LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      LEILA VERUGHESE WAS just wondering morosely to herself what would happen when her dwindling supplies of perfume ran out completely when out of the corner of her eye she spotted something and turned to look, glad of the distraction to her maudlin thoughts.

      It was a sleek black car, pulled up outside her small House of Leila perfume shop. The shop she’d inherited from her mother, on the Place Vendôme in Paris. When she took a closer look she saw a veritable fleet of sleek black cars. The lead one had flags flying on the bonnet, but Leila couldn’t make out what country they were from—even though she’d spent most of her life identifying the glamorous comings and goings from the exclusive Ritz Hotel across the square.

      A man hopped out of the front of the car, clearly a bodyguard of some sort, with an earpiece in his ear. He looked around before opening the back door and Leila’s eyes widened when she saw who emerged. As if they had to widen purely to be able to take him in better.

      It was a man—unmistakably and unashamedly a man. Which was a ridiculous thing to think... One was either a man or a woman, after all. But it was as if his very masculinity reached out before him like a crackling energy. He uncoiled to a height well over six feet, towering over the smaller, blockier man beside him. Powerfully built, with broad shoulders in a long black overcoat.

      He looked as if he was about to come towards Leila’s shop when he stopped suddenly, and Leila saw a moment of irritation cross his face before he turned back to talk to someone who had to be in the back of the car. A wife? A girlfriend? He went and put a big hand on the roof of the car as he consulted the person inside.

      Leila caught a glimpse of a long length of bare toned thigh and a flash of blonde hair and then the man straightened again and began striding towards the shop, flanked by his minders.

      It was only now that Leila even registered his face. She’d never seen anything so boldly beautiful in all her life. Dark olive skin—dark enough to be Arabic? High cheekbones and a sensual mouth. It might have been pretty if it hadn’t been for the deep-set eyes, strong brows and even stronger jaw, which had clenched now, along with that look of irritation.

      He had short hair—dark, cut close to his skull. Which had that same beautiful masculine shape as his face.

      Shock held Leila still for a long moment as he got closer and closer. For a second, just before the shop door opened, his eyes caught hers and she had the strangest notion of a huge sleek bird of prey, swooping down to pick her up in his talons and carry her away.

      * * *

      The dark-haired shop assistant behind the glass of the shop barely impinged on Alix Saint Croix’s consciousness as he strode to the door. Surprise me. His mouth tightened. If he’d been able to say

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