Bella and the Merciless Sheikh

‘They know she’s with me.’

‘How can they possibly know she’s with you? Does she have a homing beacon or something? Satellite tracking device?’

‘I used the phone.’

Bella frowned in confusion. ‘But you told me you didn’t have a phone!’

‘No. I said I wouldn’t contact anyone to have you taken to civilisation.’ He delivered the facts in typically masculine style. ‘Unfortunately my position makes it impossible for me to be truly out of contact. The phone is for emergencies.’

‘Your horse was an emergency?’

‘She is a valuable animal. If I hadn’t contacted them there would have been a search party and many people would have been inconvenienced—’ he hesitated ‘—also, they would have come looking for you. And that would have led them to me.’

‘So people really don’t know exactly where you are.’

‘No, but they know they can contact me in a crisis.’

‘Can’t they handle it without you?’

‘I hope so.’ Cool and unconcerned, he guided the stallion to the right, reading the ground and avoiding potential dangers. ‘My brother is in charge—’

‘Don’t tell me—he’s always been jealous that you’re the eldest,’ Bella improvised wildly, ‘and while you’re away he’s gathering together all his supporters so that he can over throw you. Maybe he’s the one who wants Batal to lose the race.’

Zafiq’s eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘My brother feels nothing but relief that the burden of responsibility is mine. He is a mild-mannered, overly sensitive, generous-spirited young man who lacks confidence. And he has charge of my stables.’

‘Sensitive and lacking in confidence? And he’s related to you?’ Bella rubbed her hand over Amira’s neck, a smile on her face. ‘You’re obviously at different ends of the gene pool.’

‘He is my father’s son by his second wife.’

‘Oh—’ Her smile faded. ‘I’d forgotten you had a wicked stepmother too.’

‘You had a wicked stepmother?’

Bella thought of Tilly and Lillian and flushed. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Not wicked.’ But neither had loved her, had they? Even her own father struggled to look at her. And now she understood why. Everything had been revealed on the night of the Balfour Ball. ‘So he’s your half-brother.’

Zafiq frowned, as if the term somehow offended him. ‘I think of Rachid as my brother in every sense of the word.’

Bella’s heart fluttered as she thought of what had happened the night of the ball. ‘So, you don’t think it matters that you have different biological parents?’

‘We were brought up together. We were raised as brothers.’

It was a different situation, Bella told herself numbly. His family didn’t involve lies and deceit. ‘You were really fond of your stepmother, then.’

Zafiq’s mouth tightened. ‘Didn’t you suggest that we drop this topic?’

She glanced at his profile, stunned by the sudden change in him. He was remote and intimidating, very much the ruling sheikh. Clearly things weren’t as smooth in his family as she’d first thought.

‘Sorry, I thought—’

‘Enough talking. I agree with your earlier suggestion—let’s ride.’ Without waiting for her response, he urged the stallion into a gallop, and Bella’s mare threw up her head in excitement.

‘At a guess I’d say he wasn’t that fond of his stepmother,’ Bella muttered, letting Amira have her head. ‘Which just goes to show that families have a lot to answer for.’