“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 “unhappiest 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.
Someday...
Someday, a man would look at her like that. And she’d have a baby like this. She looked at the warm, slumbering little boy in her arms, with his dark lashes fluttering against his plump cheeks. When the time was right, when fate meant it to be so, she would meet the One. They’d fall in love and get married. They’d work hard, buy a home, have children of their own. They would do things properly.
But what if it never happened? What if she spent her whole life waiting, working hard, following all the rules, and still ended up broke and alone?
Believe. 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
