Modern Romance - The Best of the Year

CHAPTER THREE

“NOW, THIS—” IRENE sighed, leaning back on the blanket as she felt the warm Italian sun on her face a few hours later “—is lovely.”

“Yes,” Sharif’s low voice said beside her. “Lovely.”

Just the sound of his voice made her heart beat faster. Opening her eyes, she looked at him, lounging beside her on the picnic blanket on the hillside. He’d abandoned his jacket on the way back to the villa. She’d intended to return with the rest of the guests, but he’d convinced her otherwise.

“You’re not going to make me go back alone, are you?” he’d asked. “And desert me for a bunch of people you don’t care about?”

She’d hesitated, and when she saw that Emma had already left the town in a luxury sedan with Just Married written in a sign on the back, she’d found it impossible to say no.

The truth was that she was starting to...like him. It didn’t mean anything, she told herself. After all, it was only natural that she’d find his company slightly more appealing than that of the rest of the wedding guests, none of whom she knew. Why wouldn’t she feel more relaxed around Sharif, especially now that he’d traded the formidable native dress of the Emir of Makhtar for a tailored European suit that made him look exactly like every other man?

Well. Maybe not exactly like every man. And maybe relaxed was not the precise word to describe her feelings around him.

Irene shivered.

Stretched beside her on the blanket, Sharif emanated sex appeal, looking impossibly handsome in a gray vest and tie and tailored gray trousers. She licked her lips as her eyes dropped to the sleeves of his white shirt, rolled up to reveal the dusting of dark hair over his tanned forearms.

Just seeing that much of his skin made a bead of sweat break between her breasts that had nothing to do with the warm Italian sun.

He lifted a dark eyebrow, and she realized she’d been staring. And cripes, had she just licked her lips?

“It’s...warm for November...isn’t it?” she said weakly.

His dark gaze looked amused. “Is it?”

“Haven’t you noticed?” She sat up abruptly on the blanket. She was relieved to see the rest of the wedding party and guests picnicking in the post-wedding luncheon farther down the hill. Golden sunlight danced across the field of autumn flowers, in the meadow on the Falconeri estate. Picnic lunches had been arranged for all of them by the picnic butler. Honest to God, a picnic butler. Shaking her head at the memory, Irene reached for the big wicker picnic basket. She licked her lips again, trying to act as if she’d been thinking about only food all the while. “You must be hungry. When I’m hungry, I can’t think about anything but cream cakes. You’re hungry, right?”

“Starving,” he said softly, his dark eyes tracing her. “And you’re right. When a man is hungry, everything else stops. Until his craving is satisfied.”

Irene had the sudden feeling he wasn’t talking about food. A tremble went over her body as she looked at him.

He gave her an innocent smile with his full, sensual lips.

No man should have lips like that, Irene thought. It shouldn’t be legal. She suddenly wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by those lips.

No! She couldn’t let herself be tempted, not even for a moment. Virginity, once lost, was lost forever. She couldn’t let herself be lured by desire, not when the cost for that momentary pleasure would be the life—the committed love—that she really wanted!

She forced herself to look down at the basket. She took out Italian sandwiches on fresh crusty bread, antipasto and fresh fruit salad, all of which she put on elegant china plates before handing one to him, along with a fine linen napkin and a fork she suspected was made of pure silver.

“Thank you,” he said gravely.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, looking away. She noticed the four bodyguards at a distance, in strategic locations on the edges of the meadow. “They really follow you everywhere, don’t they? I know you’re emir and all, but how can you stand it?”

Sharif used a solid-silver fork to take a bite of antipasto off his elegant china plate. “It is part of my position that I accept.”

She shook her head. “But the loss of privacy...I’m not sure it’s a great trade-off. Wealth, power, fame. But also four babysitters dogging your feet wherever you go.”

“Six.” The corners of his lips tilted upward. “The other two are keeping an eye on my room at the villa.”

Irene stared at him. “Right.” Her voice was heavy with irony. “Because you never know when there might be a sudden attack on Lake Como.”

“You never know what the world will bring to your door.”

“It’s obvious, even to me, that six guards is overkill in a place like—”

“My father was shot down in broad daylight, twenty years ago, while vacationing with my mother.” He took a bite of pasta salad. “Shot down by an ex-mistress. In a private, gated villa on the French Riviera.”

Irene gave an intake of breath, then set down her forkful of fruit salad. She lifted her tremulous gaze. The hard lines of his face held no emotion.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “What...happened?”

“His mistress turned the gun on herself. She died at once. My father bled out on the terrace and died ten minutes later. In my mother’s arms.”

It was all so horrible, Irene felt sick inside. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, helplessly. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen.” His mouth pressed into a grim line. “At boarding school in America. A teacher pulled me out of class. Two men I’d never met before bowed to me, calling me the emir. I knew something must have happened to my father but it wasn’t until I arrived back at the palace that I discovered what it was.” Reaching out with an unsteady hand, he poured a bottle of springwater into one of the glasses. He drank it all in one gulp, then looked away. “It was a long time ago.”

She felt awful, needling him about bodyguards when his own father had died in a situation every bit as apparently safe as this. “I’m sorry...you...I’m such a...I can’t even imagine...”

“Forget about it.” Sharif looked at the rest of the wedding party farther down the meadow. “As you said, today is a day for celebration. What’s this?” Reaching into the basket, he pulled out a bottle of expensive champagne. “And still chilled.” His lips curved as he looked at the label. “Now, this is the right way to endure a wedding.”

Endure? She wondered at his choice of words. Then, she could hardly blame him for thinking so ill of romance, love or marriage, when his own parents’ marriage had ended as it had.

He looked up, his dark gaze daring her to ask him more about it. Her mouth went dry.

“It’s a little early for champagne, isn’t it?” was all she could manage.

Without answering, Sharif popped the bottle open and poured it into two crystal glasses. He held one out to her, with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes.

“Surely you, Miss Taylor, with your romantic nature,” he drawled, “would not refuse a glass of champagne to celebrate your dearest friend’s happy day?”

When he put it like that... “Well, no.” She took the glass. “And for heaven’s sake. Call me Irene.”

Sharif looked down at her across the blanket.

“Irene,” he said in a low voice.

Sensuality and power emanated from him in a way that fascinated her. In a way that was dangerous. Her eyes fell to his lips. To the slight shadow of scruff on his sharp jawline. To his neck.

Forcing herself to look away, she drank deeply from her glass. She’d never tasted champagne before, and it was every bit as delicious and bubbly and intoxicating as it looked in the movies. Sitting here in the meadow, beside a sexy Makhtari emir, overlooking a two-hundred-year-old Italian villa with the blue sparkling lake beyond, Irene felt as if she, too, had been transported into a movie, or a dream.

They ate in silence. With no words to fill the air, she was even more aware of Sharif’s every movement. She looked at him sideways through her lashes, at the gleam of golden sunlight against his tawny skin. The thick shape of his throat above his white collar and blue tie. His long, muscled legs beneath the well-tailored trousers. She felt a cool breeze on her own overheated cheeks and the bare legs peeking out from her dress. But just as she was desperately trying to think of something to talk about, he abruptly spoke into the silence.

“So, you live in Paris?”

It was such a small-talk sort of salvo, it surprised her. Irene suddenly wondered if, in spite of Sharif being a powerful, rich sheikh, he might also be a person, who himself might have been trying to think of conversation, just as she had been.

“I had a job there. As a nanny for the Bulgarian ambassador’s children.”

“Had?”

She ate some fruit salad. “I was, um, fired.”

He looked shocked. “You?”

“I loved the children, but...their parents and I had some creative differences.” She took a big bite of sandwich and chewed slowly, but after she swallowed, he was still waiting patiently for her to continue. She sighed. “I’ve never been good at holding my tongue. I felt the parents were spending too much time at parties and entertaining, and were neglecting the emotional needs of their girls and needed to get their priorities straight.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “And you—said this—to them?”

“I’ve always had a problem with telling the truth.”

“You mean the problem is that you actually tell it?” He gave a low laugh, and she loved the sound. So sexy. So warm. It made his dark eyes light up in a way that melted her inside.

“Don’t laugh,” Irene said. “You’re a billionaire and a king. I bet no one tells you the truth about anything. They’re too scared.”

“I doubt that very much.” He gave another laugh, but this time there was no warmth in it. “I wish some of my servants were a little more afraid, to tell you the truth. My sister has a companion who—”

He cut himself off.

“You have a sister?”

“Yes.” He looked away.

Birds sang above them, echoing plaintively across the valley. Feeling awkward, Irene lifted her glass to her lips to take a fortifying drink of champagne, only to discover she’d finished it already. How had that happened?

“Allow me.” Sharif brought the bottle to her glass. Placing his hand over hers, to steady her hold on the crystal stem, he tilted the bottle against the lip and poured deeply into her glass. Irene felt his larger hand over hers, felt the warmth of his palm against her skin, and a deep shudder went through her.

She looked up at his darkly handsome face.

“So where are you working now?” he asked.

She licked her lips. “I’m, um, not.”

“Taking time off?”

“I’m sadly between jobs,” she said lightly. “It’s been six months. I’m running out of money.”

Sharif frowned. “Can’t Mrs. Falconeri arrange a job for you at one of her husband’s hotels?”

“She probably could, if I asked her. But I won’t.”

“No desire to work in the hotel business?”

“It’s not that. I wouldn’t dream of presuming on our friendship that way. It wouldn’t be right.”

He was staring at her as if she were crazy. “What are you talking about?”

She glared at him. “I’m not that kind of person, okay? Feelings are feelings, friends are friends, and I’m not going to use any relationship for financial gain. I won’t. I’m not like—”

Like my family, she almost said, but cut herself off just in time.

Or maybe she didn’t. Sharif was looking at her with consternation. As if seeing her for the first time.

“What happened?” he said in a low voice. “I thought some man broke your heart. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? Or else why wouldn’t you ask a good friend for help finding a job? Why would you be afraid?”

“I’m not afraid!” Her cheeks flamed. “I just prefer to find a job on my own, that’s all. I don’t need Emma’s help.” She wouldn’t let him see into her soul. She wouldn’t. “Don’t worry about me, Your Highness,” she said coldly. “I’ll be fine.”

He looked as if he didn’t believe her. His lips parted, as if he was about to ask her questions she wouldn’t want to answer.

Looking down across the meadow, she rose unsteadily to her feet. “Let’s pack up. I’m done.”

But after they’d silently packed the dishes and he’d folded the blanket, as she started to walk ahead of him, Sharif caught her arm.

“Wait.” Tilting his head, he gave her an impish, sideways smile. “Before we rejoin the other guests, I have something to show you.”

* * *

An hour later, Irene was still staring at it in shock.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said for the sixth time. She tilted her head, regarding it from the other direction. Nope. It still didn’t look real. It was too outrageously huge, too ridiculous to be believed.

Beside her, Sharif tilted his head as well, looking down at it with poorly concealed masculine smugness. “Like it?”

Irene licked her lips, trying to find the words.

“A little too big?” he offered finally.

She looked up at him. “You think?”

“It’s purely for your pleasure.”

“I didn’t ask for anything that huge.”

“You didn’t ask for anything at all. But I knew you wanted it. Every woman does.”

Irene bit her lip, staring at it.

“Touch it,” he said encouragingly. “Go on. Don’t be afraid. It won’t bite.”

“That’s what you think,” she muttered, but finally, the temptation was too much to resist. It was too spectacular not to touch. She wanted to feel it for herself, every hard delicious curve.

Reaching out, she gently stroked her fingertips over the diamond necklace he was holding out in the black velvet case.

The diamonds felt hard and smooth. Especially the center five stones, which had to be well over ten carats...each. They sparkled from the fire inside them.

Just as she did when she was near Sharif.

“Put it on,” he said, coming closer. “You know you want to.”

Yanking back her hand, she shook her head, setting her jaw. “I couldn’t possibly accept.”

“Why not?”

She looked at him in disbelief. “You really have to ask? After I told you how I feel about mixing the lines between relationships and financial gain?”

Sharif lifted a dark eyebrow.

“Why, Miss Taylor. Are we in a relationship?” he purred. “Am I to understand you cannot accept my small gift because you’ve fallen desperately in love with me?”

He’d caught her very neatly.

“Of course not,” she said, glaring at him.

“In that case...”

He pulled her to the full-length mirror in his bedroom suite. Removing her borrowed band of Emma’s pearls, he replaced them with the diamond necklace from the black velvet box.

She nearly gasped at the cool weight of the stones against her skin.

“You look beautiful,” Sharif said softly, standing behind her. “You will be the queen of the ball tonight.”

“No one will be queen but Emma,” Irene said. “It’s her day.” Then she swallowed as she looked at herself in his mirror.

Afternoon sunlight was beaming down from the tall windows of his bedroom. She saw her own big eyes, the pink flush on her cheeks, her full, trembling lips. In her borrowed Lela Rose dress, with the diamonds flashing fire against her skin, she did look like a queen. But she couldn’t kid herself it was the dress, or even the jewels that made her look so...alive.

It was the man standing behind her now. She couldn’t touch him. But she could touch this...

Unthinkingly, she raised her hand and ran it down the thick, hard jewels. “How much did it cost?”

“It’s not good manners to ask, is it?”

“How much?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “A minor amount that I can easily afford.”

Irene licked her lips, still staring at herself in the mirror. Take it off this instant, she ordered herself, but she found her hand wouldn’t obey. Instead of reaching back to undo the clasp at her nape, it was stroking the huge jewels as they trailed from her collarbone to the center of her breastbone. It probably cost as much as a car, she thought. A car? A house. A mansion.

“A loan?” she suggested weakly.

He shook his head. “A gift.”

Irene had never seen anything so lavish and exquisite as this necklace, and knew she never would again. Crazy to think she was wearing a million euros around her neck—or more—when she had less than twenty euros in her purse.

But it wasn’t a gift, whatever Sharif had said. It was payment in advance. No man gave something for nothing. What was the difference between accepting a diamond necklace from a sheikh or getting a hundred bucks from old Benny who pumped gas as the Quick Mart? No difference at all.

But she found herself still stroking the jewels for another five minutes before she gathered the willpower to reach for the clasp.

He put his larger hand over hers, stopping her. Their eyes met in the mirror.

“They’re yours.”

“I told you. I can’t accept.”

“I won’t take them back. They were bought for you today in Rome.”

“Rome?” she cried. “How?” Then she remembered his newspaper. “It’s very wasteful,” she grumbled. “Sending private jets all around the world at the drop of a hat. Buying diamonds for a stranger.”

“You’re not a stranger. Not anymore.” He shrugged. “If you don’t want the necklace, toss it in the lake. Bury it in the garden. I care not. It’s yours. I won’t take it back.”

“But—”

“I’m bored with this subject. Let’s find something fun to do.” He gave her a lazy smile. “Perhaps go congratulate the bride and groom on their civil ceremony?”

Guilt flashed through her as she recalled how she’d barely spoken three words with Emma all day. “Good idea,” she mumbled.

But for all the rest of the long afternoon, she found herself unable to take off the necklace, or to part company with Sharif, who was continually at her side, whispered shocking things to try to make her laugh, and then laughing himself when she whispered her own shocking things in return.

The beautiful, chic supermodel types goggled at them for the rest of the afternoon, and through dinner, too, as if they couldn’t imagine what the handsome, powerful Emir of Makhtar could find so fascinating about Irene. Oh, if only they knew. She was insulting him, mostly.

She allowed herself a small, private giggle with her after-dessert coffee. Then her eye caught Emma’s worried face across the table.

Irene’s smile fell. Looking away, she scowled. Emma should know she didn’t need to worry. She knew what she was doing.

Didn’t she?

After dinner, alone in her own room for the first time that day, Irene looked down in awe at the beautiful gown Emma had loaned her for the ball that night. It was strapless red silk, with a sweetheart neckline and a very full skirt. The perfect gown for a night that would be the culminating event of the wedding celebration. Tomorrow would be nothing but hangovers and staggered breakfasts, as guests scattered for the airport, for the train, back to their real lives. But tonight—tonight.

Tonight there would be fireworks.

Trembling, Irene looked at herself in the mirror, wearing only a red strapless lace bra and panties—and the necklace. Lifting her long dark hair off her neck, Irene bit her lip, turning her head to the left and right.

She’d wear it just a few hours more. Then she’d give it back to Sharif, she promised herself, and no harm done.

Irene brushed her long dark hair, then piled the heavy weight on top of her head in an elegant topknot. She put on black eyeliner and red lipstick. Pulled on the strapless scarlet ball gown. Zipped it up behind her.

Looked in the mirror.

A woman she didn’t recognize looked back at her.

Beautiful.

Exotic.

Rich.

An illusion, she thought. Just for tonight. Tomorrow she’d turn back into a pumpkin. She’d face the hollow choice of asking a friend for a job, against her pride and principles, or else going back to Paris to pack her things to return to Colorado, a penniless failure. She’d go back with nothing but the dream that someday, if she worked hard enough and followed all the rules, she’d be good enough. She’d find a good man to love her as she wanted to be loved. She took a deep breath.

But just for tonight, she would forget all that. She’d pretend she was someone else, just like the other women at the villa, wealthy and beautiful and without a care in the world.

Going out into the hall, Irene ducked back when she saw Emma and Cesare, both of them dressed for the ball, coming out of the next doorway. Emma was giving her husband an impish smile as she ran her hand down the front of his tuxedo. Cesare looked at her with a low growl, then gave her a passionate kiss, pulling her right back into their bedroom—next door.

Well, that was one mystery solved. Sharif wasn’t the one who’d kept her awake last night with all the noise. Smiling to herself, Irene counted to ten to give Emma and Cesare time to close their bedroom door before she went back into the hall.

She felt strangely nervous as she went down the sweeping stairs to the ballroom. Her hands were trembling for some reason she couldn’t imagine. She touched the diamond necklace again, as if it was some kind of good-luck charm.

Just for tonight, she repeated to herself. No harm done.

The gilded ballroom was packed with people. Already, the hum of excited conversation and the music of the orchestra filled the huge room all the way to the high ceilings and the enormous crystal chandeliers. Unlike most of the weekend, which had involved an intimate number of twenty or so guests, tonight’s event had brought celebrities and royalty and tycoons and politicians and billionaires, not just from Europe but also from South America and Asia and Africa. There had to be at least five hundred people, or maybe eight hundred. She had a hard time counting, and anyway, she didn’t really care, because even though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, there was only one person she was really looking for—

“Irene.” His low voice behind her caused a thrill of pleasure to rush through her body. “You dazzle me.”