Bella and the Merciless Sheikh

He added something to the food bubbling in the pot. ‘Presumably you frequently collapse with laughter?’

‘Quite often. Usually at awkward times. There’s something about stiff, formal occasions that makes me want to giggle. Usually at about the same moment someone is pointing a camera at me.’

His glance was penetrating. ‘You attend many stiff, formal occasions with photographers in attendance?’

Bella stilled. ‘Not really. Church and stuff. Family photographs.’ The annual Balfour Ball with shoals of hungry paparazzi ready to indulge in a feeding frenzy.

Thinking of that particular event wiped the desire to laugh from her body.

He was still watching her. ‘Is everything a joke to you?’

‘No,’ Bella said flatly, staring down at her empty mug and trying not to think about the latest scandal she’d un earthed. ‘But I prefer to try and see the funny side of life whenever possible.’

‘You are extremely frivolous.’

‘Yeah, that’s me.’ Her voice husky, Bella kept her eyes fixed on the mug until she was sure she was in control. ‘You ought to meet my father. You’d get on really well. If you have a spare month you could compare notes on my deficiencies. So you’re from a noble family, is that right? How come you speak perfect English?’

‘I went to a boarding school in England. My father understood the importance of maintaining our unique history and culture whilst incorporating the advances of the modern world.’

Bella looked around her, surprised to realise that it had grown dark while they were talking. Above them what seemed like a million tiny silver stars gleamed in a cloud less desert sky and she stared up at them in fascination. ‘I feel as though I could reach out and touch them. I don’t remember there being this many stars in England.’

‘You have too much light pollution.’

Or maybe she’d never stopped to look at the sky. ‘It’s pretty. Reminds me of a dress I had once—’ she tilted her head to one side ‘—indigo silk with tiny silver beads.’

‘Do you ever think of anything other than how you look?’

‘Looking good is part of my job,’ Bella said defensively and then flushed as his eyes narrowed.

‘What is your job?’

‘Oh, this and that…’ She was tempted to just say ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’ or something that would wipe the arrogant look off his face. She didn’t think he’d be impressed to know she spent most of her day asleep and most of the night at parties, wearing clothes by designers who were desperate to have their creations modelled by Bella Balfour. ‘I’m sort of in between jobs at the moment.’

‘It is good to take time out to reflect on how you are spending your life. Everyone needs time to think about whether they are making a difference.’

‘Absolutely.’ Bella squirmed, pretty sure that she didn’t make a difference to anyone. At least, not a positive one. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘I spend a week in the desert to escape the constant pressures of twenty-first-century life.’

‘Don’t you miss civilization? How do you survive without the Internet?’

‘The Internet is a useful tool, not an addiction.’

‘For me it’s an addiction. I’m a Google girl. How do you stop yourself playing around with it?’ Bella waved her hand and then remembered that she hadn’t had a manicure for two weeks and tucked it out of sight. ‘I go on to look up one thing—I don’t know, let’s say a new spa or something—next thing I know, an hour has passed and I haven’t done the thing I was supposed to do. I’m horribly undisciplined.’