She stared at him as if he was crazy. “What kind of women do you hang out with? I would never—I could never—” She shook her head, and wiped her eyes again. “I’m happy for them! They’re meant for each other!”
“Ah,” Sharif said, bored by such trite, polite statements. “So it is not him. You weep over some other man.”
She grit her teeth. “No...”
“Then what is it?”
“What it is—is none of your business!”
Sharif stepped toward her, just two of them hidden behind a copse of trees on the shore of the lake. They were almost close enough to touch. He heard her intake of breath as she took an involuntary step back. Good. So she was aware of him then, as he was of her, no matter her feisty words.
Her eyes held infinite depths, he thought, like a night filled with stars and shadows. He felt strangely dazzled. He’d never seen eyes so full of warmth and buried secrets. Secrets he wanted to learn. Warmth he wanted to feel against his skin.
It was also possible he was just desperate to be distracted from his own thoughts. If so, this woman offered a very pleasurable distraction indeed.
Lifting his eyebrow, Sharif gave her the smile no woman could resist—at least, none ever had—deliberately unleashing the full power of his attention on her. “Tell me why you’re crying, signorina,” he said softly. “Tell me why you left the wedding party and came down to the shore alone.”
Her lips parted, then closed. She looked away. “I told you. I’m not crying.”
“Just as you also told me you have no idea who I am.”
“Correct.”
If she was lying about the one, Sharif decided, she was likely lying about the other. Good to know where he stood. He slowly looked up and down her body. The pale pink dress fit her like a glove. She was so curvaceous. So...different.
She blushed beneath his gaze, becoming more impossibly desirable than ever. Sharif suddenly realized it wasn’t just his desire to forgot about weddings and marriage that made him want her. He’d been bored for a long, long time. He craved different. He craved this woman.
And so, he would have her.
Why not?
Whether she knew who he was or not, whether she was truly ignorant of his identity or merely putting on an act in an attempt to gain his attention, this woman was nothing truly magical or rare, no matter what his body was telling him. She was different from his usual type, yes. But beyond that, she was nothing more than a beautiful stranger. And he knew exactly how to deal with a beautiful stranger.
“The night is growing cold.” Sharif’s voice was a low purr as he held out his arm. “Come back to the villa. We will continue this conversation over champagne. Over dinner.”
“W-with you?” she stammered, looking startled. She didn’t move.
He cast a quick glance to her left hand. “You are not married. Are you engaged?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t think so,” he said.
She lifted her head sharply. “You can tell?”
He bared his teeth in a sensual smile. “You are just not the married type.”
To his surprise, she looked furious. More than furious. She looked as if he’d just served her a mortal insult.
“And why is that?” she said coldly.
Because of what he was planning to do to her tonight. Because of the delectable images that had started forming in his mind from the instant he’d seen her, of her curvaceous body naked against his, as her plump lips softly moaned against his skin. It had been impossible—absolutely impossible—that fate would be so cruel to have her already bound to another.
But Sharif didn’t think it strategically advisable to explain. Not when her dark eyes were glinting sparks of rage.
He frowned, observing the flush on her cheeks. “Why are you angry? What could I possibly have said to—ah.” His eyes crinkled in sudden understanding. “I see.”
“See what?”
“The reason you came down to the shore, in this quiet, hidden place.” He lifted a dark eyebrow knowingly. “I forget how women are affected by weddings. You no doubt wept through the candlelit ceremony, in romantic dreams at the beauty of love.” His lip curled at the word. “There is some boy back home that you wish would propose. You feel alone. That is why you were crying. That is why you are angry. You are tired of waiting for your lover.”
She pulled back, looking as if she’d been slapped.
“You are so wrong,” she choked out. “About everything.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” Sharif murmured, and he was. If there was no other man in the picture, his path to her bed would be a foregone conclusion. “In that case...whatever your reason for sadness, there will be no more tears tonight. Only enjoyment and pleasure. You are spending the evening with me.” His eyes met hers. “Not just the evening, but the night.”
He continued to hold out his arm in complete assurance. But the woman just stared at him. Her lips parted as she said faintly, “That’s your idea of small talk?”
He gave her a sensual smile. “I believe in cutting through unnecessary words to get to the heart of things.”
“Then you believe in being rude.” Still not touching him, she lifted her chin. “Excuse me.”
And without another word, she walked around him, as if the billionaire Emir of Makhtar were no better than a churlish boy. She walked fleet-footed up the path, heading toward the eighteenth-century villa on the hillside, where music and laughter wafted through the cool November night.
Twisting his head, Sharif stared up after her in shock.
* * *
Waiting for your lover.
Waiting for your lover.
The rhythm of the darkly handsome sheikh’s words seemed to taunt Irene Taylor’s footsteps as she went back up the path.
Waiting for your lover.
Irene blinked back tears. With unthinking cruelty he’d spoken the exact fear that had haunted her heart throughout her friend’s beautiful wedding. The words that had driven her to leave the other guests to stand alone on the lakeshore in quiet, silent heartbreak. She was twenty-three years old, and she’d been waiting for her lover all her life. She was starting to think he wasn’t coming.
She’d dreamed of the life she wanted, the home she wanted, since she was five years old and she’d come home crying from her first day of kindergarten. Her own house was silent, but their closest neighbor had seen Irene walk by, crying and snuffling with a broken lunch box in her hand. Dorothy Abbott had taken her in, wiped the blood off her forehead, given her a big homemade cookie and a glass of milk. Irene had been comforted—and dazzled. How wonderful it would be to live in a little cottage with a white picket fence, baking cookies, tending a garden, with an honest, loyal, loving man as her husband. Ever since that day, Irene had wanted what Dorothy and Bill Abbott had had, married for fifty-four years, caring for each other until the day they’d died, one day apart.
Irene had also known what she didn’t want. A rickety house on the desolate edge of a small town. Her mother, drunk most of the time, and her much older sister, entertaining “gentlemen” at all hours, believing their lying words, taking their money afterward. Irene had vowed her life would be different, but still, after high school, she’d worked at minimum-wage jobs, trying to save money for college, falling short when her mother and sister inevitably needed her meager earnings.
When