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“Sickeningly so. The resources you must devote to maximizing your assets and maintaining them at this…level…” She tossed him a gesture that eloquently encompassed him from head to toe. “When your looks aren’t your livelihood, this is an excess that should be punishable by law.”
An incredulous huff escaped him. “It’s surreal to hear you say that when my closest people keep telling me the very opposite—that I’m totally neglecting myself.”
She slanted him a caustic look. “You have people who can bear being close to you? My deepest condolences to them.”
He smiled as if she’d just lavished the most extravagant praise on him. “I’ll make sure to relay your sympathies.”
Another withering glance came his way before she resumed her work. “I’ll give mine directly to Johara. No wonder she’s seemed burdened of late. It must be quite a hardship having you for an only brother in general, not to mention having to see you frequently when she’s here.”
His gaze lengthened on her averted face. Then suddenly everything jolted into place.
Who Kanza really was.
She was the new partner that Johara had been waxing poetic about. Now he replayed the times his sister had raved about the woman who’d taken Johara’s design house from moderate success to household-name status, this financial marketing guru who had never actually been mentioned by name. But he had no doubt now it was Kanza.
Had Johara never brought up her name because she didn’t want to alert him to her intentions, making him resistant to meeting Kanza and predisposed to finding fault with her if he did? If so, then Johara understood him better than Shaheen did, who’d hit him over the head with his intentions and Kanza’s name. That had backfired. Evidently Johara had reeled Shaheen in, telling her husband not to bring up the subject again and that she’d handle everything from that point on, discreetly. And she had.
Another certainty slotted into place. Johara had kept her business partner in the dark about all this for the same reason.
Which meant that Kanza had no clue this meeting wasn’t a coincidence.
The urge to divulge everything about their situation surged from zero to one hundred. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face as the truth of Johara and Shaheen’s machinations sank in and to just stand back and enjoy the fireworks.
He turned to her, the words almost on his lips, when another thought hit him.
What if, once he told her, she became stilted, self-conscious? Or worse, nice? He couldn’t bear the idea that after their invigorating duel of wits, her revitalizing lambasting, she’d suddenly start to sugarcoat her true nature in an attempt to endear herself to him as a potential bride. But worst of all, what if she shut him out completely?
From what he’d found out about her character so far, he’d go with scenario number three as the far more plausible one.
Whichever way this played out, he couldn’t risk spoiling her spontaneity or ending this stimulating interlude.
Deciding to keep this juicy tidbit to himself, he said, “Apart from burdening Johara with my existence, I was actually serious for a change. Everyone I meet tells me I’ve never looked worse. The mirror confirms their opinion.”
“I’ve smacked people upside the head for less, buddy.” She narrowed her eyes at him, as if charting the trajectory of the smack he’d earn if he weren’t careful. “Nothing annoys me more than false modesty, so if you don’t want me to muss that perfectly styled mane of yours, watch it.”
Suddenly it was important for him to settle this with her. “There is no trace of anything false in what I’m saying—modesty or otherwise. I really have been in bad shape and have been getting progressively worse for over a year now.”
This gave her pause for a moment, something like contrition or sympathy coming into her eyes.
Before he could be sure, it was gone, her fathomless eyes glittering with annoyance again. “You mean you’ve looked better than this? Any better and you should be…arrested or something.”
Something warm seeped through his bones, brought that unfamiliar smile to his lips again. “Though I barely give the way I look any thought, you managed what I thought impossible. You flattered me in a way I never was before.”
She grimaced as if at some terrible taste. “Hello? Wasn’t I speaking English just now? Flattering you isn’t among the things I would ever do, even at gunpoint.”
“Sorry if this causes you an allergic reaction, but that is exactly what you did, when I’ve been looking at myself lately and finding only a depleted wretch looking back at me.”
She opened her mouth to deliver another disparaging blow, before she closed it, her eyes narrowing contemplatively over his face.
“Now I’m looking for it. I guess, yeah, I see it. But it sort of…roughens your slickness and gives you a simulation of humanity that makes you look better than your former overly polished perfection. Figures, huh? Instead of looking like crap, you manage to make wretched and depleted work for you.”
He abandoned any pretense of looking through the files and turned to her, arms folded over his chest. “Okay. I get it. You despise the hell out of me. Are you going to tell me what I ever did to deserve your wrath, Kanza?”
When she heard her name on his lips, something blipped in her eyes. It was gone again before he could latch on to it, and she reverted back to full-blast disdain mode. “Give the poor, depleted Pirate an energy bar. He’s exerted himself digging through his hard drive’s trash and recognized me. And even after he did, he still asks. What? You think your transgressions should have been dropped from the record by time?”
“Which transgressions are we talking about here?”
“Yeah, with multitudes to pick from, you can’t even figure out which ones I’m referring to.”
