'Huh.' The short laugh was full of bewildered incredulity. 'What suddenly brought on this change of heart?'
'The heart has always wanted to stay, it was the mind that was causing me problems. But...look at us, Hassan.' She sighed 'sitting out in the middle of the sea in a stupid little boat beneath the heat of a noon-day sun because we would rather be here, together like this, than anywhere else.' She gave him her eyes again, and what always happened to them happened when he looked deep inside. 'If you believe love can sustain us through whatever is waiting for us back there, then I am going to let myself believe it too.'
'Courage,' he murmured, reaching out to gently cup her cheek. 'I never doubted your courage.'
'No,' she protested when he went to kiss her. 'Not here, when I can feel about twenty pairs of eyes trained on us from the yacht."
'Let them watch,' he decreed, and kissed her anyway. 'Now I want the privacy of our stateroom, with its very large bed," he said as he drew away again.
'Then, let's go and find it.'
They were halfway back to the yacht before she remembered Samir telling her about the planned meeting. 'What happened?' she asked anxiously.
Hassan smiled a brief, not particularly pleased smile. 'I won the support I was looking for. The fight is over. Now we can begin to relax a little.'
As a statement of triumph, it didn't have much satisfaction running through it. Leona wanted to question him about it, but they were nearing the yacht, so she decided to wait until later because she could now clearly see the sea of faces watching their approach-some anxious, some curious, some wearing expressions that set her shivering all over again. Not everyone was relieved that Hassan had plucked her out of the ocean, she realised ruefully.
Rafiq and a crewman were waiting on the platform to help them back on board the yacht. 'I'll walk,' she insisted when Hassan went to lift her into his arms. 'I think I have looked foolish enough for one day.'
So they walked side by side through the boat, wrapped in towels over their wet clothing. Neither spoke, neither touched, and no one accosted them on their journey to their stateroom. The door shut them in. Hassan broke away from her side and strode into the bathroom. Leona followed, found the jets in the shower already running. She dropped the towels, Hassan silently helped her out of the buoyancy aid that had not been buoyant enough and tossed it in disgust to the tiled floor. Next came her tee shirt, her shorts, the blue one-piece swimsuit she was wearing beneath.
It was another of those calms before the storm, Leona recognised as she watched him drag his shirt off over his head and step out of the rest of his clothes. His face was composed, his manner almost aloof, and there wasn't a single cell in her body that wasn't charged, ready to accept what had to come.
Tall and dark, lean and sleek. 'In,' he commanded, holding open the shower-cubicle door so that she could step inside. He followed, closed the door. And as the white-tiled space engulfed them in steam he was reaching for her and engulfing her in another way.
Think of asking questions about how much he had conceded to win his support from the other sheikhs? Why think about anything when this was warm and soft and slow and so intense that the yacht could sink and they would not have noticed. This was love, a renewal of love; touching, tasting, living, breathing, feeling love. From the shower they took it with them to the bed, from there they took it with them into a slumber which filtered the rest of the day away.
Questions? Who needed questions when they had this depth of communication? No more empty silences between the loving. No more fights with each other or with themselves about the wiseness of being together like this. When she received him inside her she did so with her eyes wide open and brimming with love and his name sounding softly on her lips.
Beyond the room, in another part of the yacht. Raschid looked at Rafiq. 'Do you think he has realised yet that today's victory has only put Leona at greater risk from her enemies?' he questioned.
'Sheikh Abdul would be a fool to show his hand now, when he must know that Hassan has chosen to pretend he had no concept of his plot to take her.'
'I was not thinking of Abdul, but his ambitious wife,' Raschid murmured grimly. "The woman wants to see her daughter in Leona's place. One only had to glimpse her expression when Hassan brought them back to the yacht to know that she has not yet had the sense to give up the fight...'
CHAPTER NINE
Leona was thinking much the same thing when she found herself faced by Zafina later that evening.
Before the confrontation the evening had been surprisingly pleasant. Leona made light of her spill into the sea, and the others made light of the meeting that had taken place as if the battle, now decided, had given everyone the excuse to relax their guard.
It was only when the women left the men at the table after dinner that things took a nasty turn for the worse. Evie had gone to check on her children and Leona used the moment to pop back to the stateroom to freshen up. The last person she expected to see as she stepped out of the bathroom was Zafina Al-Yasin, standing there waiting for her.
Dressed in a traditional jewel-blue dara'a and matching thobe heavily embroidered with silver studs, Zafina was here to cause trouble. It did not take more than a glance into her black opal eyes to see that.
'You surprise me with your jollity this evening.' The older woman began her attack. 'On a day when your husband won ail and you lost everything I believed you stood so proudly for, I would have expected to find you more subdued. It was only as I watched you laugh with our men that it occurred to me that maybe, with your unfortunate accident and Sheikh Hassan's natural concern for you, he has not made you fully aware of what it was he has agreed to today?'
Not at all sure where she was going to be led with this, Leona demanded cautiously, 'Are you implying that my husband has lied to me?'
'I would not presume to suggest such a thing,' Zafina denied with a slight bow of respect meant in honour of Hassan, not Leona herself. 'But he may have been a little economical with some of the details in an effort to save you from further distress.'
'Something you are not prepared to be,' Leona assumed.
'I believe in telling the truth, no matter the pain it may course.'
Ah, Leona thought, the truth. Now there was an interesting concept.
'In the interest of fair play, I do feel that you should be fully informed so that you may make your judgements on your future with the full facts at hand.'
'Why don't you just get to the point of this conversation, Zafina?' Leona said impatiently.
'The point is...this...' Zafina replied, producing from inside the sleeve of her dara a piece of paper, which she then spread out on the bed.
Leona did not want to, but she made herself walk towards it, made herself look down. The paper bore the Al-Qadim seal of office. It bore the name of Sheikh Khalifa.
'What is it?' she asked, oddly unwilling to read the closely lined and detailed Arabian script that came beneath.
'A contract drawn up by Sheikh Khalifa himself, giving his blessing to the marriage between his son Sheikh Hassan and my daughter Nadira. This is my husband's copy. Sheikh Khalifa and Sheikh Hassan have copies of their own."
'It isn't signed,' Leona pointed out.
'It will be,' Zafina stated certainly, 'as was agreed this morning at the meeting of the family heads. Sheikh Khalifa is dying. His loving son will deny him nothing. When we reach Rahman the signing will take place and the announcement will be made at Sheikh Khalifa's celebration banquet.'
He will deny him nothing... Of everything Zafina had said, those words were the only ones that held the poison. Still, Leona strove to reject them.
'May be,' she said. 'No matter what this piece of paper says, and no matter what you imply I know Hassan. I know my father-in-law, Sheikh Khalifa. Neither would even think of deceiving me this way.'
'You think not?' She sounded so sure, so confident. 'In the eyes of his country. Sheikh Hassan must prove his loyalty to them is stronger than his desire to pander to your western principles.'
More certain on having said it, Leona turned ice-cold eyes on the other woman, I will tell Hassan about this conversation. You do realise that?' she warned.
Zafina bowed her head in calm acquiescence. 'Face him,' she invited. 'Tell him what you know. He may continue to keep the truth from you for his father's sake. He may decide to confess all then fall on your mercy, hoping that you will still go to Rahman as his loyal first wife to help save his face. But mark my words, Sheikha,' she warned, 'my daughter will be Sheikh Hassan's wife before this month is out, and she will bear him the son that will make his life complete.'