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“Something is obviously wrong,” she said, sitting tall and still, her slender hands folded in her lap.
His body ached. His erection throbbed. His blood felt like hot, spiced wine, and he was on edge, the night suddenly erotic, electric.
He told himself it was the candlelight and the moon—pale gold and three-quarters full. It was the warm breeze in the palms teasing his senses, making him more restless than usual.
But it wasn’t the soft glow of light, or the breeze or the rich, musky scent of roses, but her.
Hannah.
He was absolutely sure he was doing the right thing in sending her to London in the morning. He wouldn’t allow doubts to creep in or cloud his thinking. She’d like the London division. She’d be an asset there. By tomorrow afternoon she’d be installed in her new office, meeting her new team, and knowing Hannah, she’d settle in quickly.
But somehow it seemed wrong to break the news to her like this, now, when she looked so beautiful that she took his breath away.
“That’s a new dress,” he said curtly, his tone almost accusatory.
Bewildered by the sharpness in his voice, her brows pulled together. “No. It’s not new. I’ve had it for a while.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
She ran a light hand across her lap, as if smoothing imaginary wrinkles from the silky chiffon. “I haven’t ever worn it around you before.”
“Why now?”
Her lips pursed and she looked at him strangely. “I can go change if you’d like.” She started to rise. “I didn’t realize the dress would upset you—”
“It hasn’t.”
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not.”
“I’ll put on something else—”
“Sit.” His deep voice rumbled through the garden, sounding too loud as it bounced and echoed off the high garden walls. It’s not her fault, he told himself. She hadn’t done anything wrong. He was the one who’d decided to send her away. She hadn’t asked to go. “Please,” he added more quietly.
She sank back into her chair, her wide lavender-blue gaze wary.
He closed the distance between them, leaned on the back of his chair and struggled to find the right words. The words that would allow him to put her on the plane to Heathrow tomorrow with the least amount of drama possible. He hated drama. Hated tears.
But closer to her wasn’t better. Closer just made him more aware of how very appealing she was.
The pleated orange-chiffon gown left her slim, pale shoulders bare. The dress’s neckline was hidden by a wide gold collar. And with her long dark hair loose and her eyes rimmed in a smoky gray, she looked like an exotic princess from a children’s storybook. He could almost imagine she was waiting for the brave knight, the noble prince, who could sweep her away, give her that storybook ending.
If he were the sort of royal who believed in that sort of thing.
Which he wasn’t. He didn’t. He was too practical. Too driven. Too ambitious. He had a purpose in life. A mission. It wasn’t enough that he be a great leader for his people. His personal mission was bigger than the borders of Kadar. His mission was to help the world.
It sounded grandiose. Perhaps it even made him sound a bit like a prig. But if his father could accomplish what he had with a brutal degenerative disease, then Makin could accomplish even more.
He had to.
The world was polluting itself to death, choking on chemicals and strangling on debt. The rich were getting richer and the poor, sick and hungry were still suffering and dying at a staggering rate.
For the past five years he’d met privately with powerful, wealthy visionaries from the music industry and high-tech businesses, to pool resources and make an even greater impact around the world. The goal was to get clean water to all people, to help immunize children in all third-world countries, to provide mosquito nets to help protect all vulnerable people from malaria.
Food. Shelter. Education. Safety.
For all children, regardless of religion, race, culture or gender.
This was his goal. This was his life’s ambition. And this was why he was sending her away.
She’d become a distraction. A liability. And nothing could come between him and his work.
“Sheikh Al-Koury, are you firing me?”
Her uncertain voice broke the silence.
He turned his head, glanced at her, felt a dull ache in his chest.
Damn her. Damn the garden. Damn the moonlight and the orange floaty fabric of her dress that clung to her small, firm breasts and made him want things he couldn’t want with her.
“Yes,” he said roughly. “No. Not firing. It’s a transfer.”
“Transfer to where?”
“The London office.”
“But I live in Dallas.”
“You’ve always enjoyed London.”
“But my home—”
“Will now be London.” His gaze met hers. He steeled himself, reminding himself that the only way to pull this off was to be ruthless. Hard. “If you no longer wish to work for me, I understand. But if you do, you’ll embrace the challenges of your new position in the marketing and public relations department for the international division.”
There. He’d said it. Makin exhaled. For the first time in days he felt relief. He felt in control again.
Silence stretched. The only sound in the garden was the bubble and splash of the fountain and the swish and whisper of palm fronds overhead.
Hannah’s smooth jaw shifted, her lips compressed, but still she said nothing, which provoked him. She worked for him, not the other way around. It was her job to accept. Acquiesce. To make this change comfortable and easy for all of them.
“It’s a promotion,” he said tautly. “Human resources will provide you with temporary housing until you find something you like—”
“I like my job here, with you.”
“You’re needed elsewhere now.”
“Yesterday you needed me here.”
“Things change.”
Her lips parted ever so slightly as if realizing where this was going, and why.
He hoped she’d gracefully fold, accept his new plan for her. He needed her to concede.
Her gaze turned beseeching. “Alejandro was a mistake. I admit I made a mistake—”
“It has nothing to do with Alejandro—”
“It has everything to do with Alejandro,” she cried.
“You’re wrong,” he countered, torn between wanting to comfort her and crush her because all she needed to do was accept. Give. Agree. Not fight. Not cry. Not make him feel an ounce more emotion tonight.
“I’m not stupid,” she said, eyes still shimmering but now flashing with bright hot sparks.
“No, you aren’t.”
“Then why?” She leaned forward, cheeks flushed, breasts rising and falling with every quick breath. “For four years I have given you everything. For four years I have made your goals mine. For four years I have put your needs before mine. I don’t take vacations. I don’t use sick days. I don’t have a social life. I don’t even have a fashionable wardrobe. My life is all about you, and only you.”
“All the more reason you need to go to London.”
She shot him a withering look, a look that should have cooled his hunger, but it didn’t, and he couldn’t remember when he’d last felt this way—so raw and physical, so completely carnal.
Before French-born Madeline had been his mistress there had been Jenny, a stunning English woman, and like Madeline, she’d been slim and blonde and very bright. He’d always been attracted to blonde, intelligent women. He took care of his mistresses, too, financially, and physically. When he made love with his mistress, he made sure she was pleasured. He wanted her happy. But he didn’t offer love. Nor would he.
It wasn’t her fault, he’d told Madeline more than once. It was his. He wasn’t sensitive. Wasn’t the type to feel certain emotions. Wasn’t the type to feel passion.
And yet at the moment Makin literally felt as if he was on fire, his skin hot, nerves sensitive, his body rippling with tension and need. It wasn’t rational. And far from civilized. He wanted to grab her, shake her—
He broke off with a shake of his own head. Madness. He’d never wanted to shake a woman before, or drag her from her chair and into his arms. He didn’t lose control. Didn’t feel strong emotions. So what was happening to him now?
“There will be a bump in your salary, as well as better benefits,” he said. “Including another week of vacation.”
Her lips curved. “Another week to add to the weeks and months I’ve never used?”
“Perhaps it’s time you started taking those holidays.”
“Perhaps it is.”
Her tart tone made him see red. Sassy, saucy wench. How dare she speak to him with that attitude? How dare she smirk at him from beneath those long, black lashes as if he was the problem, not she?
What the hell was happening to him? He didn’t even know himself at the moment. His shaft ached and throbbed and his hands itched to reach for her, catch her by the wrist and pull her toward him so that he could take her mouth, cover that mocking twist of her lips with his and make her his.
It wasn’t a desire but a need. To know her. Feel her. Make her part of him.
His fingers flexed and balled before returning to hard fists. Clearly he wasn’t himself.
He wasn’t an aggressive man, and he didn’t drag women about, and he didn’t teach them lessons, but right now he wanted to remind her who he was, and what he was and how he wasn’t a man to be trifled with.
He was Sheikh Makin Al-Koury, one of the world’s most powerful men. He had a plan and a vision and nothing distracted him from it.
Certainly not his secretary. She was disposable. Dispensable. Replaceable. And he’d proved it by swiftly organizing the job transfer to London.
“So why this. promotion. now?” she asked, her gaze meeting his and holding, expression challenging.
“I’m ready for a change. And I think you are, too.”
Her eyes sparked blue fire. Her eyebrows lifted. “How kind of you to think for me.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Good, and I respectfully ask that you don’t make decisions for me based on what you think I need. You do not know me. You know nothing about me—”
“That’s actually not respectful. And I do know you. I know virtually everything about you.”
She laughed. Out loud. Practically in his face.
“If you knew me, Your Highness,” she drawled his title, “you’d know who I am.” She paused a moment, lashes dropping, concealing the hot bright blue of her eyes. “And who I am not.”
Maybe he shouldn’t transfer her to London. Maybe he should fire her. Her impudence was galling. He wouldn’t have accepted this blatant lack of respect from anyone but her.
“You go too far,” he thundered. He hadn’t actually raised his voice, but his tone was so hard and fierce that it silenced her immediately.
She fell back into her seat, shoulders tense, lips pressed thinly. For a moment he imagined he saw pain in her eyes and then it was gone, replaced by a stony chill.
“I’m trying to help you,” he said quietly.
She looked away, her gaze settling on the bubbling fountain. “You’re trying to get rid of me.”
“Maybe I am.”
And there it was. The truth. Spoken aloud.
He’d said it and he saw by the way she flinched she’d heard it, too.
For a long, endless moment they sat in silence, she staring at the blue ceramic fountain while he stared at her, drinking in her profile, memorizing the delicate, elegant lines of her face. He’d never appreciated her beauty before, had never seen the high-winged eyebrow, the prominent thrust of her cheekbone, the full, sensual curve of her lips.
His chest grew tight, a spasm of intense sensation. Regret. A whisper of pain. He would miss her.
“Is that it, then?” she asked, turning her head to look at him, dark hair spilling across her shoulder and over the soft ripe chiffon of her orange dress. She was staring deeply into his eyes as if she were trying to see straight through him, into the very heart of him.
He let her look, too, knowing she couldn’t see anything, knowing she, like everyone else, only saw what he allowed people to see.
Which was nothing.
Nothing but distance. And hollow space.
Years ago knowing that his father was dying and that his mother didn’t want to live without his father, he’d constructed the wall around his emotions, burying his heart behind brick and mortar. No one, not even Madeline, was given access to his emotions. No one was ever allowed that close.
