“You can’t mean...” Irene gave a low gasp. “Aziza’s mother was your father’s mistress, who killed him?”
He gave a single nod.
Her hands covered her mouth as if she couldn’t bear the pain—but why? Sharif wondered, as if from a distance. It was not her pain to bear. Why was she taking it so personally?
“And you still brought her here? Raised her?”
“Aziza had been left with a paid servant. I couldn’t abandon her. She is my sister.” Setting his jaw, he looked away. His voice was thick as he said, “Nothing that happened was her fault. She needed me.”
For a long moment, Irene looked at him.
“You have a heart,” she whispered.
He set his jaw. “What else could I have done? Refused to even see her, as my mother did? Leave her to the orphanage or worse? She’s a princess of the blood. My sister.”
“You love her.”
“Yes.” No matter how Aziza irritated the hell out of him sometimes, Sharif could never forget the first time he’d seen her, a tiny baby crying so desperately she was nearly choking with piteous sobs. He’d never allow anyone to hurt her.
“You have a heart,” Irene repeated quietly. As if she still couldn’t quite believe it.
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“Your mother didn’t.”
Sharif felt a lump in his throat. “Don’t be hard on her. She’d just lost everything. She barely was able to look at me, either. Her heart gave out. She died a few months later.”
“So you were alone—ruling the country—at just fifteen? With a newborn baby sister to watch over?” She shook her head. “How did you do it? At fifteen, I could barely manage a part-time job after school to pay our utility bills. How did you manage to pull your whole country back together? All alone?”
Here it was, then. The one thing she didn’t know. The thing he’d been dreading to tell her. The thing that he had been trying to force himself to face.
Sharif put both his hands against the table. “Because even then, I understood human nature.” He wouldn’t be a coward. He wouldn’t. He looked at her. “I encouraged my uncle to believe he would have great influence over me, to make him give up the idea of a regency. And as for the vizier—to him, I made a promise.” He said quietly, “I promised to marry his daughter.”
Irene stared at him, as if she hadn’t heard right. She blinked.
“You...” She swallowed. “You’re engaged?”
“Officially, it has not yet been announced.” He looked back at the water, wishing for something stronger. In the royal palace he respected his country’s long custom and abstained from alcohol. How he wished he did not honor such niceties at the moment. He felt he could have drunk an entire bottle of scotch as he forced himself to say aloud the very words he’d been desperately trying not to think about for months. “But it is time for me to make good on that promise. Our engagement will be announced after Aziza’s wedding.”
“Do you—” She flinched, then whispered, “Do you love her?”
“It’s not a question of love. I made a promise. I cannot go back on my word. Even though I might wish otherwise.” He looked away. “When my time comes, I will make the sacrifice.”
“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.
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