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His heartless words tore into her and Sienna recoiled from the blatant sexuality which shimmered from him like a halo. ‘Are you suggesting…suggesting that I go to bed with you?’
‘I’m not particularly fussy about the venue,’ he drawled, and nodded his dark head in the direction of a sumptuous scarlet velvet chaise-longue. ‘That might provide a stimulating setting, don’t you think? Ever done it on one of those?’
The question made her feel cheap, but presumably that had been his intention. ‘You have to be out of your mind,’ she breathed.
‘My mind has nothing to do with it,’ he said silkily. ‘So what do you say, Sienna—are going to risk all you’ve worked for going up in smoke, or are you going to do the sensible thing and accept the commission?’
Sensible? She suspected that jumping off a high cliff would have been more sensible, but Sienna cared desperately about the career she had worked so hard for. Her job relied almost entirely on word-of-mouth recommendations, and even if she fudged the real reasons for her reluctance to work for Hashim it would reflect badly on her. Very badly. People might start to think she had issues…that she was difficult to work with…
Did she have a choice?
No.
But if she was to be forced into a corner by his autocratic will, then it was vital that she stopped behaving like a victim. Was she going to let him think that she was scared of him? Cowed by him? Unable to resist his sensual lure?
Never!
She nodded, drawing in a deep breath to give her courage. ‘Very well. Since you give me little choice I will accept your commission. Satisfied?’
Hashim felt the stirring of excitement and anticipation. So he had won the first battle. A battle he had not been expecting—but when he stopped to think about it would instant capitulation have pleased him? No. Nothing in life felt so good as something which you had to fight for. ‘Oh, no, Sienna—not at all satisfied. But I intend to be. Believe me when I tell you that.’
She could hear the sultry note of desire which had deepened his voice and decided to ignore it. Act professionally, she reminded herself.
‘Right,’ she said coolly. ‘Let’s talk business—’
‘Alas!’
He cut her short with an imperious wave of his hand, though he didn’t look or sound in the least bit regretful.
‘It cannot be now,’ he murmured. ‘For I have another appointment.’
Sienna stared at him, knowing that he could have broken any darned appointment he wanted but was choosing not to.
‘So I will meet with you tomorrow to discuss the details of my…requirements. Over dinner, of course,’ he finished silkily.
She opened her mouth to say that she didn’t do dinner with clients—except that would not have been true. Of course she did. She could not refuse him—he knew it and she knew it. Never in her life had she felt so helpless—like a fish with a great big hook in its mouth, just about to be reeled in by a heartless man who would like to gobble her up for breakfast.
‘Very well. Dinner tomorrow it is. But you can wipe that triumphant smile off your face right now, Hashim—because the party is all you are getting and I mean that. There’s no way I’m going to sleep with you!’
He said nothing, but gave a mocking smile, lifting a thick brown envelope from the ornate table beside the door and handing it to her. ‘You may want to look at this,’ he said.
Something in his eyes told her that this was nothing to do with the party, and her heart began to pound. She realised the contents at the exact moment she asked the question. ‘What is it?’
‘Oh, just an old calendar,’ he drawled. ‘You may recognise it.’
CHAPTER FOUR
SIENNA took the envelope downstairs to an empty office, then pulled out the calendar and stared at it dully. She hadn’t seen it for a long, long time, and she was scarcely able to recognise herself in the sexy and provocative poses. She guessed that by today’s standards it was pretty tame—but even so, nothing could disguise the earthy sensuality of the pictures.
They had flown her out to the Caribbean and dressed her in a variety of clothes—well, that wasn’t strictly true, for the garments had all been designed to reveal rather than conceal, and they had all left her breasts on show. But that had been the whole point.
A filmy kaftan soaked with water. The bottom half of a low-slung bikini. A glittery thong. Sienna closed her eyes, but was unable to block out the vivid, Technicolor images.
She remembered her initial feeling of panic when they had told her what they wanted her to do. It had taken two rum punches before she had been able to lie face down in the sand and smoulder at the camera for the first of the shots.
