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He lay awake a long ti the stars When he was certain she slept without scars, he let himself follow

She akened at seven by a co the summons She had two hours to prep for the face-to-face report

It didn’t surprise her that Roarke was already up, dressed, and sipping coffee while he scanned the stock reports on his , and took coffee into the shoith her

He was on the ’link when she cained froed ato stuff it into her rabbed her hand, pulled her down on the sofa

“I’ll get back to you by noon,” he told his broker, then ended transmission “What’s your hurry?” he asked Eve

“I’ve got to meet Whitney in an hour and a half and convince him there’s a link between three unrelated victi ally Then I’ain, to testify so that a lowlife pimp, who ran an unlicensed stable of oes into a cage and stays there”

He kissed her lightly “Just another day at the office Have some strawberries”

She had a weakness for them and plucked one out of the bowl “We don’t have any—you know—thing scheduled for tonight, do we?”

“No What did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking we could just hang” Shekicked because of breaching government security”

“You should have let rinned at her “A little time, and I could have accessed the data from here”

She closed her eyes “Don’t tell me that I really don’t want to know that”

“What do you say to watching so on the sofa?”

“I say, thank you, God”

“It’s a date then” He topped off their coffee “Maybe we’ll even ether This case—or these cases—are troubling you”