by Jennie Lucas
He’d been right about one thing, Irene thought unhappily. Their flashy red sports car fit right in. No one gave it a second glance.
She took a deep breath.
“I told you when you hired me,” she said shakily, “that you might regret it. Because I speak the truth.”
“It’s not truth. It’s your opinion. One that you are free to have because you have nothing to lose. You do not have the lives of two hundred thousand people depending on you.”
“No, but—”
“Share your feelings with me, Irene Taylor. Talk your head off whenever you want. But if you say one word of it to my sister—if you preach to her about love that lasts forever—that is your last day under my employment. You will be sent back home without pay. Do you understand?”
Setting her jaw, Irene looked away.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She gripped the edge of her leather seat as he turned the car sharply into a private driveway. Ahead of them, she saw a stucco fence at least ten feet high, with a guardhouse at the gate.
The air in the car, which had crackled with such sensual energy in the gas station outside Abu Dhabi, now seemed frozen over. How was it possible, Irene wondered miserably, that feelings could burn so hot one moment and so cold the next? Just a few hours ago, she’d been crying at the thought of his engagement.
Now, she would have dearly loved to push him out of the Ferrari and leave him in a ditch by the side of the road.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I CANNOT BELIEVE that you would take such a risk coming here unprotected... Knowing full well that your future husband might hear of this foolish escapade...”
Sharif set his jaw, folding his arms with a scowl as he looked down at his young sister. He’d been lecturing her for some time.
“Of all the selfish, idiotic...”
Aziza sat meekly on an outdoor sofa on the grand terrace of their family’s vacation villa, which overlooked an Olympic-size pool and the gleaming brilliance of the Persian Gulf beyond. His sister’s eyes were turned down, but he recognized the stubborn set to her jaw. It matched the stubborn expressions of the two women sitting on each side of her.
Old Basimah was on the left, glaring at him with hard beady eyes, her sagging jowls quivering with unspoken fury that he, the elder brother who was merely and unimportantly the emir and absolute ruler of Makhtar, would dare to scold her precious charge.
Ignoring her, Sharif continued harshly, “You must never do such a thing again...”
But at this, the woman sitting on Aziza’s other side, holding her hand, looked up sharply.
“She has explained why she came to Dubai, Your Highness,” Irene said coolly. “She apologized for not telling you her intention, but surely you would not begrudge the sheikha a simple, discreet weekend vacation.” Irene lifted an eyebrow, as if to say, You, of all people, cannot criticize her for that. When she saw her mark hit home, she relaxed and gave him a placid smile. “She is not, after all, a prisoner—is she?”
Sharif’s scowl deepened. He’d expected that Irene would get along well with his headstrong young sister. He hadn’t expected them to become friends so quickly. Or that she would take his sister’s side so craftily, in a way he could not easily fight. Aziza knew it, too. There was a reason his sister was arguing in English, not Arabic.
“There are many places to relax,” he replied through his teeth, “in Makhtar City.”
Irene gave him a sweet smile. “But Her Highness had her heart set on coming here, where she could test her skiing lessons at the indoor ski slope at the Mall of the Emirates.” She tilted her head. “She could have requested the use of your private jet, and flown off to a ski resort in Switzerland or Patagonia with an entourage. Instead, she came here simply and privately, at very little expense. Surely her thriftiness should be rewarded, not scolded.”
The woman should be in diplomacy, he thought grumpily.
“Of course,” he said through gritted teeth. She was not only giving his sister a reasonable defense, she was also obliquely pointing out his lavish spending on his own trips abroad. While not directly giving voice to her disapproval of Aziza’s coming wedding, she was undermining his authority and giving his younger sister greater confidence in her decisions, to better fight him later. Well played, he thought. But Irene didn’t know who she was dealing with.
Sharif looked down at his sister. Aziza’s plump cheeks were still stained with tears, her hands listless in her lap. She was, after all, just nineteen. He himself had first started taking illicit weekends himself at that age as a way to escape from the pressures of the palace. That was what he’d first feared when she’d left—that she was meeting some boy here, some waiter she’d met, or heaven knew what. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. So perhaps—just perhaps—he was being too hard on her.
Sharif took a deep breath. “All I want is for you to be happy...”
Aziza looked up. “How can I be happy?” she cried. “When I’m just waiting, waiting to marry that old man?”
“How indeed?” Irene murmured under her breath.
Thus encouraged, the younger woman glared at her brother and tossed her head defiantly. “It’s like having a date with the guillotine!”
Enough was enough.
“You made a promise,” he said sharply. “You know your duty. You have yours, just as I have mine...”
“It’s not fair! I went from an all-girls boarding school to the palace, and now I’m trapped there until I go to my husband’s house, where I’ll be trapped for the rest of my life.” She shook her head. “You’ve lived your life for the last nineteen years, Sharif, bossing everyone around as emir, enjoying yourself in London and all over the world. What about me? When is my time to live?”
Sharif looked at the three mutinous feminine faces in front of him and felt momentarily outgunned.
He saw the tenseness of Aziza’s trembling shoulders as she sat on the outdoor sofa. Saw the brittle expression on her face. All she’d wanted was a chance to swim and ski and distract herself from the engagement she’d entered into so hastily. He, of all people, could understand this.
“Perhaps in my desire to keep you safe, I haven’t given you enough freedom,” he said slowly. “I didn’t realize you felt trapped in the palace, Aziza.” He paused. “Shall we remain in Dubai for a few days? Have a holiday? Perhaps when you’re done skiing, we should go on a shopping excursion.”
“Shopping?” Aziza said hopefully.
“Every bride needs wedding clothes.”
“How much can I buy?”
“Anything you want.”
Aziza slowly rose to her feet, her eyes wide. “Anything? Five new handbags? A new wardrobe? Ball gowns? Jewels?”
“Anything and everything.”
“Thank you, Sharif! Oh!” she cried, tossing her arms around him. “You’re such a good brother!”
Now, Irene was the one to scowl. And he was the one to give her back a placid smile, as if to say, Did you expect to win so easily? I’ve been in politics my whole life.
“It’s just what I needed,” his young sister said, wiping her eyes. “It will make me feel so much better.”
Sharif smiled at her. This was what he liked best—for his orders to be met with thanks and joy. But in this case, he felt he shouldn’t take full credit. “Thank Miss Taylor,” he murmured. “It was her idea.”
Irene’s lips parted. “It wasn’t exactly my—”
“Thank you, Miss Taylor!” Aziza threw her arms around Irene’s shoulders. “You’re already so much more fun than Gilly!” A smug smile crossed the younger woman’s face as she crowed, “Just wait until Alexandra sees all the things I’m going to buy today—it’ll be twice as much as all the pictures she’s been posting from her dorm! I win! I win, win, win!”
&nb
sp; Irene rose heavily to her feet. Sharif saw the sour expression on her face and hid a smile.
He spread his arms wide. “I will have my driver bring the car around. My bodyguards arrived ten minutes ago.”
“They did?” Irene said, then: “Of course they did.”
Twenty minutes later, the four of them—plus a driver and bodyguard—were in a gray limousine, speeding from the villa to the mall, with the other bodyguards driving SUVs ahead and behind.
Sitting in the back of the limo, Sharif felt Irene’s sideways glare. He didn’t mind at all. Like his sister, he’d won.
Aziza was settling down, on track to a marriage that would increase the stability and prestige of his small nation. And, he hoped, her older husband would stabilize her. Yes, the Sultan of Zaharqin was older, but he was steady and respectable. It would be a good match. Something that would last, and would in time, as they built their family, lead to mutual respect, Sharif hoped, even affection, between husband and wife.
Stability. Peace. Those were the things he valued, both in his country and in his life. His eyes fell on Irene sitting across from him in the back of the limo.
He wished he could say he felt peaceful now.
They were barreling down the road at a breakneck pace, the driver well accustomed to the traffic laws of Dubai, which were often treated more like suggestions, really, than laws. The battle of wits between him and Irene had his blood flowing. All his senses were aware of her.
Sharif’s gaze slowly traveled from the impatient tapping of her foot in those ridiculously casual plastic flip-flops, to the curvaceous outline of her body in the long knit cotton dress. A jean jacket covered her tightly folded arms in the frigid air-conditioning of the Bentley. He saw the angry set of her jaw. The warm creamy hue of her skin. She was staring out the window, her teeth biting down on her full, pink lower lip. She was clearly repressing the words she wished to say, but her body language said it all for her. She’d lost this battle, and she didn’t like it.
He couldn’t stop looking at her lips, the full sensual lips that had kissed him so suddenly and unexpectedly when he’d gone into her bedroom to wake her. Her beautiful eyes had fluttered open, she’d smiled, whispered something he couldn’t hear, then pulled him down hard against her on the bed. His whole body suddenly felt tight, his heart pounding at the memory.
What a woman. If it had been his choice, he would have chosen a woman like this for his queen, angry and sweet, sexy and idealistic and proud. He respected her. Even though it was a pain in his side, he admired the way she’d fought for his sister. Even before she’d met Aziza, she’d been protective of her. She wasn’t afraid to fight for what she believed in.
He suddenly wondered what it would be like to fight with Irene every day, having her argue with him furiously over the breakfast table, her deep brown eyes shooting sparks of fire. Then taking her to bed every night, where the fire could explode. It wouldn’t always be peaceful. Or stable. And yet it would be, because what was between them, both the good and bad, would always be real...
He cut the thought off. Real, he mocked himself. His lip curled. He was starting to sound as bad as Irene. Like a romantic. Real?
The promise he had made at fifteen to wed the vizier’s daughter was real. His need to protect his people and keep Makhtar prosperous and safe—that was real, too. He would announce his engagement to Kalila as soon as Aziza’s wedding was done. Kalila would be his queen, would provide him with the heir he needed.
That was the most real of all. Even if the thought of what he’d need to do to get that heir on Kalila repelled him. She was sly, devious, cold-blooded. It would be like bedding a snake.
Whereas the woman sitting close to him now—
Irene made him feel warm all over. Hot to boiling. She was passionate and alive. Everything she believed, she believed with all her heart. She wore her heart on her sleeve, even if that made her vulnerable, even if she risked looking like a fool. She appealed to him in a way he couldn’t explain, not even to himself.
But the longer he knew her, the more beautiful she was. Even now, when she was angry and tapping her foot with self-righteousness, she glowed from within.
He wanted her. Now, more than ever.
Perhaps he’d been too hasty in deciding not to seduce her.
Yes. He straightened in the backseat of the limo, suddenly liking this idea. It was true he had a self-imposed rule about not sleeping with employees. Apart from the risk to the tranquility of his household, it had always just seemed, well, tacky.
But his position on this issue was rapidly evolving.
Just look how distracted he was right now, half out of his mind with desire. His mind was so filled with thoughts, his body so tense with need, that it was probably good he wasn’t back at the palace, making decisions that affected the affairs of state. How could he be expected to make rational decisions in the condition he was in?
And Sharif was well experienced sexually. How much worse must it be for Irene, who was not? Every bit of her body language, from her tapping foot, to her teeth biting her pink lip, to her arms crossed tightly over her full breasts, told him that she felt the same overwhelming tension between them.
She wanted to remain a virgin until she was wed. Fine.
But how would she even be able to make a decent choice of husband, in the permanent lifelong decision of marriage, if she was half out of her mind with lust?
He could save her from the bad judgment that a mind clouded by lust could bring. Protect her from rushing headlong into a poorly considered marriage.
For her sake, he could seduce her. For her sake, and for his.
Because he wanted her too much. Even when she was angry. Even when she was blunt. Even when she was annoying him with her wildly wrong ideas. Seducing her, taking her virginity freely given, would help free both of them from this—obsession—so they could each move on with their well-planned lives.
Though he nearly growled aloud at the thought of any future man touching her. He wanted to be her man. He wanted to satiate himself with her, to feel her lips against his own, to fill her, to suckle and taste and caress every inch until she gasped and cried out with pleasure and held him tight, so tight, as if she’d never let him go...
“We’re here!” his sister squealed, jarring him from his thoughts. Blinking, he saw they were at the mall entrance.
“Skiing first?” he asked his sister. “Or shopping?”
“Skiing—definitely skiing. Then lunch at the Swiss fondue restaurant with the view over the ski hill...”
“How big is this mall?” Irene said, looking shocked.
“Dubai has the best and biggest malls in the whole world. Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone,” Irene echoed faintly.
Aziza turned back to him. “Your bodyguards can carry the bags while we shop afterward.” She tilted her head, her eyes sparkling beneath her head scarf. “I intend to buy a lot, Sharif,” she said warningly. “A lot.”
He looked at her. “And I intend not to complain.”
“Ah... This is the best day ever.” The teenager sighed. Sharif looked from Aziza to the elderly Basimah, whose wrinkled face was almost smiling at him—surely the first time ever? Could a shopping spree really mean so much?
The limo stopped and a bodyguard opened the door. Cooing happily, Aziza and the older woman hopped out.
Irene did not move. She still sat glaring at him, unimpressed. Her foot, still crossed over her leg, was now tapping as if she wanted to do nothing more than give him a hearty kick right out of the back of the limo. “Distracting a teenager from a lifelong decision with a shopping spree at the mall? Isn’t that like shooting fish in a barrel?”
“We all distract ourselves in different ways from things we cannot change.”
“But she still could—”
“If she was mature enough to accept a proposal, she’s mature enough to live with it.”
Irene started toward the open car door, then paused just long enough to throw back a glance like a fistful of daggers. “I just hope you’re happy.”
A gust of hot wind blew inside the car through the open door. Sharif inhaled the lingering vanilla scent of her hair, sensual and warm.
Not yet, he thought. A slow-rising smile lifted his lips. But I could be.
* * *
Irene floated on her back in the Persian Gulf, staring up at the starry night, feeling the warm water lap against her skin.
After three full days in Dubai, she’d seen everything, she thought. They’d gone to the top of the Burj Khalifa, they’d had high tea at a six-star hotel, the Burj al-Arab, shaped like an enormously high sailboat floating out in the water of the gulf. Now that there was no risk of scandal—now they had a story of “trousseau shopping” rather than “runaway bride”—Sharif made no effort to hide their presence. Yesterday, they’d taken a private helicopter to Abu Dhabi, where they’d met up with one of Aziza’s friends from boarding school and enjoyed Friday brunch with their family at the British Club.
If the other expat families enjoying mimosas on the patio had been shocked to see the Emir of Makhtar invade their quiet club with his entourage, they, being British, had hidden it well and swiftly returned to the pleasures of the morning and talking with their friends.
So much for the sights. Most of the last three days had been spent on one thing: shopping, shopping and more shopping. Irene had enjoyed it at first. It had been a relief to leave the indoor ski slope, after falling on her face again and again in the man-made snow, feeling as ungainly and clumsy as an ox with Sharif’s amused eyes on her. At least, she told herself he looked amused. Not smoldering. Not as if he was thinking, every time she fell into the snow, every time he took her hand and pulled her up, that he wanted to kiss her senseless.
Her cheeks still burned when she remembered how she’d kissed him back in Makhtar. Stupid dreams! Look at the trouble they got her into!
