He shook his head. ‘I was informed that you were the best head-hunter in town—I already told you that.’
‘Thank you.’
Her blue eyes shone a challenge at him and he found himself smiling in response. ‘You also asked me whether I had employed you so that I could seduce you.’
Some of her customary grit returned and she didn’t flinch beneath his mocking gaze. ‘But you neatly avoided answering me, didn’t you, Khalim?’
‘Did I?’
‘You know you did.’
He narrowed her a speculative glance, then shrugged. ‘I can’t deny that I find you beautiful, or that I want you in my bed, but—’
She sucked in a breath which was both shocked and yet profoundly excited. The men she knew just didn’t say things like that! ‘But what?’
‘Sleeping with me isn’t a prerequisite for landing the contract.’
‘But will I get a bonus if I do succumb to your charms?’ she asked flippantly.
Khalim’s face darkened and he very nearly pulled her to him to punish her with a kiss which would dare her to ever mock him so again. But he stopped himself in time; instead, he forced himself to imagine how sweet the victory would be after such a protracted battle!
‘Put it this way,’ he warned her silkily, ‘that as a man I will attempt to seduce you—no red-blooded Marabanesh would do otherwise.’ A slow, glittering look. ‘But you are perfectly within your rights to turn me down.’
Rose stared at him as she felt the irrevocable unfurling of desire, knowing that his words were iced with an implicit boast. That no woman Khalim attempted to lure to bed would ever be able to resist him.
And Rose had spent her life resisting men who saw her as just a trophy girlfriend, with her blonde hair and her bright blue eyes. Just you wait and see, Prince Khalim! she thought.
He was intrigued by the defiant little tilt of her chin, and his need for her grew. He controlled his desire with an effort and distracted himself by flicking another glance at his watch.
‘Do you want to look out of the window?’ he asked unsteadily. ‘We’re coming into Maraban.’
CHAPTER SIX
SUNLIGHT danced and shimmered across a wide expanse of water, and Rose was spellbound—enough to be impervious to the sudden build-up of tension which his silken words had produced.
‘Water!’ she exclaimed as the beauty of the scene below momentarily drove all her newly learned facts about the country straight out of her head. ‘But I thought—’
‘That you would be coming to a barren and desolate land with not a drop of water in sight?’ he chided. ‘That is the Caspian Sea, Rose, and the borders of Maraban lie on its Western shores.’
‘Oh, but it’s beautiful!’
‘You seem to think everything about Maraban is beautiful,’ he commented indulgently.
‘But it is!’
He thought how wonderfully uninhibited her appreciation was, and how her eyes sparkled like the blue waters of the Caspian itself.
‘Fasten your seat belt,’ he murmured gently. ‘The heat can sometimes make the landing turbulent.
But, in the event, their descent to Maraban was as smooth as honey, and as the plane taxied down the runway Rose could see a large number of men standing in line, all in flowing robes which fluttered in the small breeze created by the aircraft.
‘Gosh, it’s a deputation,’ she observed.
Khalim leaned across her and glanced out of the window, and her senses were invaded by the subtle persuasion of sandalwood.
‘I shall go out alone,’ he told her. ‘If you want to go and freshen up.’
‘So you don’t want to risk being seen with me, Khalim?’ she asked wryly. ‘Are you planning to smuggle me off the plane with a blanket over my head?