Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

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...

      He cut the thought off. Real, he mocked himself. His lip curled. He was starting to sound as bad as Irene. Like a romantic. Real?

      The promise he had made at fifteen to wed the vizier’s daughter was real. His need to protect his people and keep Makhtar prosperous and safe—that was real, too. He would announce his engagement to Kalila as soon as Aziza’s wedding was done. Kalila would be his queen, would provide him with the heir he needed.

      That was the most real of all. Even if the thought of what he’d need to do to get that heir on Kalila repelled him. She was sly, devious, cold-blooded. It would be like bedding a snake.

      Whereas the woman sitting close to him now—

      Irene made him feel warm all over. Hot to boiling. She was passionate and alive. Everything she believed, she believed with all her heart. She wore her heart on her sleeve, even if that made her vulnerable, even if she risked looking like a fool. She appealed to him in a way he couldn’t explain, not even to himself.

      But the longer he knew her, the more beautiful she was. Even now, when she was angry and tapping her foot with self-righteousness, she glowed from within.

      He wanted her. Now, more than ever.

      Perhaps he’d been too hasty in deciding not to seduce her.

      Yes. He straightened in the backseat of the limo, suddenly liking this idea. It was true he had a self-imposed rule about not sleeping with employees. Apart from the risk to the tranquility of his household, it had always just seemed, well, tacky.

      But his position on this issue was rapidly evolving.

      Just look how distracted he was right now, half out of his mind with desire. His mind was so filled with thoughts, his body so tense with need, that it was probably good he wasn’t back at the palace, making decisions that affected the affairs of state. How could he be expected to make rational decisions in the condition he was in?

      And Sharif was well experienced sexually. How much worse must it be for Irene, who was not? Every bit of her body language, from her tapping foot, to her teeth biting her pink lip, to her arms crossed tightly over her full breasts, told him that she felt the same overwhelming tension between them.

      She wanted to remain a virgin until she was wed. Fine.

      But how would she even be able to make a decent choice of husband, in the permanent lifelong decision of marriage, if she was half out of her mind with lust?

      He could save her from the bad judgment that a mind clouded by lust could bring. Protect her from rushing headlong into a poorly considered marriage.

      For her sake, he could seduce her. For her sake, and for his.

      Because he wanted her too much. Even when she was angry. Even when she was blunt. Even when she was annoying him with her wildly wrong ideas. Seducing her, taking her virginity freely given, would help free both of them from this—obsession—so they could each move on with their well-planned lives.

      Though he nearly growled aloud at the thought of any future man touching her. He wanted to be her man. He wanted to satiate himself with her, to feel her lips against his own, to fill her, to suckle and taste and caress every inch until she gasped and cried out with pleasure and held him tight, so tight, as if she’d never let him go...

      “We’re here!” his sister squealed, jarring him from his thoughts. Blinking, he saw they were at the mall entrance.

      “Skiing first?” he asked his sister. “Or shopping?”

      “Skiing—definitely skiing. Then lunch at the Swiss fondue restaurant with the view over the ski hill...”

      “How big is this mall?” Irene said, looking shocked.

      “Dubai has the best and biggest malls in the whole world. Everyone knows that.”

      “Everyone,” Irene echoed faintly.

      Aziza turned back to him. “Your bodyguards can carry the bags while we shop afterward.” She tilted her head, her eyes sparkling beneath her head scarf. “I intend to buy a lot, Sharif,” she said warningly. “A lot.”

      He looked at her. “And