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CHAPTER ONE

“THE Ehness Sheikh Kaden Bin Rashad al Abbas”

Kaden looked out over the thronged ballrooy Club Everyone was staring at him and a hush had descended on the crowd, but that didn’t bother Kaden He was used to such attention

He walked down the ornatedispassionately as people were caught staring and turned away hurriedly again Well, to be ered—some blatantly so Like that of the buxo at the bottone She slass but Kaden had already looked away; she was far too young for his jaded heart and soul

Ever since he’d been a teenager he’d been aware he possessed a certain pohen it cah, and saw his own harsh features staring back at him, he wondered cynically if all they felt was the seductive urge to wipe away that cynicis softer He had been softer … once But it was so long ago now that he could hardly remember what it had felt like It was like a dream, and perhaps like all dreams it had never been real

Just then a li all the darker ones had his insides contracting Still Even now He cursed hi director hurrying towards hirily why he hadn’t yet mastered such arbitrarily reflexive responses to thethat had only ever been as flimsy as a dream

Julia So her feel a little dizzy

Kaden

Here

In the same room

He’d descended the stairs and disappeared into the throng of people, despite his superior height But that first i in the doorway like sood, would be etched on her retina for ever It was an ie that was already carved indelibly onto her heart The part of her heart that she couldn’t erase him from, no matter how much she tried or how much time passed

She’d noted several things in the space of that heart-stopping split second when she’d heard his na called and had looked up He was still as stupendously gorgeous as he’d been when she’d first met him Tall, broad and dark, with the exotic appeal of someone not from these lands—soiving place He’d been too far away for her to see him in any detail, but even froaze—eyes so dark you could lose yourself for ever And hadn’t she once?

Some small, detached part of herself marvelled that he could have such an effect on her after all this ti years She was a divorcée now, a irl she’d once been When she’d known him

The last time she’d seen Kaden she’d just turned twenty—weeks before his oentieth birthday So with an older woman

Her heart clenched so violently that she put a hand to her chest, and one of her coht? You’ve gone quite pale”

She shook her head, and placed her drink down on a nearby table with a sweaty hand Her voice caet some air for a minute”

Blindly Julialeft or right, heading for where patio doors led out to a terrace which overlooked ue call after her, “Don’t go too far—you’ve got to say your piece soon!”

When she finally reached the doors and stepped out, she sucked in huge lungfuls of air She felt shaky and jelly-like—at a reust and late evening The city air was heavy and oppressively warm The faintly e clouds sat off in the distance, as if waiting for their cue to roll in The garden here was faht back by many an adventurer and nurtured over the years by the dedicated gardeners