LITMIR.BIZ

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He really was a grump these days. Angelique scanned behind him for Cinnia. She usually dipped into the screen for at least a quick hello.

      “I have to go to Beijing for a week, but I’ll be back in Paris after that. You can explain properly then,” Henri stated.

      Good luck, she thought, suppressing a snort, and took note of how permanent that sounded. Back in Paris after that. Henri usually divided his time between Paris and London with occasional popovers to New York and Montreal. More often than not he said “we,” meaning him and his companion of two years, Cinnia.

      Ramon only introduced his lovers to the family if they happened to bump into each other at a public event. Women were a catch and release sport for him and he was forever on the run anyway, covering Spain, Portugal and all of South America for Sauveterre International. The men were actively working on acquisitions in Asia and Australia, but as Ramon sometimes joked, “We’re only one person.”

      “Trella told me not to bring her tomorrow,” Ramon said abruptly, dark brows pulling into a frown. “Did she tell you that?”

      “What? No!” Angelique was taken aback. “I just spoke to her. She said, ‘See you tomorrow.’ We’re going to finish Hasna’s gown and start packing everything.” Had she blocked her sister from airing some misgivings, too focused on herself and her date with Kasim?

      “No, I mean she said she wants to travel to Paris alone. With guards, of course, but she doesn’t want me to come with her.” Ramon scratched his eyebrow. “It started because I said I was heading to Rio right after and that I had to be there until Sadiq’s wedding. She said I shouldn’t have to double back and she would go to Paris alone.”

      “Go with her anyway,” Henri ordered. “I’ll change my schedule and come get her, if you don’t have time. Where is Mama?”

      “No!” Angelique interjected. “Boys.” They were thirty, but sometimes calling them that was the only way to pull them out of their patriarchal tailspins. “We’ve always said that Trella has to be allowed to do things in her own time. That meant not pushing before she was ready, but it also means not holding her back when she is ready. You know how hard she’s trying.”

      “Exactly why she shouldn’t push herself and trigger something. No. I don’t like it,” Henri said flatly.

      “Neither do I,” Ramon said.

      “Too. Bad,” Angelique said, even though her own heart was skipping and fluttering with concern for her sister. “I’ll be here,” she reminded. “It’s a couple of hours on the private jet. I do the trip all the time.”

      “It’s different,” Ramon grumbled. “You know that.”

      “Let her do this,” Angelique insisted, ignoring the sweat in her palms as she clutched her tight fists. “I’ll text her so she knows I can come get her if she changes her mind.”

      She signed off with warm regards to both her brothers and finished getting ready for her date.

      * * *

      Angelique had to give Kasim credit. He did his homework—or his people did.

      He chose a restaurant she and her family frequented for its excellent food and location atop the Makricosta, one of Paris’s most luxurious hotels. The staff was also adept at protecting her privacy, not forcing her to walk through the lobby, but willing to arrange an escort from the underground parking through the service elevator.

      It always amused her that the most exclusive guests of fine establishments wound up seeing plain Jane lifts and overly bright hallways cluttered with linen carts and racks of dirty food trays.

      To her surprise, Kasim was in the elevator when it opened. That instantly sent its ambiance skyrocketing. He was casually elegant in a tailored jacket over a black shirt that was open at the throat.

      Her blood surged, filling her with heat. What was it about this man?

      “I didn’t realize you were staying here,” she said, trying not to betray his effect on her as she and Maurice stepped in.

      “I wasn’t. Until I had a date with you.” His gaze snared hers and held it.

      A jolt of excitement went through her as the suggestiveness in his comment penetrated. Don’t act surprised. We’re very well matched…

      She’d never progressed so fast with a man that she’d contemplated sex on a first date. In fact, her advancement to the stage of sharing a bed was so slow, she had only got there a couple of times. Each time she had arrived with great expectation and left with marginal levels of satisfaction.

      Now her mind couldn’t help straying into sensual curiosity. What would it be like to sleep with Kasim? Their kiss had been very promising. She grew edgy just thinking of it.

      “In case you wished to dine unseen,” he added almost as an afterthought, with an idle glance at the ever stone-faced Maurice, but with a hint of droll humor deepening the corners of his sex god mouth, like he knew where her mind had gone and was laughing at her for it.

      Wicked, impossible man. He had made her think about sleeping with him. Deliberately.

      She didn’t let on that his trick had worked, although her pink cheeks probably gave her away. “The restaurant is fine. I’m rarely bothered there.”

      The maître d’ greeted her warmly by name and assured Kasim it was an honor to serve him. He showed them to a table at a window where a decorative screen had been erected prior to their arrival, enclosing them in a semiprivate alcove.

      Kasim held her chair and glanced at the screen as he seated himself. “Apparently we dine unseen regardless.”

      “Did you want to be seen with me? You wouldn’t be the first.”

      “I wouldn’t be ashamed,” he said drily. “You’re very beautiful. But if you’re more comfortable like this, by all means.”

      Angelique tried not to bask in the compliment as their drink orders were taken. She had freshened her makeup and vetted her outfit over the tablet with Trella, settling on an ivory cocktail dress with a drop waist that ended above her knees in a light flare. The sleeves were overlong and held a belled cuff while the entire concoction was embellished with some of Trella’s best work in seed pearls and silver beads.

      Public appearances were always this fine balancing act between avoiding being noticed but wanting to show Maison des Jumeaux in its best light if she happened to be photographed, all while trying not to look over-or underdressed for the actual event.

      “Judging by what you said today, I didn’t think there’d been recent threats. Is this just the vigilance against them that you spoke of?” He nodded at the screen.

      “That’s me trying to maintain some level of mystery,” she joked, but her voice was flat. “Yet another reason I don’t bother dating,” she expanded. “You already know far more about me than I do about you…not that whatever you’ve read online is true.” She so hoped he knew that and wondered why it mattered so much.

      “You haven’t stalked me?” His brows angled with skepticism. “Asked Hasna about me?”

      “I rarely surf at all. Too much chance of running into myself. And no. I’m too protective of my own privacy to invade someone else’s.” She didn’t bring up that Henri had been more than happy to check him out on her behalf. “In my months of working with your sister, she only volunteered the information that you insisted she finish school in exchange for supporting her desire for a love marriage and that you refuse to sing at the wedding, even though your voice is quite good.”

      He snorted. “It’s not. And she’s lucky our father is allowing any music at all, let alone a handful of Western tunes. That’s it?”

      She debated briefly, then admitted quietly, “She told me you lost your brother a few years ago. I’m very sorry.” At least her sister was alive. She was grateful for that every single day.

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