The sheikh's chosen wife (9 page)

He got it. In the end,
and after a bit more wrangling, he watched Ethan Hayes turn to the door on a
reluctant agreement to go. And, oddly, Hassan admired him for trusting him
enough to do this, bearing in mind the year that had gone before.

'Don't hurt her again.'
Almost as if he could read his thoughts, Ethan issued that gruff warning right
on cue.

'My wife's well-being is
and always has been of paramount importance to me,' Hassan responded in a
decidedly cooler tone.

Ethan turned, looked him
directly in the eye, and for once the truth was placed in the open. 'You hurt
her a year ago. A man gets only one chance at doing that.'

The kid gloves came off.
Hassan's eyes began to glint. 'Take a small piece of advice,' he urged, 'and do
not presume to understand a marital relationship until you have tried it for
yourself.'

'I know a broken-hearted
woman when I see one,' Ethan persisted.

'And has she been any
less broken-hearted in the year we have been apart?'

Game, set and match,
Hassan recognised, as the other man conceded that final point to him, and with
just a nod of his head Ethan went out of the door and into the capable hands of
the waiting Raflq.

At about the same time
that Rafiq was escorting Ethan to the waiting launch presently tied up against
the side of the yacht, Leona was slipping her arms into the sleeves of a white
linen jacket that matched the white linen trousers she had chosen to wear.
Beneath the jacket she wore a pale green sun top and she had contained her hair
in a simple pony-tail tied up with a green silk scarf. As she turned towards
the door she decided that if she managed to ignore the throbbing ache happening
inside her then she was as ready as she ever could be for the battle she knew
was to come with Hassan.

Stepping out of the
stateroom, the first person she saw was a bearded man dressed in a long white
tunic and the usual white gutrah on his head.

'Faysal!' Her surprise
was clear, her smile warm. Faysal responded by pressing his palms together and
dipping into the kind of low bow that irritated Hassan but didn't bother Leona
at all simply because she ignored it. 'I didn't know you were here on the boat.
Are you well?' she enquired as she walked towards him.

'I am very well, my
lady,' he confirmed, but beneath the beard she had a suspicion he was blushing
uncomfortably at the informal intimacy she was showing him.

'And your wife?' she
asked gently.

'Oh, she is very well,'
he confirmed with a distinct softening in his formal tone. 'The—er—problem she
suffered has gone completely. We are most grateful to you for taking the
trouble to ensure she was treated by the best people.'

'I didn't do anything but
point her in the right direction, Faysal.' Leona smiled, ‘I am only grateful
that she felt she could confide in me.'

'You saved her life.'

'Many people saved her
life.' Daring his affront, she crossed the invisible line Arab males drew
between themselves and females and reached out to press her hands against the
backs of his hands. 'But you and I were good conspirators, hmm, Faysal?"

'Indisputably, my lady.'
His mouth almost cracked into a smile but he was too stressed at having her
hands on his, and in the end she relented and moved away.

'If you would come this
way...' he bowed '...I am to escort you to my lord Hassan.'

Ah, my lord Hassan, Leona
thought, and felt her lighter mood drop again as Faysal indicated that she
precede him down the steps she had taken a tumble on the night before. On the
other side of the foyer was a staircase which Leona presumed led up to the deck
above.

With Faysal tracking two
steps behind her, she made her way up and into the sunlight flooding the upper
deck, where she paused to take a look around. The sky was a pure, uninterrupted
blue and the sea the colour of turquoise. The sun was already hot on her face
and she had to shade her eyes against the way it was reflecting so brightly off
the white paintwork of the boat.

'You managed to make
Faysal blush, I see,' a deep voice drawled lazily.

Turning about, she found
that Faysal had already melted away, as was his habit, and that Hassan was
sitting at a table laid for breakfast beneath the shade of a huge white canvas
awning, studying her through slightly mocking eyes. Her heart tried to leap in
her breast but she refused to let it.

There is a real human
being hiding behind all of that strict protocol, if you would only look and see
him."

'The protocol is not my
invention. It took generations of family tradition to make Faysal the man he is
today.'

'He worships you like a
god.'

'And you as his angel of
mercy.'

'At least he felt I was
approachable enough that he could bring his concerns to me "

'After I had gently
suggested it was what he should do.'

'Oh,' she said; she
hadn't realised that.

'Come out of the sun
before you burn.'

It was hot, and he was
right, but Leona felt safer keeping her distance. She had things to say, and
she began with the one subject guaranteed to alter his mellow mood into something
else entirely. 'I was hoping that Ethan would be here with you,' she said.
'Since he isn't, I think I will go and look for him.'

Like a sign from Allah
that today was not going to be a good day, at that moment the launch powered up
and slipped its ties to the yacht.

Attention distracted,
Leona glanced over the side, then went perfectly still.

Hassan knew what she was
seeing even before he got up to go and join her. Sure enough, there was Ethan
standing on the back of the launch. As the small boat began to pick up speed he
glanced up, saw them and waved a farewell.

'Wave back, my darling,'
he urged smoothly. 'The man will appreciate the assurance that all is
well."

'You rat,' she whispered.

'Of the desert,' he dryly
replied, then compounded his sins by bringing an arm to rest across her stiff
shoulders and lifting his other to wave.

Leona waved also, he
admired her for that because it showed that, despite how angry she was feeling,
she was— as always—keeping true to her unfailing loyalty to him.

In the eyes of other
people, anyway. He extended that statement as the two of them stood watching
Ethan and his passage away from them decrease in size, until the launch the
ocean. By then Leona was staring beyond the glint, checking the horizon for a
glimpse of land that was not there.

She was also gripping the
rail in front of them with fingers like talons and wishing they were around his
throat, he was sure.

'Try to think of it this
way,' he suggested. 'I have saved us the trouble of yet another argument.'

CHAPTER FIVE

'We have to put into port
some time,' Leona said coldly. She twisted out from beneath his resting arm
then began walking stiffly towards the stairs, so very angry with him that she
was quite prepared to lock herself in the stateroom until they did exactly
that.

Behind the rigid set of
her spine, she heard Hassan release a heavy sigh. 'Come back here,' he
instructed. T was joking. I know we need to talk.'

But this was no joke, and
they both knew it. He was just a ruthless, self-motivated monster, and as far
as she was concerned, she had nothing left to— Her thoughts stopped dead. So
did her feet when she found her way blocked by a giant of a man with a neat
beard and the hawklike features of a desert warrior.

'Well, just look what we
have here,' she drawled at this newly arrived target for her anger. 'If it
isn't my lord sheikh's fellow conspirator in crime.'

Rafiq had opened his
mouth to offer her a greeting, but her tone made him change his mind and
instead he dipped into the kind of bow that would have even impressed Faysal,
but only managed to sharpen Leona's tongue.

'Don't you dare efface
yourself to me when we both know you don't respect me at all,' she sliced at
him.

'You are mistaken,' he
replied, I respect you most deeply."

'Even while you throw an abaya
over my head?'

'The abaya was an
unfortunate necessity,' he explained, 'For you sparkled so brilliantly that you
placed us in risk of discovery from the car headlights. Though please accept my
apologies if my actions offended you.'

He thought he could
mollify her with an apology? 'Do you know what you need, Rafiq Al-Qadim?' she
responded. 'You need someone to find you a wife—a real harridan who will make
your life such a misery that you won't have time to meddle in mine!'

'You are angry, and
rightly so,' he conceded, but his eyes had begun to glint at the very idea of
anyone meddling with his life. 'My remorse for the incident with the abaya is
all yours. Please be assured that if you had toppled into the ocean I would
have arrived there ahead of you.'

'But not before me, I
think,' another voice intruded. It was very satisfying to hear the impatience
in Hassan's tone. He was not a man who liked to be upstaged in any way, which
was what Leona had allowed Rafiq to do. 'Leona, come out of the sun,' he
instructed. 'Allowing yourself to burn because you are angry is the fool's
choice."

Leona didn't move but
Rafiq did. In two strides he was standing right beside her and quite
effectively blocking her off from the sun with his impressive shadow.

Which only helped to
irritate Hassan all the more. 'Your reason for being up here had better be a
good one, Rafiq,' he said grimly.

'Most assuredly,' the
other man replied. 'Sheikh Abdul begs an urgent word with you.'

Hassan's smile was thin.
'Worried, is he?'

'Protecting his back,'
Rafiq assessed.

'Sheikh Abdul can wait
until I have eaten my breakfast.' Levering himself away from the yacht's rail,
he walked back to the breakfast table. 'Leona, if you are not over here by the
time Rafiq leaves you will not like the consequences.'

'Threats now?' she threw
at him.

'Tell the sheikh I will
speak to him later,' he said, ignoring her remark to speak to Rafiq.

Rafiq hesitated, stuck
between two loyalties and clearly unsure which one to heed. He preferred to stay
by Leona's side until she decided to leave the sun, but he also needed to
deliver Hassan's message; so a silence dropped and tension rose. Hassan picked
up the coffee pot and poured himself a cup while he waited. He was testing the
faith of a man who had only ever given him his absolute loyalty, and that
surprised and dismayed Leona because, tough and cold though she knew Hassan
could be on occasion, she had never known him to challenge Rafiq in this way.

In the end she took the
pressure off by stepping beneath the shade of the awning. Rafiq bowed and left.
Hassan sent her a brief smile. 'Thank you,' he said.

'You didn't have to
challenge him like that,' she admonished. 'It was an unfair use of your
authority.'

'Perhaps.' he conceded.
'But it served its purpose.'

'The purpose of reminding
him of his station in life?'

'No, the purpose of
making you remember yours.' He threw her a hard glance. 'We both wield power in
our way, Leona. You have just demonstrated your own by giving Rafiq the freedom
to leave with his pride intact.'

He was right, though she
didn't like being forced to realise it.

'You can be so cruel
sometimes.' She released the words on a sigh. To her surprise Hassan countered
it with a laugh.

'You call me cruel when
you have just threatened him with a wife? He has a woman,' he confided, coming
to stand right behind her. 'A black-haired, ruby-eyed, golden-skinned
Spaniard.' Reaching round with his hands, he slipped free the single button
holding her jacket shut, then began to remove the garment. 'She dances the
flamenco and famously turns up men's temperature gauges with her delectably seductive
style.' His lips brushed the slender curve of her newly exposed shoulder. 'But
Rafiq assures me that nothing compares to what she unleashes when she dances
only for him.'

'You've seen her dance?'
Before she could stop herself, Leona had turned her head and given him just
what he had been aiming for. she realised, too late to hide the jealous green
glow in her eyes.

A sleek dark brow arched,
dark eyes taunting her with his answer. 'You like to believe you can set me
free but you are really so possessive of me that I can feel the chains tightening,
not slackening.'

'And you are so
conceited.' She tried to draw back the green eyed monster.

'Because I like the
chains?' he quizzed, and further disarmed her.

It wasn't fair, Leona
decided; he could seduce her into a mess of confusion in seconds: Ethan, the
launch, her sense of righteous indignation at the way she was being manipulated
at just about every turn; she was in real danger of becoming lost in the power
he had over her. She tried to break free from it. From her chains, she
recognised.