Page 13 of The Sheikh's Million Dollar Bride

“Why in the world would I do that?” She shook her head. “I’ve barely thought of you these last five years,” a lie that convinced neither of them. “And you show up out of the blue expecting me to just waltz into your bed? No way, Syed. I’ve moved on.”

He didn’t dignify the response with an answer.

“I think you have demonstrated just how untrue that is,” he said with a quiet danger.

She shivered. “How dare you?”

“I dare, because I want you. I have wanted you a long time, and now I am free to pursue you.”

She pounced on the small detail, for all the questions it aroused. “Why? What’s changed?”

He thought of the arranged marriage he had finally freed himself from. “A great deal.”

“Such as?” She demanded.

He thought of the woman he’d been intended to marry and only a desire not to wound Sarah further kept him from admitting the truth. He changed the subject, bringing it back to one of the reasons he’d returned. “You still want me.”

Her cheeks flamed, but she couldn’t – wouldn’t – deny it. “That’s just a physical response,” she muttered. “Looking after a child has hardly left me with a lot of spare time to trawl bars and seduce strangers.”

Relief was giddying. “All the more reason to accept my proposal.”

“And?” She snapped. “What do you want? To come up to my bed now? Have a quickie and then off you go again? No way. No. Never.” Even as she said it, she knew how close she was to submitting to him. To begging him to make love to her. One more time. One more memory for her precious, precious files.

“You have not yet heard the terms.”

“Terms?” She responded, her expression rich with disbelief. “Is it a business proposal now?”

“Of a sort,” he nodded curtly.

; Great. Could anything be worse than this? To be sitting opposite the love of her life discussing sleeping together as though it were a simple matter of contractual understanding?

“But it’s still… you’ve still showed up on my doorstep because you want a … a … quickie?” Her cheeks coloured at the crude term but in that moment she was struggling to think of the right way to give voice to what he was suggesting.

His eyes flicked with the hint of amusement. “There would be nothing quick about it.”

She knew that wasn’t empty bragging. Syed’s stamina had the power to rob her of breath.

He could see the temptation that licked at her heels. But he needed to draw her over the line. Thinking of the pile of demanding bills in her kitchen, he leaned closer. “I would compensate you very, very well for the night.”

CHAPTER THREE

“How dare you?” She was shivering from head to toe. “Did you just suggest you’d pay me for sex?”

His eyes flashed; his jaw clenched but after a long beat he nodded. “That is a very crude interpretation of what I’m suggesting. You need money. I need you. I have money. I do not have you. This equation is, to my mind, incredibly simple.”

“It’s incredibly offensive,” she spat angrily. “And how the hell do you know anything about my finances?”

He didn’t answer that directly, though the demanding red letters were burned into his mind. “Look around you, najin,” He said quietly. “Can you deny it?”

“I…” The very idea of her bank statement filled her with a well of panic. Nausea and despair were swirling through her. How could she work so hard and still barely make ends meet? Her credit card was a black hole she seemed unable to fill.

“I am not talking about a small sum,” he pushed throatily.

Her eyes fluttered closed on what he was suggesting. Offering. But at what cost? “I’m not for sale.”

“But you do want me. True?”