'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.
'I prefer tea to coffee,' she murmured, aiming her concentration at the only neutral thing she could find, which was the table set for breakfast.
The warm sound of his laughter was in recognition of her diversion tactics. Then suddenly he wasn't laughing, he was releasing a gasp of horror. 'You are bruised!' he claimed, sending her gaze flittering to the slight discolouring to her right shoulder that she had noticed herself in the shower earlier.