The Sheikh's Chosen Wife

Dear Rafiq, Leona thought wryly, Hassan’s ever-loyal partner in crime. Rafiq was an Al-Qadim. A man who had attended the same schools, the same universities, the same everything as Hassan had done. Equals in many ways, prince and lowly servant in others. It was a complicated relationship that wound around the status of birth and the ranks of power.

‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to ask him to give them back to me.’ Even she knew you didn’t command Rafiq to do anything. He was a law unto himself—and Hassan. Rafiq was a maverick. A man of the desert, yet not born of the desert; fiercely proud, fiercely protective of his right to be master of his own decisions.

‘For what purpose?’

Leona’s chin came up, recognising the challenge in his tone. She offered him a cool, clear look. ‘I am not staying here, Hassan,’ she told him flatly. ‘Even if I have to book into a hotel in San Estéban to protect your dignity, I am leaving this boat now, tonight.’

His expression grew curious, a slight smile touched his mouth. ‘Strong swimmer, are you?’ he questioned lazily.

It took a few moments for his taunt to truly sink in, then she was moving, darting across the room and winding her way between the two strategically placed chairs and the accompanying table to reach for the curtains. Beyond the glass, all she could see was inky darkness. Maybe she was on the seaward side of the boat, she told herself in an effort to calm the sudden sting of alarm that slid down her spine.

Hassan quickly disabused her of that frail hope. ‘We left San Estéban minutes after we boarded.’

It was only then that she felt it: just the softest hint of a vibration beneath the soles of her feet that told of smooth and silently running engines. This truly was an abduction, she finally accepted, and turned slowly back round to face him.

‘Why?’ she breathed.

It was like a replay of what had already gone before, only this time it was serious—more serious than Leona had even begun to imagine. For she knew this man—knew he was not given to flights of impulse just for the hell of it. Everything he did had to have a reason, and was always preceded by meticulous planning which took time he would not waste, and effort he would not move unless he felt he absolutely had to do.

Hassan’s small sigh conveyed that he too knew that this was where the prevarication ended. ‘There are problems at home,’ he informed her soberly. ‘My father’s health is failing.’

His father…Anger swiftly converted itself into anxious concern for her father-in-law. Sheikh Khalifa had been frail in health for as long as she had known him. Hassan doted on him and devoted most of his energy to relieving his father of the burdens of rule, making sure he had the best medical attention available and refusing to believe that one day his father would not be there. So, if Hassan was using words like ‘failing’, then the old man’s health must indeed be grave.

‘What happened?’ She began to walk towards him. ‘I thought the last treatment was—’

‘Your interest is a little too late in coming,’ Hassan cut in, and with a flick of a hand halted her steps. ‘For I don’t recall you showing any concern about what it would do to his health when you left a year ago.’

That wasn’t fair, and Leona blinked as his words pricked a tender part of her. Sheikh Khalifa was a good man—a kind man. They had become strong, close friends while she had lived at the palace. ‘He understood why I felt I needed to leave,’ she responded painfully.

You think so? Hassan’s cynical expression derided. ‘Well, I did not,’ he said out loud. ‘But, since you decided it was the right thing for you to do, I now have a serious problem on my hands. For I am, in effect, deemed weak for allowing my wife to walk away from me, and my critics are making rumbling noises about the stability of the country if I do not display some leadership.’

‘So you decided to show that leadership by abducting me, then dragging me back to Rahman?’ Her thick laugh poured scorn over that suggestion, because they both knew taking her back home had to be the worst thing Hassan could possibly do to prove that particular point.

‘You would prefer that I take this second wife who makes you flee in pain when the subject appears in front of you?’

‘She is what you need, not me.’ It almost choked her to say the words. But they were dealing with the truth here, painful though that truth may be. And the truth was that she was no longer the right wife for the heir to a sheikhdom.

‘I have the wife I want,’ he answered grimly.

‘But not the wife you need, Hassan!’ she countered wretchedly.

His eyes flicked up to clash with her eyes. ‘Is that your way of telling me that you no longer love me?’ he challenged.

Oh, dear God. Lifting a trembling hand up to cover her eyes, Leona gave a shake of her head in refusal to answer. Without warning Hassan was suddenly moving at speed down the length of the room.

‘Answer me!’ he insisted when he came to a stop in front of her.

Swallowing on a lump of tears, Leona turned her face away. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

His sudden grip on her hand dragged it from her eyes. ‘To my face,’ he instructed, ‘You will tell me this to my face!’

Her head whipped up, tear darkened eyes fixing painfully on burning black. ‘Don’t—’ she pleaded.

But he was not going to give in. He was pale and he was hurt and he was furiously angry. ‘I want to hear you state that you feel no love for me,’ he persisted. ‘I want you to tell that wicked lie to my face. And then I want to hear you beg forgiveness when I prove to you otherwise! Do you understand, Leona?’

‘All right! So, I love you! Does that make it all okay?’ she cried out. ‘I love you but I will not stay married to you! I will not watch you ruin your life because of me!’

There—it was out. The bitter truth. On voicing it, she broke free and reeled away, hurting so much it was almost impossible to breathe. ‘And your life?’ he persisted relentlessly. ‘What happens to it while you play the sacrificial lamb for mine?’

‘I’ll get by,’ she said, trying to walk on legs that were shaking so badly she wasn’t sure if she was going to fall down.

‘You’ll marry again?’

She shuddered and didn’t reply.

‘Take lovers in an attempt to supplant me?’

Harsh and cruel though he sounded, she could hear his anguish. ‘I need no one,’ she whispered.

‘Then you mean to spend the rest of your life watching me produce progeny with this second wife I am to take?’

‘Oh, dear heaven.’ She swung around. ‘What are you trying to do to me?’ she choked out tormentedly.

‘Make you see,’ he gritted. ‘Make you open your eyes and see what it is you are condemning us both to.’

‘But I’m not condemning you to anything! I am giving you my blessing to do what you want with your life!’

If she’d offered to give him a whole harem he could not have been more infuriated. His face became a map of hard angles. ‘Then I will take what I want!’ It was a declaration of intent that propelled him across the space between them. Before Leona knew what was coming she was locked in his arms and being lifted until their eyes were level. Startled green irises locked with burning black passion. He gave her one small second to read their message before he was kissing her furiously. Shocked out of one kind of torment, she found herself flung into the middle of another—because once again she had no will to fight. She even released a protesting groan when her feet found solid ground again and he broke the urgent kiss.

Her lips felt hot, and pulsed with such a telling fullness that she had to lick them to try and cool them down. His breath left his body on a hiss that brought her eyes flickering dazedly up to his. Thick dark lashes rested over ebony eyes that were fixed on the moist pink tip of her tongue. A slither of excitement skittered right down the front of her. Her breasts grew tight, her abdomen warming at the prospect of what all of this meant.

Making love. Feeling him deep inside her. No excuses, no drawing back this time. She only had to look at Hassan to know this was it. He was about to stake his claim on what belonged to him.

‘You will regret this later,’ she warned unsteadily, because she knew how his passions and his conscience did not always walk in tandem—especially not where she was concerned.

‘Are you denying me?’ he threw back in a voice that said he was interested in the answer, but only out of curiosity.

Well, Leona asked herself, are you?

The answer was no, she was not denying him anything he wanted to take from her tonight. Tomorrow was another day, another war, another set of agonising conflicts. Reaching up, she touched a gentle finger to his mouth, drew its shape, softened the tension out of it, then sighed, went up on tiptoe and gently joined their mouths.

His hands found the slender frame of her hips and drew her against him; her hands lifted higher to link around his neck so her fingers could slide sensually into his silk dark hair. It was an embrace that sank them into a long deep loving. Her dress fell away, slithering down her body on a pleasurable whisper of silk against flesh. Beneath she wore a dark gold lace bra, matching high-leg briefs and lace-topped stockings. Hassan discovered all of this with the sensual stroke of long fingers. He knew each pleasure point, the quality of each little gasp she breathed into his mouth. When her bra fell away, she sighed and pressed herself against him; when his fingers slid beneath the briefs to cup her bottom she allowed him to ease her into closer contact. They knew each other, loved each other—cared so very deeply about each other. Fight they might do—often. They might have insurmountable problems. But nothing took away the love and caring. It was there, as much part of them as the life-giving oxygen they took into their lungs.

‘You want me,’ he declared.

‘I’ve always wanted you,’ she sadly replied.

‘I am your other half.’