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When Jaul had approached her in the library where she was stacking shelves one day a feeeks after their firsta book, she had been polite and helpful as befitted a humble employee keen to keep her job

‘I’d like to take you out to dinner so,’ he had murmured after she’d slotted the book into his lean brown hand

He had thedark eyes, pure lustrous jet enticement in his lean, darkly handsome face In his presence herhad fractured while she’dto look at hie so powerful it had almost qualified as a need Infuriated by the dizzy way she was reacting, she’d thought instead of how he had treated Nessa Jaul had chased sexual conquest, nothing ot what he wanted he’d lost interest and casual sex with young women as uninhibited and adventurous as Nessa had suited hi for a relationship with all the li friendship or caring or fidelity

‘I’m sorry, no,’ Chrissie had said woodenly

‘Why not?’ Jaul had asked without hesitation

‘Between my studies and my two part-time jobs, I have very little free time,’ Chrissie had told hio home and visit my family’

‘Lunch, then,’ Jaul had suggested smoothly ‘Surely you could lunch with me some day?’

‘But I don’t want to,’ Chrissie had confessed abruptly, backing off a step, feeling cornered and slightly intiht and size of him in the narrow space between the book stacks

A fine ebony brow had quirked ‘I have offended you in some way?’

‘We just wouldn’t suit,’ Chrissie had countered between gritted teeth, her irritation rising at his refusal to siative response

‘In ay?’

‘You’re everything I don’t like,’ Chrissie had framed in a sudden burst of frustration ‘You don’t study, you party You run around with a lot of different woo to Paris for dinner! I don’t want dia to bed with you!’

‘And if I didn’t offer you Paris, diamonds or sex?’