Yanking back her hand, she shook her head, setting her jaw. “I couldn’t possibly accept.”
“Why not?”
She looked at him in disbelief. “You really have to ask? After I told you how I feel about mixing the lines between relationships and financial gain?”
Sharif lifted a dark eyebrow.
“Why, Miss Taylor. Are we in a relationship?” he purred. “Am I to understand you cannot accept my small gift because you’ve fallen desperately in love with me?”
He’d caught her very neatly.
“Of course not,” she said, glaring at him.
“In that case...”
He pulled her to the full-length mirror in his bedroom suite. Removing her borrowed band of Emma’s pearls, he replaced them with the diamond necklace from the black velvet box.
She nearly gasped at the cool weight of the stones against her skin.
“You look beautiful,” Sharif said softly, standing behind her. “You will be the queen of the ball tonight.”
“No one will be queen but Emma,” Irene said. “It’s her day.” Then she swallowed as she looked at herself in his mirror.
Afternoon sunlight was beaming down from the tall windows of his bedroom. She saw her own big eyes, the pink flush on her cheeks, her full, trembling lips. In her borrowed Lela Rose dress, with the diamonds flashing fire against her skin, she did look like a queen. But she couldn’t kid herself it was the dress, or even the jewels that made her look so...alive.
It was the man standing behind her now. She couldn’t touch him. But she could touch this...
Unthinkingly, she raised her hand and ran it down the thick, hard jewels. “How much did it cost?”
“It’s not good manners to ask, is it?”
“How much?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “A minor amount that I can easily afford.”
Irene licked her lips, still staring at herself in the mirror. Take it off this instant, she ordered herself, but she found her hand wouldn’t obey. Instead of reaching back to undo the clasp at her nape, it was stroking the huge jewels as they trailed from her collarbone to the center of her breastbone. It probably cost as much as a car, she thought. A car? A house. A mansion.
“A loan?” she suggested weakly.
He shook his head. “A gift.”
Irene had never seen anything so lavish and exquisite as this necklace, and knew she never would again. Crazy to think she was wearing a million euros around her neck—or more—when she had less than twenty euros in her purse.
But it wasn’t a gift, whatever Sharif had said. It was payment in advance. No man gave something for nothing. What was the difference between accepting a diamond necklace from a sheikh or getting a hundred bucks from old Benny who pumped gas as the Quick Mart? No difference at all.
But she found herself still stroking the jewels for another five minutes before she gathered the willpower to reach for the clasp.
He put his larger hand over hers, stopping her. Their eyes met in the mirror.
“They’re yours.”
“I told you. I can’t accept.”
“I won’t take them back. They were bought for you today in Rome.”
“Rome?” she cried. “How?” Then she remembered his newspaper. “It’s very wasteful,” she grumbled. “Sending private jets all around the world at the drop of a hat. Buying diamonds for a stranger.”
“You’re not a stranger. Not anymore.” He shrugged. “If you don’t want the necklace, toss it in the lake. Bury it in the garden. I care not. It’s yours. I won’t take it back.”
“But—”
“I’m bored with this subject. Let’s find something fun to do.” He gave her a lazy smile. “Perhaps go congratulate the bride and groom on their civil ceremony?”
Guilt flashed through her as she recalled how she’d barely spoken three words with Emma all day. “Good idea,” she mumbled.
But for all the rest of the long afternoon, she found herself unable to take off the necklace, or to part company with Sharif, who was continually at her side, whispered shocking things to try to make her laugh, and then laughing himself when she whispered her own shocking things in return.
The beautiful, chic supermodel types goggled at them for the rest of the afternoon, and through dinner, too, as if they couldn’t imagine what the handsome, powerful Emir of Makhtar could find so fascinating about Irene. Oh, if only they knew. She was insulting him, mostly.
She allowed herself a small, private giggle with her after-dessert coffee. Then her eye caught Emma’s worried face across the table.
Irene’s smile fell. Looking away, she scowled. Emma should know she didn’t need to worry. She knew what she was doing.