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little chin or those challenging gold eyes. So why do I keep trying to place you?"
    Talia started, an unwelcome warmth creeping up into her cheeks. It wasn't only his personal comment on her features that made her grit her teeth, it was the unpleasant ABC Amber Text Converter Trial v ersion, http://www.processtext.com/abctxt.html
    fact that he remembered something from somewhere.
    How many other people in the Sacramento business community also remembered? God! She wanted to get her answers and get out of town.
    "As you say, we've never met," she retorted repressively. "Perhaps you once knew someone else with a name similar to mine."
    "Not likely. I've never known a woman named Talia. It's unusual." He smiled. The expression reminded her vaguely of a wolf.
    "Then I'm afraid I can't help your memory," Talia shot back with a cool note of dismissal. "Now, about my request. All I ask is that you either give me Westbrook's last address or have someone send a note to it. I admit the odds are that it will be returned as undeliverable, but I've checked out colder leads and occasionally come up with something."
    "What are you hoping to find? If you already have official word of his death, any lead you got from an old address would probably only take you up to the point of his disappearance. Which you already know about. Circular logic, I'm afraid."
    "That's my problem, Mr. Sebastian. I've learned that you never know what you'll come up with."
    "You've checked out all the angles?" he inquired mildly.
    "Every last one I came across. As I said, I've collected quite a pile of correspondence. Each piece adds a little more information."
    "I commend your perseverance," Kane applauded dryly. "Now, why does your name haunt me?" he added, proving he could be just as persevering.
    "I haven't the faintest idea!" Talia's brows came together over her straight nose.
    She wanted him off that tack.
    The wolfish smile broadened mockingly. "Perhaps we should make a deal."
    "A deal?"
    "You satisfy my curiosity and I'll think about trying to satisfy yours."
    "But that's impossible!" Talia exclaimed, lying through her teeth. "How can I possibly guess why my name sounds familiar to you?"
    "Try," he suggested amiably.
    "Why are you being so difficult, Mr. Sebastian? I'm here with a very simple request. Surely it can't be too much of an imposition on you to ask one of your clerks in Personnel to dig up Westbrook's old address. You only have to pick up the phone - "
    "Let's see," he interrupted, not paying the least attention to her plea. "You look like a woman who has some familiarity with the business world. Proper little suit, pumps, neatly styled hair, and no loud, clashing jewelry. Are you a businesswoman, Miss Haywood?"
    "I teach, Mr. Sebastian," she said tightly.
    "A teacher?" he affected surprise. "Now that I wouldn't have guessed. What do you teach? Nuclear physics? Mathematics? French literature?"
    Talia felt a kind of nervous dread. She didn't like the telltale signs. This whole thing was rapidly becoming a game for him, and games with men like this were played for high stakes. She needed to douse the humor in those emerald eyes.
    "I doubt that my work could be of interest to you." Talia kept her voice as matter-of-fact as possible.

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    "On the contrary. If I knew what you taught, I might be able to figure out the connection."
    He waited with an expression of polite hopefulness which didn't fool her for a minute. He wasn't going to let her get back to her own question until she'd satisfied his. Talia knew her only option at that moment was to walk out the door, and she couldn't bear to do that. Not after coming this far.
    "I work for an organization that gives seminars and short courses focusing on various problems in business management." Talia sincerely hoped the bitterness didn't show. It wasn't directed at him, it was directed at herself. She was teaching such classes