Closing the door behind her, Marty strode quickly from the bureau’s unassuming offices and into the heated warmth of a D.C. summer day.

The first day of her vacation. A month free of strife and Deerfield ’s screaming rages because she hadn’t managed to come up with so much as a shred of suspicion against Mustafa.

If the man only knew exactly who Khalid was to the bureau. His code name was Desert Lion and the missions he had successfully completed for the bureau had been imperative, both nationally and in the Middle East.

But why didn’t Deerfield have the information that Khalid was one of her father’s independent agents? Why had she been told but he hadn’t been? That was information that Zachary Jennings still hadn’t given her, but she had her own suspicions.

Deerfield was likely on his way out, if she knew her godfather. Otherwise Vince Deerfield would have been given the information that would have exonerated Khalid of the suspicions Deerfield had against him.

While she was striding along the sidewalk, a small smile tipped her lips. Two years investigating Khalid and she knew more about him than she may have known about herself. She knew the brooding, dangerous reflection of the man that hid behind calm, often amused black eyes. She knew him for the male sexual animal he was, and as the aloof “other” lover he played in his relationships.

And often she wondered what would happen if she wasn’t an agent, if she wasn’t shadowing him, if she wasn’t the goddaughter of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a woman who he knew wasn’t content to merely “play”?

Would he be in her bed or simply demand to be a third, should she choose a lover within the circle of his friends who shared their lovers?

It sounded depraved. Perverted. Marty knew the protective and loving lifestyle environment her parents had created for her instead. Her father, her mother, and her godfather.

Walking into the parking lot behind the FBI offices, she moved quickly to her car, engaged the auto lock, and pulled the door open before sliding inside.

Her hands gripped the steering wheel as she stared along the walkway in front of her, the profusion of flowers and shrubbery holding her gaze with their splashes of color. She had one month to attempt the seduction of a man who seemed determined to remain as aloof as possible.

She had four weeks to steal his heart. If he had one to steal.

THE CLUB, SINCLAIR ESTATE

VIRGINIA

Khalid watched as U.S. Senator Joe Mathews and the third he had chosen more than thirty years ago, FBI director Zachary Jennings, walked into the bar of the club, glancing around until they spotted Khalid.

Lifting his glass of whiskey, Khalid took a sip of the dark liquid as he tracked their progress through the room to the small seating area where he sat. If their expressions were anything to go by, then the news was good. Perhaps. The somber seriousness that had tightened their faces for the past two years had eased, and with it, hopefully, their tempers as well.

The two men were both trim, fit for their ages. The senator was nearing sixty, the director was only a few years behind, but both men appeared years younger. They swore it was due to a peaceful, stress-free home life.

There were days Khalid sincerely doubted that. He knew who they claimed as a daughter.

“Khalid.” Zach sat down in the settee across from the leather recliner that Khalid was currently relaxing in. The senator took a seat in the chair beside the director, leaned back, and allowed a self-satisfied smile to tip his lips.

“Consider your problems over,” Joe announced softly, his deep voice tinged with amusement as Khalid’s brow lifted in curiousity.

“Really?” he drawled. “All of them?”

“The majority, perhaps,” Zach chuckled. “The FBI has dropped their investigation of you. Deerfield was forced to pull the assignment this afternoon. Marty’s on her way home for a vacation, and I’ll be submitting my report on Deerfield next week. We should have his resignation within the next month.”

“Before Marty returns to the office, I assume?” Khalid felt his fingers tingle with the need to curl into a fist at the thought of the hell Deerfield had been putting her through.

There were agents in the club, men who reported to Jennings, and who had revealed information concerning Marty to Khalid. Those men had kept them both apprised of the insults Deerfield had heaped upon her concerning her inability to find evidence against Khalid and his supposed terrorist activities.

“Before Marty returns to the office.” Zach nodded, his expression tensing with anger. “The bastard has stepped over the line one time too many.”

“And still your daughter refuses to file a report against him,” Khalid murmured.

Zach nodded heavily. “Marty’s not a snitch. I can get his resignation without her, but it would have helped.”

“And have you asked her for her help?” Khalid sipped at the whiskey as he glanced at the two men.

Zach shook his head emphatically. “If she finds out we know about her problems with her boss, then she’ll begin to question our sources. I don’t want that. Keeping an eye on that girl isn’t always easy. I don’t want her to know just how well I keep tabs on her.”

Khalid refrained from objecting. He wasn’t a believer in hiding information in this situation. Marty was an intelligent woman who lived a potentially dangerous life, despite her godfather’s attempts to ensure that she was protected. She would only be hurt and angry if it appeared that her father had no faith in her abilities.

“He still disapproves.” Joe nodded in Khalid’s direction.

“It is not my place to approve or to disapprove.” He shrugged. At least, not yet it wasn’t. The battle he was fighting to steer clear of her was becoming harder by the day, though. It was a battle he might yet lose.

“It could be.” Joe’s gaze was somber now. “If you were serious in your intentions.”

Khalid had to chuckle at that. “Gentlemen, this is the twenty-first century, not the eighteenth,” he informed them. “We’re not Southern gentlemen seeking to protect the honor of our daughters. My intentions are as they have always been. I must plead guilty to seeking pleasure alone.”

Joe grimaced as Zach shook his head at Khalid’s answer.

“Marty isn’t a toy,” Zach stated, his voice firm, his tone warning. It was a familiar argument, though one Khalid rarely started or participated in.

“Tell me.” Leaning forward, Khalid slid the recliner back into its folded position. “Is there any chance that Deerfield could learn what happened in Saudi before I left?”

What had happened ten years ago had nearly destroyed him. And there were still men who would love to see Khalid el Hamid-Mustafa broken, least of whom were his two half brothers.

“We’re taking care of it,” Zach promised him. “ Deerfield ’s resignation will strip him of his clearance and ensure that he never learns your secrets.”

His secrets. More like his nightmares. The bloody, shameful past that haunted his days like a dark specter. Khalid nodded as he rose to his feet. This conversation was at an end as far as he was concerned. If he stayed to socialize with the two men it inevitably would return to Marty. To the one woman he ached to possess with a hunger unlike any he had ever known before. She was the one woman he was forced to deny himself.

For too many years he had contented himself with being merely a third to other club members’ lovers or wives. He had no desire to form a commitment to any woman, or to any relationship. He had no right to do so. He had lost that right long ago in a desert filled with blood and betrayal.

“That doesn’t mean that the threats your half brothers represent is at an end.” Zach sighed as Khalid fought to hold back the anger building inside him. “Have you taken care of hiding the girls yet?”