The sheikh's chosen wife(15)

Another smothered sigh had him closing his eyes as he reflected back  over the last few hours in which he had come as close as he had ever  done to causing a split between the heads of the different families  which together formed the Arabian state of Rahman.

Dynastic politics, he named it grimly. Al-Qadim and Al-Mukhtar against  Al-Mahmud and Al-Yasin, with his right to decide for himself becoming  lost in the tug of war. In the end he had been forced into a compromise  that was no compromise at all-though he had since tried to turn it into  one with the help of an old friend.

Leona released the sigh he had been struggling to suppress, and Hassan  opened his eyes in time to see her yawn and stretch sinuously. Long and  slender, sensationally curved yet exquisitely sleek. The colour of her  hair, the smoothness of her lovely skin, the perfectly proportioned  contours of her beautiful face. The eyes he could not see, the small  straight nose that he could, the mouth he could feel against his mouth  merely by looking at it. And-                       
       
           



       

Be done with it, he thought suddenly, and was on his feet and bending to scoop her into his arms.

She awoke with a start, saw it was him and sent him a sleepy frown.  'What are you doing?' she protested. 'I was comfortable there-'

'I know,' he replied. 'But I wish to be comfortable too, and I was not.'

He was already striding through the boat with a frown that was far  darker than hers. Across the foyer, up the three shallow steps. 'Open  the door,' he commanded and was surprised when she reached down and did  so without argument. He closed it with the help of a foot, saw her  glance warily towards the bed. But it was to the two chairs that he took  her, set her down in one of them, then lowered himself into the other  with that sigh he had been holding back for so long.

'I suppose you have a good reason for moving me here,' she prompted after a moment.

'Yes,' he confirmed, and turned to look into those slumber darkened  green eyes that tried so hard to hide her feelings from him but never  ever quite managed to succeed. The wall of his chest contracted as he  prepared himself for what he was about to say. 'You have been right all  along.' He began with a confession. 'I am being pressured to take  another

She should have expected it, Leona told herself as all hint of sleepy  softness left her and her insides began to shake. She had always known  it, so why was she feeling as if he had just reached out with a hand and  strangled her heart? It was difficult to speak-almost impossible to  speak-but she managed the burning question. 'Have you agreed?"

'No,' he firmly denied. 'Which is why you are here with me now-and more to the point, why you have to stay.'

Looking into his eyes, Leona could see that he was not looking forward to what he was going to say. She was right.

'A plot was conceived to have you abducted,' he told her huskily, 'the  intention being to use your capture as a weapon with which to force my  hand. When I discovered this I decided to foil their intentions by  abducting you for myself.'

'Who?' she whispered, but had a horrible feeling she already knew the answer.

'Did the plotting? We are still trying to get that confirmed,' he said.  'But whoever it was they had their people watching your villa last  night, waiting for Ethan and your father to leave for the party on the  Petronades yacht. Once they had assured themselves that you were alone  they meant to come in and take you.'

'Just like that.' she said shakily, and looked away from him as so many  things began to fall into place. 'I felt their eyes on me.' she  murmured. 'I knew they were there."

'I suspected that you would do,' Hassan quietly commended. 'It is the  kind of training we instilled into you that you never forget."

'But this was different.' She got up, wrapped her arms around her body. 'I knew it felt different. I should have heeded that!"

'No-don't get upset.' Following suit, Hassan stood up and reached for  her. She was as pale as a ghost and shaking like a leaf. 'My people were  also there watching over you,' he assured. 'The car driver was my man,  as was the man at the gate. I had people watching their people. There  was not a single moment when you were not perfectly safe."

'But to dislike me so much that they should want to take me!" Hurt  beyond belief by that knowledge, Leona pushed him away, unwilling to  accept his comfort. It had been hard enough to come to terms with it,  when she'd believed he had snatched her back for his own purposes. But  to discover now that he had done it because there was a plot against her  was just too much to take. 'What is it with you people that you can't  behave in a normal, rational manner?' she threw at him, eyes bright,  hurt and accusing. 'You should have phoned me not my father!" she cried.  'You should have agreed to a divorce in the first place, then none of  this would have happened at all!'

The you people sent Hassan's spine erect; the mention of divorce  hardened his face. 'You are one of my people,' he reminded her curtly.

'No, I am not!" she denied with an angry shake of her head. 'I am just  an ordinary person who had the misfortune to fall in love with the  extraordinary!'

'At least you are not going back to denying you love this extraordinary  person,' he noted arrogantly. 'And stop glaring at me like that!" he  snapped. 'I am not your enemy!'

'Yes, you are!' Oh, why had she ever set eyes on this man? It would have  been so much easier to have lived her life without ever having known  him! 'So what happens now?' she demanded. 'Where do we go from here? Do I  spend the rest of my days hiding from dark strangers just because you  are too stubborn to let me go?"

'Of course not.' He was standing there frowning impatiently. 'Stop  trying to build this into more than it actually more? 'Don't you think  it is enough to know that I wasn't safe to be walking the streets in San  Esteban? That my life and my basic human rights can be reduced to being  worth nothing more than a mere pawn in some wretched person's power  game?'                       
       
           



       

'I am sorry it has to come to this-'

Well, that just wasn't good enough! 'But you are no belter yourself!'  she threw at him angrily. 'Up to now you've used abduction, seduction  and now you've moved onto intimidation to bring the wayward wife into  line." She listed. 'Should I be looking for the hidden cameras you are  using so that you can show all of Rahman what a strong man you can be?  Do I need to smile now?" she asked, watching his face grow darker with  the sarcasm she tossed at him-and she just didn't care! 'Which way?" she  goaded. 'Do I need to let Rafiq shroud me in an abaya again and even go  as far as to abase myself at your exalted feet just to save your  wretched face?'

'Say any more and you are likely to regret it," he warned very grimly.

'I regret knowing you already!' Her eyes flashed, her body shook and her  anger sparkled in the very air surrounding her. 'Next I suppose you  will have me thrown into prison until I learn to behave myself!'

'This is it-' he responded, spreading his arms out wide in what was an outright provocation. 'Your prison. Now stop

shouting at me like some undignified fishwife,' he snapped. 'We need to-'

'I want my life back without you in it!' Leona cut loudly across him.

What she got was the prince. The face, the eyes, his mood and his manner  changed with the single blink of his long dark eyelashes. When his  shoulders flexed it was like a dangerous animal slowly raising its  hackles, and the fine hairs on her body suddenly became magnetised as  she watched the metamorphosis take place. Her breathing snagged; her  throat grew tight. He was standing perhaps three yards away from her but  she could suddenly feel his presence as deeply as if he was a  disturbing inch away.

'You want to live your life without me, then you may do so,' he  announced. 'I will let you go, give you your divorce. There, it is done.  Inshaliah' With a flick of the hand he strode across the room and  calmly ordered tea!

It was retaliation at its most ruthless and it left her standing there  utterly frozen with dismay. Inshaliah. She couldn't even wince at what  that single word represented. The will of Allah. Acceptance. A decision.  The end. Hassan was agreeing to let her go and she could neither move  nor breathe as the full power of that decree made its stunning impact.

She had not deserved that, Hassan was thinking impatiently as he stood  glaring down at the telephone. She had been shocked, angry, hurt. Who  would not be when they discovered that people they cared about, people  they had tried to put before themselves, had been plotting to use them  ruthlessly in a nasty game called politics? She had every right to vent  her feelings-he had expected it! It was the reason why he had found them  privacy before telling her the truth!