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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.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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