Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

have known better.

      Funny how it was Carter who’d finally managed to drive her out of town.

      I just wanted to have some fun with you, Irene. That’s all. You’re not the type I’d marry. He’d given an incredulous laugh. Did you actually think a man like me, with my background...and a woman like you, with yours...could ever...?

      Yes, she had. She wiped her nose, which was starting to snuffle. Thank heaven she hadn’t slept with Carter two years ago. Just the humiliation of loving him had been enough to make her flee Colorado, first for a job in New York, then Paris.

      She’d told herself she wanted a fresh start, in a place no one knew about her family’s sordid history. But some secret part of her had dreamed, if she went away, she might return self-assured and stylish and thin, like in an Audrey Hepburn movie. She’d dreamed she’d return to her small Colorado town in a sleek little suit with a sophisticated red smile, and Carter would take one look at the New Her and want to give her his love. Not just his love, but his name.

      Stupid. It made Irene’s cheeks burn to think about it now. She wiped the tears away fiercely. As if living in New York or Paris, as if mere geography, could achieve such a miracle—turning her into the type of woman Carter would want to marry! As if designer clothes and a new hairstyle would make him take her away from the shabby house on the wrong side of the tracks, the one that had men sneaking in so often at night on paid “dates” with her mother and older sister, to the enormous hundred-year-old Linsey Mansion on the hill!

      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