by Jennie Lucas
His love for his country shone in his face. She’d never seen such passion, idealism, vulnerability in his dark eyes. She had to look away.
Fortunately, it was easy to find something astonishing to look at. The inside of his private 747 looked nothing like any of the flights she’d been on. Not even that first-class flight. The front cabin of his plane was wide and gleamed with light and comfortable white sofas and seats, with a bar on one side and a large flat-screen television against a wall. It looked like the contemporary interior of an expensive New York restaurant.
Overwhelmed, she sank into the closest seat. “I guess I should call you Your Highness now.”
“And from this moment, you are Miss Taylor,” he agreed.
Biting her lip, she looked out the window. As the jet’s engine warmed up, to take them away from Italy and up into the clouds, Irene felt her heart grow suddenly lighter. Thanks to this stroke of fate, she hadn’t had to give up her principles. And she’d never need to worry about money again. This would change everything for her family. Everything. With a deep breath, she looked at Sharif.
“Thank you for hiring me,” she said softly.
As the bodyguards trailed past him to the rear cabin, he frowned in surprise. “Thank you for solving my problem.”
A flight attendant, glamorously attired in a skirt suit and a jaunty blue hat and scarf, served some sparkling water on a silver tray. Taking a sip of the cool water, Irene looked at her new employer.
Sharif looked handsome and powerful in his stark white robes, sitting on the white leather sofa on the other side of the spacious cabin. Taking his own sparkling water off the tray, he smiled his thanks to the flight attendant. Irene sighed with happiness, leaning back against her own plush leather seat.
“I wish all the people who were mean to me in school could see this.” A low laugh escaped her lips. “No one would ever have guessed I’d someday be companion to a princess of Makhtar. Especially with my grades in geography. I couldn’t have placed Makhtar on a map.” Irene wasn’t a hundred percent certain she could do it now, but she kept that to herself. “Um, are you still sure about this?”
He set down his glass. His handsome face was inscrutable as he slowly looked her over. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Irene hesitated, feeling self-conscious. “I told you I have a bad habit of talking back to employers. Knowing the kind of woman I am, Your Highness, are you sure you really want me as your employee?”
“I’m sure, Miss Taylor. There can be no doubt.” His black eyes met hers as he said huskily, “I want you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
IRENE HAD NEVER flown on even a small private plane before, let alone the huge 747 that belonged to the royal house of Makhtar. But by the time the plane landed that evening, she was growing shamefully accustomed to the luxury that accompanied Sharif wherever he went. Even the stretch Rolls-Royce, and the attendant entourage of black SUVs for the guards, was starting to seem almost routine.
There was just one thing she couldn’t get used to. One thing that was a shock to her senses, each and every time.
She looked at him beneath her lashes, in the back of the limo. He was busy now, speaking with a young man, his chief of staff, who’d met him at the private airport at the edge of the city. The two men were speaking in rapid Arabic, leaving Irene free to sneak little glances.
Gone was the darkly seductive playboy she remembered. Here, Sharif was the emir. Formal. Serious. And definitely not paying the slightest attention to her. Telling herself she was relieved, she looked out the window, which was tinted against the shock of the hot Makhtari sun.
Makhtar City gleamed from the desert, like a polished, sun-drenched diamond in the sand. It was a new city, still being rapidly built with cranes crisscrossing the blue sky.
She saw prosperous people, families pushing baby strollers on newly built sidewalks to newly built cafés. It had to be almost ninety degrees Fahrenheit, from the blast of heat she’d felt walking across the airport tarmac to the air-conditioned limo. Very different from the chilly morning in the Italian mountains. But Sharif had told her on the plane that this was their winter.
“In November, people finally come out of their houses, as the weather turns pleasant. In summer, it can reach a hundred and twenty degrees. Tourists complain then that swimming in the gulf is like taking a hot bath—no relief whatsoever from the unrelenting heat.” He’d grinned. “Makhtaris know better than to try it.”
It sure didn’t seem like winter to her. The hot sun made her want to rip off her jeans and hoodie in favor of shorts and a tank top. But on the street, both men and women wore clothing that completely covered their arms and legs. They didn’t even look hot, strolling with their families. Irene still felt a little sweaty from her four minutes outside. It was way more humid than Colorado, too. She’d have to get used to it.
Still, there was something about this city, this country, that she immediately liked. It wasn’t just the gleaming new architecture of the buildings, or the obvious wealth she saw everywhere—luxury sports cars filling the newly built avenues, lined with expensive designer shops and gorgeous palm trees.
It was the way she saw families walking together. The way she observed, on the street, young people holding open doors for their elders. Family was even more respected than money. The wisdom and experience of age was respected even more than the beauty and vigor of youth. It felt very different from the neighborhood she’d grown up in. At least the house she’d grown up in.
As a child, she’d wanted so desperately to respect her mother and older sister. She’d wanted a mother who would give her hugs after school, a sister she could emulate and admire. She’d wanted a family who would look out for her.
But by the time she was nine, she’d realized that if she wanted milk in the fridge and the light bills paid, she’d have to take care of it herself. She’d learned how to run a household from watching Dorothy, but sadly there was nothing she could do for her mother and sister beyond that. Any attempt she made to suggest a different career path just made them accuse her of judging them.
Now, for the first time, Irene would really be able to help them. No more just sending them bits and pieces of her salary that didn’t really change anything. With such a huge amount of money as three hundred thousand dollars—or whatever was left after taxes—she could change not just her own fate, but the lives of the people she loved deeply, no matter how many times they’d broken her heart.
“Miss Taylor. You are ready?”
They’d arrived in a large, gated courtyard past the palace gate, filled with palm and date trees surrounding a burbling fountain. Sharif was looking at her quizzically.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
His eyes widened at her meek, impersonal tone. But she knew how grand households worked. One hint that she was anything but his sister’s companion, a single sly suggestion that she was also the emir’s mistress, and by nightfall she’d be despised by the entire palace staff.
A uniformed servant opened the door, and she stepped out.
“It’s cooler,” she said in surprise.
“The palace is on the gulf. And here in the courtyard—” Sharif’s eyes seemed to caress her “—you can feel the soft breeze beneath the shade of the palm trees.”
She looked up at the towering Arabic fantasy of the palace in front of her, like something out of a dream. “It’s just like you said it would be.”
“The palace?”
“The whole country.”
Sharif paused. “I’m pleased you like it.” He turned to his young chief of staff. “Please escort Miss Taylor to her new quarters.”
The young man looked at Irene with clear interest. “With pleasure.”
Sharif stepped between them. “On second thought,” he said abruptly, “I will do it myself.”
“Yes, sire,�
� the young man said, visibly disappointed. Sharif swept forward in his robes, and Irene fell into step behind him.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered once they were out of earshot. “You can’t show any particular interest in me. The other servants will talk.”
“Let them talk. I didn’t like the way he looked at you.”
“Friendly?”
Sharif scowled. “Flirty.”
“And that is bad because...he’s married.”
“No.”
“Engaged.”
“No.”
“A womanizer. A liar. A brute.”
Sharif’s jaw twitched. “No, of course not. Hassan is none of those things. He is an honorable, decent man. Of course he is. He’s my chief of staff.”
Irene looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. “So why not let him take me?”
“If any man is going to take you,” he said softly, “it will be me.”
She stopped, blushing in confusion. Surely he couldn’t still be thinking he...
“Your room is next to my sister’s. I am headed that way.”
She exhaled. “Oh.”
The palace was huge, with high ceilings and intricate Middle Eastern architecture. As they passed from room to room, each more lavish than the last, every servant they passed bowed at the sight of Sharif, with obvious deep respect.
So many rooms, so many hallways. Irene grew increasingly worried that she’d ever be able to find her way back again. After they went up a flight of stairs, she expected to see some sort of servants’ wing. Instead, the rooms just got more lavish still. A sudden fear seized her.
“Your bedroom isn’t in the same hallway as mine, is it?”
Sharif looked down at her with his inscrutable black eyes. “Why, Miss Taylor,” he said softly, “are you asking for directions to my room?”
“Yes—I mean, no! I mean...”
He tilted his head. After a full day since his morning shave, there was a dark shadow along his sharp jawline that made him seem even more powerfully masculine. “Your room is close to mine. That won’t be a problem, I presume?”
She licked her lips. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
Because part of her was still afraid she might forget herself some night and sleepwalk naked into his bed, just like hapless What’s-her-name who got fired. If Sharif knew the hot dreams she’d had last night, starring him... And he was her employer now.
Irene shook her head helplessly. “I just wouldn’t want you to think...”
He paused, his sensual lips curved as he looked down at her, close but not touching. “Think what, Miss Taylor?”
Her voice came out in an embarrassing little squeak. “Never mind.”
Sharif stared at her for a long moment, then setting his jaw, he turned away with a swirl of robes. “This way.”
She followed him down the new hallway, still shaking with the ache of repressed desire. As they went down the marble halls and approached the royal apartments within the palace, the hallways grew more crowded, not just with servants, but also with the emir’s advisers, serious men all in white robes, some of whom bowed as Sharif passed, others who merely inclined the tip of their heads. But in the faces of them all, Irene saw the most sincere respect.
“They love you,” she said.
He glanced at her. “Don’t sound so surprised,” he said dryly.
“It’s just that—I don’t see respect like this for leaders anymore.”
His jaw tightened. “They just remember how it was. Before.”
“Before?”
“Here we are, Miss Taylor.” His voice had gone cold and formal again. He pushed open a door, giving only a brief glance inside before he indicated she should go forward, while he waited in the hall.
Irene stepped into the room.
“Oh,” she gasped. She took two steps inside, looking at the enormous bed, the view over the Persian Gulf, complete with her own balcony. The lavishness of the Middle Eastern decor was like nothing she’d ever seen before. She’d thought her room at the Falconeri villa in Lake Como had been spectacular, but it had been like a roadside motel room, compared to this!
“This whole room is for me?” she said faintly.
Sharif did not enter the room.
“Dinner is at nine.”
She turned back to face him, her cheeks flooded with heat as, against her will, she immediately pictured an intimate dinner for two, with total privacy. “I don’t know if—”
“My sister will be joining us.”
“Oh.” Her blush deepened. “Then of course I will be there.”
“Of course, since I bid it.” His voice reminded her of her place here, and who was king. But his sensual dark eyes said something else.
She had to get a hold of herself!
“Thank you, Your Highness. I look forward to meeting my new charge.”
With an answering bow of his head, he left her.
Irene closed the door behind her, sagging back against it as she exhaled. Then she looked slowly around her incredible bedroom. It was twice as big as the whole house she’d grown up in. She looked at the silk damask, the fanciful decorations, the gold leaf on the walls. And most surprising of all: her meager possessions from her rented studio apartment in Paris had miraculously been transported here. How the heck had he done that? What was he, magic?
Well. Yes.
If not magic, he was a magician who knew well how to pull invisible strings.
But they had a deal. A business arrangement. Her whole family’s future was now riding on it. She couldn’t forget that. One slip-up, one indication that she was still desperately fighting her attraction to him—now more than ever—and she’d be thrown out as ruthlessly as her predecessor.
She just had to forget everything that had happened in Italy, that was all. Forget the heat of his skin on hers when he’d taken her hand. Forget his smile. The intensity of his dark eyes. The strength of his body against hers as he’d swayed her to the music. Forget the passion of the kiss that had set her on fire.
She had to forget the huskiness of his voice as he said, I am seducing you, Irene.
The Emir of Makhtar, powerful billionaire, absolute ruler of a wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom, had once wanted her—a plain, simple nobody. She had to forget that miracle. Forget it ever happened.
Irene put a tremulous hand to her bruised, tingling lips, still aching from his kiss the night before.
But how could she?
* * *
Sharif paced three steps across the dining hall.
Irene was late. It surprised him.
So was his sister, but that left him less surprised. He’d briefly spoken with Aziza earlier, after showing Irene—Miss Taylor, he corrected himself firmly—to her room. His sister had been glad to see him for about three seconds, before he’d informed her, without explanation, that he’d fired Gilly and hired a new companion.
“But she was going to take me to Dubai tomorrow,” Aziza had wailed. “Isn’t it bad enough that you’re forcing me to go through with this wedding? Do you also have to take away my only friend? I’m trapped here! Like a prisoner!”
And she’d fallen with copious sobs to her enormous pink canopy bed.
Irritated by the memory, Sharif paced back across the dining hall. He leaned his hand against the stone fireplace. It had been built nearly nineteen years before, along with the rest of the palace, in perfect replica of the previous building, which had been left in ruins during the brief dark months of civil war after his father’s sudden death.
Aziza could blame him if she wanted for her choice to marry. But he would not go back on his word. He would not risk scandal and instability. Not for his own happiness. Nor even for h
is sister’s.
He heard a noise and whirled around, only to discover his chief of staff. “Yes?”
The man bowed. “I regret to inform you, sire,” he said sadly, “that I carry a message from the sheikha. She wished me to relay to you that she is unwell and will not be attending you at dinner, nor meeting her new companion.”
Sharif’s eyes narrowed. Irritation rose almost to an unbearable level as he pictured his spoiled, petulant little sister coming up with this plan as a way to register her complaint and get her own way. The fact that it shamed him, as host and brother, that she was refusing to appear for dinner and meet her new companion would only make her happier still.
“Did she. Very well,” he said coldly. “Please inform the kitchen that no meals are to be brought to her room. Perhaps if she grows hungry, she will remember her manners.”
“Yes, sire,” Hassan said unhappily, and bowed again.
Sharif watched him go. He’d told Irene the truth. His chief of staff would be a fine choice for any woman to take as husband—a steady, good-hearted man of some consequence, and at twenty-eight, he was probably even looking for a bride. And yet, when he’d seen the young man starting to walk Irene to her room, seeing them together had caused a strange twist to Sharif’s insides. He hadn’t liked it. At all. It had almost felt like—jealousy. A sensation he wasn’t used to feeling.
His body tightened as he remembered how she’d trembled in his arms, when he’d seized her lips with his own. How she’d thrown her arms around him and leaned against his body, kissing him back softly and uncertainly at first, then with increasing force and a passion that matched his own. His one and only failure at seducing a woman. Ironic, since it was the one he’d wanted most. He still ached to possess her.
Sex is sacred. It’s a promise without words. A promise I’ll only make to the man who will love me for the rest of his life, and I can love for the rest of mine.
He pushed the memory away. He wasn’t going to waste any more time hungering for a woman he could not have. He was bewildered by her idealistic decision, yes. But he respected it. And realized now why he’d envied it.
