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sorry, Jumal. The next few weekends are going to be a real pain for me. I need to travel out to Dubai.”
    He watched her sigh as she tilted her head to the side. She looked genuinely sorry that she couldn’t make it but Jumal had been hearing similar excuses for some time now, and he was beginning to think Faridah was having second thoughts about their engagement.
    He got the feeling that her heart wasn’t in their relationship any more and possibly lay somewhere else. Not that he had any proof, just a gut feeling. It was strange, though, that this wasn’t what caused him to toss and turn in bed at night. Nope, someone else not a million miles away was the sole cause of that frustration…
    “Here’s the contract,” she said, passing the file of papers over the desk and into his hand. “I’ve gone over it and liaised with my opposite number in the Dubai government and hashed out the details. This is the final version ready for signature. No need to check it. I’ll set up a joint meeting for it to be signed,” she told him as she fiddled with her Blackberry. “How’s your diary for a visit to Dubai the week after next?”
    “Yeah that’s fine. Speak to Pippa about my availability,” he agreed as he flicked through the file.
    “What?” she gasped, looking up from her Blackberry, surprised. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I just access your diary to make the arrangements? You know how flighty Miss Darling can be and I really—”
    Jumal looked up from the papers to see her flick her long straight black hair over her shoulder and pop one hip forward.
    Jumal felt his hackles rise. It was one thing for
him
to criticise Pippa but another for someone else to do it, even if that someone was his fiancée. In reality, he kind of enjoyed Pippa’s feisty attitude. She was the polar opposite to Faridah, who was always calm, cool and collected
in everything
. He was sure nothing could get under her skin and in the short time that they’d been engaged she hadn’t once caused him to drop his head into his hands and curse like a sailor.
    “No,” he interrupted. “It’s Pippa’s job to sort out such things. You can liaise with her. She’ll be fine.”
    Faridah huffed at him and waved her hand. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll see you at your parents’ place tonight for dinner. Your mother called me earlier. Eight o’clock sharp. Wear your grey pinstripe suit and pale blue dress shirt,” she ordered as she turned away from him.
    He narrowed his eyes and watched her stride purposefully towards the door.
    “And for pity’s sake put on a tie,” she called over her shoulder before closing the door.
    He hadn’t missed the fact that she’d come and gone without so much as a kiss or embrace. Hell, they’d barely made eye contact during their entire conversation…and he wasn’t placing the blame for the lack of intensity entirely on her slim shoulders.
    Jumal hated being told about such arrangements third-hand and at the last minute. He’d had it with people making decisions about his personal life for him. The rebellious part of his character challenged him to get on his motorbike and head out to his home in the desert with his horses, leaving his fiancée and parents to enjoy their evening on their own. It was likely they wouldn’t even miss him. They could try to organise his personal life better if he wasn’t actually there to pass comment or offer an opinion. That was precisely how he’d acquired his social-climbing fiancée… He was the sixth in line to find out about it after both sets of parents and Faridah had decided his future without him over dinner one evening. At the time though, just after he’d returned from his visit to Melville House and being reintroduced to Pippa, it had suited him. A fool proof distraction from where his real interest lay…thousands of miles away in the middle of nowhere in the North Yorkshire moors. Sod it, he thought, and brought up his email account.
    ***
    Pippa scowled