Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

She squeezed her eyes shut. Have faith.

      “You are not dancing, fräulein?”

      She looked up with an intake of breath, but instead of the Emir of Makhtar, she saw a dignified blond man with blue eyes. She shook her head, feeling awkward. “No, thank you.” Then, remembering how the sheikh had so unfairly and wrongly compared her to a cactus, she forced herself to smile until her cheeks hurt as she indicated the sleeping baby in her arms. “It’s kind of you, but I can’t, I’m holding Sam while they dance.”

      “Ah.” The man sighed and said with a German accent, “Such a pity.”

      “Yes. Indeed,” she said, relieved beyond all measure when he moved on. She didn’t know how to react. Two men hitting on her in one night? This had never happened during her year in Paris. But then—she looked down at the sleek-fitting designer gown—she didn’t usually dress like this, either. But still, she wasn’t half as glamorous or beautiful or thin as the other female guests. Not even close!

      Irene knew her flaws. Her thick black hair was her one vanity, but other than that... Her body was too plump. Her nose turned up at the end, and her eyesight was truly bad. She blinked hard. Her new contact lenses still felt strange against her eyeballs. She was used to wearing glasses. She was also used to being invisible. She was used to avoiding attention, staying at home reading books, quietly unnoticed in the corner. She thought longingly of the new Susan Mallery novel waiting on her bedside table.

      “Good evening, señorita.”

      Irene looked up at the deep, purring voice. It was the Spanish man who’d been playing the guitar so beautifully.

      “You’re amazing,” she blurted out.

      The Spaniard gave a wicked grin. “Who told?”

      She blushed. “Your music, I mean. But if you’re here, then who...” She turned and saw there was now a four-person band playing the music. She hadn’t even noticed the change. She finished lamely, “You are very good on the guitar.”

      “The least of my skills, I assure you. Would you care to dance?”

      “Oh.” Her blush deepened. Another handsome playboy, way out of her league, flirting with her? Weird. Had Emma slipped a ten-dollar bill to the most handsome guests in an attempt to boost Irene’s confidence? Although these didn’t seem like the type of men to be swayed by a ten-dollar bill. Ten million dollars, maybe. Maybe not even then.

      Biting her lip, she again indicated the sleeping baby. “Sorry. Emma left me in charge. I’d have only stepped on your feet anyway.” She added hastily, “Thanks, though!”

      “Another time, perhaps,” the Spaniard murmured, and moved on without any apparent heartbreak to one of the wealthy-supermodel types she’d seen the sheikh talking to earlier. Irene looked down at the warm, sleeping baby in her lap. At least she didn’t need to worry that anyone had paid little Sam to pretend to like her.

      “It must be exhausting,” a man’s sardonic voice observed behind her, “that the ruder you become, the more you have to beat potential lovers off with a stick.”

      Irene felt a shock of electricity through her body. She turned her head to see the sheikh standing behind her, his black eyes gleaming. She hid the uncontrollable leap of her heart.

      “You would know,” she murmured, looking at him sideways beneath her lashes. “Isn’t that how it usually works for you? You tell women that they mean nothing to you, that they’re just the next mark on your bedpost, and they are so enamored of this thought that they fall at your feet and beg you, Take me, take me now?”

      His dark eyes held a bright gleam as he took another step toward her.

      “Say those five words to me, Miss Taylor,” he said softly, “and see what happens.”

      A tremble electrified her body, from her earlobes down her spine to the hollows of her feet. She licked her lips and tossed her head.

      “That’s one thing I’ll never say to you. Not in a million years.”

      “I could make you say it, I think,” he said softly. “If I really tried.”

      He looked down at her with eyes black and hot as smoldering coals, and her throat went dry. She felt her body turning into putty, her brain into mush.

      “Don’t bother trying,” she managed to croak. “You’ll fail.”

      He tilted his head. “I don’t fail.”

      “Never?”

      “No.”

      As they stared at each other, the air thickened between them. Something sizzled, something primal. The people around them became blurs of color, mere noise. Held in his dark gaze, Irene felt time stand still.

      Then her heart started to beat again. “You used my name. How did you know? Did you ask about me?”

      He lifted a dark eyebrow. “I was curious.”

      “I know about you now, too. The famous playboy emir.”

      He tilted his head toward her, as if confiding a secret. “I know something about you, too, Miss Taylor.”

      “What’s that?”

      With a slow, sensual smile, the billionaire emir held out his hand.

      “The reason you refused to dance with those other men,” he said huskily, “is because you want to dance with me.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      THE INTENSITY AND focus of his gaze held her down like a butterfly with a pin, leaving her helpless and trembling. Irene’s heart pounded in her chest.

      “I want to dance with you, Miss Taylor.” The sheikh looked down at her. “I want it very much.”

      Her throat was dry, her mind scrambling. She exhaled when she remembered Sam sleeping in her arms. “Sorry, but I couldn’t possibly. I promised to hold the baby and...”

      Unfortunately at that moment Sam’s mother brushed past them to scoop her sleeping baby up in her arms. “It’s time to put this sleepy boy to bed,” Emma said, holding him snug against her beaded white gown. She threw the sheikh a troubled glance and said in a low voice to Irene, “Be careful.”

      “You don’t need to worry,” Irene said. Really, couldn’t her friend see that she could look out for herself? She wasn’t totally naive.

      “Good,” Emma murmured, then turned and said brightly to the sheikh, “Excuse me.”

      Irene looked at him, wondering how much of the whispered conversation he’d heard. One glance told her he’d heard everything. He gave her an amused smile, then lifted a dark eyebrow.

      “It’s just a dance,” he drawled. He tilted his head. “Surely you’re not afraid of me.”

      “Not even slightly,” she lied.

      “In that case...” Holding out his hand with the courtly formality of an eighteenth-century prince waiting for his lady, he waited.

      Irene stared at his outstretched hand. She hesitated, remembering how her body had reacted the last time they’d touched, the way he’d made her tremble with just a touch on her wrist. But as he’d said, this time he was just asking for a dance, not a hot, torrid affair. They were surrounded by chaperones here.

      One dance, and she’d show them both that she wasn’t afraid. She could control her body’s response to him. One dance, and he’d stop being so intrigued by her refusals and leave her safely alone for the rest of the weekend. He’d move on to some other, more responsive woman.

      Slowly, Irene placed her hand in his. She gave an involuntary shudder when she felt the electricity as their fingers intertwined,