She’d recognized him on the spot.
No. More than that. She knew him. At least knew of him.
She’d called him “The Pirate.” The persona, or rather the caricature of him that distasteful tabloids, scorned women and disgruntled business rivals had popularized.
She seemed to be waiting for him to make a comeback to her opening salvo.
A charge of electricity forked up his spine, then all the way up to his lips, spreading them wider. “So I’m The Pirate. And what do you answer to? The Tornado? The Hurricane? You did tear through Johara’s office with the comparative havoc of one. Or do you simply go with The Burglar? A very messy, noisy, reckless one at that?”
She tilted her head, sending her masses of glossy curls tumbling over one slim shoulder. He could swear he heard them tutting in sarcastic vexation that echoed the expression on her elfin face.
It also poured into her voice, its timbre causing something inside his rib cage to rev. “So are you going to stand there like the behemoth that you are blocking my escape route and sucking all oxygen from the room into that ridiculously massive chest of yours, or are you going to give a fellow thief a hand?”
His lips twitched, every word out of hers another zap lashing through his nerves. “Now, how is it fair that I assist you in your heist without even having the privilege of knowing who I’m going to be indicted with when we’re caught? Or are formal introductions not even necessary? Perhaps your spritely self plans on disappearing into the night, leaving me behind to take the fall?”
Her stare froze on him for several long seconds before she suddenly tossed her hair back with a careless hand. “Oh, right...I remember now. Sorry for that. I guess having you materialize behind me like some genie surprised me so much it took me a while to reboot and access my memory banks.”
He blinked, then frowned. Was she the one who’d stopped making sense, or had his mind finally stopped functioning? It had been increasingly glitch riddled of late. He had been teetering on the brink of some breakdown for a long time now, and he’d thought it was only a matter of time before the chasm running through his being became complete.
So had his psyche picked now of all times to hit rock bottom? But why now, when he’d finally found someone to jog him out of his apathy, even if temporarily; someone he actually couldn’t predict?
Maybe he’d blacked out or something, missed something she’d said that would make her last words make sense.
He cleared his throat. “Uh...come again?”
Her fed-up expression deepened. “I momentarily forgot how you got your nickname, and that you continue to live down to it, and then some.”
Though the jump in continuity still baffled him, he went along. “Oh? I’m very much interested in hearing your dissection of my character. Knowing how another criminal mastermind perceives me would no doubt help me perfect my M.O.”
One of those dense, slanting eyebrows rose. “Invoking the code of dishonor among thieves? Sure, why not? I’m charitable like that with fellow crooks.” That obsidian gaze poured mockery over him. “Let’s see. You earned your moniker after building a reputation of treating other sentient beings like commodities to be pillaged then tossed aside once their benefit is depleted. But you reserve an added insult and injury to those who suffer the terrible misfortune of being exposed to you on a personal level, as you reward those hapless people by deleting them from you mind. So, if you’re seeking my counsel about enhancing your performance, my opinion is that you can’t improve on your M.O. of perfectly efficient cruelty.”
Her scathing portrayal was the image that had been painted of him in the business world and by the women he’d kept away by whatever measures necessary.
When his actions had been exaggerated or misinterpreted and that ruthless reputation had begun to be established, he’d never tried to adjust it. On the contrary, he’d let it become entrenched, since that perceived cold-bloodedness did endow him with a power nothing else could. Not to mention that it supplied him with peace of mind he couldn’t have bought if he’d projected a more approachable persona. This one did keep the world at bay.
But the only actual accuracy in her summation was the personal interactions bit. He didn’t crowd his recollections with the mundane details of anyone who hadn’t proved worth his while. Only major incidents remained in his memory—if stripped from any emotional impact they might have had.
But...wait a minute. Inquiring about her identity had triggered this caustic commentary in the first place. Was she obliquely saying that he didn’t remember her, when he should?
That was just not possible. How would he have ever forgotten those eyes that could reduce a man to ashes at thirty paces, or that tongue that could shred him to ribbons, or that wit that could weave those ribbons into the hand basket to send him to hell in?
No way. If he’d ever as much as exchanged a few words with her, not only would he have remembered, he would probably have borne the marks of every one. After mere minutes of being exposed to her, he felt her eyes and tongue had left no part of him unscathed.
And he was loving it.
God, to be reveling in this, he must be sicker than he’d thought of all the fawning he got from everyone else—especially women. Though he knew that had never been for him. During his stint in Zohayd, it had been his exotic looks but mainly his closeness to the royal family that had incited the relentless pursuit of women there. After he’d become a millionaire, then a billionaire... Well, status and wealth were irresistible magnets to almost everyone.
That made being slammed with such downright derision unprecedented. He doubted if he would have accepted it from anyone else, though. But from this enigma, he was outright relishing it.
Wanting to incite even more of her verbal insults, he gave her a bow of mock gratitude. “Your testimony of dishonor honors me, and your maligning warms my stone-cold heart.”
Both her eyebrows shot up this time. “You have one? I thought your species didn’t come equipped with those superfluous organs.”
His grin widened. “I do have a rudimentary thing somewhere.”
“Like an appendix?” A short, derogatory sound purred in the back of her throat. “Something that could be excised and you’d probably function better without? Wonder why you didn’t have it electively removed. It must be festering in there.”
As if compelled, he moved away from the door, needing a closer look at this being he’d never seen the likes of before. He kept drawing nearer as she stood her ground, her glare one that could have stopped an attacking horde.
It only made getting even closer imperative. He stopped only when he was three feet away, peering down at this diminutive woman who was a good foot or more shorter than he was yet feeling as if he was standing nose to nose with an equal.
“Don’t worry,” he finally said, answering her last dig. “There is no reason for surgical intervention. It has long since shriveled and calcified. But thank you from the bottom of my vestigial heart for the concern. And for the counsel. It’s indeed reassuring to have such a merciless authority confirm that I’m doing the wrong thing so right.”
He waited for her ricocheting blitz, anticipation rising. Instead, she seared him with an incinerating glance before seeming to delete him from her mind as she resumed her search.
By now he knew for certain that she wasn’t here to do anything behind Johara’s back. Even when she’d readily engaged him in the “thieves in the night” scenario he’d initiated, and rifling through the very cabinets he himself was here to search...
It suddenly hit him, right in the solar plexus, who this tempest in human form was.
It was her.
Kanza. Kanza Aal Ajmaan.
Unable to blink, to breathe,