She licked her lips, pressing her cheek to the shirt of his tuxedo. She could feel his warmth beneath the fabric, feel the power and strength of his body towering over her own. She thought she could hear his heartbeat.
He stopped dancing. Took a ragged breath.
“Irene,” he said in a low voice.
Terror struck her—or maybe it was excitement—she no longer knew the difference. She only knew what was about to happen and that she could not stop it, even if she wanted to. And she didn’t. Slowly, she pulled away from his chest. She lifted her gaze to his.
Sharif’s eyes seemed to burn with dark fire. He ran his hands over her bare shoulders, softly down her back. She felt the roughness of his hands, the size of them, the strength. He ran his fingertips up her arms, to her neck. He stroked the edge of his thumb softly against her aching lips, sizzling where he touched, making her yearn, making her need.
Cupping her face, he tilted back her head. She felt the warmth of his breath. Felt the hard heat of his body against hers. For an instant, time seemed suspended. She forgot the people around them. Forgot to dance. Forgot all rational thought. Forgot to breathe.
He lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed her.
It was like nothing she’d ever experienced. The memory of Carter’s sloppy kisses of two years ago instantly evaporated, became laughable. Sharif took command, holding her in his arms, his lips hard and hot and sweet and soft. The music stopped. She heard only the rush of blood through her veins, making her dizzy, lost in the riptide of pleasure that tore through her, body and soul, leaving her weak and clutching his shoulders as if only this kiss could save her. As if his kiss were life itself.
She wanted him. She wanted this powerful billionaire sheikh, who had become simply Sharif to her. She wanted him. Even if it destroyed her...
“Fireworks! Come out now for the fireworks!”
The words rang out multiple times, in multiple languages. Irene heard the delighted response of the crowd, felt the rush as people started to leave the ballroom. Sharif pulled away. Her eyes opened slowly. She felt almost bewildered as she looked up at his handsome face, at his dark eyes, half-lidded with desire. Then she saw something else in his eyes.
Smugness. Masculine smugness.
She blinked. Took a deep breath. Eyes wide, she put her hand to her forehead.
“What are you doing to me?” she whispered.
“Don’t you know?” Sharif tilted his head as he looked down at her, his black eyes hot with desire. He stroked her cheek. “I am seducing you, Irene.”
A shock of awareness blasted over and through her, causing prickles to go up and down her body from her earlobes to her breasts and lower still. “You’re—you’re seducing me?”
“Forget the fireworks outside.” Running his hands down the bare skin of her shoulders above her strapless red gown, he lowered his head to her ear. “Come back to my suite and we’ll have our own.”
He pulled back from her, and she saw in his face that he expected her to say yes. He thought he’d won. In spite of all her protests, he’d always expected to win. Dawning horror rose inside her soul.
“All of our time together—it’s just been one long set-up? From the moment we met?”
Sharif twirled a tendril of her long dark hair around his finger. “I’ve never had to work so hard for any woman. But no woman has ever intrigued me more. Come back to my room, Irene. Let me show you everything the night can be...”
Irene ripped out of his arms, pressing her hands against her temples. One long set-up. All the laughter and banter. All the camaraderie and delight. She’d thought it was magic. She hadn’t seen the secret work of the magician pulling the strings.
“It was all just to get me into bed?” she whispered. “All our—our friendship was a lie?”
Sharif’s smug expression disappeared.
“Not a lie,” he said sharply. “A seduction. Surely even you can see the difference.”
“Even me?” Pain wrenched through her, the pain of shattered dreams, dreams she should have known better to have but that she’d allowed herself to believe in anyway. “Stupid. Stupid,” she whispered, hating herself.
“Irene...”
Looking up at him, she hated him even more. She couldn’t bear to meet his black gaze that always saw through her soul. Was he seeing through her now? Did he know what a fool he’d nearly made of her—the fool she’d nearly made of herself, letting herself fall into the magic, believing it to be real?
A sob lifted to her throat. Turning on her heel, she fled the empty ballroom, out into the night.
Outside, hundreds of wedding guests stood across the terraces, their eyes lifted up as the first explosions of colorful fireworks streaked across the sky, across the black mirror of the lake.
Irene fled in the opposite direction, toward the garden, her red silk skirts flying behind her. Only when she was in the dark quiet of the overgrown trees did she exhale. And cover her face with her hands.
She remembered how harshly she’d judged her mother and sister for falling for men’s lines, again and again, first for love, then for attention and finally for money. Oh, if only she’d known how it all started! With such breathless, foolish hope!
Sharif’s voice was low behind her. “I don’t understand.”
Trembling, she whirled around.
The moon had gone behind the clouds and in the darkness of night, she couldn’t see his face. “It’s been fun, hasn’t it?” he said. “Why are you reacting like this?”
Fireworks suddenly lit up the sky again, and she saw his face. He looked bewildered. He had no idea what he’d done to her.
Irene was glad for that, at least. She looked down, waiting for the sky to grow dark. Waiting for her voice to grow steady enough for her to speak.
“It’s just sex,” Sharif said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does to me,” she said. “Either it’s making love with all your heart, or else it’s just an empty, hollow shell of what it’s meant to be.”
He snorted. “You’re making a big deal out of—”
“I’ve waited my whole life for the man I will love. The man I’ll marry.”
Another boom of fireworks, a distant happy cry from the crowd, and she saw the shocked expression on his face. “You can’t be saying what I think you’re saying.”
She waited for it to be dark again. Then she said quietly, “When I marry, it will only be for love. And our wedding night will be truly about making love. The kind that will last forever...” Her throat caught. “You’ve accused me of being romantic,” she said softly, blinking fast. “I’m just waiting for the One.”
“One at a time?” he said weakly.
She shook her head. He scowled.
“What difference does the number of lovers make?”
“To you, it doesn’t.” Irene looked up. “But it matters to me. Sex is sacred. It’s a promise without words. A promise I’ll only make to the man who will love me for the rest of his life, and I can love for the rest of mine.” Her throat ached as she asked him a question to which she already knew the answer. “Are you that man, Sharif?”
A last blast of fireworks ricocheted across the night