Birthday Bride. Jessica Hart

you would get off the plane in Dubai,’ she said chattily. ‘You know how it is when you speculate about your fellow travellers.’

      ‘No,’ said David, but she pretended that she hadn’t heard.

      ‘I just couldn’t imagine you in a place like Shofrar,’ she told him, settling herself back in her seat and slanting him a provocative look from under her lashes.

      ‘Why ever not?’ he said, goaded into a response just as he had decided to ignore her completely.

      ‘Well, Shofrar sounds such an exciting place,’ said Claudia, who was congratulating herself on her strategy. This was much more fun than sitting in frosty silence!

      David scowled at her. ‘Why don’t you come right out and say that you think I look too boring to be going there?’

      ‘Oh, but I don’t mean that at all.’ She pretended to flutter. She opened her eyes wide, and David, making the mistake of looking into them, was annoyed to notice that they were huge and extraordinarily beautiful, a smoky, smudgy colour somewhere between blue and grey.

      ‘It’s just that Shofrar sounds so wild and undeveloped and wonderfully romantic,’ she was wittering on, and with something of an effort David dragged his gaze away. ‘When I saw you at Heathrow, I thought you looked too conventional for the country.’ Claudia put a hand to her mouth in mock dismay. ‘Oh, dear, that sounds rude, doesn’t it? I didn’t mean it to be,’ she lied. ‘Steady and reliable are probably better words than conventional. You looked, you know, like the kind of man who would never give his wife any cause to worry and would always ring her if he was going to be late.’

      David was unreasonably nettled by this tribute. Steadiness and reliability were qualities he had always valued, but this girl made them sound stolid and dull. She made him sound stolid and dull.

      ‘I don’t have a wife,’ he said with something of a snap. ‘And it may interest you to know that I have travelled extensively in Shofrar, and certainly more than you have if you think it is wonderfully romantic. It’s a hard country,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s hot and it’s barren, with poor communications and no facilities for tourists. You’re the one who’s going to find herself out of place in Telama’an, not me. I may look conventional but I know the desert and I’m used to the conditions. You’re too spoilt—oh, dear, that sounds rude, doesn’t it?’ He mimicked her tone with uncomfortable accuracy. ‘I meant spoilt by luxurious living, that’s all. I think you’re going to find Telama‘an something of a shock.’

      ‘Really?’ It was Claudia’s turn to eye him frostily. ‘And what makes you think that I haven’t been to Telama’an before?’

      ‘I’ve seen what you carry around in that bag of yours,’ said David, nodding his head down at the shoulder bag that was squeezed under the seat in front of her. ‘Nobody who had been anywhere near a desert would dream of packing a fraction of all that junk!’

      Claudia bit her lip. She was beginning to wish that she hadn’t tried to provoke him. Why couldn’t he have been a decent, tactful, chivalrous type of man who wouldn’t dream of mentioning that embarrassing incident at Heathrow?

      She had been sitting opposite him in the departure lounge as they waited by the gate. There had been some delay in boarding, and the other passengers were milling around in frustration. Babies had cried, children had squabbled, ground staff had muttered into their walkie-talkies, but the man opposite her had just sat reading through papers with a stillness and concentration that completely ignored the hubbub around him.

      He had rather ordinary brown hair and one of those austere faces that didn’t give anything away, but Claudia, fascinated by his air of cool self-containment, had noticed a decidedly stubborn set to his jaw and an inflexible look about his mouth. She was secretly ashamed of the fact that the take-off always made her rather nervous, thinking that she ought by the age of twenty-nine to be blasé about jumping on and off planes, and although she was doing her best to seem cool and unconcerned she had found it oddly reassuring to watch the man working so quietly and competently in the midst of such chaos.

      What would it be like to be that calm? Claudia was used to the frenetic activity of a television production company, and she thrived on panic and pressure. This man didn’t look as if he knew the meaning of panic. He would probably be hell to work with, she’d decided. Efficient, yes, but deadly boring.

      For some reason, Claudia’s eyes had strayed back to his mouth. Well, maybe not exactly boring, she amended reluctantly. No one with a mouth like that could be really boring. It looked cool and firm, almost stern, but with an intriguing lift at the corners that made her wonder what he would look like if he smiled...

      It was then that he had looked up, and Claudia had found herself staring into a pair of wintry grey eyes whose expression had sent the colour surging up her cheeks. Too late, she’d realised that she had been staring at him. He’d leant forward.

      ‘Is something the matter?’ he asked with careful restraint.

      ‘No,’ she said.

      ‘My hair hasn’t turned blue? There isn’t any smoke coming out of my ears?’

      Claudia pretended to check. ‘No.’

      ‘Then perhaps you could tell me what it is about me that has been fascinating you so much for the last twenty minutes?’

      The withering tone deepened the flush in Claudia’s cheeks. ‘Nothing! I’m not the slightest bit interested in you! I was just...thinking.’ Even to her own ears she sounded sullen and defensive.

      ‘In that case, could you please think by staring at someone else? I’m trying to work, and it’s not easy to concentrate with two great eyes boring into me.’

      Claudia was amazed to discover that he had even noticed. So much for his powers of concentration! ‘Certainly,’ she said huffily, and got to her feet. ‘I had no idea that sitting quietly minding my own business would be so disturbing! I’ll go and stand in a corner and close my eyes, shall I? Or will my breathing be too distracting for you?’

      The man looked profoundly irritated. ‘I don’t care what you do or where you do it, as long as you stop looking at me as if you’re deciding whether to have me for lunch or not.’

      ‘Lunch?’ Claudia attempted a scornful laugh. ‘I’m afraid my tastes run to something a little more substantial! You might do for a mid-morning snack, or perhaps a little something to have with a cup of tea!’

      If she had hoped to rile him, she failed dismally. He looked at her incredulously for a moment, then shook his head as if deciding that she was too stupid to bother with any further, and returned his attention to his papers. Claudia felt about two inches high.

      Furious, she made to stalk off in high dudgeon, but the bag she hoisted onto her shoulder was so overloaded that the strap snapped under the strain, and, to her horror, it crashed to the ground right at the man’s feet.

      She wouldn’t have minded if he had jumped. She wouldn’t have minded if he had clicked his tongue or looked startled or shown some kind of reaction, but he didn’t even look up. Instead, he looked at the bag for about five seconds without saying anything, and then carried on reading. He could hardly have made it clearer that he thought she was too tedious and silly to merit any attention at all.

      What if he thought she was deliberately trying to get him to notice her? The idea galvanised Claudia into action, and she dived to pick up the bag by its broken strap. It had landed on its bottom, which was fortunate, but that was where her luck ended. She hadn’t realised that the zip was open, and as she grabbed the strap at one end the whole bag tilted, upturned, and the contents that she had shoved in frantically while the taxi waited to take her to the airport spilled out over the man’s shoes.

      To Claudia, it all seemed to happen in ghastly slow motion. Lipsticks, mascara, perfume, hairbrush, mirror, sponge toe dividers for painting toe-nails, the whole panoply of cosmetics, in fact, as well as mints, Biros, her purse, a camera, a travel plug, her Filofax, sunglasses, spare films, a novel,