An Ordinary Girl and a Sheikh: The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride / Rescued by the Sheikh / The Desert Prince's Proposal. Nicola Marsh

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      But then he’d have missed this profile. Missed her stubborn little chin, her mouth set firm, almost as if she were fighting to keep it shut. There was not a sign of that sweet dimple, just a flush to her cheeks that gave a whole new meaning to the old ‘you look magnificent when you’re angry’ cliché.

      The strange thing was, he couldn’t remember ever having made a woman angry before. But then he’d never felt like this about any woman and maybe that was the point. To feel passionately, it had to matter. To her as well as to him.

      Maybe that was why he was angry with himself. He didn’t do this. Had never, in all his thirty years, lost his head over a woman, no matter how beautiful, elegant, clever. His detachment—and theirs—had been a safety net, an acknowledgement that no matter how enjoyable the relationship, it was superficial, fleeting. Because, even though he’d deferred the inevitable, putting it off for as long as possible, he’d always known that his future was, as his cousin had suggested, written.

      That his choice of bride was not his alone, but part of a tradition that went back through the ages as a way of strengthening tribal bonds.

      His head understood, accepted that kind of power-broking, but then he’d walked out of the airport into the sunlight of a May morning and, in an instant, or so it seemed now, he’d been possessed by a girl who had nothing to commend her but an hourglass figure, a dimple and a total inability to keep her mouth shut.

      And it was that mouth, her complete lack of control over it, rather than her luscious figure, that had hooked his attention. Had somehow enchanted him.

      Diana slowed, signalled, turned into the boatyard. Gravel crunched beneath the tyres for a moment and then she drew up in the lee of a boathouse and the silence returned.

      She made no move to get out, open the door for him, but remained with her hands on the wheel, looking straight ahead. He unclipped his seatbelt, half turned towards her and when that didn’t get her attention either, he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

      He found the rarely used words unexpectedly easy to say. Maybe because he meant them. He was sorry. Wished he could start the day over. Start from where they’d left off last night.

      If it hadn’t been for that damned email, reminding him that, while he’d escaped one future, there were some duties he could not escape …

      Diana’s breath caught on a little sigh, her lips softened, but still she didn’t look at him, still held herself aloof, at a distance.

      ‘If I promise that I will never embarrass you in that way again, do you think you might just deign to come down off your high horse and talk to me?’

      ‘High horse!’ She swung round and glared at him. ‘I’m not on any high horse!’

      Indignant was better than silent. Indignant, her eyes flashed green. Indignant might so easily spill over into laughter. She laughed so easily. Made him want to laugh as no woman ever had …

      ‘Eighteen hands at the very least,’ he said, pushing it. She shrugged, spread her hands in an ‘and that means?’ gesture.

      He responded by raising a hand above his shoulder.

      She swallowed. ‘Good grief, we’re talking carthorse, here.’ Then, when he didn’t respond with anything more than a twitch of his eyebrows, ‘I might—might—just admit to a slightly overgrown Shetland pony.’

      ‘One of those small, plump creatures with the uncontrollable manes?’ he enquired, encouraged by the fleeting appearance of that dimple.

      ‘They’re the ones,’ she admitted, doing her best to swallow down the smile that was trying very hard to break through. Then, having, against all the odds, succeeded, she added, ‘Much more my style than some long-legged thoroughbred, wouldn’t you say?’

      ‘A perfect match,’ he said.

      For once she had no swift comeback and for the longest moment they just looked at each other, neither of them saying a word. But smiling was the furthest thing from either of their minds.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘DON’T you have an appointment to keep?’

      It was Diana, not him, who finally broke the silence after what might have been an age, but was nowhere near long enough.

      ‘Nothing involving money.’ Zahir fought down the temptation to reach out, touch his fingers to her lips to silence her so that they could return to that moment of perfect understanding. Instead, he went for a wry smile. ‘I’ll rephrase that. It involves a great deal of money, but the negotiations were done and dusted months ago. I’m here to take possession of the finished article.’

      ‘Which, since we’re in a boatyard, I’m guessing would be a boat?’ she said, looking around her at the vast boat-building sheds, the craft pulled out of the water and propped up in cradles awaiting work.

      ‘Got it in one and you know how it is with a new toy. It’s no fun unless you can show it off to someone.’

      Her gaze returned to him. It was direct, straightforward. Honest. She might blush like a girl, but there was none of that irritating coyness about her. She was direct in her look, direct in every way. Even as she acknowledged the truth of his remark with the smallest tilt of her head, she said, ‘Am I the best you can do?’

      He sensed more than simple bafflement that he’d choose to display his latest acquisition to his chauffeur. Suspected that her question was loaded, but he played along, turning to look in the back of the car.

      ‘I can’t see anyone else. Of course, if you would really prefer to stay here and feed the seagulls?’

      Diana knew that feeding the seagulls was the safe option. The sensible option. But, for some reason, she wasn’t doing sensible this week.

      If she had been, she’d have politely accepted Zahir’s apology and left it at that. Too late now, but then their relationship had gone far beyond politeness. Beyond the point at which she could pretend that she was just his chauffeur and use the car as her defence. The fact that he’d asked, rather than ordered only underlined that point.

      He was learning.

      Pity she couldn’t do the same, she thought, as she opened the car door and stepped out, catching her breath as the breeze whipped at her hair.

      At the marina, the sea, sheltered in the narrow estuary that the river had carved through the hills and coralled by wooden landing stages, had seemed deceptively tame.

      Here the sea was a live thing, constantly on the move as it slapped against the concrete slipway, sucked at the shingle. Even the air tasted of salt.

      She turned to Zahir, who was standing beside the car, waiting.

      Tall, dark and so dangerous that he should have, Warning! Close Contact With This Man Can Seriously Damage Your Peace of Mind! stamped on his forehead.

      The fact that he’d been able to tease her out of her strop the moment he’d put his mind to it was ample demonstration of the danger she was in. How would she ever be able to resist him if he really made an effort?

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