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When he removed it again he stretched the hand out towards her. ‘Join me,’ he invited.
Leona shook her head and instead found her arms crossing tightly beneath the thrust of her breasts. ‘Tell me first,’ she insisted.
‘Don’t be difficult,’ he censured. ‘I want you here, within touching distance when I explain.’
But she didn’t want to be within touching distance when he said what she knew he had to say. ‘You are about to go home, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed.
It was all right challenging someone to tell you the truth when you did not mind the answer, but when you did mind it—‘So this is it,’ she stated, finding a short laugh from somewhere that was not really a laugh at all. ‘Holiday over…’
Out there the sun glistened on the blue water, casting a shimmering haze over the nearing land. It was hot but she was cold. It was bright but she was standing in darkness. The end, she thought. The finish.
‘So, how are you going to play it?’ she asked him. ‘Do you drop me off on the quay in the clothes I arrived in and wave a poignant farewell as you sail away. Or have I earned my passage back to San Estéban?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Hassan frowned. ‘You are my wife, yet you speak about yourself as a mistress.’
Which was basically how she had been behaving over the last two weeks, Leona admitted to herself. ‘Inshallah,’ she murmured.
The small sarcasm brought him back to his feet. As he strode towards her she felt her body quicken, felt her breasts grow tight and despised herself for being so weak of the flesh that she could be aroused by a man who was about to carry out his promise to free her. But six feet two inches of pedigree male to her five feet seven was such a lot to ignore when she added physical power into the equation, then included mental power and sexual power. It really was no wonder she was such a weakling where he was concerned.
And it didn’t stop there, because he came to brace his hands on the rail either side of her, then pushed his dark face close up to hers. Now she could feel the heat of him, feel his scented breath on her face. She even responded to the ever-present sexual glow in his eyes though it had no right to be there—in either of them.
‘A mistress knows when to keep her beautiful mouth shut and just listen. A wife does her husband the honour of hearing him out before she makes wildly inaccurate claims,’ he said.
‘You’ve just told me that our time here is over,’ she reminded him with a small tense shrug of one slender shoulder. ‘What else is there left for you to say?’
‘What I said,’ he corrected, ‘was that our time here alone was over.’
The difference made her frown. Hassan used the moment to shift his stance, grasp both of her hands and pry them away from the death grip they had on her arms. Her fingers left marks where they had been clinging. He frowned at the marks and sighed at her pathetically defiant face. Then, dropping one of her hands, he turned and pulled her over to the table, urged her down into the chair he had just vacated and, still without letting go of her other hand, pulled out a second chair upon which he sat down himself.
He drew the chair so close to her own that he had to spread his thighs wide enough to enclose hers. It was a very effective way to trap his audience, especially when he leaned forward and said, ‘Now, listen, because this is important and I will not have you diverting me by tossing up insignificant comments.’
It was automatic that she should open her mouth to question that remark. It was predictable, she supposed, that Hassan should stop her by placing his free hand across her parted lips. ‘Shh,’ he commanded, ‘for I refuse to be distracted yet again because the anguish shows in your eyes each time we reach this moment, and your words are only weapons you use to try and hide that from me.’
‘Omniscient’ was the word that came to mind to describe him, she thought, as her eyes told him she would be quiet. His hand slid away from her face, leaving its warm imprint on her skin. He smiled a brief smile at her acquiescence, then went so very serious that she found herself holding onto her breath.
‘You know,’ he began, ‘that above all things my father has always been your strongest ally, and it is for him that I am about to speak…’
The moment he mentioned Sheikh Khalifa her expressive eyes clouded with concern.
‘As his health fails, the more he worries about the future of Rahman,’ he explained. ‘He frets about everything. You, me, what I will do if the pressures currently being brought to bear upon me force me to make a decision which could change the rule of Rahman.’
‘You mean you have actually considered giving up your right to succession?’ Leona gasped out in surprise.
‘It is an option,’ he confessed. ‘And one which became more appealing after I uncovered the plot involving you, which was aimed to make me do as other people wish,’ he added cynically. ‘But for my father’s sake I assured him that I am not about to walk away from my duty. So he decided to fret about my happiness if I am forced to sacrifice you for the sake of harmony, which places me in a frustrating nowin situation where his peace of mind is concerned.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.
‘I don’t want your sympathy, I want your help,’ he stated with a shortness that told her how much he disliked having to ask. ‘He loves you, Leona, you know that. He has missed you badly since you left Rahman.’
‘I didn’t completely desert him, Hassan.’ She felt pushed into defending herself. ‘I’ve spoken to him every day via the internet.’ Even here on the yacht she had been using Faysal’s computer each morning to access her e-mail. ‘I even read the same books he is reading so that we can discuss them together. I—’
‘I know,’ Hassan cut in with a wry smile. ‘What you say to him he relays to me, so I am fully aware that I am a bully and a tyrant, a man without principle and most definitely my father’s son.’
‘I said those things to tease a laugh out of him,’ she defended.
‘I know this too,’ he assured her. ‘But he likes to make me smile with him.’ Reaching up, he stroked a finger along the flush of discomfort that had mounted her cheeks. ‘And let me face it,’ he added, removing the finger, ‘your communication with him was far sweeter than your communication with me.’
He was referring to the letters he’d received from her lawyer. ‘It was over between us. You should have left it like that.’
‘It is not over between us, and I cannot leave it like that.’
‘Your father—’
‘Needs you,’ he grimly inserted. ‘I need you to help me ease his most pressing concerns. So I am asking you for a full and open reconciliation of our marriage—for my father’s sake if not for yours and mine.’
Leona wasn’t a fool. She knew what he was not saying here. ‘For how long?’
He offered a shrug. ‘How long is a piece of string?’ he posed whimsically. Then, because he could see that the answer was not enough, he dropped the whimsy, sat right back in his seat and told her curtly, ‘The doctors give him two months—three at most. In that period we have been warned to expect a rapid deterioration as the end draws near. So I ask you to do this one thing for him and help to make his passage out of this world a gentle one…’
Oh, dear heaven, she thought, putting a hand up to her eyes as the full weight of what he was asking settled over her. How could she refuse? She didn’t even want to refuse. She loved that old man as much as she loved her own father. But there were other issues here which had not been aired yet, and it was those that kept her agreement locked inside.
‘The other wife they want for you,’ she prompted, ‘am I to appear to accept her imminent arrival also?’
His expression darkened. ‘Do me the honour of allowing me some sensitivity,’ he came back. ‘I have no wish to sacrifice your face for my own face. And I find it offensive that you could suspect that I would do.’
Which was very fine and noble of him but—‘She is still there, hovering in the shadows, Hassan,’ Leona said heavily. She could even put a name to the woman, though he probably didn’t know that she could. ‘And taking me back to Rahman does not solve your problems with the other family leaders unless you take that other wife.’
‘The old ones and I have come to an agreement,’ he informed her. ‘In respect for my father, they will let the matter ride while he is still alive.’
‘Then what?’
‘I will deal with them when I have to, but for the next few months anyway, my father’s peace of mind must come first.’
And so, he was therefore saying, should it for her. ‘Will you do this?’
The outright challenge. ‘Did you really think that I would not?’ She sighed, standing up and pushing her chair away so that she could step around him.
‘You’re angry.’ His eyes narrowed on her sparkling eyes and set expression.
Anger didn’t nearly cover what she was really feeling. ‘In principle I agree to play the doting wife again,’ she said. ‘But in fact I am now going to go away and sulk as you like to call it. Because no matter how well you wrap it all up in words of concern, Hassan, you are as guilty for using me in much the same way my foiled abductors intended to use me, and that makes you no better than them, does it?’
With that she turned and walked away, and Hassan allowed her to, because he knew she was speaking the truth so had nothing he could offer in his own defence.
Within seconds Rafiq appeared with a question written into the hard lines of his face.
‘Don’t ask,’ he advised heavily. ‘And she does not even know the half of it yet.’
‘Which half does she not know,’ Rafiq asked anyway.
‘What comes next,’ Hassan replied, watching his half-brother’s eyes slide over his left shoulder. He spun to see what he was looking at, then began cursing when he saw how close they were to reaching their reserved berth in Port Said. ‘How long?’ he demanded.
‘You have approximately one hour before the first guests begin to arrive.’
A small hour to talk, to soothe, to plead yet again for more charity from a woman who had given enough as it was. ‘You had better prepare yourself to take my place, Rafiq,’ he gritted. ‘Because, at this precise moment, I am seriously considering jumping ship with my wife and forgetting I possess a single drop of Al-Qadim blood.’
‘Our father may not appreciate such a decision,’ Rafiq commented dryly.
‘That reminder,’ Hassan turned to snap, ‘was not necessary.’
‘I was merely covering for myself,’ his half brother defended. ‘For I have no wish to walk in your shoes, my lord Sheikh.’
About to go after Leona, Hassan paused. ‘What do you wish for?’ he questioned curiously.
‘Ah.’ Rafiq sighed. ‘At this precise moment I wish for midnight, when I should be with my woman in a hotel room in Port Said. For tonight she flies in to dance for visiting royalty by special request. But later she will dance only for me and I will worship at her feet. Then I will worship other parts of her until dawn, after which I will reluctantly return here, to your exalted service, my lord sheikh,’ he concluded with a mocking bow.
Despite the weight of his mood, Hassan could not resist a smile. ‘You should change your plans and bring her to dinner,’ he suggested. ‘The sheer sensation she would cause would be a diversion I would truly appreciate.’
‘But would Leona?’ Rafiq pondered.
Instantly all humour died from Hassan’s face. ‘Leona,’ he predicted. ‘is in no frame of mind to appreciate anything.’
And on that grim reminder, he went off to find his woman, while half wishing that he was the one treading in Rafiq’s shoes.
He found her without difficulty, shut behind the bathroom door and hiding in the steam being produced by the shower. The fact that she had not bothered to lock the door spoke volumes as to her mood. Hassan could visualise the angry way she would have walked in here, throwing the door shut behind her then taking the rest of her anger out on the heap of clothes he could see tossed onto the floor.
So what did he do now? Go back to the bedroom and wait for her to reappear, or did he throw caution to the wind, strip off and just brave her fiery den?
It was not really a question since he was already taking off his clothes. For this was no time to be feeble. Leona had agreed in principle, so now she was about to learn the consequences of that. With a firming of his mouth he opened the shower-cubicle door, stepped inside and closed it again.
She was standing just out of reach of the shower jets with her head tipped back as she massaged shampoo into her hair. Streams of foaming bubbles were sliding over wet gold skin, collecting around the tips of her tilted breasts and snaking through the delightful valley in between to pool in the perfect oval of her navel, before spilling out to continue their way towards the chestnut cluster marking the apex with her slender thighs.
His body awoke; he allowed himself a rueful smile at how little it took to make him want this beautiful creature. Then she realised he was there and opened her eyes, risking soap burn so that she could kill him with a look.
‘What do you want now?’ she demanded.
Since the answer to that question was indubitably obvious, he didn’t bother with a reply. Instead he reached for the container of foaming body soap, pumped a generous amount into the palm of his hand and began applying it to her skin. Her hands dropped from her hair and pressed hard against his chest in an effort to push him away.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and calmly pumped some soap onto his own chest as if it was a foregone conclusion that she would wash him. ‘Sharing can turn the simplest of chores into the best of pleasures, do you not think?’
The green light in her eyes took on a distinctly threatening gleam. ‘I think you’re arrogant and hateful and I want you to get out of here,’ she coldly informed him.
‘Close your eyes,’ he advised. ‘The shampoo is about to reach them.’
Then, even as she lifted a hand to swipe the bubbles away, he reached up and directed the shower head at her so that the steamy spray hit her full in the face. While gasping at the shock, he made his next move, turned the spray away and replaced it with his mouth.
For a sweet, single moment he allowed himself to believe he’d made the easy conquest. It usually worked. On any other occasion it would have worked as a tasty starter to other ways of forgetfulness. But this time he received a sharp dig in the ribs for his optimism, and a set of teeth closed threateningly on his bottom lip until he eased the pressure and lifted his head. Her eyes spat fire and brimstone at him. He arched an eyebrow and glided a defiant hand down to the silken warmth of her abdomen.
‘You are treading on dangerous ground, Sheikh,’ she warned him.
‘I am?’
She ignored the message in his tone. ‘I have nothing I want to say to you. So why don’t you leave me alone?’
‘But I was not offering to talk,’ he explained, and boldly slid the hand lower.
‘You are not doing that either!’ Squirming away like a slippery snake, she ended up pressed against the corner of the cubicle, eyes like green lasers trying their best to obliterate him. One arm was covering her breasts, the other hand was protecting other parts. She looked like some sweet, cowering virgin, but he was not fooled by the vision. This beautiful wife of his possessed a temper that could erupt without warning. At the moment it was merely simmering.
‘Okay.’ With an ease that threw her into frowning confusion, he conceded the battle to her, pumped more soap onto his chest and began to wash while trying to ignore the obvious fact that a certain part of him was as hard as a rock and begging he do something about it. ‘We did not really have time, anyway. Our guests arrive in less than an hour…’
‘Guests?’ she looked up sharply. ‘What guests?’
‘The guests we are about to transport to Rahman to attend the anniversary of my father’s thirtieth year of rule, which will take place in ten days’ time,’ he replied while calmly sluicing the soap from his body as if he had not dropped yet another bomb at her feet. ‘Here.’ He frowned. ‘Wash the shampoo from your hair before you really do hurt your eyes.’ And he stepped back to allow her access to the spray.
Leona didn’t move; she didn’t even notice that he had. She was too busy suffering from one shock too many. ‘How long have you known you were taking on guests?’
‘A while.’ Reaching up to unhook the shower head from the wall, he then pulled her towards him to began rinsing the shampoo from her hair for himself.
‘But you didn’t feel fit to tell me before now?’
‘I did not feel fit to do anything but enjoy being with you.’ Pushing up her chin, he sent the slick, clean pelt of her hair sliding down her spine with the help of the shower jet. ‘Why?’ He asked a question of his own. ‘Would knowing have had any bearing on your decision to come back to Rahman with me?’
Would it? Leona asked herself, when really she did not need to, because she knew her answer would have been the same. He was rinsing the rest of her now and she just stood there and let him do it. Only a few minutes ago his smallest touch had infused her with that need to feel him deep inside her, now she could not remember what the need felt like. As she waited for him to finish administering to her wooden form, she noticed that his passion had died too.
‘I suppose I had better know if there is anything else you haven’t bothered to tell me,’ she murmured eventually.
His pause before speaking could have been a hesitation over his answer, or it could have been a simple pause while he switched off the shower. ‘Just the names of our guests,’ he said. ‘And that can wait until we have dealt with the more urgent task of drying ourselves and getting dressed.’
With that he opened the shower door and stepped out to collect a towel, which he folded around her before offering her another one for her hair. For himself he reached for a towelling bathrobe, pulled it on and headed for the door.
‘Hassan…’ she made him pause ‘…the rest of this trip and your father’s celebration party—am I being put on public show for a specific purpose?’
‘Some people need to be shown that I will not be coerced in any way,’ he answered without turning. ‘And my father wants you there. This will be his last anniversary. I will deny him nothing.’
At Hassan’s request, she was wearing a calf-length white silk tunic studded with pearl-white sequins that shimmered when she moved. In accordance with Arabian tradition, the tunic had a high neckline, long sleeves and a pair of matching slender silk trousers that covered her legs. On her head she had draped a length of fine silk, and beneath it her hair had been carefully pleated into a glossy, smooth coronet. Her make-up was so understated you could barely tell it was there except for the flick of black mascara highlighting the length of her eyelashes and the hint of a gloss to her soft pink mouth.
Beside her stood the Prince. Dressed in a white silk tunic and gold silk top robe, on his head he wore a white gutrah ringed by three circles of gold. To her other side and one short pace behind stood Rafiq, dressed almost exactly the same as his brother only without the bands of gold. And as they waited in the boat’s foyer, Leona was in no doubt that the way they were presented was aimed to make a specific statement.
Sheikh Hassan ben Khalifa Al-Qadim and his wife the Sheikha Leona Al-Qadim—bestowed upon her at her request, for the woman of Arabia traditionally kept their father’s name—were ready to formally receive guests, whether those guests were friends or foes.
Rafiq was their guardian, their protector, their most respected brother and trusted friend. He possessed his own title, though he had never been known to use it. He possessed the right to wear the gold bands of high office, but no one had ever seen them circling his head. His power rode on the back of his indifference to anything that did not interest him. His threat lay in the famed knowledge that he would lay down his life for these two people standing in front of him, plus the father he loved without question.
His presence here, therefore, made its own loud statement; come in friendship and be at peace; come in conflict and beware.
Why? Because the first person to tread the gangway onto the yacht was Sheikh Abdul Al-Yasin and his wife, Zafina. Hassan and Rafiq knew that Sheikh Abdul was behind the plot to abduct Leona, but the sheikh did not know the brothers knew. Which was why he felt safe in taking the bait handed out for this trip—namely a meeting of the chiefs during a cruise on the Red Sea, in which his aim was to beat Hassan into submission about this second wife he was being so stubborn in refusing.
What none of them knew was that Leona suspected it was Sheikh Abdul who had planned her abduction. Because she knew about Nadira, his beautiful daughter, who had been held up to her many times as the one chosen to take that coveted place in Sheikh Hassan’s life as his second wife.
‘Ah—Hassan!’ The two men greeted and shook hands pleasantly enough. ‘You will be pleased to know that I left your father in better sorts than of late. I saw him this morning before I caught my flight to Cairo.’
‘I must thank you for keeping him company while we have been away,’ Hassan replied.
‘No thanks—no thanks.’ Sheikh Abdul refused them. ‘It was my privilege—Leona…’ He turned towards her next, though offered no physical contact as was the Arab way. He bowed instead. ‘You have been away too long. It is good to see you here.’
‘Thank you.’ She found a smile, wished she dared search for the comfort of Hassan’s hand, but such shows of weakness would be pounced upon and dissected when she was not there to hear it happen.
‘Rafiq.’ His nodded greeting was distinctly wary. ‘You made a killing with your stock in Schuler-Kleef, I see.’
‘My advice is usually sound, sir,’ Rafiq replied respectfully. ‘I take it you did not buy some for yourself?’
‘I forgot.’
Through all of this, Sheikh Abdul’s wife, Zafina, stood back in total silence, neither stepping forward to follow the line of introduction nor attempting to remind her husband of her presence. It was such a quiescent stance, one that Leona had grown used to from the women of Rahman when they were out in the company of their men.
But it was a quiescence that usually only lasted as long as it took them to be alone with the other women. Then the real personalities shot out to take you by surprise. Some were soft and kind, some cold and remote, some alive with fun. Zafina was a woman who knew how to wield her power from within the female ranks and had no hesitation in doing so if it furthered her own particular cause. It was due to her clever machinations that her son had married another sheikh’s most favoured daughter.
She’d had Hassan marked for her daughter, Nadira, from the day the child had been born. Therefore, in her eyes, she had every reason to dislike Leona. And, tranquil though she might appear right now, Leona could feel resentment flowing towards her in waves.
‘Zafina.’ She stepped forward, deciding to take the polite stand. ‘You are well, I trust? Thank you for taking time out of your busy life to join us here.’
‘The pleasure is all mine, Sheikha,’ the older woman replied. But then her husband was listening and so was the coveted Sheikh Hassan. ‘You have lost weight, I think. But Sheikh Khalifa tells me you have been sick?’
Someone had told her at any rate, but Leona suspected it was not Hassan’s father. Thankfully other guests began to arrive. Sheikh Jibril Al-Mahmud and his timid wife, Medina, who looked to her husband before she dared so much as breathe.
Sheikh Imran Al-Mukhtar and his youngest son, Samir, arrived next. Like a light at the end of a tunnel, Samir put the first genuine smile on everyone’s face because he broke right through every stiff convention being performed in the yacht’s foyer, and headed directly for Leona. ‘My princess!’ he greeted, picked her up in his arms then swung her around.