.
“No,” she said, on a deep sigh. Smiling, she reached up and pushed his dark hair back from his forehead. “No, we’re not going to quarrel.”
Caz smiled. “Good. Because there’s nothing to quarrel about, kalila. The tradition I referred to has to do with the king bringing an unmarried woman to live under his roof.”
“Not good, huh?”
“Not good if that same king is about to set off on a tough selling job to a difficult audience.”
Megan nodded. “Roads. Schools. Hospitals. All badly needed, and all requiring an infusion of capital.”
“Foreign capital, and even the thought of foreign investors having a stake in Suliyam’s resources makes some of the old tribal chieftains shudder.”
“So, how will you manage?”
“I’ll show them facts and figures. They’re tough, but they’re reasonable.”
“Unlike Ahmet.”
“Very unlike Ahmet.” Caz smiled. “Amazing.”
“What?”
“That in all the years I’ve dealt with financial advisors, accountants and auditors, I never once ended up in bed with one of them.”
She laughed. “Not so amazing, considering your last financial wizard was a sixty-year-old man.”
Caz tried to look horrified. “You checked up on me?”
