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“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!”
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...
