She inspected the mini pillar candle, held it up and turned it in the light. Right away she saw it was handmade and of great quality. The color was remarkable. Someone had added a reflective shimmer to the wax, probably a finely ground gold glitter.

“Very nice….”

She sniffed it, and noticed the candle had a cherry-vanilla scent with a hint of currant—interesting. She sniffed again. Exotic. A sensual tremor ran through her. Unreal how a scent could do that!

She glanced at the bottom of the candle for a description seal, a label for the fragrance, and discovered there wasn’t one. It must be custom, but then again…. She couldn’t remember where she might’ve smelled that particular scent before, but it was remarkably familiar.

Mulling it over, she set the candle on a pillar tray, and once she’d turned off her bathwater, she fished around the bathroom drawer for the box of matches she kept there. The best way to test the quality of a candle, the wick, was to light it the old fashioned way.

She took out a match and struck it against the box, orange fire flaring on the head of the matchstick. Dara laid it against the wick, and to her surprise, the flame flared high and threw off a shower of sparks like the hissing fuse of a firecracker.

Dara flinched back from it, gasping in shock, but an unseen force seemed to lasso her and hold her in place. Her stomach lurched and her vision went suddenly dark as the sensation of being tugged through empty space surrounded her.

Seconds later, Dara squeezed out of the dark tunnel into an open room lit by firelight. Disoriented, she staggered a little and grabbed onto the back of a leather chair.

Shocked by the suddenness of the shift, she glanced at the flagstone floors and marble fireplace, and instantly recognized where she’d landed—in the private study at Balfour Manor.

“Glad you could join me tonight, Dara.”

She turned toward the voice and there he was—the culprit, not that she was really so surprised.

“Jiyong. I should have known.” She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “I can’t believe I fell for that—a transport spell. What are you, six?”

“Six with a couple of zeros,” he said while pouring brandy from a crystal decanter.

Still handsome, and just as infuriating as the last time she’d crossed paths with him, she decided. Only now he wasn’t speaking to her from across a ceremonial circle. In fact, he looked like he’d just come in from a hard day at the office. His white shirt hung open over his black trousers, ed from top to tails, exposing tan skin peppered with dark hair, and rock hard abs that never failed to grab her attention.