The sheikh's chosen wife (21 page)

Well, it is done.
That more or less said
it. Well it is done, now held Hassan locked in a severe state of shock. He
couldn't believe it. He wanted to believe it, but did not dare let himself
because it changed everything: the view of his life; the view of his marriage.

He had to sit down. The
edge of his desk was conveniently placed to receive his weight, and his eyes
received the cover of a trembling hand. Beyond the closed door to his office
his guests and the tail end of the cruise carried on regardless, but here in
this room everything he knew and felt had come to a complete standstill.

He couldn't move. Now his
legs had been relieved of his weight, they had lost the ability to take it back
again. Inside he was shaking. Inside he did not know what to feel or what to
think. For he had been here in this same situation before— many times—and had
learned through experience that it was a place best avoided at all costs.

Hope—then dashed hopes.
Pleasure—then pain. But this was different. This had been forced upon him by a
source he had good reason to trust and not to doubt.

Doubt. Dear heaven, he
was very intimate with the word doubt. Now, as he removed the hand from his
eyes and stared out at the glistening waters he could see through the window,
he found doubt being replaced by the kind of dancing visions he had
never—ever—allowed himself to see before.

A knock sounded at the
door, then it opened before he had a chance to hide his expression. Rafiq
walked in, took one look at him and went rock solid still.

'What is it?' he
demanded. 'Father?'

Hassan quickly shook his
head. 'Come in and close the door,' he urged, then made an effort to pull
himself together—just in case someone else decided to take him by surprise.

Leona.

Something inside him was
suddenly threatening to explode. He didn't know what, but it scared the hell
out of him. He wished Raschid had said nothing. He wished he could go back and
replay the last half hour again, change it, lose it—

'Hassan...?' Rafiq
prompted an explanation as to why he was witnessing his brother quietly falling
apart.

He looked up, found
himself staring into mirrors of his own dark eyes, and decided to test the
ground—test those eyes to find out what Leona would see in his eyes if she
walked in here right now.

'Evie—Raschid,' he forced
out across a sand-dry throat. 'They think Leona might be pregnant. Evie
recognises the signs...'

CHAPTER TEN

Silence fell. It was,
Hassan recognised, a very deathly silence, for Rafiq was already showing a
scepticism he dared not voice.

Understanding the
feeling, Hassan released a hard sigh, then grimly pulled himself together. 'Get
hold of our father,' he instructed. 'I need absolute assurance from him that I
will not be bringing Leona back to a palace rife with rumour attached to her
return.' From being hollowed by shock he was now as tight as a bowstring. 'If
he has any doubts about this, I will place her in Raschid's safekeeping, for
she must be protected at all cost from any more anguish or stress.'

'I don't think Leona
will—"

'It is not and never has
been anyone else's place to think anything about my wife!' The mere fact that
he was lashing out at Rafiq showed how badly he was taking this. 'Other
people's thinking has made our life miserable enough! Which is why I want you
to speak to our father and not me,' he explained. 'I will have this
conversation with no one else. Leona must be protected from ever hearing from
anyone else that I am so much as suspecting this. If I am wrong then only I
will grieve over what never was. If I am correct, then she has the right to
learn of her condition for herself. I will not take this away from her!'

'So I am not even to tell
our father,' Rafiq assumed from all of that.

'He and Leona communicate
daily by e-mail,' Hasssan explained. 'The old man may be too puffed up with
excitement to hold back from saying something to her.'

'In the state you are in,
all of this planning may well be a waste of time,' Rafiq remarked with a
pointed glance at his watch. 'In one hour we arrive in Jeddah. If you do not
pull yourself together Leona will need only to look at your face to know that
something catastrophic has taken place.'

Hassan knew it. Without
warning he sank his face into his hands. 'This is crazy,' he muttered thickly.

'It is certainly most
unexpected,' his brother agreed. 'And a little too soon for anyone, including
the Al-Kadahs, to be making such confident judgements?' he posed cautiously.

Behind his hands Hassan's
brain went still. Behind the hands it suddenly rushed ahead again, filling him
with the kind of thoughts that made his blood run cold. For Rafiq was right:
three weeks was not long enough—not to achieve what he was suggesting. As any
man knew, it took only a moment to conceive a child. But which man—whose child?

On several hard curses he
dragged his hand down. On several more he climbed to his feet then strode
across the room to pull open the door that connected him with his aide.

'Faysal!' The man almost
jumped out of his skin. 'Track down my father-in-law, wherever he is. I need to
speak with him urgently."

Slam. The door shut
again. 'May Allah save me from the evil minds of others,' he grated.

'I do not follow you.'
Rafiq frowned.

'Three weeks!' Hassan muttered.
'Three weeks ago Leona was sleeping in the same house as Ethan Hayes! It was
one of the problems which forced me into bringing her to this yacht, if you
recall...'

Leona didn't see Hassan
until a few minutes before they were due to arrive in Jeddah. By then most of
their guests were assembled on the shade deck taking refreshment while watching
the yacht make the delicate manoeuvres required to bring such a large vessel
safely into its reserved berth in the harbour.

In respect of Saudi
Arabian custom everyone was wearing traditional Arab daywear, including little
Hashim, who looked rather cute in his tiny white tunic and gutrah.

Hassan arrived dressed
the same way; Rafiq was less than a step behind him. 'Hello, strangers.' Leona
smiled at both of them. 'Where have you two been hiding yourselves all?’

'Working.' Rafiq smiled,
but Hassan didn't even seem to hear her, and his gaze barely glanced across her
face before he was turning to speak to Samir's father, Imran.

She frowned. He looked
different—not pale, exactly, but under some kind of grim restraint. Then little
Hashim demanded, 'Come and see,' and her attention was diverted. After that
she had no time to think of anything but the formalities involved in bidding
farewell to everyone.

A fleet of limousines
stood in line along the concrete jetty waiting to speed everyone off to their
various destinations. Accepting thanks and saying goodbye took over an hour.
One by one the cars pulled up and took people away in a steady rota. Sheikh
Abdul and Zafina first—relieved, Leona suspected, to be getting away from a
trip that had not been a pleasant one for them, though their farewells were
polite enough.

Sheikh Imran and Samir
were the next to leave. Then she turned to smile at Sheikh Jibril and his wife,
Medina, who made very anxious weight of their farewell, reminding Hassan
several times that he had complete loyalty. In Jibril's case money talked much
louder than power. He had no desire to scrape his deep pockets to pay Sheikh
Raschid for the privilege of sending his oil across his land.

Raschid and his family
were the last ones to leave. As with everyone else it would be a brief parting,
because they would come together again next week, when they attended Sheikh
Kalifa's anniversary celebration. Only this time the children would be staying
at home with their nurse. So Leona's goodbyes to them were tinged with a
genuine regret, especially for Hashim, who had become her little friend during
their cruise. So, while she was promising to come and visit with him soon, she
missed the rather sober exchanges between the others.

Eventually they left.
Their car sped away. Rafiq excused himself to go and seek out Faysal, and
Hassan said he had yet to thank his captain and walked away leaving her standing
there, alone by the rail, feeling just a little bit rejected by the brevity
with which he had treated her.

Something was wrong, she
was sure, though she had no idea exactly what it could be. And, knowing him as
well as she did, she didn't expect to find out until he felt ready to tell her.
So with a shrug and a sigh she went off to follow Hassan's lead and thank the
rest of the staff for taking care of everyone so well. By the time they came
together again there was only time left to make the dash to the airport if they
wanted to reach Rahman before nightfall.

Rafiq and Faysal
travelled with them, which gave Hassan the excuse—and Leona was sure it was an
excuse—to keep conversation light and neutral. A Lear jet bearing the gold
Al-Qadim insignia waited on the runway to fly them over Saudi Arabia and into
Rahman. The Al-Qadim oasis had its own private runway. A four-wheel drive
waited to transport them to the palace whose ancient sandstone walls burned red
against a dying sun.

Home, Leona thought, and
felt a lump form in her throat because this was home to her.
London...England—both had stopped being that a long time ago.

They swept through the
gates and up to the front entrance. Hassan helped her to alight. As she walked
inside she found herself flanked by two proud males again and wanted to lift
her head and say something teasing about abayas, but the mood didn't allow for
it somehow.

'My father wishes to see
us straight away.' Hassan unwittingly explained the sombre mood. 'Please try
not to show your shock at how much he has deteriorated since you were last
here.'

'Of course,' she replied,
oddly hurt that he felt he needed to say that. Then she took the hurt back when
she saw the old sheikh reclining against a mound of pillows on his favourite
divan.

His sons strode forward;
she held back a little to allow them the space to greet him as they always did,
with the old sheikh holding out both hands and both hands being taken, one by
each son. In all the years she had known Sheikh Kalifa she had never seen him
treat his two sons less than equal. They greeted each other; they talked in
low-toned Arabic. They touched, they loved. It was an honour and a privilege to
be allowed to witness it. When the old sheikh decided to acknowledge her
presence he did so with a spice that told her that the old spirit was still
very much alive inside his wasted frame.

'So. what do you think of
my two warriors, huh?' he asked. 'They snatch you back with style and panache.
A worthy woman cannot but be impressed."

'Impressed by their
arrogance, their cheek, and their disregard for my safety,' Leona responded,
coming forward now that he had in effect given her permission to do so. 'I
almost drowned—twice—and was tossed down a set of stairs. And you dare to be
proud of them."

No one bothered to accuse
her of gross exaggeration, because he laughed, loving it, wishing he could
have been there to join in. Reclaiming his hands, he waved his sons away and
offered those long bony fingers to Leona.

'Come and greet me
properly,' he commanded her. 'And you two can leave us. My daughter-in-law and
I have things to discuss.'

There was a pause, a
distinct hesitation in which Hassan looked ready to argue the point. The old
man looked up at him and his son looked down; a battle of the eyes commenced
that made Leona frown as a strange kind of tension began to sizzle in the air.
Then Hassan conceded by offering a brief, grim nod and left, with Rafiq making
the situation feel even stranger when, as he left with him, he placed a hand on
Hassan's shoulder as if to reassure him that it would be okay.

'What was all that
about?' she enquired as she reached down to brush a kiss on her father-in-law's
hollowed cheek.

'He worries about you,'
the old sheikh answered.

'Or he worries about
you,' she returned.

He knew what she was referring
to and flicked it away with a sigh and a wave of a hand. 'I am dying,' he
stated bluntly. 'Hassan knows this—they both do. Neither likes knowing they can
do nothing to stop it from happening."

'But you are resigned?'
Leona said gently.

'Yes. Come—sit down here,
in your chair.' Discussion over, he indicated the low cushion-stuffed chair she
had pulled up beside his divan years ago; it had remained there ever since.
'Now, tell me,' he said as soon as she was settled, 'have you come back here
because Hassan bullied you into doing so, or because you still love him?'

'Can it be both?' she
quizzed him.

'He needs you.'

'Rahman doesn't.'

'Ah,' he scathed, 'that
stupid man, Abdul, thought he could force our hand and soon learned that he
could not.'

'So it was Sheikh Abdul
who plotted to take me,' Leona murmured ruefully.

Eyes that were once a
rich dark brown but were now only pale shadows sharpened. 'He did not tell
you,' he surmised on an impatient sigh. 'I am a fool for thinking he would.'