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“With all those guests around them, she probably didn’t even notice your absence.”
“I let her down.”
“You slept in. It happens.”
“Not to me.” She rubbed her hand over her eyes. “I’ll never forgive myself for this.”
“Why?” he asked gently. “Why are you the only one who has to be perfect?”
“Because if I’m not, then...”
“Then?”
“Then I’m no better than...”
“Who?”
Her china cup clattered against the saucer. Snapping her mouth closed, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I failed.” She looked away. “It’s getting to be a habit.”
The last thing Sharif wanted was to endure another wedding, especially one in some dreary Italian registry office. But looking at the misery on her beautiful, plump-cheeked face, he rose from the table. Tossing down his napkin, he went to her. “My car is parked in the barn. My driver is here...”
Irene looked up with an intake of breath. “You’d take me?”
“I’m willing to take you anywhere. Anytime.” He lifted an eyebrow wickedly. “I thought that was clear.”
She blushed but said stubbornly, “Their wedding...”
“Personally, I think attending one wedding is enough. I have no particular need to see it all replayed out, this time in a civil office. But if it truly matters so much to you...”
“It does!”
“Then I will take you. When you’re ready.” He hid a private smile.
Chugging down the rest of her sweet creamy coffee, she stood up. “I’m ready now.” Warmth and gratitude shone in her brown eyes as she clapped her hands happily, like a child. “I take back every awful thing I said about you!”
Impulsively, she threw her arms around him. He felt her against him, right through the fabric of his suit, to his skin, all the way to blood and bone. His body stirred.
Stiffening, Irene pulled back, her eyes wide. He looked down at her.
“Feel free to kiss me,” he said lazily, “if you feel you truly must.”
Her expression sharpened, and she pushed away. “On second thought, everything I said about you still stands.” She looked with self-consciousness to the right and left at the bodyguards. “When can we leave?”
“Now.” Lifting his hand in the smallest signal, he caused the four unsmiling bodyguards to fall in behind them, and they left the villa.
“This feels ridiculous,” Irene whispered, holding his arm as she walked close to him. “Don’t you feel like...like a prisoner getting escorted to your cell?”
At her words, the trapped feeling rose inside him, the one he’d been trying so hard to avoid, for a reason that had nothing to do with the bodyguards. The thing that had trapped him for twenty years, that was soon to lock him down forever, the thing he’d come to this wedding to try to come to terms with.
“I’m accustomed to it,” he said tightly.
She shook her head. “I understand that as a powerful man you need bodyguards, but it just seems like it would be impossible to have any private life, any life at all really, when you have such a thick wall between you and the rest of the...”
Her voice trailed off. Sharif smiled at the dumbfounded look on her face as she stared at his black stretch Rolls-Royce, complete with diplomatic flags, inside the large, modern barn. A uniformed driver leaped to attention, opening the door for them. Sharif indicated for her to go first, something that made his bodyguards look at each other behind their aviator sunglasses. Well, let them wonder about the breach in protocol. Sharif didn’t care. He climbed in beside her.
Irene’s mouth was wide as she looked around the backseat of the limousine in awe. Seeing him, she kept scooting, pressing herself against the far wall.
“Are you so afraid to be near me?”
“Um.” She stopped, looking uncertain. “I was making room.”
“Room?”
“For all the bodyguards.”
His lips curved. “One of them will sit up with the driver. The rest will follow separately.”
“Oh.” She paused. “But there’s plenty of space. This car is ridiculous.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I didn’t say that.” She stretched out her legs in illustration. “You could fit a football team in here. This space is big enough to be used as a house for a family of—five...”
Her voice trailed off as she caught him looking at her bare legs, and realized that her hemline had pulled halfway up her thigh. Exhaling, she quickly sat up straight, yanking down the hem like a prim Victorian lady. He hid his amusement because he knew by the end of the night he would have stroked and kissed every inch she was trying to hide from him now. And she would have stroked and kissed every inch of him. Her defenses would fall and she would succumb to her own desire. The passion he sensed beneath her facade, once unleashed, would burn them both to ash. Let her try to hide from him now all she wanted. It would just make conquest all the sweeter.
“What are you smiling about?” she said suspiciously.
“Nothing,” he said, still smiling. As the limo moved down the ribbon of road, he turned his head to look at the beautiful Italian countryside. Brilliant golden sunlight brushed his face, dappled with the shadows of clouds passing across the blue sky. He was aware of every movement Irene made in the seat beside him, and relished the hot anticipation building inside him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted any woman so much.
In a few minutes, the limo and following SUV pulled up in front of an officious-looking Italian building clinging to the edge of a cliff, tightly between the lake and the main road through town. Without even waiting for the driver to open her door, Irene opened it herself and jumped out. Standing on the sidewalk, she blinked up at the building, then glanced back doubtfully.
“Are you sure this is the place?” she asked Sharif.
“It is the address.”
Hesitantly, she followed him into the building. The bodyguards hung back in the hall as Sharif and Irene found the small, gray, official-looking room where the ceremony for Falconeri and his housekeeper bride had just begun. Quietly, they took the last seats in the back, behind the rest of the guests, and watched the couple marry in the civil ceremony.
Even Sharif had to admit the bride looked radiant, in a simple cream-colored silk suit and netted hat, holding her cooing baby son in her lap. The groom looked even more joyful, if that were possible. The Falconeris were the only bright light in a rather gray room.
“They look so happy,” Irene whispered.
“It’s beautiful,” he agreed sardonically.
She flashed him a glance. “It’s different from the ceremony last night, that’s all.”
He gave a low laugh. “Last night was about romance. This is about marriage. The legal, binding contract.” A hollow feeling rose in his gut. “Trapping them. To each other. Forever.”
Irene’s eyes lifted in surprise. Then she scowled. Leaning over, she whispered in his ear, “Look, your royalness, I get how you’re deeply uninterested in any sort of emotion that doesn’t end up in a one-night stand, but seeing as Cesare is your friend—”
“My business acquaintance,” he corrected.
“Well, Emma is my friend, and this is her wedding. If you have any rude thoughts about marriage in general or theirs in particular, keep them to yourself.”
“I was just agreeing with you,” he protested.
She stared at him, then sighed. “Fine,” she said, looking disgruntled. “This setting isn’t completely romantic.”
Sharif looked at her.
“Unlike you, Miss Taylor,” he said softly. “You, I think, are the last truly romantic woman of a cold modern age.” He tilted his head. “You really believe, don’t you? You believe in the fantasy.”
She looked away, staring fiercely at the happy couple.
“I have to,” she said almost too softly for him to hear. “I couldn’t stand it otherwise. And just look at them. Look at what they have...”
Sharif looked at her. He saw the yearning on her face, the wistful, almost agonized hope.
As the bride and groom spoke the final words that would bind them together forever in the eyes of Italian law, Sharif silently reached for Irene’s hand and took it gently in his own. This time, he wasn’t thinking about seduction. He was trying to offer comfort. To both of them.
And this time, she didn’t pull away.
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.
