Her Desert Dream. Liz Fielding

Ramal Hamrahn ruling family had holiday ‘cottages’ at Bab el Sama and the Emir did not, she’d pointed out, take the safety of his family or their guests lightly.

      The paparazzi were going to have to work really hard to get their photographs this week, although she’d do her best to make it easy for them.

      There had been speculation that Rupert would join Rose on this pre-Christmas break and if she wasn’t visible they might just get suspicious, think they’d been given the slip. Raise a hue and cry that would get everyone in a stew and blow her cover.

      Her commission was to give them something to point their lenses at so that the Duke was reassured that she was safe and the world could see that she was where she was supposed to be.

      Neither of them had bargained on her friend complicating matters.

      Fortunately, Princess Lucy’s note had made it clear that Rose hadn’t met Kalil al-Zaki, which simplified things a little. The only question left was, faced with an unexpected—and unwanted—companion, what would Rose do now?

      Actually, not something to unduly tax the mind. Rose would do what she always did. She’d smile, be charming, no matter what spanner had been thrown into her carefully arranged works.

      Until now, protected by the aura of untouchability that seemed to encompass the Lady Rose image, Lydia had never had a problem doing the same.

      But then spanners didn’t usually come blessed with smooth olive skin moulded over bone structure that had been a gift from the gene fairies.

      It should have made it easier to respond to his smile—if only with an idiotic, puppy-like grin. The reality was that she had to concentrate very hard to keep the drool in check, her hand from visibly trembling, her brain from turning to jelly. Speaking at the same time was asking rather a lot, but it certainly helped take her mind off the fact that the aircraft was taxiing slowly to the runway in preparation for the nasty business of launching her into thin air. She normally took something to calm her nerves before holiday flights but hadn’t dared risk it today.

      Fortunately, ten years of ‘being’ Lady Rose came to her rescue. The moves were so ingrained that they had become automatic and instinct kicked in and overrode the urge to leap into his lap and lick his face.

      ‘It would seem that you’ve drawn the short straw, Mr al-Zaki,’ she said, kicking the ‘puppy’ into touch and belatedly extending her hand across the aisle.

      ‘The short straw?’ he asked, taking it in his own firm grip with just the smallest hint of a frown.

      ‘I imagine you have a dozen better things to do than…’ she raised the letter an inch or two ’…show me the sights.’

      ‘On the contrary, madam,’ he replied formally, ‘I can assure you that I had to fight off the competition.’

      He was so serious that for a moment he had her fooled.

      Unbelievable!

      The man was flirting with her, or, rather, flirting with Lady Rose. What a nerve!

      ‘It must have been a very gentlemanly affair,’ she replied, matching his gravity, his formality.

      One of his dark brows lifted the merest fraction and an entire squadron of butterflies took flight in her stomach. He was good. Really good. But any girl who’d worked for as long as she had on a supermarket checkout had not only heard it all, but had an arsenal of responses to put even the smoothest of operators in their place.

      ‘No black eyes?’ she prompted. ‘No broken limbs?’

      He wasn’t quite quick enough to kill the surprise at the swiftness of her comeback and for a moment she thought she’d gone too far. He was the Ambassador’s cousin, after all. One of the ruling class in a society where women were supposed to be neither seen nor heard.

      Like that was going to happen…

      But then the creases deepened in his cheeks, his mouth widened in a smile and something happened to the darkest, most intense eyes she’d ever seen. Almost, she thought, as if someone had lit a fire in their depths.

      ‘I was the winner, madam,’ he reminded her.

      ‘I’m delighted you think so,’ she replied, hanging on to her cool by the merest thread, despite the conflagration that threatened to ignite somewhere below her midriff.

      There had never been anyone remotely like this standing at her supermarket checkout. She was going to have to be very, very careful.

      Kal just about managed to bite back a laugh.

      Lucy—with Hanif’s unspoken blessing, he had no doubt—was placing him in front of the Emir, forcing his uncle to take note of his existence, acknowledge that he was doing something for his country. Offering him a chance to show himself to be someone worthy of trust, a credit to the name he was forbidden from using. And already he was flirting with the woman who had been entrusted to his care.

      But then she wasn’t the least bit what he’d expected.

      He had seen a hundred photographs of Lady Rose on magazine covers and nothing in those images had enticed him to use her friendship with Princess Lucy to attempt a closer acquaintance.

      The iconic blue eyes set in an oval face, yards of palest blonde hair, the slender figure were, no doubt, perfect. If you liked that kind of look, colouring, but she’d lacked the dark fire, a suggestion of dangerous passion, of mystery that he looked for in a woman.

      The reality, he discovered, was something else.

      As she’d walked into the VIP lounge it had seemed to come to life; as if, on a dull day, the sun had emerged from behind a cloud.

      What he’d thought of as pallor was, in fact, light. A golden glow.

      She was a lot more than a colourless clothes horse.

      The famous eyes, secreted behind the wisp of veil that covered the upper half of her face, sparkled with an excitement, a vitality that didn’t come through in any photograph he’d seen. But it was the impact of her unexpectedly full and enticingly kissable mouth, dark, sweet and luscious as the heart of a ripe fig, that grabbed and held his complete attention and had every red blood cell in his body bounding forward to take a closer look.

      For the briefest moment her poise had wavered and she’d appeared as nonplussed as he was, but for a very different reason. It was obvious that Lucy hadn’t managed to warn her that she was going to have company on this trip. She’d swiftly gathered herself, however, and he discovered that, along with all her other assets, she had a dry sense of humour.

      Unexpected, it had slipped beneath his guard, and all his good intentions—to keep his distance, retain the necessary formality—had flown right out of the window.

      And her cool response, ‘I’m delighted you think so,’ had been so ambiguous that he hadn’t the least idea whether she was amused by his familiarity or annoyed.

      His life had involved one long succession of his father’s wives and mistresses, a galaxy of sisters who ranged from nearly his own age to little girls. Without exception they were all, by turn, tempestuous, sphinxlike, teasing. He’d seen them in all their moods and it had been a very long time since he hadn’t known exactly what a woman was thinking.

      Now, while the only thought in his own head should be danger, out of bounds, what he really wanted was for her to lift that seductive little veil and, with that lovely mouth, invite him to be really bad…

      Realising that he was still holding her hand, he made a determined effort to get a grip. ‘You are as astute as you are lovely, madam,’ he replied, matching her own cool formality, as he released it. ‘I will be more circumspect in future.’

      Her smile was a private thing. Not a muscle moved, only something in her eyes altered so subtly that he could not have described what happened. He’d felt rather than seen a change and yet he knew, deep down, that she was amused.

      ‘Rose,’