LITMIR.BIZ

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flooded his mind’s eye with images of hilarious cartoon characters. He had no clue how he’d even recognized her. Just as she’d accused him, his memories of the Kanza he’d known over ten years ago had been stripped of any specifics.

      All he could recall of the fierce and fearsome teenager she’d been, apart from the caricature he’d painted for Shaheen of her atrocious fashion style and the weird, bordering-on-repulsive things she’d done with her hair and eyes, was that it had felt as if something ancient had been inhabiting that younger-than-her-age body.

      A decade later, she still seemed more youthful than her chronological age, yet packed the wallop of this same primal force. But that was where the resemblance ended.

      The Mad Hatter and Wicked Witch clothes and makeup and extraterrestrial hair, contact lenses and body paint were gone now. From the nondescript black clothes and the white sneakers that clashed with them, to the face scrubbed clean of any enhancements, to the thick, untamed mahogany tresses that didn’t seem to have met a stylist since he’d last seen her, she had gone all the way in the other direction.

      Though in an opposite way to her former self, she was still the antithesis of all the svelte, stylish women who’d ever entered his orbit, starting with her half sisters. Where they’d been overtly feminine and flaunting their assets, she made no effort whatsoever to maximize any attributes she might have. Not that she had much to work with. She was small, almost boyish. The only big thing about her was her hair. And eyes. Those were enormous. Everything else was tiny.

      But that was when he analyzed her looks clinically. But when he experienced them with the influence of the being they housed, the spirit that animated them...that was when his entire perception changed. The pattern of her features, the shape of her lips, the sweep of her lashes, the energy of her movements... Everything about her evolved into something totally different, making her something far more interesting than pretty.

      Singular. Compelling.

      And the most singular and compelling thing about her was those night eyes that had burned to ashes any preformed ideas of what made a woman worthy of a second glance, let alone constant staring.

      Though he was still staring after she’d deprived him of their contact, he was glad to be relieved of their all-seeing scrutiny. He needed respite to process finding her here.

      How could Shaheen bring her up a couple of weeks ago only for him to stumble on her here of all places when he hadn’t crossed paths with her in ten years? This was too much of a coincidence. Which meant...

      It wasn’t one. Johara had set him up.

      Another realization hit simultaneously.

      Kanza seemed to be here running his same errand. Evidently Johara had set her up, too.

      God. He was growing duller by the day. How could he have even thought Shaheen wouldn’t share this with Johara, the woman where half his soul resided? How hadn’t he picked up on Johara’s knowledge or intentions?

      Not that those two coconspirators were important now. The only relevant thing here was Kanza.

      Had she realized the setup once he’d walked through that door? Was that why she’d reacted so cuttingly to his appearance? Did she take exception to Johara’s matchmaking, and that was her way of telling her, and him, “Hell, no!”?

      If this was the truth, then that made her even more interesting than he’d originally thought. It wasn’t conceit, but as Shaheen had said, in the marriage market, he was about as big a catch as an eligible bachelor got. He couldn’t imagine any woman would be averse to the idea of being his wife—if only for his status and wealth. Even his reputation was an irresistible lure in that arena. If women thought they had access, it only made him more of a challenge, a dangerous bad boy each dreamed she’d be the one to tame.

      But if Kanza was so immune to his assets, so opposed to exploring his possibility as a groom, that alone made her worthy of in-depth investigation.

      Not that he was even considering Shaheen and Johara’s neat little plan. But he was more intrigued by the moment by this...entity they’d gotten it into their minds was perfect for him.

      Suddenly, said entity looked up from the files, transfixed him in the crosshairs of her fiercest glare yet. “Don’t just stand there and pose. Come do something more useful than look pretty.” When she saw his eyebrows shoot up, her lips twisted. “What? You take exception to being called pretty?”

      He opened his mouth to answer, and her impatient gesture closed it for him, had him hurrying next to her where she foisted a pile of files on him and instructed him to look for the very file Johara had sent him here to retrieve.

      Without looking at him, she resumed her search. “I guess pretty is too mild. You have a right to expect more powerful descriptions.”

      He gave her engrossed profile a sideways glance. “If I expect anything, it certainly isn’t that.”

      She slammed another file shut. “Why not? You have the market of halawah cornered after all.”

      Halawah, literally sweetness, was used in Zohayd to describe beauty. That had him turning fully toward her. “Where do you come up with these things that you say?”

      She flicked him a fleeting glance, closed another file on a sigh of frustration. “That’s what women in Zohayd used to say about you. Wonder what they’d say now that your halawah is so exacerbated by age it could induce diabetes.”

      That had a laugh barking from his depths. “Why, thanks. Being called a diabetes risk is certainly a new spin on my supposed good looks.”

      She tsked. “You know damn well how beautiful you are.”

      He shook his bemused head at what kept spilling from those dainty lips, compliments with the razor-sharp edges of insults. “No one has accused me of being beautiful before.”

      “Probably because everyone is programmed to call men handsome or hunks or at most gorgeous. Well, sorry, buddy. You leave all those adjectives in the dust. You’re all-out beautiful. It’s really quite disgusting.”

      “Disgusting!”

      “Sickeningly so. The resources you must devote to maximizing your assets and maintaining them at this...level...” She tossed him a gesture that eloquently encompassed him from head to toe. “When your looks aren’t your livelihood, this is an excess that should be punishable by law.”

      An incredulous huff escaped him. “It’s surreal to hear you say that when my closest people keep telling me the very opposite—that I’m totally neglecting myself.”

      She slanted him a caustic look. “You have people who can bear being close to you? My deepest condolences to them.”

      He smiled as if she’d just lavished the most extravagant praise on him. “I’ll make sure to relay your sympathies.”

      Another withering glance came his way before she resumed her work. “I’ll give mine directly to Johara. No wonder she’s seemed burdened of late. It must be quite a hardship having you for an only brother in general, not to mention having to see you frequently when she’s here.”

      His gaze lengthened on her averted face. Then suddenly everything jolted into place.

      Who Kanza really was.

      She was the new partner that Johara had been waxing poetic about. Now he replayed the times his sister had raved about the woman who’d taken Johara’s design house from moderate success to household-name status, this financial marketing guru who had never actually been mentioned by name. But he had no doubt now it was Kanza.

      Had Johara never brought up her name because she didn’t want to alert him to her intentions, making him resistant to meeting Kanza and predisposed to finding fault with her if he did? If so, then Johara understood him better than Shaheen did, who’d hit him over the head with his intentions and Kanza’s name. That had backfired. Evidently Johara had reeled Shaheen in, telling her husband not to bring up the subject again

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