The sheikh's chosen wife(20)

'My mind had drifted for a few seconds,' he answered tensely.

'And the expression?'

'Part of the drift,' he admitted heavily.

'You were supposed to be on the alert at all times for attacks of this  kind.' Rafiq was not impressed. 'It was risk enough to bring onto this  boat the man who wishes her ill, without you allowing your mind to  drift.'

'Stop spitting words at my neck and go to your dancer,' Hassan snapped  back impatiently. 'You know as well as I do that neither Abdul or Jibril  would dare to try anything when they are here for the specific purpose  of talking me round!'

It's okay, Leona was telling herself. I can deal with it. I've always  known that deep inside he cared more than he ever let me see. So, he had  been caught by surprise and showed the truth to everyone was caught by  surprise and showed it myself.                       
       
           



       

'Samir,' she murmured gently. 'If you pour me any more wine I will be sozzled and fall over when I have to stand up.'

'Hassan wants your glass kept full.' He grimly kept on pouring.

'Hassan was attempting to fill an empty gap in the conversation, not put me under the table,' she dryly pointed out.

Samir sat back with a sigh, I want to die a thousands deaths,' he heavily confessed.

Hassan arrived back at the table. Leona felt his glance sear a pointed  message at her down the table's length. She refused to catch his eye,  and smiled and smiled until her jaw ached.

After that, the rest of the dinner passed off without further incident.  But by the time the ladies left the men alone and removed to the  adjoining salon Leona was in no mood for a knife-stabbing session. So  she was actually relieved that Medina and Zafina chose to stab at her  indirectly by discussing Zafina's daughter, Nadira, whose beauty, it  seemed, had multiplied during the last year. And as for her grace and  quiet gentle ways-she was going to make some lucky man the perfect wife  one day.

At least they didn't prose on about how wonderful she was with children,  Leona thought dryly, as the conversation was halted when Hassan brought  the men through within minutes of the ladies leaving them.

The evening dragged on. She thought about the other days and nights  still to come and wondered if she was going to get through them all in  one piece. Eventually the other two women decided they were ready to  retire. A maid was called and within minutes of them leaving Leona was  happy to follow suit. As she stepped outside, Hassan joined her. It was  the first time he had managed to get her alone since the incident at the  dinner table.

'I am at your feet,' he murmured contritely. 'I was miles away and had  no idea what had taken place until Rafiq explained it to me."

She didn't believe him, but it was nice of him to try the cover-up, she  supposed. 'Samir wins hands down on apologies,' she came back. 'He wants  to die a thousands deaths.'

With that she walked away, shaking inside and not really sure why she  was. She got ready for bed and crawled between the cool cotton sheets,  sighed, punched the pillow, then attempted to fall asleep. She must have  managed it, because the next thing she knew a warm body was curling  itself in behind her.

'I don't recall our new deal involving having to share a bed," she said coldly.

'I don't recall offering to sleep elsewhere,' Hassan coolly returned.  'So go back to sleep.' The arm he folded around her aimed to trap. 'And,  since I am as exhausted as you are, you did not need the silk pyjamas  to keep my lecherous hands.

'I really hate you sometimes.' She wanted the last word.





'Whereas I will love you with my dying breath and when they lay us in  our final resting place in our crypt of gold it will be like this, with  the scent of your beautiful hair against my face and my hand covering  your lying little heart. There,' he concluded, 'is that flowery enough  to beat Samir's one thousand deaths?'

Despite not wanting to, she giggled. It was her biggest mistake. The  exhausted man became an invigorated man. His lecherous desires took  precedence.

Did she try to stop him? No, she did not. Did she even want to? No,  again. Did he know all of that before he started removing the pyjamas?  Of course he did. And there was something needle-piercingly poignant in  this man losing touch with everything but this kind of loving as he came  inside her, cupped her face with his hands and held her gaze with his  own, as he drove them towards that other resting place.



CHAPTER SEVEN

Morning came too soon, to Leona's regret. Although here, shut inside  this room and wrapped in the relative sanctuary of Hassan's arms, she  could let herself pretend for a little while longer that everything was  perfect.

He was perfect, she observed tenderly as she studied the lean smooth  lines of his dark golden face. He slept quietly- he always had done-lips  parted slightly, black lashes lying still against the silken line of  his cheekbones. Her heart began to squeeze and her stomach muscles  joined in. This deep-rooted attraction he had always inspired in her had  never diminished no matter what else had come in between.

She released a sigh that feathered his face and made his nose twitch.  And it was such a nose, she thought with a smile, irresistibly reaching  up to run a fingertip down its long silken length.

'Life can have its perfect moments,' a sleepy voice drawled.

Since she had been thinking much the same herself, Leona moved that bit closer so she could brush a kiss on his mouth.

Eyelashes drifted upward, revealing ebony irises packed with love. 'Does  the kiss mean you have forgiven me for dropping all of this on you?'

'Shh,' she whispered, 'or you will spoil it.'

'Kiss me again, then,' he insisted. So she did. Why not? she asked  herself. This was her man. Rightly or wrongly he was most definitely  hers here and now.                       
       
           



       

It was a shame the ring of the telephone beside the bed had to intrude,  or one thing would have led to another before they should have needed to  face reality again. As it was, Hassan released a sigh and reached out  to hook up the receiver. A few seconds later he was replacing it again  and reaching out to touch her kiss-warmed mouth with a look of regret.

'Duty calls,' he murmured.

Ah, duty, Leona thought, and flopped heavily onto her back. Perfect  moment over, pretence all gone. Stripped clean to his smooth dark golden  skin, it was the prince who rose up from the bed and without saying  another word disappeared into the bathroom.

He came out again ten minutes later, wrapped in fluffy white cotton and  looking as handsome as sin. Wishing his pull wasn't as strong on her  senses, she got up with a definite reluctance to face the day mirrored  on her face, puDed on her wrap and went to take her turn in the  bathroom.

But Hassan stopped her as she walked past him, his hand gently cupping  her chin. He smelt of soap and minted toothpaste as he bent to kiss her  cheek. 'Fifteen minutes, on the sun deck,' he instructed as he  straightened again. 'For breakfast with an added surprise.'

The 'added surprise' made Leona frown. 'You promised me you had no more surprises waiting to jump out at me,' she protested.

'But this one does not count,' he said with a distinctly worrying gleam  in his eye. 'So hurry up, wear something deliciously stylish that will  wow everyone, and prepare yourself to fall on my neck.'

'Fall on his neck,' Leona muttered to herself as she showered. She had  developed a distinct aversion to surprises since arriving on this  wretched boat so she was more likely to strangle him.

In a pale blue sundress made of a cool cotton, and with her red hair  floating loose about her shoulders-because she felt like wearing it as a  banner, which made a statement about...something, though she wasn't  absolutely sure what-Leona walked out onto the sun deck to find Rafiq  there but no Hassan.

He looked up, smiled, then stood to pull out a chair for her. He was  back in what she called his off-duty clothes, loose-fitting black chinos  and a white V-neck tee shirt that did things to his muscled shape no  one saw when he was covered in Arab robes.

'Was your mother an Amazon, by any chance?' she enquired caustically,  because his father was a fine boned little man and Rafiq had to have got  his size from someone.

The waspishness in her tone earned her a sharp glance. 'Did you climb  out of bed on the wrong side, by any chance?' he threw back.

'I hate surprises,' she announced as she sat down.

'Ah,' Rafiq murmured. 'So you have decided to take it out on me because I am unlikely to retaliate."

He was right, and she knew it, which didn't help this terrible, restless  tension she was suffering from. 'Where is Hassan?' She strove for a  nicer tone and managed to half succeed. 'He said he would be here.'

'The pilot who will guide us through the Suez Canal has arrived,' Rafiq  explained. 'It is an expected courtesy for Hassan to greet him  personally.'