LITMIR.BIZ

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to be more important to me than anything else in my life was the first time I felt you move.”

      “In your stomach?”

      “Yep.”

      Mary Jane grinned. “What did it feel like?”

      “Like a tiny little butterfly fluttering its wings.”

      That wasn’t so bad. She wasn’t ever going to have babies herself. That would be too gross.

      But she was sure glad Mom had.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “MY PAWN TO your king,” Blake muttered to himself. Still in the gray suit and coordinating gray, black-and-white tie he’d worn to the office that day, he stood at the computer in his glass-walled home office the last Wednesday night in March. He pushed a couple of keys, hit Enter, took one final look at the game on the screen, and left the room. His opponent, a man he’d met in Kashmir, India, several years before, would be at least an hour figuring his way out of that one.

      He had guests coming for dinner, Donkor and Jamila Rahman. A Christian father and daughter he’d lived with for a while in Egypt—before his marriage to Jamila’s closest friend.

      After checking the last-minute details on the dinner his housekeeper had prepared for him that afternoon, Blake moved from the kitchen, with its shiny black appliances, granite countertops and double oven, to the side of his house that didn’t overlook the ocean. In contrast to the western side, these rooms didn’t have windows. The house was built into the side of a cliff in the quaint village of La Jolla.

      The east side was where he’d put his treasure room—a museum with track lighting, built-in shelves and marble tables that housed all the artifacts and souvenirs of his travels. It was also where he housed his wine cellar.

      The cellar—more of a wall-size wine closet—had been his wife’s idea.

      A woman who’d been orphaned young, Amunet had grown up half Egyptian, half French and later, a New Yorker. She’d been visiting Egypt when Blake was there helping to rebuild a small village that had been hit hard by weather and poverty. Donkor, a man of means and a charitable heart, had been the largest donor and overseer of the project.

      Blake chose the wine, checking the year, although he knew there was not one bottle in the house that wasn’t worthy of a fine restaurant.

      Donkor and Jamila had been the only “family” present at the urban Egyptian wedding Amunet had wanted. From the car parade with all the flowers and ribbons and honking of horns, through the ancient tradition of the Zaffa, a human parade of belly dancers and drummers singing to them, to the Kosha, two bedecked seats in front of the waiting guests where he and Amunet had exchanged rings, his lovely bride had been in her element. Surrounded by noise, excitement, beauty, dancing and activity, and enough people to distract her from anything that might have been missing.

      Of course, Blake hadn’t seen it that way then. He’d just been crazy in love with the unusual woman who loved him so intensely. And she’d been completely open to whatever path his heart directed him to take.

      Or so he’d thought.

      Putting the wine on ice, Blake carried it through the kitchen to the dining room, which also sported a wall of windows that overlooked the ocean. He lit the candles, dimmed the lights, and flipped a switch that turned on the CD of soft flute and guitar music that would play throughout the evening.

      He hadn’t seen either of the Rahmans since his divorce four years earlier.

      He was ready for their arrival with a good twenty minutes to spare. Not at all like him. Moving back through the kitchen and Amunet’s garden room to his office, Blake looked in on his chess game.

      It was exactly as he’d left it.

      Then he picked up the newspaper he’d been avoiding since he’d come home. On the front page, in the very center and large enough for him to see the dimple at the corner of her cheek, was a photograph of Juliet McNeil, one of the partners at Truman and Eaton James’s defense attorney.

      He hadn’t known, when he’d agreed to be Paul Schuster’s witness, that Juliet would be opposing. Not that it would’ve mattered. Eaton James had broken the law. He had to be held accountable.

      He hadn’t seen her in almost a decade, except for a cursory conversation when they’d passed each other on the sidewalk a few years ago.

      Still, if Blake was going to meet the lady again, he’d rather it be in more agreeable circumstances—or at least on the same side of the fence. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see her at work, against a man like Paul Schuster.

      She didn’t have a chance in hell of winning. And, as he remembered it, Juliet wasn’t a woman who easily accepted defeat.

      He grinned, dropping the paper as the doorbell chimed.

      “WE DIDN’T COME JUST to have dinner with you,” Donkor, dressed in his usual garb of sedate suit and tie, announced as he pushed back his empty dinner plate. He’d had second helpings of the chicken cordon bleu and spinach salad Pru Duncan had prepared.

      Jamila glanced up and then away. Blake had known, since she’d failed to meet his eyes when they’d kissed and hugged hello, that something was wrong. He’d also known that he’d have to wait to find out what it was until Donkor felt the time was right for talking.

      “Is there something I can help you with? You need a place to stay while you’re here in the States? You’re always welcome to stay with me as long as you like. You know that. I have more bedrooms than I need.” More solitude than he needed, too.

      Donkor shook his head.

      “We have to fly out tomorrow.” Jamila’s normally effusive voice was subdued. Dabbing at her lips with the cloth napkin, she gave him a brief smile.

      “I thought you just arrived last night.” He’d sent a car to the Los Angeles airport to pick them up. They’d stayed in the city due to the late hour.

      “We did.” She looked as beautiful as ever with her long dark hair up in a twist that left ringlets escaping down the sides of her face. Her olive skin was smooth and made up to perfection, her slim figure outlined but not openly displayed in her silk pantsuit.

      “We have some news.” Donkor’s deep voice was as solemn as his daughter’s had been.

      And that was when it hit him. “You’ve heard from Amunet.”

      “Yes.”

      No one sipped wine. Or moved. Blake glanced from one to the other. They’d been completely sympathetic to both him and Amunet during the divorce. They’d understood that needs neither he nor Amunet had been able to alter had driven them apart. Certainly that wasn’t about to change.

      “You’re here to tell me she’s remarrying?” Donkor had been the only person, other than Amunet herself, who’d known quite how hard Blake had fallen. “Because it’s really okay. She was a part of a dream—an unreal life that was destined to end. I think, at least in part, I must have known that all along.”

      “You would never have married her if you’d known that.” Donkor’s tone brooked no argument. “That’s not your way.”

      Blake would never have taken vows he didn’t intend to uphold. He’d forgotten, for a moment, that Donkor knew a lot more about him than how much he’d loved his wife.

      Jamila wiped her mouth again. This time missing, and dabbing her eye instead. Her eye?

      Blake looked over at her. She was crying.

      Donkor spoke.

      “Amunet is dead, son. Her funeral is on Saturday. In New York. We wanted to tell you in person.”

      SHE’D COMMITTED SUICIDE. His ex-wife, a woman who’d raised him to levels of emotion—both good and bad—that he’d never really

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