Page 201 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

“No, it isn’t bad. It isn’t bad at all,” she said crisply. Despite whatever…attraction she felt, at the end of the day her rules remained the same. “It’s lovely, actually. No stress, no obligations, no parties, nomen,” she said pointedly. “Just another day, exactly as I want it.”

To her surprise he laughed. “I can relate. I haven’t celebrated a birthday for years.”

“Why not?”

A shadow crossed his face. “No time,” he said, briskly. “Work. And my…family lives quite a distance away.”

There was something he wasn’t telling her, and she was surprised to find herself wanting to know what it was.

“But enough about me,” he said quickly. “How old—?”

“Older than you. And no, I’m not telling you.” She was old enough to think back on the girl she’d been, and how she’d screwed up badly enough to put her in this position on her thirty-ninth birthday. Images raced through her mind of the shy, neglected girl she’d been: a whirlwind courtship with a man she’d met by chance at Mardi Gras in her native New Orleans; a marriage—a short, terrible marriage; and finally—

Val abruptly stood. She didn’t want to go down this road tonight, even though she knew it was inevitable. At the very least she could wait until she was in the privacy of her own room. “I should find Hind,” she said firmly. “Thank you for the drink.”

“Where is she now?”

“I’m going to try and scoop her up on the way out.”

“And if you’re unsuccessful? Listen—” And there it was again. That look. Flickering down the length of her body, almost too quick to note. He seemed…

When was the last time anyone had looked at her like that? And since when had she cared that they did? Desmond Tesfay was eroding every single vow she had made and that had kept her safe for the past decade. Champagne. Closeness. Flirting. Him saying hername. And she was terrified at how much she liked it.

His voice, rich and low, broke into her thoughts, quieting them. “I’ve got as much at stake as you do, don’t I? Let me help you.”

When she tilted her head, he raised both hands in surrender. “No funny business. And consider your full name forgotten.”

She gritted her teeth. “Will you keep haranguing me for information about the Sheikh?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

There it was again, that easy smile. Those unreadable, yet oddly intense dark eyes.

Shallow waters.

She paused for a long moment to regain her composure.

“Fine,” she finally forced out, and he nodded.

“It’ll be a birthday to remember, if nothing else,” he said lightly, and offered his arm. Val took it.

A birthday to remember.

Really, the man had no idea.

CHAPTER FOUR

Theydidnotmanage to “scoop” Hind up in front of the Royal Opera House, much to Val’s dismay and Desmond’s amusement, despite himself. The little minx was proving more slippery than an ice cube on a marble floor, and her rapid-fire posts seemed more a mockery of their incompetence than anything else. When he told Val so, she glared at him. Any relaxation she’d managed to achieve in the Champagne Bar seemed to have evaporated with the realization that once again Hind was loose on the streets of London, and the time was nearing ten o’clock. She was looking crosser and crosser by the minute.

“Are you really finding this amusing?” she asked. “Running off to some basement jazz club, off all places,” Val sputtered. “Ronnie Scott’s—can you imagine? She justcamefrom a concert.”

Desmond stifled a smirk with some difficulty. Calling Ronnie Scott’s “some basement jazz club” definitely wouldn’t go over well in Soho, but they were already back in his car with his driver patiently navigating his way through late-night traffic. “It’s not the actual Ronnie Scott’s—it’s a clubcloseto it. A dupe, I believe she said. She’s catching the tail end of a friend’s set,” he said in the soberest voice he could manage.

“She’s not meant to have any friends!”

Desmond laughed out loud; it was a real laugh as well, and he wondered how many of them this woman had pulled from him this evening. Val was staring hard out of the car window, as if she could conjure Hind by sheer will. Desmond reached out and tapped the leather seat just next to her thigh, and she jumped.

“We’re almost there,” he said. She nodded with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She looked worried, and tired and more than a little defeated, and he wasn’t sure it was entirely related to Hind’s misbehavior. Something bloomed in his chest, something warm and fierce—a desire to lift some of that heaviness from her in some way. Which was mad in and of itself. He didn’t even know her! Digging beneath the surface of a person, shifting those sands, only led to more complications. Since his tumultuous early years, he’d managed to live a life free of complications in the personal relationship department.

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