She wouldn’t dignify his games with an answer. Let him speak first. Let him be the one to grope for explanations.

But her righteous anger collapsed on itself, even as she confronted the enormity of her problem. This wasn’t a small matter. Ben’s whole future was at stake. Rather than provoking Kahlil, she needed to work with him, humor him. The baby-sitter, Mrs. Taylor, would be dropping Ben off at eleven, less than three hours from now. She needed to be home by then, and she had to be rid of Kahlil by then. “Badly,” she choked.

“Badly enough to risk everything?”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“You’d become mine for the weekend.”

She reached for her water glass, lifted it to her mouth. The rim of the chilled glass clicked against her teeth, icy water sloshing against her lips.

He leaned forward. “I want you for a weekend.”

“That’s your proposal?”

“I’m giving you an opportunity to take control of your life.”

“I spend a weekend with you, and you’d grant me a divorce?”

“If my terms were met.”

He made it sound so easy. Bryn stared at the water drops darkening the white cloth, her mind strangely blank. No words, no sound, no light filtering through her brain. “And those terms…?”

“I want a long weekend with you. Four days. Three nights. City of my choosing.”

She touched one of the damp drops on the tablecloth with her finger. “You want me to be your wife.”

“I want you to be my lover.”

Her head lifted, gaze meeting his. He smiled without a hint of warmth in the eyes. “I want to possess you, enjoy you at my leisure, and make you mine—completely mine—again.”

Something inside her stirred, hunger, awareness. He knew how she responded to him. He knew he could seduce her at the drop of the hat. “You don’t think I have the strength to walk away from you a second time.”

He shrugged. “Did I say that?”

“You don’t have to. I know you.”

“If you please me, I shall process the divorce papers in Zwar. If you cannot fulfill the required duties to my satisfaction, you shall return to Zwar with me and take lessons from the palace concubines.”

“Either way, you win.”

He ignored that. “You’d only sacrifice four days of your life, and surely, Stan’s love is worth at least that?”

Stan’s love was worth more, but Kahlil’s price…

Four days in his bed. Four days making love. A vision of tangled limbs, warm bodies, damp skin flashed before her and she felt blood race to her cheeks.