Free Gambling With the Crown by Lynn Raye Harris Page B

talking about.”
    She looked at him, her pulse thrumming, her ears growing warm. “Isn’t it?”
    He shook his head slowly. “Not at all.” His eyes narrowed. “I am not quite accustomed to this side of you. The side that—how do you say it?—sasses me.”
    She sniffed. “You wanted a wife, not an employee. A wife would not, I hope, take your pronouncements as law. She would state her opinions, even were they contrary to yours.”
    “And you have done a fine job of this. Even when there were no witnesses and therefore no need.”
    “No need? Kadir, you’d mow a girl down if she didn’t let you know she wasn’t going to take it.”
    One eyebrow lifted imperiously. “Surely I am not so callous as all that.”
    Emily leaned back on the seat and tried to appear casual. Was he really that clueless about his tendencies to overwhelm?
    “You’re intense, Kadir. You take over a room when you walk into it. You pull people to you, and you get what you want from them. I’ve seen it again and again. And the women you seduce? They don’t stand a chance.”
    “Are you certain? You are speaking from observation, not experience.”
    Her mouth went dry. She licked her lips nervously. It was as if he were offering to show her, though he had not said any such thing. “I don’t see how that changes anything.”
    His gaze was hooded and her heart performed a slow thump-thump-thump.
    “Perhaps it does. Perhaps, if I were to seduce you, you would get what you want, Emily. Perhaps it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement instead of the one-sided venture you envision it to be.”
    Heat blossomed in her belly, slid into her bones, turned her into rubber. He wasn’t actually offering, she told herself. He was simply trying to control her. Still, she couldn’t move without wobbling. She didn’t dare to move.
    “And yet we will never know.” She had to force the words out, but she was proud they didn’t quaver. “Because that is not part of our deal.”
    “Yet deals can be amended.”
    Emily swallowed. The air in the car was suddenly thick and hot, and she wanted desperately to bend over and stick her face right in the air-conditioning vent. To pull some cold air into her lungs while she tried to find her equilibrium again.
    She knew how to handle herself with Prince Kadir al-Hassan, her boss. She had no real clue how to deal with Kadir the man. With him, she was completely out of her element. It was as though she’d been riding a pony tied to a lead line and now someone had stuck her on top of a racehorse and told her she was about to ride in the Kentucky Derby.
    The only defense she had was the truth. “If you want me to be at my best, you really need to stop. We aren’t at war, Kadir. There doesn’t need to be a victor.”
    He snorted. “And what I am trying to tell you is that you have a rather warped idea about seduction. It’s not a win-or-lose game.”
    Yet it was for her. At least where he was concerned. Because if she ever crossed that line, if she ever slept with him, then her career at Hassan Construction was over. She couldn’t slip back into her role as his PA if that happened. Not only that, but sleeping with him would make her the sort of woman she was determined not to be. Giving in to the sensual side of her nature with a man like Kadir? Utterly destructive.
    Emily drew in a breath, tried to instill herself with calm energy rather than the chaotic emotions whipping through her. And then she figured out what was happening between them. The answer popped into her head with such clarity that she was surprised she hadn’t realized it before.
    Kadir wasn’t serious. He was prodding her because she’d argued with him. He was taking the conversation as far as he could with the goal of shutting down her protests. She’d seen him do it in negotiations a hundred times. She’d seen him take the most unwilling landowner and turn them into an enthusiastic seller by the end of the day.
    He conquered