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Since he hadn’t knohen he could slot this interview into his hectic schedule, he’d decided to do it the second he had a couple of hours of freedom This would have left him around three hours to sleep before his next chore, but after weeks of fractions of an hour of exhausting oblivion, three hours still felt like a luxury

On his way to this interview, he’d drifted into another fitful episode of unconsciousness the moment he’d hit his seat and had jolted awake to this—this vision

There was no other word to describe her And that’s when his tastes had always gravitated towards dark beauty Or so he’d thought until he’d seen this incandescent creature

There was no doubt what his preference was now, or would remain It had forradation of the colors of the dunes of his kingdom, eyes that reflected the azure of its skies and the translucence of its seas, complexion of its richest crea by God It was her

He’d never known such attraction, so much so he’d at first wondered if his exhaustedtricks on him But not anyher injured driver with her, and everything that had colance penetrating hi hi hi a code he’d lived by since he’d turned seventeen A code he’d thought unbreakable

He never made the first move towards a woman Or the second, or the last It had been he who had received advances, and had shunned them mostly That had still left many, maybe even too many he’d decided to accept But he had a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, alwayssure these wo for similar transient entertainment and understood in advance the details of what to expect froratification—and whatever he saw fit to bestow on the of the ways

But none of that applied here His code, his rules were nowhere to be found And that when she’d certainly made no advances, in any for thenant, and resistant, she, too, was at the mercy of this incredible affinity He was certain of it

He now held those eyes that had so far reflected such an entrancing uile-lessness They were noin displays of total shock

Then he spoke into his phone “And here I thought the Jay Latimer I was onof a lifetime”

And he was now certain why Shaaker had tried his best to dissuade hi The sly desert jackal hadn’t wanted to give the opportunity up

Malek chuckled at how things had turned out, at the way she kept the phone glued to her ear, her stare widening

“I guess I don’t need to tell you what kept ain, still into the phone “Or beg your forgiveness for having to be even later”

She snatched her phone from her ear as if it had burned her, looked from it and back to him in what he could only describe as horror And he couldn’t believe how her distress disturbed him

He snapped his phone shut and turned fully to her, anxious to dispel it, and the change in his position brought his thigh against hers, only itation

He readjusted his pose, severed the contact Even when it was the last thing he wanted to do He just had to soothe her

“If not for the accident,” he began, keeping his voice tranquil, as if gentling a skittish mare, “and for my and my men’s role in it, I’d say this is a very happy occasion For us to ed time, over a matter of life and death There’s no introduction to beat coree this just has to be fate”