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“This has got nothing to do with wisdom.”
Liam released her only to bury his hands in her hair. “I’ve been wanting to do this all night. It ought to be made illegal for you to hide your hair. It’s so soft.”
Something swelled in her chest at the sound of awe in his deep voice.
Her hair slid through his fingers as he released it. His hands settled on her jaw, bracketing her face. The gesture struck her as tender…cherishing even. His head lowered over her and he spoke a fraction of an inch next to her lips.
“Tell me that you feel it, too.”
Natalie couldn’t squeeze a word out of her throat, so she just nodded once.
And then he was kissing her, and everything faded away.
Nothing existed but Liam’s hungry mouth and her own erupting need.
About the Author
BETH KERY holds a doctorate degree in the behavioral sciences and enjoys incorporating what she’s learned about human nature into her stories. To date, she has published more than a dozen novels and short stories and writes in multiple genres, always with the overarching theme of passionate, emotional romance. To find out more visit Beth at her website at www.bethkery.com or join her for a chat at her reader group, www.groups.yahoo.com/group/BethKery.
Liam’s Perfect Woman
Beth Kery
MILLS & BOON
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My heartfelt thanks go out to my agent, Laura Bradford,
and my editor, Susan Litman. Thanks to both of you for believing in these story ideas. Sandy, Lea and Mary—
thank you for the beta reads. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Finally, love and thanks to my husband for your daily inspiration, patience and support.
Prologue
The beauty of a beach bathed in the glow of a midnight moon went a long way toward soothing Liam Kavanaugh’s doubts about returning to his hometown after all these years. True, Harbor Town was hardly Chicago, and yes, the only danger he might face as chief of police of this lazy territory was falling asleep on the job during a monotonous workday.
But Chicago had nothing to compare to this view.
He walked on, his bare feet sinking into the cool, soft sand, letting himself be calmed by the sound of the waves breaking on the shoreline. Harbor Town had been the location of his childhood summer vacations. It would be where he would spend his next vacation, as well—a monthlong stretch of ease and relaxation before he started his new job.
Followed by a lifetime of ease? I’ll probably become so relaxed I’ll be practically comatose.
He stepped into the shadow of a tall sand dune, scowling at his thought. So what if serving as Harbor County’s police chief was opposite on the crime-fighting spectrum from being an organized crime detective in the big city? He’d had his fill of life in the fast lane.
Hadn’t he?
Every time he pictured himself as the local top cop it was as if he imagined a cutout, a facade, a caricature. Liam just wasn’t sure he could “do” an Andy Griffith, small-town-sheriff type with any degree of believability.
He would do it, though. He had promised his mother and his older brother, Marc, that he’d quit the Chicago police department when he finished his latest undercover assignment, and he’d held true to his word. Marc always said the Kavanaughs had a tendency to try to undo their father’s sin through hard work and community service, and Liam didn’t necessarily disagree. Yet doubts about his new life lingered.
He cleared the shadow of a tall sand dune and came to a complete halt.
For a few surreal seconds, he wondered if he still lay in his bed in the cottage, sleeping. He shifted his feet, feeling his toes burrow through the soft sand.
No, he was awake.
But the woman before him was something from a dream.
She twirled and spun on the beach, an angel forged from moonlight. She seemed transported by her dance, at the mercy of the movement…compelled by some invisible force. Her body was supple, graceful and perfectly proportioned. Liam could easily make out the outline of it, scantily dressed as she was on the hot summer night. As his eyes adjusted to the dim glow of the moon, he made out a pair of shorts and a bikini top, but otherwise her limbs and torso were bare. Her hair was straight and longer than he saw most women wear it anymore. The ends of the tresses swished against her naked waist.
Her skin flickered in shadow and silver light as she moved in her dance of solitary magic. She arched her back, her long hair touching the tops of her buttocks, her arms gliding through the air, her breasts thrust forward, as though she was seducing the moon itself.
A tingling sensation buzzed beneath his skin. He couldn’t pull his eyes off the vision of ethereal beauty. Her arms stilled and she held the pose for a moment, while his breath burned in his lungs. Then her curving back straightened and Liam realized her dance was complete.
Suddenly, she was a mortal woman standing on the beach. An incredibly beautiful one.
Walking toward her, he called out. Her long, dark hair flew about her shoulders when she spun in alarm. Her face was cast in shadow, but Liam didn’t need to see her expression to realize he’d frightened her with his presence. Harbor Town might be one of the safest places on earth, but no woman wanted to be accosted unexpectedly by a strange male past midnight in such a desolate location.
“No. Wait…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he called out when she turned and ran inland, as quick as a startled deer. He resisted an urge to go after her.
There was no logical reason to pursue her when it would just frighten her more.
Still, as he watched the shadows claim her, he found himself longing to know her name.
Chapter One
Natalie Reyes placed her hand on her chest and applied a slight pressure, and old habit she’d acquired long ago to still her jangling nerves. She looked at the gold-and-glass clock on her desk.
Four minutes. He’d be here in four minutes. Or maybe he wasn’t the type to be prompt, as confident and insouciant as he always seemed.
She must be stark-raving mad for calling him and asking him into the privacy of her offices…for planning on making him such a scandalous proposal.
Her anxiety mounted, and she froze when she heard a door open and close in the lobby. It was late for a workday. The two attorneys she shared office space with were already home, having dinner with their families.
So much for trying to forecast Liam Kavanaugh’s actions. He’d come early.
Natalie sat up, ramrod straight. She’d tilted her small lamp toward the chair in front of her desk. Otherwise, the office was thick in shadow, thanks to the heavy drapes on the windows. It intimidated her to think of meeting him in the intimacy of darkness, but she’d be damned if she would display herself. Not to him.
The words were two of the hardest she’d ever uttered.
“Come in.”
Her first thought was that he’d cut his hair since she’d seen him two nights ago. The tousled, blond mess used to be his hallmark. Natalie was stunned to see he looked impossibly more handsome with a shorter, mussed style. It looked darker now, almost brown in the dim light of the room. The goatee he wore was so short it was nothing more than a shadow that highlighted the cut of his jaw and his firm mouth.
She’d been wrong about his hair. His true hallmark was his eyes, which currently were spotlighting her with a cool, narrowed gaze. Gone was the carefree, charismatic playboy she remembered—in his place was a controlled, observant, slightly suspicious cop.
All the better. She wanted a professional for this job, after all.
“Please, sit down. Thank you again for agreeing to see me.” She was pleased to hear that her voice didn’t tremble.
“I still can’t imagine why you wanted to,” he said before he shut the door. Natalie jumped slightly at the brisk bang. She held herself unnaturally still as he sauntered toward a chair in front of her desk, all careless ease, a male animal in his prime who was supremely comfortable in his own skin. As he started to sit he leaned forward several inches, peering into the light cast by the single dim lamp on her desk.
Natalie moved subtly back into the cloaking shadows.
“I’m not accustomed to meeting strangers in dark rooms, Ms. Reyes. How do I know you’re not planning to jump me?”
For a few seconds, she was too knocked off balance to reply. His eyebrows went up in wry amusement and he leaned back in the chair. He, too, became shrouded in shadows with the exception of an angle of light that fell across his lower face, allowing her to see his mouth. It was a compelling mouth…decisive. Made for giving orders and laughing and…
Other things.
His lips tilted ever so slightly, as if he’d read her mind.
Cocky bastard.
“I can assure you I have no plans to ‘jump’ you, Mr. Kava-naugh,” she replied with what she hoped was cold austerity.
“Too bad. A little action might have spiced up my evening.”
“I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”
He gave a slight shrug, ignoring her sarcasm. “No need to apologize. I’ll get used to the slug’s pace of Harbor Town before long.”
“Do you already miss it, then?”
She sensed his muscles tensing despite his seemingly negligent posture. “What? My old job?”
“Yes.”
“What do you know about my old job?”
She set down the pen she’d been nervously twisting in her lap. She could feel his gaze on her hand, which shone clearly in the pool of light cast by the shaded lamp.
“I’m friends with your sister-in-law, Mari. She’s the one who told me you’d retired from your position at the Chicago P.D. and were returning to Harbor Town to become our police chief. Congratulations on your new position. We’re very lucky to have a detective who has been decorated so many times and has so much experience.” He remained unmoving and silent. She found herself leaning forward slightly into the light, trying to assess his expression.
“You don’t believe me? Why?” she asked quietly when she saw his lips were tilted slightly in skepticism…or was it derision?
“I’m sorry, I’m just finding it hard to believe you invited me into your office to welcome me to Harbor Town and extol my virtues. I’m a Kavanaugh, after all. You’re a Reyes.”
For a few taut seconds she heard nothing but her heart pounding in her ears.
“I’m an individual, Mr. Kavanaugh. Not a history.”
He laughed, the low, rough quality of it taking her by surprise.
“Stop with the ‘Mr. Kavanaugh.’ I’m Liam.”
“Fine. I’m Natalie,” she replied breathlessly.
“And nothing against your individuality or anything, but I doubt even if you’d been marooned on a desert island for the past sixteen years you’d be unaffected by our history, as you put it. So why don’t you just tell me why you asked me here tonight?”
Liam experienced a moment of regret at his bluntness when he noticed Natalie’s hand go still on the blotter. She had beautiful hands. In the absence of any other visual information, he’d been focusing on them to a ridiculous degree. Something about their movement struck a chord of recognition in him. The woman he spoke to had a slender neck and dark, lustrous hair that stood in contrast to the pale suit jacket she wore. It gave off a subtle gleam when she shifted her head ever so slightly. The line of her jaw was firm, but delicate. Her shoulders were narrow and…finely made. He didn’t know why the phrase popped into his head, but it seemed to fit. Her breasts were unexpectedly full beneath the soft blouse and tailored jacket she wore.
Slowly, he dragged his gaze away from that beguiling display of soft femininity. He was more than a little curious. She was obviously a beautiful woman. So what was with the dark glasses, dim room and cloak-and-dagger routine?
It’d shocked him to the core when she’d identified herself on the phone yesterday. Up until then, one thing had been certain in his life: a Reyes didn’t pick up the phone and call a Kavanaugh for a friendly chat.
He’d only been fifteen years old when his life had changed forever. It had been like a lightning bolt striking out of a clear blue sky. Sixteen years ago, his father, Derry Kavanaugh, had gotten drunk out of his mind one hot summer night and caused a three-way crash, killing Kassim and Shada Itani—his new sister-in-law’s parents—along with Miriam Reyes, Natalie’s mother.
Liam knew from his older brother’s terse comments and his mother’s tight-lipped fury that the lawsuit, and hearings following the crash had been especially bitter and ugly.
This whole situation with Natalie made him uncomfort-able…edgy. He’d rather sit across a desk from a hit man with a rap sheet that stretched all the way down Main Street than this smooth-voiced female whose life had been altered by his father’s crime.
“I’m very aware of the years of tension between my family and yours. There’s no need to be flippant. Perhaps you’re under the impression this is easy for me, Mr. Kavanaugh. If so, you’re mistaken.”
His eyebrows shot upward. A shard of steel had entered the cool silk of her voice. “So we’re back to Mr. Kavanaugh, huh?” He sighed and shifted in the undoubtedly expensive, but uncomfortable, straight-backed leather chair. He cast his gaze around the luxurious office, trying to discern any details that would help him to better comprehend this strange meeting and cool woman. “Look, do you suppose you could just get to the point? Why’d you call me?”
Seemingly of their own volition, his eyes flickered down again over her breasts when she inhaled.
“I’d like to hire you,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Hire me? For what? I love my sister-in-law like crazy, but if Mari gave you the impression I’m up for spying on cheating boyfriends or roughing up someone who owes you money, she’s dead wrong. Besides, I’m on vacation.”
“I don’t want to hire you to rough up anyone.” He couldn’t fully make out her expression, but from the sound of her voice, she was frowning. “You’re a detective, aren’t you? I’d like to hire you to do some investigative work. It shouldn’t take much more than a few hours every day—probably less—and I understand you won’t start your new job until next month.”
“Oh, you’ve got it all figured out, do you?” he asked with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. “Do you mind if I ask just what it is you think I’m going to investigate?”
“The crash.”
A silence settled between them like hot, flowing lead. It seemed to burn her cheeks, but her gaze didn’t waver. She did start when Liam leaned forward suddenly, his elbows on his jeans-covered knees.
“The crash?” he clarified bluntly.
She nodded.
“Is this some kind of a joke?”
“No. I assure you I’m very serious. If you don’t take the job, I’ll hire another investigator.”
A bark of laughter erupted from his throat. “Maybe you were too young to realize it at the time, but the state police conducted a full investigation of the crash.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” he asked sarcastically. “Then what is it that you expect me to investigate? What do you imagine I’ll find, exactly?”
“I want to know why he did it.”
He gaped at her. “Why who did what?”
“Your father. I want to know what was going through his head that night. I need to know.”
He’d been insulted by plenty of men in his day, but not in such a personal way, and never by a woman who probably weighed a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. The fact that her voice never wavered, never trembled once, infuriated him.
“Do you really believe my father got in that car with the intention of causing a crash and killing all those people?”
She leaned forward, apparently affected by his low, dangerous tone. “No—”
“What, do you think he had some deep, dark suicidal and homicidal wish? You’d be better off hiring some crackpot psychiatrist if those are the type of crap answers you’re looking for.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“You’re doing a pretty great job of it, nonetheless,” he muttered through a clenched jaw. He stood, ignoring the fact that she started in alarm at his abrupt movement. “Look, I know what my father did to you and your family. My dad made the hugest, most horrible mistake of a lifetime. He paid for it with his life, and my family has paid for it every day since then. I know yours has, too. That doesn’t give you the right to ask me here and make nasty insinuations about his motivations. He was drunk. He caused an accident. End of story.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He started. She either was the ballsiest woman he’d ever run into, the craziest or the meanest. Quite possibly she was all three.
“Yeah. I’m sure about that.” Turning, he walked out the door without looking back. But he had the impression that she remained behind her desk, frozen in the shadows.
Brigit Kavanaugh invited Liam and his sister Colleen to dinner at the house on Sycamore Avenue the next evening. After he’d filled up on his mom’s fried chicken, Liam retired to the front porch.
He brooded as he listened to the familiar sounds of the neighborhood evening tree frog orchestra and the waves hitting the beach at the end of the street. When his sister joined him on the front porch, he couldn’t help but notice she looked as irritated as he felt.
“Where’re the kids?” Liam asked, referring to Colleen’s two children, Brendan and Jenny. Colleen was a widow. Her husband, Darin, had been killed in service in Afghanistan three years ago.
“They’re watching that new video Mom got them. So what’re you frowning about?” Colleen asked grumpily before she plopped down on the porch swing.
“I was just thinking about the fried chicken. Do you think Mom is actually following her diet?”
Colleen’s grimace told him she’d been wondering the same thing. Their mother had had a mild heart attack last year. At Brigit’s latest checkup her doctor had told Colleen her mother had been neglecting her medications and ignoring her dietary restrictions. The news had stunned the Kavanaugh children, who had thought their mother was perfectly healthy.
“I think she is.” Colleen gave the screen door a furtive look. “I check with Margie at the pharmacy, and she says Mom has been picking up her medicine regularly. She only had one piece of chicken tonight, and she used vegetable oil to fry it.”
Liam sighed. They couldn’t follow their mom around like she was a two-year-old and make sure she followed doctor’s orders, after all. Brigit Kavanaugh was a warm, caring mother. She was also a well-guarded fortress when it came to her private life.
“I told you why I was frowning, so you spill about why you’re in such a bad mood,” Liam challenged his sister. “Oh, wait…I’ve got it. It’s Wednesday evening.”
Colleen pulled a face as she twisted her blond hair and clipped it at the back of her head. She didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to, really. His comment explained everything. Eric Reyes, Natalie’s older brother, volunteered at the facility where Colleen worked as a clinical social worker. Being around Eric tended to make Colleen a tad tetchy.
It wasn’t that Liam or Colleen didn’t understand Eric’s and Natalie’s anguish over the loss of their mother. It wasn’t even that they begrudged them for their suit against their father’s estate or the court order that resulted, whereby the majority of Derry Kavanaugh’s savings and property had to be liquidated to pay the Reyes and Itani families for damages. It was Eric Reyes’ insolent attitude whenever he encountered a Kavanaugh that really got to Colleen—and Liam, for that matter.
Unfortunately, Reyes volunteered at the Family Center—the treatment facility and organization for victims and survivors of substance abuse that Mari Kavanaugh had opened last year. Liam had learned from experience that his sister would likely be in a bad mood on Wednesday evenings, since Eric worked at the center on Wednesday afternoons.
“What’d the prince of physicians do this time to get your knickers in a twist?” Liam asked.
“He trumped me with one of my clients.”
Liam whistled under his breath. Colleen and Liam were close. They were only fifteen months apart in age, and they’d gone through a lot together as the two youngest Kavanaugh children. He could easily tell his sister was on a low boil at the moment, and he knew why. Colleen fought like a lioness for her clients. If he cared two cents about Eric Reyes, he’d actually feel sorry for the idiot for stepping into her clinical territory.
“I can put up with his cocky attitude. I have put up with it. But if he thinks he can mess with my clients or my course of treatment, he’s got another think coming,” Colleen said.
“Seems as if the Reyes family is stepping up the feud a tad.”
Colleen glanced at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I had a strange request for a meeting yesterday.”
“From who?”
“Natalie Reyes.”
Colleen’s aquamarine eyes went wide. “What in the world did she want?”
Liam glanced warily at the screen door, worried his mother might overhear. When he heard the distant clatter of a dish in the kitchen, he spoke in a low voice, giving Colleen the major details of his meeting with Natalie. She stared at him, obviously as stunned as he’d been.
“I don’t understand,” Colleen said when he’d finished his explanation. “What does she hope to accomplish by having someone investigate the crash—you, of all people? It happened sixteen years ago.”
“You’re telling me?” Liam asked wryly. “I was blown away when she said it.”
“What was Natalie like?” Colleen asked curiously, after a moment. “She’s so quiet. I’ve lived in Harbor Town for most of my adult life, but I’ve only caught glimpses of her in the distance. She works in that office downtown, but she’s practically a recluse.”
“She might be the solitary type,” Liam muttered, “but she’s every bit as annoying as her brother. She’s a block of ice.”
“And…”
“What?” Liam asked. He was confused by his sister’s manner—intense but hesitant at once.
“How bad was the scarring?”
Liam just stared at her. When Colleen took in his expression, she clarified. “On her face. It was in all the papers and news following the crash. Don’t you remember? The left side of her face was…” Colleen sighed sadly and began to rock back and forth on the swing. “They had photos of her in the papers. She was a beautiful little girl before the crash. That’s what a fair portion of Dad’s estate went toward. The judge ordered it for Natalie’s reconstructive surgery and compen-sation…if the surgery didn’t work.”
Liam blinked. Suddenly Natalie’s tendency to hide in the shadows made perfect sense. He didn’t want to believe it, for some reason, didn’t want to even consider what his sister had just said.
His mother had sequestered Liam and Colleen—her two youngest children—in Chicago after the crash, where the media clamor had been muted. He recalled few details from that gray, grief-filled time. They’d stayed in Chicago until Brigit had lost their family home in the lawsuit, and they’d relocated permanently to the vacation home in Harbor Town. By that time, the sensationalized reports in the news had tapered off, even if the memories and sometimes harsh judgments of the townspeople hadn’t.
“Liam?” Colleen prompted when he didn’t speak.
“I never saw any scars,” Liam replied hoarsely.
Colleen shook her head so that a portion of her long, thick hair fell from the twist on her head and coiled down her shoulder. “I’m not really sure what Natalie’s intentions were, but I do know it’s not uncommon for a trauma survivor to feel a need to make sense of what happened to them. Natalie Reyes was the only one who lived through that accident, after all,” Colleen said.
She sighed and kicked on the floor of the porch, sending the swing into squeaky motion. “If she struck you as cold, I’d imagine she comes by her aloofness honestly.”
The muscles in Natalie’s left eye began to twitch under the constant strain. She placed her hand over the scarred portion of the eyelid and pressed gently, trying to alleviate the familiar discomfort. Shutting the folder on the monthly financial reports for the Silver Dunes Country Club, she glanced at the clock. It was going on nine. She wasn’t tired, but her damn eye was, and that meant her work day was over whether she liked it or not.
A sigh of relief leaked between her lips when she flipped her desk lamp to the dimmest setting.
She started at the sudden sound of a knock on the door, her hand falling to the desk. When the loud rapping resumed after a pause, she stood.
Who in the world was knocking? It was about the time Erma often began her night cleaning, but Erma had her own keys. Perhaps she’d forgotten them?
She hurried through the dark, silent waiting room, seeing a tall figure through the frosted glass of the front door. The outline was definitely not that of her short, stout cleaning lady. She hesitated before she flipped the lock.
“Who is it?”
“Liam Kavanaugh.”
Her hand moved clumsily as she fumbled with the lock. Why had he come back? Over the past forty-eight hours, she’d come to terms with the fact that she’d handled their meeting the other night all wrong. Natalie was only used to dealing with people in the cut-and-dried language of business and numbers. She didn’t have much of a social life. Of course she had a few friends, like Mari Kavanaugh, and she and her brother, Eric, were very close.
But she wasn’t “good” with people. And she had little experience in dealing with a man like Liam Kavanaugh.
Strike that. She had no experience in dealing with a man like Liam.
“Hello,” she said breathlessly after she’d swung open the door. A distant streetlight allowed her to see him. He stood on the sidewalk wearing a dark blue T-shirt and pair of faded, worn jeans that looked as if they’d been tailor-made for his body. All the Kavanaugh children had been natural athletes, Natalie recalled. Something about Liam’s balanced stance and long, lean frame reminded her of that.
Twilight made it difficult for her to read his expression, but she saw the gleam of his eyes beneath his lowered brow.
“Can we talk for a minute?” he asked.
She nodded. Even if he’d come here to castigate her more for her request, he was here. She’d have the opportunity to explain herself better. Despite her desire to do just that, nervousness bound her throat as she led him to her office. She immediately darted behind the safe fortress of her desk but looked up in surprise when Liam blocked her by standing in her path. He stood closer than she’d expected.
She flinched and began to step away, but he stopped her by encircling her wrist in his hand. He’d lowered his head. Her upturned face was less than a foot away from his. She stared at his cotton-covered chest, not really seeing anything. Instead, panic started to rise in her as she inhaled his clean, male scent.
“You never really answered me the other day—about what you hoped to discover with an investigation of a crash that happened sixteen years ago,” he said quietly.
“You never really gave me the chance.”
She shut her eyes briefly in regret. She could tell by the increased tension in his gripping hand that he’d been offended by her quick, sharp response.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so defensive,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. She went back to studying his chest, trying to gather herself. “Maybe…maybe it’s difficult for you to understand my reasons.”
“Try me.”
Why did he persist in holding her? His touch unnerved her, as did his nearness, and this confession was difficult enough as things stood.
“I think a lot about what was going through your father’s mind on that night of the crash. You might think that my…obsession about it would have eased over the years, but it hasn’t. It weighs on me.” She lowered her head, blocking herself even more from Liam’s laserlike stare. “Maybe you’ll think it’s foolish, but it’s like an unhealed wound. It bothers me, not knowing what motivated him on that night. What made a father of four children, a successful lawyer and businessman, get behind the wheel of his car with the equivalent of twenty drinks in him? I wasn’t trying to insinuate he purposely caused the crash the other night,” she assured in a pressured fashion. “But there had to be some reason he was in the state he was. If I knew…if I could at least understand, maybe I could finally let it go.”
“Knowing wouldn’t change anything, Natalie.”
She blinked. His tone had sounded warm…concerned, even? She forced herself to remain still, her head bowed, even though she longed to look up at him in that moment and try to discern if his expression matched his voice.
“Maybe you’re right. But I need to try. I’ve talked it over with Mari. She said she’s read that it’s not uncommon for survivors of trauma to need to know all the details that led up to the event. It’s necessary for the grieving process…to make sense of things.”
“My sister Colleen said something similar. Does that mean you’re still grieving?”
This time she did look up—slowly. Standing as close as they were, she could make out his features despite the shadows. His expression was currently completely sober, as if his features had been carved from rock. The veins in her wrist seemed to swell and throb beneath his fingers.
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