Page 63 of Her Defiant Warrior

“Did you work on the interior or the exterior?” she asked with a smile.

“Both,” Jase answered quickly. No way was he going to lose out on a fifty-fifty answer.

She nodded. “And you?” she asked, turning to Gideon.

“Yes, both.”

She frowned. “It is my understanding that the lighting took a year to put into place. How could you have worked on both?”

“We worked on the circuitry for both. This did not require us working both inside and outside. We worked on testing the different switchgears at the beginning of the project, then as more power was needed, we tested the load capacity.”

“So, you know nothing about how the decorative lighting is displayed or turned on and off,” she frowned. “This was handled by UAE employees?”

“Yes, the UAE engineers were the ones in charge of designing the multitude of displays that light up the eye of the museum. We touched none of this.”

“Then you are useless to me,” she spat out as she launched out of her chair.

“Ma’am, please tell us what you need,” Jase said deferentially. “If we don’t know what you need, how can we know how to serve you?” He tipped his head back and forth in the normal Indian fashion.

“I need the lights to go out when I need the lights to go out. There are too many to shoot out.”

She looked at her men. “Get rid of them, and not in my garage.” She started up the steps to her house.

“Ma’am, of course we can turn off the lights,” Gideon said. “I told you we worked on the switchgears. Some of these will interrupt the flow of power to the museum. We can easily disable the switchgear that generates power to the eye’s lighting, if that is what you are trying to do, but since construction is complete, sadly, we cannot get access.”

The woman turned on her high heel and gave Gideon a narrow look. “Leave that to me.”

10

This was not how it was supposed to be going. Jase looked around the beautifully appointed bedroom and grimaced. Where in the hell were the others, and why was he in the middle of Southern Living Magazine here in Dubai? This certainly wasn’t the house of the hard-hearted icicle.

He took three calming breaths, then did his best to roll toward the bed. It was pretty fucking hard to maintain your Zen when they hogtied your wrists to your ankles, and your fingers were inches away from touching your SOG Snarl knife. But Jase tried. He surely tried.

Aussie bitch didn’t seem like someone who would have a rowing machine tucked behind her dust ruffle, but maybe the owner of the house would. He rolled the best he could until he nosed his way under the bed. He had to fight back bile.

Shit, I probably have a concussion from the hit on the back of the head that good ole Spider gave me.

Pushing that thought out of his mind, he shoved his head under the bed.

Jase fought back a sneeze. Then another one. Somebody wasn’t doing a good job vacuuming under the bed. His eyes finally adjusted to the dark, and he saw three boxes. Department store boxes.

Great. Clothes.

“Aaaah…Choo!”

Fuck!

At least he’d muffled his sneeze into the thick Persian rug.

What in the hell? Something drifted out of the box nearest him. It was some kind of pink ribbon.

Lace?

Wait a minute, that is ribbon.

Jase shoved at the box some more, and more ribbon spilled out, this time white and silver. His heart beat a little faster. This couldn’t be for real, could it?

How many times had his mom told him to get the wrapping paper box out from under her bed? Dozens? Wasn’t there always tape and scissors in the box? A good Southern Living lady would certainly have tape and scissors in her wrapping paper box, wouldn’t she?