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softly. ‘Nina and Mike Lassiter?’
    Nina had been her one friend in Iran, kind and sympathetic, although far more accepting of the hardships they faced. Before meeting and marryingMike, who was an engineer attached to American relief forces, she had worked for World Vision in Ethiopia, nursing starving children.
    ‘What about them?’ she asked, aware that Mike and Dan had cemented an even closer friendship.
    ‘They moved on to Somalia. Mike was killed in a skirmish organised by one of the warlords.’
    ‘Oh, no!’ Jayne cried in anguish for the loss of a man whose lifework had been dedicated to helping wherever help was most needed. It was clearing up after an earthquake that had taken him to Iran.
    ‘I was in Madagascar,’ Dan went on. ‘Nina called me for help. She was close to giving birth and was afraid for the baby. She’d caught some virus that was going around and was weak and feverish. None of the medics could do anything for her. I think she knew she was going to die. She asked me to look after Baby for her. I promised I would.’
    ‘Nina…’ Jayne murmured sadly, her eyes blurring with tears as she looked at the baby once more…Nina’s daughter…orphaned…with no close family to claim her and love her as Nina would have loved her.
    Jayne’s feeings about the baby…Dan’s fatherhood…were completely changed around. She was deeply moved that he had taken on the responsibility of parenthood with a generosity of heart that could shame many natural fathers. Hehad given his word to Nina and he was keeping to it, no matter what!
    A man of his word.
    That was what she had told Lin Zhiyong.
    ‘Ah, Mr. Drayton, Miss Winter…’
    Lin Zhiyong’s voice! They both turned to see him making a beeline for them from the bridge. He was accompanied by a man in formal Arab dress. Behind them were two other men, similarly robed. The recollection flashed through Jayne’s mind that Dan had been about to close a deal with a sheikh when she had called him in Casablanca.
    This then was the competitor for Dan’s services.
    And she had not yet settled anything with Dan!
     

CHAPTER SIX
    T HE moment Omar El Talik was hit by a full-frontal view of Jayne, he came to a dead halt. Dan winced. He knew what that meant.
    First came the kick in the gut at seeing such a spectacularly beautiful woman. Then the mind snapped out of its initial stunned state and busied itself registering all the visual lushness of her femininity; the tumbled splendour of fiery curls framing her face and shoulders, the fascinating paleness of her skin, the womanly curves outlined and emphasised by the exotic jacket, the shimmering flow of her skirt with the suggestive image of long, long legs that could wrap around a man and offer him heaven.
    That was when the tingling began in the loins, when desire smashed all other thought processes, when hands started itching to undo the buttons on the jacket and capture the full warm swell of her breasts, when the mouth went dry from the heat coursing through every vein, stirring, arousing, wanting like hell.
    It was precisely what Dan had felt when he’d seen her walking toward him earlier. It had taken every atom of his willpower to appear unmoved, to retain his independence of her, to remindhimself that having and holding her was not on the agenda tonight, and the urge to kill whomever the man was who had inspired her to dress so sexily was not appropriate.
    Dan felt a little easier about that now. Monty Castle was not a contender and she had more or less admitted to long, lonely nights. Maybe she had simply dressed up to feel good about herself. Possibly even for him. This last idea made Dan feel a lot better.
    But Omar El Talik wasn’t seeing anything beyond the impact Jayne made with her appearance tonight. Neither would any other man here if he had a full complement of male hormones. Dragon Lady had to be slaying them all.
    The Chinese, of course, were never obvious in showing their thoughts. Omar El