LITMIR.BIZ

      Prologue

      Six years ago...

      A fist of foreboding squeezed Mohab Aal Ghaanem’s heart.

      Najeeb was back. And Jala had gone to see him.

      Although he had contrived to keep her from seeing Najeeb for months now as part of his original mission to keep them apart, when Najeeb had returned in spite of all his machinations, there’d been nothing further Mohab could do. Nothing but demand Jala not see Najeeb.

      And what reason could he have given for asking her not to see his cousin and crown prince? That he was jealous?

      She would have been shocked by the notion. At best, this would have made her think he didn’t trust her, or that he wasn’t the progressive man she thought him to be. Personal freedom and boundaries were very touchy subjects with her, and she had serious issues with the “repressive male dinosaurs” prevalent in their culture.

      At worst, she might have suspected that he had other motives for wanting to prevent that meeting with her “best friend,” motives that went beyond simple possessiveness. As he did.

      So he’d stood back and watched her leave for that dreaded yet inevitable rendezvous. And she hadn’t returned.

      Not that she’d said she would. Having an early business meeting the next day close to her house in Long Beach, it made sense for her to spend the night at her home. He wished he could have waited for her there, but though she’d given him keys, the gesture had been only as a token of trust. She’d been adamant about not making their relationship public knowledge before she was ready to do so. He was probably working himself up for nothing but...

      B’Ellahi... What was he thinking? It was for nothing. Jala had agreed to marry him. She was his, body and heart. He’d been her first, and he’d always be her only. He should have stopped worrying about how their relationship had started long ago, shouldn’t have tried to keep Najeeb away once his...purpose had been achieved—even if the way it had been had taken him by surprise. He’d already been attracted to Jala, but he surely hadn’t imagined when he’d first approached her that he’d fall for her that hard, that totally.

      Emptying his lungs, he strode away from the window. He could barely make out anything from sixty floors up anyway.

      Though he was sure he would have seen her.

      Since he’d first laid eyes on her, she’d been the only one he ever truly saw, even when others should have been in his focus. As on the day of the hostage crisis, when he’d been sent to save Najeeb and had saved Jala, too.

      Najeeb. Again. Everything always came back to him.

      Mohab had kept his cousin away from New York, away from Jala, for as long as possible. Any more contrivances would have made Najeeb suspect he was being manipulated. And since there were only a handful of people who had enough power to keep the crown prince of Saraya jumping—his father, King Hassan, his brothers and Mohab himself—Najeeb would have eventually drawn the proper conclusions.

      By elimination, only Mohab, as the kingdom’s top secret-service agent, had the skills and resources to invade Najeeb’s privacy, to rearrange his plans, to nudge him wherever he wanted. The next step would have been finding out why.

      So Mohab had been forced to let his cousin come back. To let Jala go to him. At nine o’clock this morning. That had been eleven hours ago.

      What could be taking her so long?

      Kaffa. Enough. Why not just call her instead of having a full-blown obsessive episode?

      So he did. And it went straight to voice mail. Time and again.

      When another hour passed and she hadn’t called back, he tore out of his penthouse, numb with dread.

      By the time he arrived at her house his nerves had snapped, one at a time. What

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