‘Up all night?’ The spike was back in her voice.
He didn’t reply, but the rueful way his mouth tilted suddenly made her think of Spanish dancers. ‘I hope she was good.’ She took a tart stab in the dark.
‘Delightful.’ He smiled. It was yet another blow to her fragile ego that her one solid ally had deserted her last night for another woman. ‘Here,’ he said gently, and began to pour her out a cup of tea. ‘Maybe this will help soothe your acid little tongue.’
Something needed to, Leona silently admitted as she picked up the cup. She had never felt so uptight and anxious, and it all was down to Hassan and surprises she did not want and people she did not want to be with and a marriage she did not—
The slightly sweet scent of Earl Grey suddenly turned her stomach. She must have gone pale because Rafiq began frowning. ‘What is the matter?’ he demanded.
‘I think the milk must be off,’ she explained, hastily putting the cup back on its saucer then pushing it away.
The sickly sensation left her almost as suddenly as it had hit. Problem solved in her mind, she wasn’t convinced when Rafiq picked up the jug to sniff at the milk and announced, ‘It seems fine to me.’
But he rose anyway and went to replace the milk with fresh from the cartons kept in the refrigerator situated just inside the salon. Then Hassan appeared and the incident was forgotten because, after dropping a kiss on her forehead, he went to pull out the chair next to Rafiq, who was just returning to the table with the fresh jug of milk. For a moment Leona was held captivated by how much alike the two men were. Even their clothes were similar, only Hassan wore beige chinos and a black tee shirt.
Men of beauty no matter what clothes they were wore, she mused a trifle breathlessly, knowing that she would be hard put to it to find two more perfect specimens. So why do I love them both so differently? she asked herself as she watched them sit down. Life would certainly have been a whole lot simpler if she’d fallen in love with Rafiq instead of Hassan. No strict calls to duty, no sheikhdom to rule, no onus to produce the next son and heir to his vast power and untold fortune.
But she loved Rafiq as a brother, not as a lover—just as he loved her as a sister. Plus, he had his mysterious dancer, she added wryly, as she poured herself another cup of tea in a clean cup, then reached for a slice of toast.
‘You look pale. What’s wrong?’ Glancing up, she found Hassan’s eyes were narrowed on her profile.
‘She hates surprises.’ Rafiq offered a reply.
‘Ah. So I am out of favour,’ Hassan drawled. ‘Like the milk and the butter…’ he added with the sharp eyes that should have been gold, like a falcon’s, not a bottomless black that made her feel as if she could sink right into them and never have to come back out again.
‘The milk was off, it turned my stomach, so I decided not to risk it or the butter,’ she said, explaining the reason why she was sipping clear tea and nibbling on a piece of dry toast.
Keeping dairy produce fresh was an occupational hazard in hot climates, so Hassan didn’t bother to question her answer—though Leona did a moment later when a pot of fresh coffee arrived for Hassan and the aroma sent her stomach dipping all over again.
Hassan saw the way she pushed her plate away and sat back in the chair with the paleness more pronounced, and had to ask himself if her pallor was more to do with anxiety than a problem with the milk. Maybe he should not be teasing her like this. Maybe no surprise, no matter how pleasant was going to merit putting her through yet more stress. He glanced at his watch. Ten more minutes. Was it worth him hanging on that long?
‘You look stunning,’ he murmured.
She turned her head, her wonderful hair floating out around her sun-kissed shoulders and the perfect heart-shape of her face. Her eyes were like emeralds, to match the one she wore on her finger, glowing with a passion she could never quite subdue no matter how low she was feeling. Kiss me, her small, soft, slightly sulky mouth seemed to say.
‘I am de trop.’ Rafiq broke through the moment and rose to his feet. ‘I will go and awaken Samir and drag him to the gym for an hour before I allow him breakfast.’
Neither bothered to answer even if they heard him, which Rafiq seriously doubted as he went to leave. Then a sound beyond the canvas awning caught his attention, diverting him towards the rail. A car was coming down the concrete quay towards them, its long black sleekly expensive lines giving him a good idea as to who was inside it.
This time he made sure he commanded attention by lightly touching Hassan’s shoulder. ‘Your surprise is arriving,’ he told him, then left as Hassan stirred himself and Leona blinked herself back from wherever she had gone to.
Getting up, Hassan went to capture one of her hands and urged her out of her chair. ‘Come,’ he said, and keeping hold of her hand walked them down the stairs, across the foyer, out onto the shade deck and to the rail beside the gangway, just in time to watch a beautiful creature with pale blonde hair step out of the car and onto the quayside.
Beside him he felt Leona’s breath catch on a gasp, felt the pulse in her wrist begin to race. ‘Evie,’ she whispered. ‘And Raschid,’ she added as Sheikh Raschid Al-Kadah uncoiled his long lean body out of the car.
‘They’re sailing with us?’ Now her eyes were shining with true pleasure, Hassan noted with deep satisfaction. Now she was looking at him as if he was the most wonderful guy in the world, instead of the most painful to be around.
‘Will their presence make your miserable lot easier to bear?’
Her reply was swift and uninhibited. She fell upon him with a kiss he would have given half of his wealth for. Though it did not need wealth, only the appearance of her closest friend and conspirator against these—arrogant Arabian men, as she and Evie liked to call Raschid and himself.
‘After six years, I would have expected the unrestrained passion to have cooled a little,’ a deep smooth, virtually accent-free voice mocked lazily.
‘Says the man with his son clutched in one arm and his daughter cradled in the other,’ mocked a lighter, drier voice.
Son and daughter. Hassan stiffened in shock, for he had not expected the Al-Kadahs to bring along their children on this cruise. Leona, on the other hand, was pulling away from him, turning away from him—hiding away from him? Had his pleasant surprise turned into yet another disaster? He turned to see what she was seeing and felt his chest tighten so fiercely it felt as if it was snapping in two. For there stood Raschid, as proud as any man could be, with his small son balanced on his arm while the beautiful Evie was in the process of gently relieving him of his small pink three-month-old daughter.
They began walking up the gangway towards them, and it was his worst nightmare unfolding before his very eyes, because there were tears in Leona’s as she went to meet them. Real tears—bright tears when she looked down at the baby then up at Evangeline Al-Kadah before, with aching description, she simply took the other woman in her arms and held her.
Raschid was watching them, smiling, relaxed while he waited a few steps down the gangway for them to give him room to board the boat. He saw nothing painful in Leona’s greeting, nor the way she broke away to gently touch a finger to the baby girl’s petal soft cheek.
‘I didn’t know,’ she was saying softly to Evie. ‘Last time I saw you, you weren’t even pregnant!’
‘A lot can happen in a year,’ Raschid put in dryly, bringing Leona’s attention his way.
The tableau shifted. Evie moved to one side to allow her husband to step onto the deck so he could put his son to the ground, leaving his arms free to greet Leona properly. ‘And aren’t you just as proud as a peacock?’ She laughed, defying the Arab male-female don’t-touch convention by going straight into Raschid’s arms.
What was wrong with Hassan? Leona wondered, realising that he hadn’t moved a single muscle to come and greet their latest guests. She caught his eye over one of Raschid’s broad shoulders, sent him a frowning look that told him to pull himself together. By the time he was greeting E
vie Leona was squatting down to say hello to the little boy who now clutched his mother’s skirt for safety. Dark like his father; golden-eyed like his father. The fates had been kind to these two people by allowing them to produce a son in Raschid’s image and a daughter who already looked as if she was going to be a mirror of her mother.
‘Hello, Hashim.’ She smiled gently. They had met before but she was sure the small boy would not remember. ‘Does that thumb taste very nice?’
He nodded gravely and stuck the thumb just that quarter inch further between sweetly pouting lips.
‘My name is Leona,’ she told him. ‘Do you think we can be friends?’
‘Red,’ he said around the thumb, looking at her hair. ‘Sunshine.’
‘Thank you.’ She laughed. ‘I see you are going to be a dreadful flirt, like your papa.’
Mentioning his papa sent the toddler over to Raschid, where he begged to be picked up again. Raschid swung him up without pausing in his conversation with Hassan, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to have his son on his arm.
Tears hit again. Leona blinked them away. Hassan gave a tense shift of one shoulder and in the next moment his arm was resting across her shoulders. He was smiling at Evie, at her baby, at Raschid. But when Leona noticed that he was not allowing himself to so much as glance at Raschid’s son it finally hit her what was the matter with him. Hassan could not bear to look at what Raschid had, that which he most coveted.
Her heart dropped to her stomach to make her feel sick again. The two men had been good friends since—for ever. Their countries lay side by side. And they shared so many similarities in their lives that Leona would have wagered everything that nothing could drive a wedge between their friendship.
But a desire for what one had that the other did not, in the shape of a boy-child, could do it, she realised, and had to move away from Hassan because she just couldn’t bear to be near him and feel that need pulsing in him.
‘May I?’ she requested of Evie, holding out her arms for the baby.
Evie didn’t hesitate in handing the baby over. Soft and light and so very fragile. It was like cradling an angel. ‘How old is she?’ she asked.
‘Three months,’ Evie supplied. ‘As quiet as a mouse, as sweet as honey—and called Yamila Lucinda after her two grandmothers, but we call her Lucy because it’s cute.’
At the sound of her mother’s voice, Lucy opened her eyes to reveal two perfect amethysts the same as Evie’s, and Leona found herself swallowing tears again.
You’re so lucky, she wanted to say, but remarks like that were a potential minefield for someone in her situation. So she contented herself with lifting the baby up so she could feel her soft cheek against her own and hoped that no one noticed the small prick of tears she had to blink away.
A minute later and other guests began appearing on the shade deck to find out who else had joined them. Sheikh Raschid earned himself looks of wary surprise from some. From all he was awarded the respect accorded to a man who held absolute rule in his own Gulf state of Behran. His children brought down other barriers; the fact that Evie had achieved what Leona had not, in the shape of her small son, earned her warm smiles instead of stiffly polite ones that conveyed disapproval. Still, most of the tension from the evening before melted away in the face of the newcomers, and Leona was deeply grateful to them for succeeding in neutralising the situation.
When it was decided that they would move up to the sun deck, with its adjoining salon, to take refreshment and talk in comfort, Leona quickly shifted herself into hostess mode and led the way upstairs with her small bundle in her arms and her husband walking at her shoulder.
He didn’t speak, and she could sense the same mood about him he had donned when he’d come face to face with Raschid and his son. It hurt. Though she strove not to show it. But his manner made such a mockery out of everything else he had said and done.
They arrived on the upper deck as the yacht slipped smoothly from its moorings and began making its way towards the mouth of the Suez Canal. Medina Al-Mahmud suddenly appeared in front of Leona and politely begged to hold the baby. She was a small, slight woman with nervous eyes and a defensive manner, but as Leona placed the little girl in her arms Medina sent her a sympathetic look which almost broke her composure in two.
She did not want people’s pity. Oh, how she had come to hate it during her last year in Rahman when the rumours about her had begun flying. With a desperate need of something else to do other than stand here feeling utterly useless, she walked into the salon to pick up the internal phone and order refreshments.
It was really very bad timing for Hassan to follow her. ‘I must offer you my deepest apologies,’ he announced so stiffly it was almost an insult. ‘When I arranged this surprise for you I did not expect the Al-Kadahs to bring their children with them.’
She was appalled to realise that even Hassan believed her an object of such pity. ‘Oh, stop being so ultra-sensitive,’ she snapped. ‘Do you really believe that I could resent them their beautiful children because I cannot have them for myself?’
‘Don’t say that!’ he snapped back. ‘It is not true, though you drive me insane by insisting it is so!’
‘And you stop burying your head in the sand, Hassan,’ she returned. ‘Because we both know that you know it is you who lies to yourself!’
With that she stalked off, leaving him to simmer in his own frustration while she went to check that the accommodation could stretch to two more guests than they had expected. Faysal already had the matter in hand, she discovered, finding several people hurriedly making ready a pair of adjoining suites, while others unpacked enough equipment, brought by the Al-Kadahs, to keep an army of young children content.
On her way back upstairs she met Rafiq and Samir. Rafiq studied her narrowly, his shrewd gaze not missing the continuing paleness in her face. He was probably questioning whether one sniff at suspect milk could upset her stomach for so long when in actual fact it had never been the milk, she had come to realise, but sheer anxiety and stress.
Samir, on the other hand, noticed nothing but a target for his wit. By the time the three of them had joined the others, Samir had her laughing over a heavily embroidered description of himself being put through the agonies of hell in the gym by a man so fit it was a sin.
After that she played the circulating hostess to the hilt and even endured a whole ten minutes sitting with Zafina listening to her extol the virtues of her daughter, Nadira. Then Evie rescued her by quietly asking if she would show her to their room, because the baby needed changing.
With Hashim deciding to come with them, they went down to the now beautifully prepared twin cabins and a dark-eyed little nurse Evie had brought with them appeared, to take the children into the other room. The moment the two women were alone Evie swung round on Leona and said, ‘Right, let’s hear it. Why did Hassan virtually beg and bribe us to come along on this trip?’
At which point; Leona simply broke down and wept out the whole sorry story. By the time she had hiccuped to a finish they were curled up on the bed and Evie was gently stroking her hair.
‘I think you are here to make me feel better.’ She finally answered Evie’s original question. ‘Because anyone with eyes can see that the Al-Mahmuds and the Al-Yasins wish me on another planet entirely. Hassan doesn’t know that I’ve always known that Nadira Al-Yasin is the people’s preferred wife for him.’
‘I’ve been there. I know the feeling,’ Evie murmured understandingly. ‘I suppose she’s beautiful, biddable and loves children.’
Leona nodded on a muffled sob. ‘I’ve met her once or twice. She’s quite sweet,’ she reluctantly confessed.
‘Just right for Hassan, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’
‘And, of course, you are not.’
Leona shook her head.
‘So why are you here, then?’ Evie challenged.
‘You tell me,’ she suggested, finding strength in anger and
pulling herself into a sitting position on the bed. ‘Because I don’t know! Hassan says I am here for this reason, then he changes it to another. He is stubborn and devious and an absolute expert at plucking at my heart strings! His father is ill and I adore that old man so he uses him to keep me dancing to his secret tune!’
‘Raschid’s father died in his arms while I held Raschid in my arms,’ Evie told her sadly. ‘Wretched though it was, I would not have been anywhere else. He needed me. Hassan needs you too.’
‘Oh, don’t defend him,’ Leona protested, ‘It makes me feel mean, yet I know I would have gone to his father like a shot with just that request. I didn’t need all of this other stuff to make me do it.’
‘But maybe Hassan needed this other stuff to let him make you do it.’
‘I’m going to sit you at the dinner table between Mrs Yasin and Mrs Mahmud tonight if you don’t stop trying to be reasonable,’ Leona said warningly.
‘Okay, you’ve made your point,’ Evie conceded. ‘You need a loyal champion, not a wise one.’ Then, with a complete change of manner, ‘So get yourself into the bathroom and tidy yourself up before we go and fight the old dragons together.’
Leona began to smile. ‘Now you’re talking,’ she enthused, and, stretching out a long leg, she rose from the bed a different person than the one who’d slumped down on it minutes ago. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Evie,’ she murmured huskily.
It was a remark she could have repeated a hundred times over during the following days when everyone did try to appear content to simply enjoy the cruise with no underlying disputes to spoil it.
But in truth many undercurrents were at work. In the complicated way of Arab politics, there was no natural right to succession in Rahman. First among equals was the Arab way of describing a collective of tribe leaders amongst which one is considered the most authoritative. The next leader did not necessarily have to be the son of the one preceding him, but choice became an open issue on which all heads of the family must agree.
In truth everyone knew that Hassan was the only sensible man for the job simply because he had been handling the modern thrusts of power so successfully for the last five years as his father’s health had begun to fail. No one wanted to tip the balance. As it stood, the other families had lived well and prospered under Al-Qadim rule. Rahman was a respected country in Arabia. Landlocked though it was, the oil beneath its desert was rich and in plenty, and within its borders were some of the most important oases that other, more favourably placed countries, did not enjoy.
Hot-Blooded Husbands Bundle Page 11