Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

he opened the door and spoke coldly to his bodyguards in the hall. “Miss Lanvin is returning to Beverly Hills. Get her last paycheck and put her on the next plane.”

      The bodyguards glanced at each other as if they knew they all had a good chance of being fired.

      “Now,” Sharif said tightly.

      The next second, the bodyguards were at his bed, and as one of them lifted the naked, whining woman from the mattress, another efficiently covered her with a thick white terry-cloth bathrobe from the en suite bathroom. Within thirty seconds, they were carrying her down the hall and down the stairs and permanently out of his life—and Aziza’s.

      So the bodyguards were of some use after all. Sharif leaned back against his door, almost smiling to himself as he thought of using this point against Irene. Then his smile faded as he realized it was unlikely he’d ever talk to her again. The thought made him hurt a little inside. Why? Simply because he was too proud to accept failure? Surely he couldn’t be so childish as that?

      Pulling off his tuxedo and silk boxer shorts, he stepped into the shower.

      Irene wanted to wait for love and marriage. So be it. Even if he didn’t agree with her idealistic sentiment, he could respect it. He had no choice but to respect it.

      His own life and ideals were different. When he married, love would have nothing to do with it. In fact, once he and his future wife had a child to be heir and another as requisite spare, he fully expected he’d avoid her for the rest of his life.

      Climbing naked into bed, he gave a suspicious sniff. He could still smell Gilly’s flowery perfume on the sheets. It irritated him. He was tempted to call the villa’s housekeeping staff and have them change the sheets, but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Not to mention likely to cause a scandal. He could just imagine what Irene would say if she heard. Some scathing remark about the promiscuous nature of selfish, coldhearted playboys.

      Getting up, he opened the large oak wardrobe, found some clean sheets and changed the bed himself. He’d never done such a thing before, as from birth all of his needs had been attended to by servants. He’d mostly been raised by an American nanny and Makhtari tutors who taught him history and languages, along with fencing and fighting and riding. Even at boarding school, someone else had changed his sheets. So cleaning up after himself, even in this small way, was new. His fingers were clumsy as he did it.

      Finally, Sharif stood back from the bed, surveying his work with satisfaction. Just because he’d never done something before didn’t mean he couldn’t learn the skills. Again, he wished he could show Irene. Again, he reminded himself he’d never see her again.

      There’s lots of magic to believe in. The kind people make for themselves. Her dark eyelashes had trembled against her pale cheeks.

      Climbing into bed, he closed his eyes into a hard, dreamless sleep. He woke early, with the sound of his phone ringing.

      It was his chief of staff, back at the palace. He was needed in Makhtar. His European vacation was over. No more pleasure. No more distraction. All that awaited him at home was cold hard duty and a young sister in tears at the mess she’d made of her own life. He’d have to find her a new companion to hold her hand for the remaining three months until her wedding.

      Rising from the bed, Sharif yawned, rubbing the back of his head. He reached his arms upward, stretching his naked body before he dropped to the floor and did a few quick push-ups, just to wake up and get some of the adrenaline out of his bloodstream.

      Find Aziza a companion? The situation seemed hopeless. He needed a woman who was both young, for Aziza’s sake, and old, for his. He needed someone he could trust, someone who wouldn’t jump into Sharif’s bed, someone who would be professional enough to put Aziza’s needs before everything else. Someone who...

      Sharif’s spine snapped back as his eyes went wide. He picked up his phone again. He read through business emails, made a few additional calls. Without hurry, he dressed in his traditional Makhtari garb and, leaving others to pack his suitcases, he went down to the breakfast room, bodyguards falling into line behind him.

      He walked straight through the pale yellow room, ignoring all the women who tried to catch his eye. He offered an absentminded “good morning” to the host and hostess, then saw the person he’d been looking for. Pushing past all the rest, he went straight to Irene, who was sitting at the table with a plate loaded with pastries and scrambled eggs as she poured a great deal of cream into her coffee. He stopped right in front of her.

      “I want you to come work for me,” he said. “At my palace in Makhtar.”

      * * *

      Irene’s eyes still felt scratchy from a night of crying. She’d prayed she’d never have to face Sharif again. Foolish hope.

      It had taken her hours to fall asleep, hours of running worried circles in her mind about the choice she’d make today. Would she take her first-class flight back to Paris, where she had only a few days left of paid rent, and then the open-ended economy ticket back to Colorado, to the rickety house on the wrong side of the tracks? Would she go back in penniless humiliation to the place where Carter had told her she’d never be remotely good enough for a man like him?

      Or would she ask Emma to find her a job in one of her husband’s luxury hotels around the world—using a friendship for her own financial gain?

      In her darkest hour, Irene had bitterly regretted her pride, which had made her spurn Sharif’s lavish gift of the diamond necklace. If she’d kept it, she and her family could have been wealthy—set for life!

      But at what cost?

      No. She’d done the right thing. He’d made her want him. Dazzled her with romance. But she’d resisted the temptation, and she’d never see him again. So the damage wouldn’t be permanent, either to her heart, or to her soul.

      So how could she abandon her principles now, and ask Emma to arrange a job for her?

      But how could she not?

      Anxious and unsure, feeling exhausted and alone with her heart still aching over the coldhearted way Sharif had tried to seduce her, the way he’d kissed her, Irene had finally gotten out of bed. She’d taken a shower and dressed. No fancy designer clothes this time, but her own plain cotton T-shirt and hoodie and jeans fit for traveling. Going down to the breakfast room, she’d filled her plate with a mountain of food. She’d numbly sat down alone at the table.

      Then she’d felt a shiver of awareness behind her. Without turning, she knew who’d just come into the breakfast room. A dark shadow came across the table in front of her.

      “I want you to come work for me. At my palace in Makhtar.”

      It was the same husky voice that had haunted her dreams. Irene looked up from her plate of food. A shiver went through her body as she met Sharif’s dark eyes, a hard aching tingle across her lips, which he’d bruised every bit as thoroughly as her heart.

      He was once again dressed in his full sheikh regalia, with his bodyguards hovering behind him, the full presence of the Emir of Makhtar. And he’d never looked so handsome. The ultimate male figure of every woman’s romantic fantasy. Or at least hers.

      Wrong, she told herself fiercely. Her ultimate fantasy was a smart, funny, loyal man who would mow the lawn of their little cottage, read books to their children and love her forever. A man who would notice if a little neighbor child walked past the house, crying after her first day of school. A man who would roll up the sleeves of his old shirt, pull down his cap and go up to the school to make sure it never happened again. Her mother hadn’t done it. She’d never known her father, either. Irene had been an accident, a mistake. Her mother had told her that all her life. Stupid condom didn’t work. Don’t know which one.

      But after the first day of kindergarten, Dorothy Abbott had been the mother who’d comforted her, Bill Abbott the father who’d protected her. That was the house Irene wanted to live in. The parents she would someday give her own children.

      There