Instinct. What did she know about the female instinct in such situations?
Doubt. She had to doubt her own conclusions because the specialists had given her so little hope of it ever happening for them.
But even her skin felt different, her hair, the strange, secret glint she kept on catching in her own eyes whenever she looked in a mirror. She’d stopped looking in the mirror. It was easier not to look than look and then see, then dare—dare to hope.
I want Hassan, she thought on a sudden rocketing rise of anxiety.
I don’t want Hassan! she then changed her mind. Because if he saw her like this he would know something really drastic was worrying her and she couldn’t tell him—didn’t dare tell him, raise his hopes, until she was absolutely sure for herself.
She needed one of those testing kits, she realised. But, if such a thing was obtainable, where could she get one from without alerting half of Rahman? There was not a chemist’s in the country she could walk into and buy such an obvious thing without setting the jungle drums banging from oasis to oasis and back again.
But I need one. I need one! she thought agitatedly.
Ring Hassan, that tiny voice inside her head persisted. Tell him your suspicions, get him to bring a pregnancy testing kit home with him.
Oh, yes, she mocked that idea. I can just see Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim walking into a chemist’s and buying one of those!
Rafiq, then. No, not Rafiq! she all but shouted at herself. Oh, why could there not be some more women in this wretched house of Al-Qadim? Why do I have to be surrounded by men?
Maids. There were dozens of maids she could call upon—all of whom would be just as proficient at belting out the message across the whole state.
As if she’d conjured her up a knock sounded on the door and one of the maids walked into the room. She was carrying a dress that Leona had ordered to be delivered from one of her favourite couturier’s in the city.
‘It is very beautiful, my lady,’ the maid said shyly.
And very red, Leona thought frowningly. What in heaven’s name had made her choose to buy red? Made by a local designer to a traditional Arabian design, the dress was silk, had matching trousers and thobe, and shimmered with beautifully embroidered golden threads. And she never, ever wore red!
‘The sheikha will shine above all things tomorrow night,’ the maid approved.
Tomorrow night, Leona repeated with a sinking heart as the maid carried the dress into her dressing room. For tomorrow night was the night of Sheikh Kalifa’s anniversary celebration, which meant she had a hundred guests to play hostess to when really all she wanted to do was—
Oh, she thought suddenly, where is my head? And she turned to walk quickly across the room towards the telephone which sat beside the bed.
Pregnant.
Her feet pulled to a stop. Her stomach twisted itself into a knot then sprang free again, catching at her breath. It was a desperate sensation. Desperate with hope and with fear and a thousand other things that—
The maid appeared again, looked at her oddly because she was standing here in the middle of the room, emulating a statue. ‘Thank you, Leila,’ she managed to say.
As soon as the door closed behind the maid she finished her journey to the telephone, picked up her address book, flicked through its pages with trembling fingers, then stabbed in a set of numbers that would connect her with Evie Al-Kadah in Behran.
Hassan was fed up. He was five hours away from home, on his way back from Sheikh Abdul’s summer palace, having just enjoyed a very uncomfortable meeting in which a few home truths had been aired. He should be feeling happy, for the meeting had gone very much his way, and in his possession he now had the sheikh’s copy of one ill-judged contract and the satisfaction of knowing the man and his wife now understood the error of their ways.
But it had required a five-hour drive out to mountains of Rahman to win this sense of grim satisfaction, which meant they now had to make the same journey back again. And Rafiq might feel he needed the physical exercise of negotiating the tough and challenging terrain but, quite frankly, so did he. He felt tense and restless, impatient to get back to Leona now that he could face her with an easy conscience.
So the flat tire they suffered a few minutes later was most unwelcome. By the time they had battled in soft sand on a rocky incline to jack the car up and secure it so they could change the wheel time was getting on, and the sun was beginning to set. Then, only a half-mile further into their journey, they became stuck in deep soft sand. And he couldn’t even blame Rafiq for this second inconvenience because he had taken over the driving for himself. Proficient though they were at getting themselves out of such difficulties, time was lost, then more time when they were hit by a sandstorm that forced them to stop and wait until it had blown past.
Consequently, it was very late when they drove through the gates of the palace. By the time he had washed the sand from his body before letting himself quietly into the bedroom he found Leona fast asleep.
Did he wake her or did he go away? he pondered as he stood looking down on her, lying there on her side, with her glorious hair spilling out behind her and a hand resting on the pillow where his head should be.
She murmured something, maybe because she sensed he was there, and the temptation to just throw caution to the wind, slide into the bed and awaken her so he could confide his suspicions then discover whether she felt he was making any sense almost got the better of him.
Then reality returned, for this was not the time for such an emotive discussion. It could backfire on him and deeply hurt her. And tomorrow was a day packed with strife enough for both of them, without him adding to it with what could be merely a foolish dream.
Anyway, he had some damage limitation to perform, preferably before this new development came into the open—just in case.
So, instead of waking her, he turned away, unaware that behind him her eyes had opened to watch him leave. The urge to call him back tugged at her vocal cords. The need to scramble out of the bed and go after him to confide her suspicions stretched nerve ends in every muscle she possessed.
But, no, it would not be fair to offer him hope where there might be none. Better to wait one more day until she knew for sure one way or another, she convinced herself.
So the door between their two rooms closed him away from her—just as it had closed him away before, when he had decided it was better to sleep elsewhere than risk another argument with her.
Maybe he was right. Maybe the common sense thing to do was stay out of each other’s way, because they certainly didn’t function well together unless they were in bed!
They had a battleground, not a marriage, she decided, and on that profound thought she turned her back on that wretched closed door and refused to look back at it.
The next day continued in much the same fashion. He avoided her. She avoided him. They circulated the palace in opposing directions like a pair of satellites designed never to cross paths. By six o’clock Leona was in her room preparing for the evening ahead. By seven she was as ready as she supposed she ever would be, having changed her mind about what to wear a hundred times before finally deciding to wear the red outfit.
When Hassan stepped into the room a few minutes later he took her breath away. Tall, lean and not yet having covered his silky dark hair, he was wearing a midnight blue long tunic with a standing collar braided in gold. At his waist a wide sash of gold silk gave his body shape and stature, and the jewel encrusted shaft belonging to the ceremonial scabbard he had tucked into his waistband said it all.
Arrogance personified. A prince among men. First among equals did not come into it for her because for her he was it—the one—her only one. As if to confirm that thought her belly gave a skittering flutter as if to say, And me, don’t forget me.
Too soon for that, too silly to think it, she scolded herself as she watched him pause to look at her. As always those dark eyes made their possessive pass over her. As always they
liked what they saw.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured.
Tell me about it, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t, didn’t dare say anything in case the wrong thing popped anxiously out.
So the twist his mouth gave said he had misread her silence. ‘Forgiveness, my darling, is merely one sweet smile away,’ he drawled as he walked towards her.
‘But you have nothing to forgive me for!’ she protested, glad now to use her voice.
‘Throwing me out of your bed does not require forgiveness?’ An eyebrow arched, the outfit, the coming occasion, turning the human being into a pretentious monster that made her toes curl inside her strappy gold shoes. With life, that was what they curled with. Life.
I love this man to absolute pieces. ‘You left voluntarily,’ she told him. ‘In what I think you would describe as a sulk.’
‘Men do not sulk.’
But you are not just any man, she wanted to say, but the comment would puff up his ego, so she settled for, ‘What do they do, then?’
‘Withdraw from a fight they have no hope of winning.’ He smiled. Then on a complete change of subject, he said, ‘Here, a peace offering.’ And he held out a flat package wrapped in black silk and tied up with narrow red ribbon.
Expecting the peace offering to be jewellery, the moment she took possession of the package she knew it was too light. So…what? she asked herself, then felt her heart suddenly drop to her slender ankles as a terrible suspicion slid snakelike into her head.
No, she denied it. Evie just would not break such a precious confidence. ‘What is it?’ she asked warily.
‘Open it and see.’
Trembling fingers did as he bade her, fumbling with the ribbon and then with the square of black silk. Inside it was a flat gold box, the kind that could be bought at any gift shop, nothing at all like she had let herself wonder, and nothing particularly threatening about it, but still she felt her breath snag in her chest as she lifted the lid and looked inside.
After that came the frown while she tried to work out why Hassan was giving her a box full of torn scraps of white paper. Then she turned the top one over, recognised the insignia embossed upon it and finally realised what it was.
‘You know what they are?’ he asked her quietly.
‘Yes.’ She swallowed.
‘All three copies of the contract are now in your possession,’ he went on to explain anyway. ‘All evidence that they were ever composed wiped clean from Faysal’s computer hard disk. There, it is done. Now we can be friends again.’ Without giving her a chance to think he took the gift and its packaging back from her and tossed it onto the bed.
‘But it doesn’t wipe clean the fact that it was written in the first place,’ she pointed out. ‘And nor does it mean it can’t be typed up again in five short minutes if it was required to be done.’
‘You have said it for yourself,’ Hassan answered. ‘I must require it. I do not require it. I give you these copies for ceremonial purposes, only to show you that I do not require it. Subject over, Leona,’ he grimly concluded, ‘for I will waste no more of my time on something that had only ever been meant as a diversion tactic to buy me time while I decided what to do about Sheikh Abdul and his ambitious plans.’
‘You expect me to believe all of that, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ It was a coldly unequivocal yes.
She lifted her chin. For the first time in days they actually made eye contact. And it was only as it happened that she finally began to realise after all of these years why they avoided doing it when there was dissension between them. Eye contact wiped out everything but the truth. The love truth. The need truth. The absolute and utter total truth. I love him; he loves me. Who or what else could ever really come between that?
‘I think I’m pregnant,’ she whispered.
It almost dropped him like a piece of crumbling stone at her feet. She saw the shock; she saw the following pallor. She watched his eyes close and feared for a moment that he was actually going to faint.
For days he had been waiting for this moment, Hassan was thinking. He had yearned for it, had begged and had prayed for it. Yet, when it came, not only had he not been ready, the frightened little remark had virtually knocked him off his feet!
‘I could kill you for this,’ he ground out hoarsely. ‘Why here? Why now, when in ten short minutes we are expected downstairs to greet a hundred guests?’
His response was clearly not the one she had been expecting. Her eyes began to glaze, her mouth to tremble. ‘You don’t like it,’ she quavered.
‘Give me strength.’ He groaned. ‘You stupid, unpredictable, aggravating female. Of course I like it! But look at me! I am now a white-faced trembling mess!’
‘You just gave me something I really needed. I wanted to give you something back that you needed,’ she explained.
‘Ten minutes before I face the upper echelons of Arabian society?’
‘Well, thanks for being concerned about how I am feeling!’ she flashed back at him.
She was right. ‘You’ve just knocked me for six,’ he breathed unsteadily.
‘And I might be wrong, so don’t start going off the deep end about it!’ she snapped, and went to turn away.
Oh, Allah, help him, what was he doing here? With shaking hands he took hold of her by her silk-swathed shoulders and pulled her against him. She was trembling too. And she felt different, slender and frail and oh, so precious.
He kissed her—What else did a man do when he was so blown away by everything about her?
‘I should not have dropped it on you like this,’ she murmured repentantly a few seconds later.
‘Yes, you should,’ he argued. ‘How else?’
‘It might come to nothing.’ Anxiety was playing havoc with her beautiful eyes.
‘We will deal with the something or the nothing together.’
‘I am afraid of the nothing,’ she confessed to him. ‘I am afraid I might never get the chance to feel like this again.’
‘I love you,’ he said huskily. ‘Can that not be enough?’
‘For you?’ She threw the question back at him, clinging to his eyes like a vulnerable child.
‘We know how I feel, Leona,’ he said ruefully. ‘In fact, the whole of Rahman knows how I feel about you. But we hardly ever discuss how you feel about the situation I place you in here.’
‘I just don’t want you to have to keep defending my place in your life,’ she told him. ‘I hate it.’
Hassan thought about the damage-control exercise he had already set into motion, and wished he knew how to answer that. ‘I like defending you.’ His words seemed to say it all for him.
‘You won’t tell anyone tonight, will you?’ she flashed up at him suddenly. ‘You will keep this our secret until we know for sure.’
‘Do you really think I am that manipulative?’ He was shocked, then uncomfortable, because he realised that she knew him better than he knew himself. ‘Tomorrow we will bring in a doctor,’ he decided, looking for an escape from his own manipulative thoughts.
But Leona shook her head. ‘It would be all over Rahman in five minutes if we did that. Look what happened when I went to see him to find out why I couldn’t conceive?’
‘But we have to know—’
‘Evie is bringing me a pregnancy testing kit with her,’ she told him, too busy trying to smooth some semblance of calmness into herself to notice how still he had gone. ‘I rang her and explained. At least I can trust her not to say anything to anyone.’
‘What did she say?’ Hassan enquired carefully.
‘She said I should make sure I tell you. Which I’ve done.’ She turned a wry smile on him. ‘Now I wish that I hadn’t because, looking at you, I have a horrible feeling you are going to give the game away the moment anyone looks at you.’
Confess all, he told himself. Tell her before the Al-Kadahs tell her that you already suspected all of this, days ago. A knock at the door was a thankful diversion. Going to
open it, he found Rafiq standing there dressed very much like himself—only he was wearing his gutrah.
‘Our guests are arriving,’ he informed him. ‘You and Leona should be downstairs.’
Guests. Dear heaven. His life was in crisis and he must go downstairs and be polite to people. ‘We will be five minutes only.’
‘You are all right?’ Rafiq frowned at him.
No, I am slowly sinking beneath my own plots and counter-plots. ‘Five minutes,’ he repeated, and closed the door again.
Leona was standing by a mirror, about to fix her lipstick with a set of very unsteady fingers. The urge to go over there and stop her so that he could kiss her almost got the better of him. But one kiss would most definitely lead to another and another. In fact he wanted to be very primitive and drag her off by her beautiful hair to his lair and smother her in kisses. So instead he stepped back into the other room and came back a moment later wearing white silk on his head, held by triple gold thongs, to find that Leona had also covered her hair with a gold-spangled scarf of red silk.
The red should have clashed with her hair but it didn’t. It merely toned with the sensual colour on her lips. She lifted her eyes to look at him. He looked back at her. A different man, a different woman. It was amazing what a piece of silk laid to the head could do for both of them, because neither was now showing signs of what was really going on inside them.
His smile, therefore, was rueful. ‘Showtime,’ he said.
And showtime it was. As on the yacht, but on a grander scale, they welcomed heads of state from all over Arabia, diplomats from further afield. Some brought their wives, sons and even their daughters, and some came alone. Some women were veiled; all were dressed in the exotic jewelled colours favoured by Arabian women.
Everyone was polite, gracious, and concerned about Sheikh Khalifa’s well-being. He had not yet put in an appearance, though he had every intention of doing so eventually. This was his night. He had in fact planned it as much as he could from his sick bed. Today his doctor had insisted he be sedated for most of the day to conserve his energy. But he had looked bright-eyed and excited when Leona had popped in to see him just before she had gone to get ready.
Hot-Blooded Husbands Bundle Page 17