The sheikh's chosen wife (16 page)

The alternatives? Sheikh
Jibril Al-Mahmud had a son who could be considered worthy of taking up the
mantle Hassan's father would leave vacant. And no one could afford to ignore
Sheikh Imran Al-Mukhtar and his son, Samir. Samir might be too young to take on
the mantle of power but his father was not.

This, however only dealt
with the male perspective. As the sheikhs fought their war with words on each
other during long discussions, ensconced in one of the staterooms, the women
were waging a similar war for their own reasons. Zafina Al-Yasin wanted Leona
out and her daughter, Nadira, in. Since Hassan was not allowing this, then she
would settle for her daughter taking second place. For the power lay in the
sons born in a marriage, not the wives. So critical remarks were dropped at
every opportunity to whittle away at Leona's composure and a self-esteem that
was already fragile due to her inability to give Hassan what he needed most in
this world.

In the middle of it all
stood Sheikh Raschid and his wife, Evie offering positive proof that west could
successfully join with east. For Behran had gone from strength to strength
since their marriage and was fast becoming one of the most influential States
in Arabia. But they had a son. It was the cog on which everything else rotated.

It took two days to
navigate the Suez Canal, and would take another five to cross the Red Sea to
the city of Jeddah on the coast of Saudi Arabia. By the time they had reached
the end of the Canal, battle lines had been clearly marked for those times when
the war of words would rage or a truce would be called. Mornings were truce
times, when everyone more or less did their own thing and the company could
even be called pleasant.

In the afternoons most
people took a siesta, unless Samir grew restless and chivvied the others
towards more enjoyable pursuits.

'Just look at them,' Evie
murmured indulgently one afternoon as they stood watching Samir, Rafiq,
Raschid and Hassan jet-skiing the ocean like reckless idiots, criss-crossing
each other's wash with a daring that sometimes caught the breath. "They're
like little boys with exciting new toys.'

They came back to the
boat, refreshed, relaxed—and ready to begin the first wave of strikes when the
men gathered to drink coffee in one of the staterooms while the women occupied
another.

Dinner called a second
truce. After dinner, when another split of the sexes occurred, hostilities
would resume until someone decided to call it a day and went to bed.

Bed was a place you could
neither describe as a place of war nor truce. It gave you a sanctuary in which
you had the chance to vent all of the things you had spent the day suppressing.
But when the person in the bed with you saw you as much the enemy as every one
else did, then you were in deep trouble. As Hassan acknowledged every time he
slid into bed beside Leona and received the cold shoulder if he so much as
attempted to touch her or speak.

She was angry with him
for many reasons, but angriest most for some obscure point he had not managed
to expose. He was aware that this situation was difficult, that she would
rather be anywhere else other than trapped on this yacht right now. He knew she
was unhappy, that she was only just managing to hide that from everyone else.
That she was eating little and looking contradictorily pale when in truth her
skin was taking on a deeper golden hue with every passing day. He knew that
Zafina and Medina used any opportunity presented to them to compare her
situation unfavourably with Evie's. And he wished Raschid had shown some
sensitivity to that prospect when he'd made the decision to bring his children
along!

The children were a point
of conflict he could not seem to deal with. This evening, for instance, when
Raschid had brought his son into the salon to say goodnight to everyone. Hashim
had run the length of the room with his arms open wide in demand for a hug from
Leona. She had lifted him up in her arms and received all of his warm kisses to
her face with smiles of pleasure while inside, Hassan knew, the ache of empty
wishes must be torture for her.

When she hurt, he hurt.
When he had no remedy to ease that pain, he had to turn away from its source or
risk revealing to her the emptiness of helplessness he suffered whenever he
saw her hugging a son that was not their own.

But in trying to protect
Leona from himself he had forgotten the other pairs of eyes watching him. The
Al-Mahmuds and the Al-Yasins had seen, read and drawn their

'A sad sight, is it not?'
Abdul had dared to say.

Leona had heard him, had
known what he'd been referring to, and had been shunning Hassan ever since.

'Talk to me, for Allah's
sake.' He sighed into the darkness.

'Find another bed to
sleep in.'

Well, they were words, he
supposed, then sighed again, took the bull by the horns and pushed himself up
to lean over her then tugged her round to face him. 'What is it that you want
from me?' he demanded. 'I am trying my best to make this work for us!'

Her eyes flicked open; it
was like gazing into pools of broken ice. 'Why go to all this trouble when I am
still going to leave you flat the first moment I know I can do it without
hurting your father?'

'Why?' he challenged.

'We've already been
through the whys a hundred times! They haven't changed just because you have
decided to play the warlord and win the battle against your rotten underlings
without giving an inch to anyone!'

'Warlord?' His brow
arched. 'How very pagan.' He made sure she knew he liked the sound of that
title in a very phys-

'Oh, get off me,' she
snapped, gave a push and rolled free of him, coming to her feet by the bed. Her
hair floated everywhere, and the cream silk pyjamas shimmied over her slender
figure as she walked down the room and dumped herself into one of the chairs,
then dared to curl up in it as if he would allow her to sleep there!

'Come back here, Leona,'
he commanded wearily.

'I regret ever agreeing
to be here,' she answered huskily.

Husky meant tears. Tears
made him want to curse for making a joke of what they had been talking about
when any fool would have known it was no time for jokes! On yet another sigh he
got out of the bed, then trod in her footsteps and went to squat down in front
of her.

'I'm sorry,' he said,
'that this situation is so difficult for you. But my father insisted that the
family heads must talk to each other. I have no will to refuse him because in
truth his reasons are wise. You know 1 have no automatic right to succession. I
must win the support of the other family leaders.'

'Stop being so stubborn
and just let me go and you would not have to win over anyone,' she pointed out.

'You know...' he grimaced
'...I think you are wrong there. I think that underneath all the posturing they
want me to fight this battle and win, to prove the strength of my resolve.'

She brushed a tear off
her cheek. Hassan had wanted to do it for her, but instinct was warning him not
to. Tonight Zafina asked me outright if I had any idea of the life I was
condemning you to if I held onto a marriage destined to have no children.'

His eyes flashed with raw
anger, his lips pressing together on an urge to spit out words that would make
neither of them feel any better. But he made a mental note that from tomorrow
Leona went nowhere without himself or Rafiq within hearing.

'And I saw your face,
Hassan,' she went on unsteadily. 'I heard what Abdul said to you and I know why
he said it. So why are you being so stubborn about something we both know is—'

He shut her up in the
most effective way he knew. Mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue, words lost in the
heat of a much more productive form of communication. She fought him for a few
brief seconds, then lost the battle when her flailing fingers made contact with
his naked flesh.

He had no clothes on, she
had too many, but flesh-warmed silk against naked skin achieved a sensual
quality he found very pleasurable as he lifted her up and settled her legs
around his hips.

'You are such an
ostrich,' she threw into his face as he carried her back to bed. 'How long do
you think you can go on ignoring what—!'

He used the same method
to shut her up again. By then he was standing by the bed with her fingernails
digging into his shoulders, her hair surrounding him and her long legs clinging
to his waist with no indication that they were going to let go. If he tried for
a horizontal position he would risk hurting her while she held him like this.

So—who needed a bed? he
thought with a shrug as his fingers found the elastic waistband to her pyjama
bottoms and pushed the silk far enough down her thighs to gain him access to
what he wanted the most. She groaned as he eased himself into her, and the kiss
deepened into something else.

Fevered was what it was.
Fevered and hot and a challenge to how long he could maintain his balance as he
stood there with his hands spanning her slender buttocks, squeezing to increase
the frictional pleasure, and no way—no way— would he have believed three nights
without doing this could leave him so hungry. Twelve months without doing this
had not affected him as badly.

'You're shaking.'

She'd noticed. He wasn't
surprised. He wasn't just shaking, he was out of control, and he could no
longer maintain this position without losing his dignity as well as his mind.
So he lowered her to the bed with as much care as he could muster, pushed her
hair from her face and stared blackly into her eyes.

'You tell me how I deny
myself this above all things?' he demanded. 'You, only you, can do this to me.
It is only you I want to do it with."

The words were spoken
between fierce kisses, between possessive thrusts from his hips. Leona touched
his face, touched his mouth, touched his eyes with her eyes. 'I'm so very
sorry,' she whispered tragically.

It was enough to drive an
already driven man insane. He withdrew, got up, swung away and strode into the
bathroom, slammed shut the door then turned to slam the flat of his palm
against the nearest wall. Empty silences after the loving he had learned to
deal with, but tragic apologies in the middle were one large step too far!

Why had she said it? She
hadn't meant to say it! It was just one of those painful little things that had
slipped out because she had seen he was hurting, and the look had reminded her
of the look he had tried to hide from her when she had been cuddling Hashim.
Oh, what were they doing to each other? Leona asked herself wretchedly. And
scrambled to her feet as the sickness she had been struggling with for days now
came back with a vengeance, leaving her with no choice but to make a run for
the bathroom with the hope that he hadn't locked the door.

With one hand over her
mouth and the other trying to recover her slipping pyjama bottoms, she reached
the door just as it flew open to reveal a completely different Hassan than the
one who had stormed in there only seconds ago.

'You may have your wish,'
he informed her coldly. 'As soon as it is safe for me to do so, I will arrange
a divorce. Now I want nothing more to do with you."

With that he walked away,
having no idea that her only response was to finish what she had been intending
to do and make it to the toilet bowl before she was sick.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Leona was asleep when
Hassan let himself back into the room the next morning. She was still asleep
when, showered and dressed, he left the room again half an hour later, and in a
way he was glad.

He had spent the night
stretched out on a lounger on the shade deck, alternating between feeling angry
enough to stand by every word he had spoken and wanting to go back and retract
what he had left hanging in the air.

And even now, hours
later, he was not ready to choose which way he was going to go. He'd had enough
of people tugging on his heartstrings; he'd had enough of playing these stupid
power games.

He met Raflq on his way
up to the sun deck. 'Set up a meeting,' he said. 'Ten o'clock in my private
office. We are going for broke.'

Rafiq sent him one of his
steady looks, went to say something, changed his mind, and merely nodded his
head.

Samir was already at the
breakfast table, packing food away at a pace that made Hassan feel slightly
sick—a combination of no sleep and one too many arguments, he told himself
grimly.

Leona still hadn't put in
an appearance by the time everyone else had joined them and finished their breakfast.
Motioning the steward over, he instructed him to ring the suite.

'I'll go,' Evie offered,
and got up, leaving her children to Raschid's capable care.

And he was capable. In
fact it irritated Hassan how capable his friend was at taking care of his two
children. How did he run a Gulf state the size of Behran and find time to learn
how to deal with babies?

The sun was hot, the sky
was blue and here he was, he acknowledged, sitting here feeling like a grey day
in London.

'Hassan..."