Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Why make two when one is fine?” she teased in fluid English; they almost never spoke Dariji in the shop, but sometimes it still caught him off guard. Chuckling, she led him into one of the empty massage rooms; he trailed after her and deposited his stack of towels on the empty table, while she set hers down on one of the service carts and, pausing to pull her orange-to-amber ombre embroidered gandoura up where it had slipped over her shoulder, began arranging the towels in neat little rolled stacks. “What did you need, dearest?”
“Either a chastity belt, or for you to take my next client.”
Nahla Idrissi peered over her shoulder at him with an indulgently amused look. “It’s not one of those dirty old men again, is it?”
“Worse,” he groaned. “It’s Ashton Harrington.”
“Oh, that boy.” His mother laughed, gathering up the leftover stack of towels and bustling toward the door. “He’s harmless. Mostly.”
“Mostly.”
“You can handle him.” She bumped him with her hip as she passed. “Come on. Help me replenish the other rooms before His Exalted Lord Harrington arrives.”
Amani rolled his eyes and piled his stack of towels in his arms once again, turning to drag after his mother. “You know he’s never once noticed the condition of the rooms. It’s not the rooms he’s looking at at all.”
“I suppose that’s my fault,” she said airily, tossing her head, sending her glossed waves of deeply black hair rippling down her back, stark contrast against rich sienna brown skin. “I raised such a beautiful son.”
“Sure. Take all the credit.” He bumped her back with his shoulder, and then edged around her into the next empty room. “We should hurry. He’ll be here in half an hour.”
His mother’s merry laughter trailed him, as they settled into work. Between them it didn’t take long for them to replenish the unused rooms, punctuated by the sound of his mother’s soft singing along with Yasmine Hamdal on the radio, and the murmurs coming from the occupied rooms. By the time they’d finished turning out the rooms, one of the other masseuse’s clients had checked out, and Amani was just helping Yadira turn out her station and clean the room when the bell over the door jingled, and the faint creak of the door hinges floated through from the front foyer, followed by a low, rumbling voice with a soft-edged, almost gentle British accent, cultured but not unkind.
“Erm. Hello?”
Amani caught a glimpse of his mother flashing past in the hallway, before her voice joined the man’s, warm and friendly, slipping into her professional mode where she put on that voice she and Amani only used with Americans, adopting their accent and diction to blend in and nearly swallowing the accent that made her voice so beautiful. “My apologies, we were just turning the rooms. Welcome to Dehbi; do you have an appointment?”
“Er…sort of,” that low voice said. There was a velvety edge to it, a sensuous thing, almost throbbing, like a heartbeat in words. “My friend Ash booked an hour for me. With…Amani?”
Amani blinked, setting down the bottle of massage oil he’d been topping up and leaning out of the room, peering around the doorframe.
The man who stood at the front reception desk most definitely wasn’t Ash Harrington. Ash was a small, fey, pretty thing—while this man was tall, a few inches over six feet, with a rangy, broad-shouldered build, rough around the edges but smoothed into the slick shape of a waistcoat, button-down, and crisply pressed slacks. His dark brown hair was swept back from an aquiline face with starkly Roman lines, grace and beauty mixed with strength and a certain unfinished harshness, a straight nose above full lips that already creased at the corners with stress although he looked like he couldn’t be more than a few years older than Amani himself, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Those same lines edged his eyes, giving him an air of gravitas beyond his years.
“Oh,” Amani said, frowning, then smoothing his hands over his caftan tunic before catching his hair up in both hands, twisting it quickly into a messy knot and retrieving the slim, carved wooden clips tucked against his collar to pin his hair into place. “Mr. Harrington’s not coming?”
A curious glance flicked toward him; the man had pale, warm blue eyes, quiet and thoughtful and sensitive, with long, curving eyelashes that softened the sharpness of his face. Those eyes lit up as he offered an easy smile, completely at odds with the graveness he projected. “Nah. He just bullied me into it. Looks like you’re stuck with me for the next hour.” He slipped one long-fingered hand, with its square, blunt knuckles from the pocket of his slacks and offered it to Amani. “Victor Newcomb. Vic.”
Oh, thank anything that would listen. Amani wouldn’t have to spend the next hour fending off Ash’s advances.