Sharif said, ‘You were lucky. My father and I were both invited. Except my father didn’t turn up. I missed the waltz class before the event and I was the only cavalier at the ball who didn’t know how to dance. Throw in the fact that my father was reaching nuclear levels of press coverage at the time, and my mixed race heritage among the blue-eyed Princes of Europe made me stand out like a sore thumb... It didn’t end well.’
Liyah’s eyes widened. ‘You got into a scrap?’
Sharif lifted the hand holding hers and pointed at a scar by his jaw.
Liyah reached out and ran her finger along the small indentation.
The moment Liyah’s finger touched Sharif’s skin an electric jolt went right down to his solar plexus. He stopped moving. She looked up at him, eyes huge. Her hair flowed over her shoulders, marking her out amongst all the other women with their complicated up-dos and overdone faces.
He didn’t know what had compelled him to tell her to leave her hair down.
Yes, you do. You wanted to see her again as you saw her that night. Naked. Wild.
He shoved the provocative thought aside.
Once again she made everyone else pale in comparison. She was vibrant. Full of an earthy sensuality that called to him on such an urgent and deep level that Sharif knew he was fighting a losing battle.
She barely had to touch him and he burned. He felt volatile, and it hadn’t been helped by seeing Nikos and Maggie.
Being around his brothers, and now their wives, always put him on edge, left him filled with mixed emotions. Protectiveness, regret, affection... But also a strong instinct not to trust—and guilt. Because he hadn’t told them everything he was planning.
Just seeing Liyah dancing with Nikos, smiling at whatever he was saying, had made the darkness inside him lash and roar, even when he knew for a fact that Nikos had eyes only for Maggie. He’d learnt not to test Nikos’s loyalty in that regard, and now, with Maggie pregnant again, they inhabited a place that Sharif could not understand.
Seeing them so happy brought back painful echoes of his relationship with his mother. Her unconditional love and his feeling of security. Something that he’d told himself he would never need again, because the pain of losing it had been so great.
Sharif gritted his jaw. He really wasn’t in the mood for these introspective thoughts. And yet here was Liyah, her huge green eyes looking up at him and making him feel as if she was seeing all the way down to where he kept his darkness hidden.
He’d noticed the emotion in her eyes when he’d shown her the press release about those paparazzi photos claiming to be of her. He knew damn well that he could have left it alone...that his comment about her reputation hadn’t been entirely true—those photos had barely made a dent in the mainstream gossip columns. But he’d seen how much it had affected her when she’d told him about it, and he’d wanted to avenge her. So he’d instructed his legal team to extract an apology and a retraction from the magazine or force them to face a lawsuit.
They’d issued the press release within hours.
Sharif was aware of the song coming to an end and the sense of exposure mixed with those other volatile emotions in his gut boiled over. He needed to shut out the voices and the swirling thoughts and refocus. And he knew only one way to do that.
Stop denying himself. Stop denying them both.
He led Liyah off the dance floor, his blood pounding. They were almost at the main entrance when he felt her pulling on his hand. He stopped, looked at her.
She said, ‘I know you don’t like to hang around, but we literally just got here.’
Sharif felt drunk with lust. The light made her skin gleam dark golden. The swells of her breasts above her bodice were a provocation he had no intention of resisting any longer. He’d forgotten why he’d ever thought it would be a good idea not to sleep with his wife.
He felt it in her too. She trembled whenever he touched her. Even now a blush was rising into her cheeks, staining them darker.
She said, ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘I don’t think this is working.’
She frowned. ‘You don’t think what isn’t working?’
But Sharif was striding through the lobby of the hotel now, cutting a swathe through the throng of guests, Liyah’s hand clamped firmly in his.
Liyah said from behind him, ‘What about Nikos and Maggie? Don’t we need to say goodbye? Don’t you have people to meet?’
‘Nikos can look after it. I’ll send him a text.’
They walked outside and a valet scrambled to call Sharif’s car and driver around. He felt Liyah shiver beside him and took off his jacket then put it on her.
He texted Nikos.
We’ve left. Will you cover for me?
He got a text back almost straight away.
Of course. Welcome to my world, brother.
There was a winking emoji, and then a laughing crying emoji.
Sharif scowled and shoved his phone back in his pocket. This, with Liyah, was nothing like what Nikos had gone through with Maggie. For a start, she’d had Nikos’s son—when he’d met her again, he’d been a father.
Sharif felt desperate. Almost feral. Things he never usually allowed himself to feel. He was always so careful to show the world that he was not his wayward father. Or his playboy brother. But he didn’t have a playboy brother any more. Right now he was channelling the Marchetti rebelliousness all by himself and he couldn’t care less.
He wanted his wife.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LIYAH ABSORBED THE heat and scent from Sharif’s jacket as the car pulled to a smooth stop beside them. He opened the door and she got in. She
