Bella and the Merciless Sheikh

Party queen.

He only needed to briefly scan what was in front of him to know that the woman he’d become obsessed with bore a striking similarity to his late stepmother.

With no qualm or conscience, Bella Balfour had flirted with him and slept with him. He couldn’t even blame it on misunderstanding because she’d actually given him a false name.

None of the emotions she’d expressed had been genuine.

Shock held him rigid, the raw tension in his powerful frame the only outward manifestation of his inner pain.

For the first time ever, he’d let a woman close. And not any woman—this woman.

‘The newspaper editors must have felt as though they’ve been operating in their own desert over the past few weeks without Bella Balfour to give them material.’ Somehow he kept his voice level. ‘There must have been a panic when she disappeared. It’s fortunate I contacted the Retreat. I’m surprised her family didn’t have a search party out looking for her.’

‘It appears that Miss Balfour has a reputation for being involved in somewhat wild goings-on,’ Kalif murmured, his expression neutral. ‘Her disappearance caused nothing more than a few raised eyebrows.’

Digesting that piece of information, Zafiq stared sightlessly out of the window. Wild goings-on.

It was like listening to the complaints he’d heard about his stepmother.

‘Where is Miss Balfour now?’

‘I have had her taken to a bedroom suite, Your Highness. Given that there is no flight to England until tomorrow after noon, it seemed like the best plan. Miss Balfour seemed rather subdued.’

‘Subdued?’ Zafiq gestured to the newspapers with a sweep of his hand. ‘Are we talking about the same woman?’

Kalif hesitated. ‘She looked pale after the ride through the desert. I took the precaution of asking the palace physician to examine her.’

Clearly she was worried that her lies had been exposed.

And the fact that she was still in his palace disturbed him more than he wanted to admit.

Somewhere, right now, she was probably standing naked under a shower, letting the water cool her beautiful body as she’d done so many times over the previous few days.

Picking up another newspaper, Zafiq stared at the headline in blank silence.

Bal four Family in Ruins.

‘This woman appears to make the front pages with monotonous regularity. Clearly she is an inveterate attention seeker. Thank you, Kalif,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t let me delay you. I know you have things to do.’

‘Yes, Your Highness.’

As his chief adviser melted out of the room Zafiq stood without moving, his eyes fixed on the gorgeous, glamorous girl on the pages in front of him.

Was it any wonder he’d behaved like a sex-starved adolescent? He was a red-blooded male and Bella Balfour was a distractingly beautiful woman.

But it hadn’t just been her beauty that had appealed to him—it had been her spirit, her vitality, her lack of deference.

There had been times when he could cheerfully have throttled her and other times when he’d relished the challenge she’d presented.

She’d excited him as no other woman ever had and she hadn’t been afraid to stand up to him. Nor had she been afraid to lie.

Not once during the intimacy they’d shared had she told him who she really was.

And that, he thought grimly as he scooped all the papers up and deposited them in the bin, said everything that needed to be said about her. Bella Balfour was a wild child with no sense of responsibility or duty.

Holding that fact in his head, Zafiq swiftly showered, shaved and changed into a suit and tie, ready for his meeting.

Knowing she was there, in his palace, placed an almost intolerable burden on his self-control.