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“Sacrifice. You speak of it as if it’s a death.”
“Because it is,” he said in a low voice. “For these last few months of freedom I’ve tried to enjoy what pleasures I could. But even then, even now, I feel the bars starting to close in.”
Irene stared at him for a long moment, and he saw her beautiful face struggle between sympathy and anger. Anger won.
“How could you?” she said. “How could you live like you do—Europe’s biggest playboy...”
“My reputation as a playboy might be more than my actions truly deserve...”
“And all along—you’ve been committed to marry someone?” She rose to her feet, her face a mask of fury. “How could you flirt with me when you were promised to another woman? How could you try to seduce me? How could you kiss me?”
“Because I’m trying not to think about it,” he snapped, rising to his feet in turn, meeting her fury with his own—except Sharif’s anger was cold and deep and edged with despair. “Can you understand what it is like to despise someone to the depths of your soul, and know you’ll still be forced to call her your wife? To have a child with her?” He paced by the dining table, his jaw taut as he swiveled to glare at her. “You asked why I was at Falconeri’s wedding. I barely know the man! I went because...”
“Because?”
“Because I was trying to accept my fate!” he exploded. Turning away, he forced his voice to calm down, forced his heart to slow. He took a deep breath. “I went because I needed to feel like any ridiculous fantasies I ever had about marriage were wrong. I knew Falconeri was marrying his housekeeper for the sake of their baby. I thought, if I went to the wedding, I would discover the truth beyond their happy facade. I’d discover they could barely tolerate each other. Instead, I saw something different.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “And I met you.”
Looking at Irene’s beautiful, honest, stricken face, emotion filled Sharif’s heart. He found himself yearning for what he’d never known, and what he’d never have.
Their eyes locked. Irene’s expression became sad, vulnerable, filled with grief. “How could you?”
He looked at her.
“How could I not?” he said in a low voice.
Tears streamed down her face as she shook her head. “Never kiss me again,” she choked out, and fled the room.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE SHOULDN’T BE crying.
She had nothing to cry about.
Sharif—His Highness, Irene corrected herself savagely as she stomped up the stairs toward her room—was her employer, nothing more. So what if he’d kissed her in Italy while virtually engaged to another woman? It wasn’t as if Irene ever thought they might be together. She’d lost absolutely nothing. In fact, she should be glad to be proven right—Sharif was every bit the heartless womanizer she’d first believed him to be!
Though maybe not completely heartless...
Can you understand what it is like to despise someone to the depths of your soul, and know you’ll still be forced to call her your wife? To have a child with her?
No! She pushed away the memory of his hoarse voice and bleak eyes. She wasn’t going to have an ounce of sympathy for him. She was not!
I made the deal I had to make to save my country.
Childishly, she covered her ears as she continued to rush down the hall. Things were right and wrong. Black and white. There were no shades or colors between. Only excuses. She wouldn’t let herself feel a whit of sympathy. What he’d done was wrong!
Irene somehow managed to find her way back to her room. The dinner that had seemed so delicious was now churning inside her belly. She took a shower, brushed her teeth and caught a look at her face in the bathroom mirror. Her hand trembled as she set down her toothbrush. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Then froze.
She still felt his kiss there. She touched her lips with her fingertips. She could still feel his mouth on hers, the way he’d claimed them so passionately as his own on that night of fireworks in Italy. She could still feel the way she’d kissed him back, with a lifetime of pent-up loneliness and need. With intoxicating hope.
Irene dropped her hand. She couldn’t think about that now. Glancing out her window, toward the moonswept Persian Gulf beyond the palace, she swallowed over the lump in her throat. Whatever it had been between them—a lie? a dream?—it was definitely over.
Climbing into her bed in the huge room, Irene pulled the luxurious sheets up to her chin. What would Dorothy have told her to do? She’d have said that Irene shouldn’t sell her integrity, not for any price. She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d couldn’t remain in Makhtar, under the same roof with him. Not now. She’d take the first commercial flight out of Makhtar City tomorrow morning, back to...
