Kitabı oku: «With This Fling»
“You’re beautiful,” he said in a throaty voice that sounded like sex
Harley braced herself for Mac’s next move, expecting to feel his hard body against hers. But he stood, tugged her up and lifted her into his arms. She was forced to hang on, to bury her face against his shoulder, as much to avoid their reflection in the mirrors as to avoid that hungry, almost gentle expression on his face.
She could stand up to his challenges, but it had only taken a few orgasms to learn she couldn’t bear up under his tenderness. At least not when she was feeling so raw herself.
“I’m no threat, Harley.”
But he was a threat. A bigger threat than she was prepared to admit. She said nothing.
Mac carried her to the bed and lay her out before him wearing nothing but his bracelet and his wedding band. He stood above her, so terribly handsome with his hair gleaming in the candlelit darkness, his expression so intense.
“What happens now?” she asked, needing to hear a voice, even her own, to fill the silence.
He sank to the edge of the bed, all fluid muscle and grace.
“I find more ways to pleasure you.”
Dear Reader,
All too often the path to love turns out to be a bumpy jaunt down a pothole-filled street rather than a smooth ride over new asphalt. But sometimes those bumps can help us learn things about others that teach us important things about ourselves.
Harley and Mac travel such a rocky road. She’s a woman who faces life with her chin squared and her eyes fixed on the future. But it’s learning about her past that helps Mac see how much he must grow to win this special woman’s heart. And realizing he has the strength of character to take an honest look inward helps Harley find the courage to trust him, and herself.
Blaze is the place to explore red-hot romance, and I’m delighted to be among the ranks of the wonderful Harlequin authors who share their journeys to happily ever after. I hope With This Fling brings you to happily ever after, too. Let me know. Drop a line in care of Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9, or visit my Web site at www.jeanielondon.com.
Very truly yours,
Jeanie London
With This Fling
Jeanie London
To my mom, Bonnie-Jean Hickman, for always being a wonderful example and an inspiration… a Cinderella story without the mice.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Prologue
THE INSTANT MAC GERARD touched her, he knew he’d made a big mistake. Awareness caught him fast and hard like a sucker punch, and he didn’t want to walk away from their argument as much as he wanted to kiss her.
So, God help him, he did.
Her eyes widened a split second before his mouth came down on hers and he steeled himself for her reaction—knowing this woman, she’d likely draw her gun and shoot him.
But something happened, some thing he’d never felt before.
Not run-of-the-mill desire. Not even hot-under-the-collar passion. This was need. Sharp. Potent. Consuming. He wanted to absorb her, press their bodies close until they fused into one.
He didn’t seem to be the only one experiencing the phenomenon, either, because she didn’t go for her gun, she melted against him, all her curves catching him in exactly the right places. Her lips parted on a gasp and she slipped her arms around his neck to pull him harder into their kiss.
Mac caught the taste of her with his mouth, drank in her scent on a breath. He kissed her with an urgency that was closer to making him lose control than any argument they’d ever had at work. And that was saying a lot. He wanted to inhale her through his pores, feel her body unfold around him, underneath him, with an intensity that shocked him to the core.
This was Harley Price…the gun-toting, karate-kicking, too-competent private investigator who’d been making his life hell ever since he’d walked through the door of his new job.
Then it hit him, and Mac finally understood the real problem between them. It wasn’t just a clash of personalities or a power struggle between two strong wills.
They were attracted to each other, big time.
And as the feel of her body imprinted itself on his, as the taste of her sweet mouth filtered through his senses, Mac knew he was in more trouble than he’d ever been in his life.
Because the only way he could fix the problem was to get this woman naked in bed.
1
“WITH THIS RING, I’d be dead,” Harley Price whispered to no one in particular.
She’d once heard that the best reason to get married was the promise of around-the-clock orgasms. While she understood the appeal, an orgasm would have to register double digits on the Richter scale before she’d suffer this kind of torture.
This torture was the reception line at a wedding. As one of the very last guests to pass through, she greeted the new Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Sinclair, side by side in their first official performance as husband and wife.
They looked giddy. Every happy cliché she’d ever heard applied to them, from the way they seemed to be floating on air to the way they glowed. They smiled in unison and acted as though every guest at their wedding was a close friend.
The fact that the new Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Sinclair looked as though they’d stepped off the cover of a romance novel might have had something to do with the impression, too. They’d dressed in costumes reflecting the fashion of two centuries earlier. Admittedly, the costumes worked with the surroundings, as this wedding was taking place at an antebellum plantation.
“Best of luck,” Harley said, wishing the newlyweds a lifetime of around-the-clock bliss. Technically she wouldn’t have even come to this wedding if her boss hadn’t insisted she make an appearance as a professional courtesy. But she’d come. She’d wished them well. Now she was out of here.
Moving beyond the reception line, Harley unscrewed her smile and fled for the nearest exit. Veering away from the tables, where gleaming china and exquisite floral arrangements beckoned guests, she slipped out of the ballroom.
She emerged in the hall, an octagonal rotunda that rose three stories above her, all curving staircases and high-luster balustrades. A crystal chandelier graciously illuminated her way to the exit and she measured her paces so her heels didn’t tap loudly across the wooden floor.
She hadn’t made the front exit when a female voice called out, “I told Josh you’d run for it if we took our eyes off you.”
Harley groaned at the sight of the red-sequined bridesmaid emerging from the ballroom. Unfortunately, this wasn’t just any bridesmaid—this was Lennon Eastman, her boss’s wife.
And just her luck, her boss filed out the door right behind her. Josh was scowling and Harley scowled back, disliking his wife intensely at the moment—no easy feat considering Lennon was an absolute doll. Well-bred, confident and poised, she was also tall, blond and beautiful—as close to Harley’s ideal of society perfection as any woman could possibly get.
And there was nothing like standing in the shadow of a socialite to make her feel underdressed, no matter how stylish her gown.
“You didn’t drive all the way down here to sit through the wedding and miss the fun?” Josh asked.
“You told me to attend the wedding. I did.”
Josh exchanged a glance with his wife and Harley knew trouble when she saw it. As a licensed private investigator, her observation skills were more developed than most, but she could have been blind in one eye and still recognized that these two meant business. The big question was why? What difference did it make if she showed up at the reception or not?
Better not to ask. She was already treading thin ice with her boss. A dark-haired man in his mid-thirties, Josh Eastman seemed more at home getting down and dirty with the bad guys than he did tuxed up in his Garden District persona. At least to her, anyway. Harley had known him for nearly seven years—long before she’d come to work for him.
The investigative agency she’d contracted with after college had been the one he’d used for additional manpower, and she’d been assigned to him while learning the ropes. Josh had impressed her with his do-whatever-it-takes investigation technique. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty and that had earned him her respect.
She’d apparently earned his, too, because he’d requested her services regularly and after he’d married Lennon and expanded his operation, he’d offered her full-time work. She’d accepted, thinking luck had been going her way…until he’d brought their newest investigator into the fold.
The thought of Mac Gerard reminded her that she’d pushed her luck enough for one day.
“All right, I’ll rethink my plans,” she said.
Josh only inclined his head, but Lennon grabbed her arm and led her back toward the ballroom. “You’ll have fun. I had Ellen seat you at a table where you’ll know some of the guests.”
“Thanks.” She tried to force some enthusiasm into her voice. “But shouldn’t you be dancing with the wedding party?”
“We got out before the dancing started,” Josh said. “Lucky thing Lennon saw you slip out when she did.”
Lucky? That was a matter of interpretation. Especially when Lennon motioned to a table across the room.
“Your seat is over there,” she said, looping her arm through her husband’s and steering him onto the dance floor.
Harley took one look at the empty seat at her table and knew she’d been set up. Sitting right beside that empty space was the one man she didn’t want to see again in this lifetime.
Mac Gerard.
She couldn’t have missed him if she’d tried. Even among three hundred-plus guests, Gerard stood out. She wasn’t sure what it was…perhaps the superior attitude that screamed, Here I am! or his deep-throated laughter that commanded the attention of everyone within earshot.
Maybe it was how the custom-cut suit sat on his broad shoulders. Or the masculine features that were so sculpted he almost didn’t look real. Especially with the way his thick brown hair and tanned skin combined to make his quicksilver eyes look startling in his face.
This man was too damned attractive to be allowed, and that was his biggest flaw as far as Harley was concerned. Appearances could be so deceiving. Gerard looked as if he should be Mr. Wonderful—intelligent, sexy and charming. If he hadn’t been so ridiculously gorgeous, it might not come as a shock that he was such an idiot.
And she got to sit beside him today. Lucky her.
Sweeping toward the table, she slipped into her chair before Gerard could clear his and do something civilized like stand. Mr. Blue Blood was nothing if not socially graceful and she wouldn’t give him an edge when he already had a clear advantage—the world of upscale social events was his, not hers.
Along with Josh, Lennon and the groom, Gerard was one of “the Garden District Gang,” a group of friends who’d been reared together in the exclusive neighborhood along New Orleans’s Rue St. Charles. Though the Garden District wasn’t far from where Harley had grown up, the city blocks had separated her upbringing from these blue bloods like a galaxy.
“Heard you couldn’t get a date,” she whispered.
His quicksilver gaze caught hers, eyes so clear beneath a thick fringe of black lashes that Harley felt his glance as a nearly physical pull straight to her toes.
“You’re wearing a dress, Harley. And a tight one. Where’d you hide your gun?”
“No place you want to know about.”
“Don’t be so sure. I didn’t bring a date because Lennon mentioned you weren’t bringing one.”
Now that wasn’t what Harley had expected. But then, when did this man ever do what she expected? “What difference does it make whether or not I brought a date?”
“This is the first social event we’ve been at together since we attended the corporate training.”
“So?”
He flashed her a smile that made her heart race on cue. This man’s looks really were his greatest flaw. “I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to socialize with you. I can handle you differently when we’re not at work.”
“You can’t handle me at all.”
“Wrong. I’m looking forward to handling you.” He leaned in close and whispered for her ears alone, “We need to figure out how we’re going to deal with being attracted to each other. Today’s the perfect opportunity to discuss the problem.”
Before she could respond to that, Gerard sat back, turned to the other guests and introduced her, cutting off any reply and making her feel stupid in the process. She supposed she should have acknowledged the others when she first sat down.
Several guests had attended the same corporate training session as they had, so she forced a smile. The others at the table were strangers, except one—Stuart, Gerard’s grandfather.
At first Harley thought she was destined for an afternoon of torture—dealing with two generations of Gerard men couldn’t possibly be a good thing. But the elder Mr. Gerard quickly proved that the boorish, arrogant genes had skipped at least one generation in the family.
A very distinguished looking man, he had a head full of wavy white hair and the same quicksilver eyes as his grandson. But there the similarities ended. The elder Mr. Gerard smiled easily and didn’t raise her hackles with stupid remarks.
“So you’re the skilled investigator I’ve been hearing so much about,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, young lady.”
If he’d been hearing about her from his grandson, Harley would bet money skilled wasn’t the only adjective used to describe her. “You, as well, sir. I know someone on the force who says you should have a square named after you for cutting back plea bargaining while you were district attorney.”
“Nice to know I’m still remembered. It’s been a few years since I retired.”
“You dropped the percentage of plea-bargained cases from eighty percent to ten,” Gerard said. “Impact like that lasts.”
Stuart smiled graciously. “Fortunately the numbers are holding under the current administration.”
No thanks to Stuart’s grandson. Harley knew that Gerard had left his career with the district attorney’s office and ditched his fiancée to indulge in an early midlife crisis. Rumor had it that his family and friends thought he’d lost his mind, and she sincerely wished that he’d continued in his grandfather’s footsteps so he wouldn’t have wound up working for Josh.
Keeping that thought to herself, she dodged the sudden silence by reaching for her water glass.
Gerard caught her hand. “Come on, let’s dance.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s dance,” he repeated. “You’re wearing a dress.”
Leave it to the whiz kid to notice the obvious. And he didn’t look fazed in the least that half the table was hanging on his every word. Arrogance truly was an amazing thing.
“You don’t want to dance with me any more than I want to dance with you,” she whispered.
“Here’s a classic example of how you think you have all the answers but don’t.”
“If Josh put you up to this, don’t worry about it. I’ll tell him to butt out. Making us come to the wedding was one thing, but he’s out of his jurisdiction here. He can’t assign us this much trash work.”
A slow smile spread across Gerard’s face, making Harley realize she spent so much time avoiding looking at this man that she’d never really noticed his mouth before. Wide, full lips. Straight white teeth. A hint of a dimple in his left cheek.
Then, in a move she was too distracted to see coming, he looped his fingers around her wrist and brought her hand to his mouth. He brushed those lips against her palm, a warm press of skin against skin that sent a sizzle straight up her arm.
“Josh has nothing to do with this. I don’t consider dancing with a beautiful woman trash work.”
They were putting on a show for the whole table and Harley wished she had her gun. Unfortunately, it remained in the trunk of her car where she’d left it, but if she’d been armed, she’d have drawn and told him to let go. While she might not be as clean a shot left-handed, she was just as fast.
“Forget it, Gerard,” she resorted to a verbal protest, which didn’t have nearly the same impact. “This isn’t my thing.”
“What’s not your thing?” With his mouth still brushing her palm, he leaned close and whispered, “The bartender will serve bottled beer if you ask nicely.”
Now here was the Mac Gerard she knew and didn’t love. Exhaling a breath that should have dispelled all those tingly feelings, Harley said more firmly, “I do not dance.”
“You took me to the mat in defense training yesterday. Not an easy thing to do since I outweigh you by a hundred pounds. Trust me, you can dance.” Then with that iron grip still clamped around her wrist, he dragged her out of her chair.
Short of causing a scene, there was nothing to do except be tugged onto the dance floor. With his broad shoulders and long strides, Gerard cleared a path through the couples. He moved effortlessly for such a big man, then drew her around to face him. Holding her hand in a death grip, he dropped his other to her waist, drawing her too close for comfort.
“It’s easy. Just loosen up and trust me.”
Trust him? Right. He was breaking rules here, forcing her to deal with him in a way they hadn’t dealt with each other before. And it didn’t help that the band played a slow song, which meant he tucked her so close she could feel each shift and flex of muscle as he led her through some slow steps.
“See, Harley, you move fine.”
Moving just fine would have meant heading back to the table. Or better yet, New Orleans. Being forced to stand in his arms while her body reacted to their closeness—no matter how hard she willed it otherwise—was just plain torture.
She could deal with Gerard being an idiot, but she couldn’t deal with being attracted to him. This chemistry sweeping through her, this rush of awareness so strong she half expected to feel wind whip around them, shouldn’t be happening. Worse yet, she wasn’t the only one feeling it. Gerard’s gaze grew smoky, a look that hinted at moon-soaked nights and sex.
This was ridiculous. They really couldn’t stand each other. The man went out of his way at work to challenge her. His ego had a rough time dealing with the fact that she—a woman who hadn’t had the benefit of his privileged upbringing—had more experience on the job than he did. This blue-blooded man who was used to his pedigree paving his way.
“I don’t like dancing with you,” she said.
“I do. You feel nice.”
To emphasize his point, he tightened his arm enough to tilt her off balance and press their thighs together. She had no choice but to arch against him and neither his slacks nor her gown did a damned thing to shield her from his hard muscles smothering her. Every nerve ending ignited with the contact, tempting her with an awareness so intense that she’d never felt the like, that she didn’t want to feel.
“Knock it off,” she muttered. “Or I’ll drop you right here.”
“You might have gotten me yesterday, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a sure thing.”
“The only thing saving you is that you’re not worth losing my job over. Josh will have something to say if we cause a scene.” She tried to put some distance between them, but he only tugged her closer. “You’re holding me too close, Gerard. We look like we’re doing something obscene.”
“We’re dancing. And I enjoy being close to you without having to block any punches.”
Resting his cheek on the top of her head, he fell silent, leaving Harley to guess what he was trying to pull. “Why this sudden crush to hold me?”
“This is much more fun than you trying to kick my head off.” His clear eyes flashed, a look that emphasized their closeness. “I want to explore our chemistry. It’s become a fantasy of mine.”
Harley’s mouth popped open and it took Gerard’s flashing dimple to bring her to her senses. “You’re kidding?”
He shook his head.
“If you’re trying to freak me out because you know I’m unarmed, you’re doing a good job.”
“A compliment. That’s a first.” He guided her away from a couple dancing within earshot. “And I don’t trust that you’re unarmed. Knowing you, there’s a weapon hidden somewhere—”
“Which I couldn’t reach without flashing the room.”
He let his eyes flutter shut and inhaled deeply. “Now there’s an image to keep me awake at night. I want to see you naked, Harley. That’s another fantasy of mine.”
“You’re really pushing it—”
“Refreshing to see you two engaged in something other than combat for a change.” Josh’s voice filtered through the moment with the impact of a cooling rain on a summer day.
They swirled around to find him dancing with a smiling Lennon. Harley didn’t smile back. She managed to squeeze a little breathing room between her and Gerard while letting Lennon know with a narrowed gaze that she disliked the seating arrangements.
“We promised to play nice for the day,” Gerard said.
Harley didn’t offer reassurances. Josh believed in actions over words and she wasn’t someone who liked to waste her breath. She’d play nice as long as Gerard didn’t do anything stupid—no guarantee with all his talk of fantasies.
“Getting away from the office is a good thing,” Lennon said, daring Harley to disagree.
Harley didn’t reply to that. Not with Josh peering down at his wife with one of those expressions, a look that wouldn’t change even if Lennon turned blue and started gibbering in an incomprehensible alien tongue.
Harley had witnessed this phenomenon firsthand more than once, a phenomenon that never failed to take her by surprise. She’d watched Josh draw down on a gang, without blinking, to extract information on a missing kid, yet he softened around the edges whenever he gazed at his wife.
“Don’t harass her, Mac,” Josh said. “Or she won’t make it through the reception without drawing her gun.”
Gerard laughed as Josh danced Lennon away. “He thinks you’re armed, too.”
“Keep harassing me, and you’ll find out.”
With undisguised amusement, Gerard leaned into her, forcing her into a dip. She had no choice but to bend or fall on her butt in this tight dress.
“I’d rather be dancing and holding you close.” Looking down at her, eyes smoky with promise, he pressed his thigh between hers, so she had to hang on to keep her balance.
Heat pooled deep inside and she fought the impulse to ride against that hard muscle, feed the ache awakening inside her.
“Gerard,” she growled.
He held her for another beat, two, just long enough to prove he had the control, a petty power play that convinced her he was very aware of how she reacted to him. And he made his point loud and clear when he lifted her out of the dip and brought her against him so hard she gasped.
His body enveloped her as he moved her around in the dance, his strong arms too solid, his hips anchored against her much too close for decency. They swayed together so erotically that she imagined they must look like two lovers who needed a room.
She knew he wanted to provoke her and she refused, absolutely refused, to give in to an almost overwhelming desire to fling him off her and knock him on his ass for good measure.
“The pulse jumping in your throat is very attractive,” he said, and to her utter horror, he lowered his mouth to her skin.
Flames licked in the wake of his touch, making her insides tremble with excitement. Damn man. Damn dress. And she’d even questioned the low cut of the neckline.
“Just stop it,” she said, and Gerard smiled.
“I’m not harassing you. I’m being honest.”
It took a moment to manage her breathing and find her voice. “Honest? You expect me to believe this three-hundred-and-sixty-degree change of attitude isn’t anything but harassment?”
“I would understand you feeling that way, except for the fact that we kissed.”
“It wasn’t a real kiss, Gerard. It was being here at the plantation. That ridiculous murder-mystery corporate training. All that rich food and stupidity about pirates falling in love. We got…caught up. Let me remind you we agreed to forget that inexplicable lapse of impulse control ever happened.”
“You suggested. I never agreed. I liked kissing you.”
He might have been smiling, but there was nothing amused about his expression. His jaw set in a hard line, his gaze as no-nonsense as she’d ever seen it. The man wasn’t lying and that realization came at her sideways.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you, Harley. You’re haunting my dreams.”
“Get over it.”
“Come at this from a purely pragmatic standpoint.” He ground against her, enough to share the growing erection he hid inside his expensive suit. “We’re attracted to each other. Ignoring the way we feel isn’t working. Our feelings are interfering with our jobs.”
The instinct to deny his claim hit her hard, but Harley didn’t do denial. No matter how much she might want to. She was attracted to him, and everyone within a twenty-mile radius of Eastman Investigations knew they didn’t get along. Josh had even set up the teamwork training session exclusively to help them work together as a team.
“It was one stupid kiss!” she said.
“It was one awesome kiss.”
“Did Lennon put you up to this?”
He lifted a silky dark brow as if daring her to think anyone could possibly make him do something he didn’t want to do. Well, no argument there as she’d had daily proof.
“We need to work through these feelings, Harley, so we can get on with our lives. It’s the only thing to do.”
She would have disabused him of that notion, but he chose that exact moment to bend her back over his arm again when the music slowed to a bluesy tune. Her heart countered by mimicking the tempo with lazy, aching beats.
“We need to explore this attraction to get it out of our systems,” he said. “We need to have a fling.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“No. I want you, me, in bed, naked.” His smoky gaze raked over her face as intimately as a caress.
“Just because you want something doesn’t mean it will become reality.” She arched upward, desperate to get away.
He wouldn’t let her go.
Short of throwing him off balance and causing a scene, she had no recourse but to wait until he decided to pull her out of the dip, which didn’t look like it would happen anytime soon. “Forget the damn kiss, Gerard. End of discussion.”
“Let me sweep you off your feet. You’ll like it.”
Unfortunately, she might, and Harley couldn’t live with herself if she did. “Who do you think you are, Prince Charming?”
“You won’t be able to resist me.”
She could only marvel at the man’s arrogance, and his luck. He was beyond lucky that she wasn’t armed. She honestly didn’t know if she could have controlled herself.
“I will resist, trust me. You aren’t Prince Charming and I’m not Cinderella. If I were, you’d turn back into a mouse and this ball would be over.”
“Hello, Ms. Price, Mackenzie,” a deep male voice said. “Enjoying yourselves?”
They both glanced around to find Gerard’s grandfather and his bright-eyed dance partner, Quinevere McDarby.
Gerard had the grace to pull her out of the dip and she sucked in an audible breath that made Miss Q, as she liked to be called, smile.
“Of course they’re enjoying themselves, Stuart,” she said. “If you could just see yourselves, my dears, you look as if you were made to be together.”
As Lennon’s great-aunt and Josh’s great-aunt-in-law, Miss Q had diplomatic immunity from Harley’s opinion. But Gerard, unfortunately, never knew when to keep his mouth shut.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been telling Harley,” he said. “She’s a tough sell.”
“What’s to sell?” Miss Q raked those big baby blues over Gerard approvingly. “Look at him, Harley…he’s perfect.”
For what? To use as a practice target?
She kept her mouth shut. Not only were she and Miss Q clearly of two minds regarding the definition of perfect, but like her great-niece Lennon, Miss Q was one of those impossible-not-to-like types. Hands down, she was the most outrageous woman Harley had ever met, which said a lot since she’d met some real characters in her twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight years.
The way the talk on the street went, Miss Q had been responsible for matchmaking not only Lennon and Josh into their current marital state, but also the new Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair. Harley didn’t know the details. She didn’t want to know. But when she looked at Gerard and remembered that he was another of the Garden District gang…
She smiled at the elderly couple, a real smile. Lady Luck must have glanced down after all, because if Miss Q took an interest in Gerard’s love life, she just might find a woman to distract him from wanting a fling with her. With Harley’s lack of pedigree, she certainly wouldn’t be on the short list of contenders for the job.
“Miss Q, would you mind if I cut in?” Harley asked, more than willing to suffer another dance to escape Gerard and give this little matchmaker a chance to pick his brain about his preferences. “I was hoping to talk with Mr. Gerard about his work as the district attorney.”
“Of course not, my dear. I never turn down a dance with a handsome man.”
“The verdict is still out on whether or not you’re armed,” Gerard said with a frown. “Should I be worried about my grandfather’s safety?”
“Nothing to worry about, Mackenzie.” Stuart motioned him off. “Your Ms. Price is charming.”
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