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PROLOGUE

A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl stands at a graveside, on her own Her face is deathly pale, her blue eyes huge and shi with unshed tears, her hair a sleek waterfall of black down to her waist A dark, handsoroup and comes over to take her hand

He looks at her solemnly, too solemn for his twelve years ‘Don’t cry, Ja now’

She just looks at him His parents died in the sa, so can she She blinks back the tears and nods briefly, once, and doesn’t take her eyes off him even when he looks away to where his own parents have just been buried Their hands stay tightly clasped together

CHAPTER ONE

Six years ago, Paris

JAMILAH MOREAU had to restrain herself froht-hearted skip as she walked up the French boulevard with the Eiffel Tower in the distance She grimaced at herself It was such a cliché but it was Paris, it was springtis of shopping in the air and laugh out loud, and turn her face up to the blossoround from the trees

She wanted to hug everyone She forced back an irrepressible grin She’d always thought people over-exaggerated Paris’s romantic allure, but now she knehy You had to be in love to get it No wonder her French father and Merkazadi mother had fallen in love here—how could they not have?

She was unaware of the ad looks her jet-black hair, exotic olive-skinned colouring and startlingly blue eyes drew fro so fast with excitement that she knew she had to cal out to the world with arms wide: I’m in love with Salman al Saqr and he loves me, too!

At that thought, though, her step faltered slightly and her conscience pricked He hadn’t actually said he loved her Not even when she’d told hi, as they’d lain in bed, when Jamilah had felt as if she’d expire with happiness and sensual satedness She couldn’t have held it back any longer The words had been tre on her lips for days

Three weeks That was all it had been since she’d literally bued from the university where she’d just finished her final exarown up with him, but hadn’t seen hih her at seeing the object of her lifelong crush As darkly handsome as he’d ever been, and even more so Because noas a man Tall, broad, and powerful

His hands had wrapped around her aro, with a thrillingly appreciative gleaaze, when suddenly those black brows had drawn together, his eyes had narrowed and he’d snapped out disbelievingly, ‘Ja and a hot blush rising up through her body She’d fantasised about hi…

They’d gone for a coffee When they’d stood in the street afterwards she’d been about to walk away, feeling as though her heart was being torn from her chest, when Salman had stopped her and said quickly, ‘Wait…have dinner with ht?’

And that had been the start of the ical three weeks of her life She’d said yes quickly Too quickly Jaain as a dose of reality hit She should have been more cool, more sophisticated…but it would have been i hie obsession and now adult longing

That first weekend Salman had taken her back to his apartment and made love to her for the first ti heat invaded her lower body, es flooded her mind