A Prize Beyond Jewels (16 page)

Well, she’d never know now. Instead, she’d be going home even worse off than she’d left—unemployed, broke and with all the baguettes and croissants she’d eaten in Paris, not exactly thinner, either.

She’d thought she could make a better life for herself. Even after the unfortunate incident that had gotten her fired six months ago, she’d still held out hope she’d find a new job in Paris. She’d gone through her savings, even the precious thousand-dollar bequest that the Abbotts had left her when they died.

Irene stopped. She pressed her fingers against her eyes, trying not to feel the jagged pain in her throat.

There will be no more tears tonight. Only enjoyment and pleasure.
She could still hear his low, husky voice.
You are spending the evening with me. Not just the evening, but the night.

Why her?

She’d always tried to believe it was just her family’s reputation that made people in her home town so cruel. That it wasn’t personal. But if that was true, why had the dark sheikh immediately assumed the worst of her, asking if she intended to seduce Emma’s husband—as if she would want to! As if she could! Why had he assumed she would immediately fall into bed with him, just for the asking?

Irene closed her eyes, brushing her forehead with a trembling hand. Her cheeks were hot. All right, so she’d been attracted to him. How could any woman not be?

How could any woman not be attracted to a man like that, dressed so exotically in full white robes, with his black eyes and cruel, sensual lips? Anyone would be attracted to that darkly handsome face. To his strong, broad-shouldered body. To the aura of power and limitless wealth that followed him like his entourage of bodyguards.

If Carter was out of her league, then this sheikh was so far out of her league that she couldn’t even see his league. It was somewhere out in space. Possibly by Jupiter.

Why would a man like that be interested in her?

It was true that for Emma’s sake, Irene had done her best to look nice today, brushing out her black hair, putting on makeup. She’d even worn contact lenses instead of her usual soda-bottle glasses, and had on a beautiful, borrowed designer dress. But that didn’t explain it.

Had she just seemed like easy pickings, crying by the lake? Or was there something wrong with her, some black mark on her soul that only men like Carter and the sheikh could see?

She remembered how the man’s piercing black eyes had looked right through her soul, seeing far too much.

You feel alone. That is why you were crying. That is why you are angry. You are tired of waiting for your lover.

Pushing the memory of his low, sardonic voice away, she took a deep breath.

She couldn’t go back to Colorado. She
couldn’t
. But all she had left was twenty euros, a studio apartment in Paris paid for till the end of the week and the return flight home.

Hearing the clanging of a bell, Irene looked up the hill to the highest terrace. Beneath the wisteria-covered trellis with hanging fairy lights, she saw Emma, now Mrs. Falconeri, summoning her guests to the outdoor dinner reception. Emma’s new husband, Cesare Falconeri, smiled down at his new bride as their baby son, dressed in a tiny tuxedo, yawned in his arms.

Emma had found her true love, married him, had a baby with him. They were blissfully happy. And kind-hearted. Also, Cesare was a billionaire hotel tycoon, which couldn’t hurt anything. Without asking her, they’d simply tucked a first-class airline ticket from Paris to Lake Como in their wedding invitation.
First-class
. She smiled wistfully. Now,
that
had been an experience. The flight attendant had waited on her hand and foot, as if she were someone important. Crazy.

The truth was, she didn’t need first-class. She just needed to believe that someday she might have what Emma had, and what Dorothy Abbott had once had: a husband she could love, respect and trust. A happy, respectable life, raising children in a snug, warm home.

She slowly walked up the hill with the other guests. The shadowy terrace was long, filled with three large communal tables placed end to end down the middle, decked out with flowers and glowing candles and colored lights dangling from above. Irene shivered in the November air, in spite of four heat lamps at the corners of the terrace, all going full blast.

She looked at the happy couple holding their fat, adorable baby, trying to ignore how her heart was aching. She was happy for Emma, she truly was. But she wondered at times if she would ever have the same.

Swallowing hard, Irene turned away. And walked right into a hard wall of muscle.

She gasped, her high-heeled shoes sliding beneath her. She started to fall to the stone floor, but a strong hand reached out to grab her wrist.

“Thank you...” Then she saw the face of the wall that had caught her: the handsome, arrogant sheikh, in the white robes with that darkly handsome face and piercing eyes.

“Oh,” she scowled. “It’s you.”

He said nothing in reply, just lifted her to her feet. She felt the warmth and heat of his palm against her skin. It did strange things to her. He looked down at her in the moonlight on the villa’s veranda as wedding guests laughed and ambled beneath the fairy lights dangling from the trellis beneath the deep violet Italian sky.

She ripped her arm away.
“Thank you,”
she repeated, in a hostile tone directly at odds with the courtesy of the words.

But he did not immediately turn and leave as she’d hoped. Instead, he stared down at her, his eyes as black as the cord wrapped around his white headdress.

“You accused me of being rude,
signorina
,” he said in a low voice. “I was not.”

Unconsciously, Irene rubbed her wrist, as if he had burned it with his touch. “You insulted me.”

“When I invited you to spend the night with me?” He sounded almost bewildered. “How was that an insult?”

“Are you kidding? What else could it be?”

He looked bemused. “Women generally take it as a compliment...”

Irene flinched.
Women
. Of course he’d used the line a million times, on a million interchangeable women!

“How lovely for you,” she said coldly, “that ten words can usually make any woman fall into bed with you. Sorry I’m not following your agenda.”

His lips had parted slightly. His brow was furrowed as he stared down at her. “Have we met before?” he said faintly. “Do you have some reason to despise me?”

“We’ve never met before, if that’s what you’re asking. But yes,” she said grimly, “I have a reason.”

“Which is?”

“Look, I have no idea who you are or why you decided to make me your target, but I know your type.”

“My—type?”

“Do you really want me to spell it out? It might hurt your feelings. But then—” she tilted her head “—fortunately I don’t think you have any.”

“Try me,” he said flatly.

“I could say that you’re a heartless playboy who accused me, within five seconds of meeting me, of planning to seduce my friend’s new husband. Saying I was waiting for a lover and oh, lucky me, you’re the very man for the job! How dare you pretend you can see into my soul, and poke at my heart in a rude and selfish way? Those are the things I could say, but I won’t, because it’s Emma’s wedding and she deserves a perfect day. I don’t want to cause a scene. Because I was taught that if you can’t say something nice to someone, to say nothing at all.” Dorothy Abbott had taught her that over oatmeal cookies and peppermint tea. She glared at him. “Some people,” she said sweetly, “have good manners. If you’ll excuse me.”

She started to turn, but he held on to her wrist. She glared at his hand, then at his face. He abruptly let her go.

“Of course,
signorina
,” the handsome sheikh said, holding up both his hands. “You are right. I was rude. Please allow me to apologize.” His lips twisted. “The better I know you, the more I realize the great mistake I made. Of course you do not want a lover. No sane man would ever want to be
your
lover. It would be like seducing a cactus.” He gave her a short half bow with a sweep of his robes. “Please forgive me,
signorina
. And do not allow me to keep you from your eternally desirable solitude.”

In a single smooth movement, he turned away from her. Irene stared after him, open-mouthed, as he disappeared into the crowd.

She closed her mouth with a snap.

Ooh! Helplessly, she stomped her foot.
Eternally desirable solitude!
The big jerk!

But at least now he was no longer looking at her—near her—touching her, it was easier to think straight. She was relieved to no longer be under the intense scrutiny of his black eyes, his gaze that seemed to see straight through her soul.

She’d wanted to get rid of him, and she’d succeeded. She did know his type. Well—not
exactly
. A wealthy sheikh in full robes, with bodyguards hovering, was rare in Colorado. Even her mother and older sister had never managed to bring home someone
that
exotic. But she knew the playboy type. She hadn’t judged him unfairly. She
hadn’t
.

But still—she thought of those dark eyes. Of the way her heart had pounded in the moonlight when she’d first seen him standing in front of her on the lake, the very instant after she’d wished with such reckless, passionate yearning that someone would love her. Of the sizzle that had coursed through her body when he’d touched her—just from the touch of his hand on her wrist!

It was good she’d managed to scare him off.
No sane man would ever want to be
your
lover.
Yup. She’d scared him off thoroughly.

Good
, she told herself. Better to be alone, better to be a virgin forever, than have her heart trampled into nothing.

She wanted more.

After her first day of kindergarten, when Dorothy had comforted her and Bill had gone to the school to set the bullies straight, Irene had started spending her afternoons with the retired couple. She’d tried to pretend the Abbotts’ tiny, warm house was her real home. When she was older, trying to ignore the cruel taunts of the girls and blatant come-ons of the boys in high school, Irene had once asked Dorothy how she and Bill had found each other. Dorothy had smiled.

“We got married at eighteen, both virgins, nervous and broke. Everyone thought we were too young.”
She’d laughed, and taken another sip of peppermint tea. “But we knew what we wanted. Waiting made it special, a commitment between us. I know these days, people think sex is no big deal, a moment of cheap pleasure, easily forgotten. But to us, it was sacred. A promise without words. And we never regretted the choice.”

Hearing the story when she was eighteen herself, Irene had vowed to wait for true love, too. She’d watched her sister and mother have so many cheap, forgettable affairs until there was no promise left in it, very little pleasure and certainly no joy. She wanted a different life. Her love would last.

She’d nearly gone astray with Carter, but never again. No way. No how. And if there was one thing she knew down to her bones, it was that a man like the sheikh—exotically handsome and rich and full of himself—would never truly love her, not even for an hour, much less a lifetime. She’d been right to scare him off.

But still, as Irene looked for her assigned place at the long wooden table, she was relieved to see it was on the opposite end from the sheikh’s place. As the twenty or so wedding guests had a hearty dinner on the terrace, surrounded by heat lamps to make the November night feel like summer, he kept his distance. Irene tried not to look in his direction, but she felt his dark eyes on her. Taking her heart in her hands, she dared to look down the long table—only to discover that he was laughing, as two gorgeous young supermodel types fawned over him. Irene looked away grumpily. Silly her, to imagine he’d been staring at her. She couldn’t imagine why on earth she’d thought that....

The fairy lights hung above, swaying in the breeze. The moon was bright like a big pearl in the velvety sky. After the champagne toast and the delicious dinner served by the villa’s staff, the long tables were pushed aside to turn the veranda into an impromptu dance floor. A dark-haired man with soulful eyes brought a guitar from the music room and started to play.

She saw a flash of white in the corner of her eye, and her body went on high alert. But, turning, she saw it was only Emma, holding out her baby. “Will you hold him so we can have our first dance?”

“I’d love to,” Irene said, smiling, happy to cuddle the warm, sleeping baby. But after she had Sam in her arms, she had a sudden thought and touched Emma’s arm. “There’s a sheikh here—one of your guests. Who is he?”

Emma blinked, then frowned in a very “
un
happiest day of my life” kind of way. Looking to the right and left, she lowered her head until her white translucent veil dripped to the floor. “
That
is Sheikh Sharif al-Aktoum, the Emir of Makhtar.”

“Emir?” Irene said, amazed. “You mean, the king? Of a whole country?”

“Yes.” Straightening, Emma gave her a hard stare full of meaning. “He’s very rich, very powerful and
very
famous for breaking many, many,
many
women’s hearts.”

“I was just curious.”

“Don’t be too curious about him.” She shook her head and said severely, “Just because Cesare reformed from being a playboy, you mustn’t expect that any other man...”

“I forgot about that,” Irene said. “Cesare used to be a playboy, too...”

Emma sighed. “He was. It used to be my job to buy designer watches as parting gifts for his one-night stands. I actually bought them in bulk. But the point is, Irene, most playboys never change. You know that, don’t you?”

Her friend looked so anxious that Irene gave her a reassuring nod. “Definitely.”

“Good.”

As Irene sat back into her chair with the baby, the new Mr. and Mrs. Falconeri went out alone on the dance floor, hand in hand. Swaying to the music, they looked at each other tenderly and passionately, as if no one else were there. Watching them, wistfulness filled Irene’s heart.