The sheikh's chosen wife (3 page)

Something she should have
remembered earlier, then the word 'sinister' would have made a lot more sense,
she realised, as Ethan's arm pressed her hard up against him.

Further down the harbour
wall the lights from the Petronades boat were swinging gently. Here, beneath
the shadow of the other, the ring of men was steadily closing in. Her heart
began to pound like a hammer drill. Ethan couldn't hold her any closer if he
tried, and she could almost taste his tension. He, too, knew exactly what was
going to happen.

'Keep calm,' he gritted
down at her. 'When I give the word, lose your shoes and run.'

He was going to make a
lunge for them and try to break the ring so she could have a small chance to
escape. 'No,' she protested, and clutched tightly at his jacket sleeve. 'Don't
do it. They might hurt you if you do!'

'Just go, Leona!' he
ground back at her, then, with no more warning than that, he was pulling away,
and almost in the same movement he threw himself at the two men closest

It was then that all hell
broke loose. While Leona stood there frozen in horror watching all three men
topple to the ground in a huddle, the rest of the ring leapt into action. Fear
for her life sent a surge of adrenaline rushing through her blood. Dry-mouthed,
stark-eyed, she was just about to do as Ethan had told her and run, when she
heard a hard voice rasp out a command in Arabic. In a state of raw panic she
swung round in its direction, expecting someone to be almost upon her, only to
find to her confusion that the ring of men had completely bypassed her, leaving
her standing here alone with only one other man.

It was at that point that
she truly stopped functioning— heart, lungs, her ability to hear what was
happening to Ethan—all connections to her brain simply closed down to leave
only her eyes in full, wretched focus.

Tall and dark, whip-cord
lean, he possessed an aura about him that warned of great physical power
lurking beneath the dark robes he was wearing. His skin was the colour of
sun-ripened olives, his eyes as black as a midnight sky, and his mouth she saw
was thin, straight and utterly unsmiling.

'Hassan.' She breathed
his name into the darkness.

The curt bow he offered
her came directly from an excess of noble arrogance built into his ancient
genes. 'As you see,' Sheikh Hassan smoothly confirmed.

CHAPTER TWO

A bubble of hysteria
ballooned in her throat. 'But—why?' she choked in strangled confusion.

Hassan was not given the
opportunity to answer before another fracas broke out somewhere behind her.
Ethan ground her name out. It was followed by some thuds and scuffles. As she
turned on a protesting gasp to go to him, someone else spoke with a grating
urgency and Hassan caught her wrist, long brown fingers closing round fleshless
skin and bone, to hold her firmly in place.

'Call them off!' she
cried out shrilly.

'Be silent,' he returned
in a voice like ice.

It shocked her, really
shocked her, because never in their years together had he ever used that tone
on her. Turning her head, she stared at him in pained astonishment, but Hassan
wasn't even looking at her. His attention was fixed on a spot near the gates.
With a snap of his fingers his men began scattering like bats on the wing,
taking a frighteningly silent Ethan with them.

'Where are they going
with him?' Leona demanded anxiously.

Hassan didn't answer.
Another man came to stand directly behind her and, glancing up, she found
herself gazing into yet another familiar face.

'Rafiq,' she murmured,
but that was all she managed to say before Hassan was reclaiming her attention
by snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her towards him. Her breasts
made contact with solid muscle; her thighs suddenly burned like fire as they
felt the unyielding power in his. Her eyes leapt up to clash with his eyes. It
was like tumbling into oblivion. He looked so very angry, yet so very—

'Shh,' he cautioned. 'It
is absolutely imperative that you do exactly as I say. For there is a car
coming down the causeway and we cannot afford to have any witnesses."

'Witnesses to what?' she
asked in bewilderment.

There was a pause, a
smile that was not quite a smile because it was too cold, too calculating, too—

'Your abduction,' he
smoothly informed her.

Standing there in his arms,
feeling trapped by a word that sounded totally alien falling from those lips
she'd thought she knew so well, Leona released a constricted gasp then was
totally silenced.

Car headlights suddenly
swung in their direction. Rafiq moved and the next thing that she knew a shroud
of black muslin was being thrown over her head. For a split second she couldn't
believe what was actually happening! Then Hassan released his grasp so the
muslin could unfurl right down to her ankles: she was being shrouded in an abaya.

Never had she ever been
forced to wear such a garment! 'Oh, how could you?' she wrenched out, already
trying to drag the abaya off again.

Strong arms firmly
subdued her efforts. 'Now, you have two choices here, my darling.' Hassan's
grim voice sounded close to her ear. 'You can either come quietly, of your own
volition, or Rafiq and I will ensure that you do so—understand?'

Understand? Oh, yes,
Leona thought painfully, she understood fully that she was being recovered
like a lost piece of property! 'I'll never forgive you for this,' she breathed
thickly.

His response was to wedge
her between himself and Rafiq and then begin hustling her quickly forward.
Feeling hot, trapped and blinded by the abaya, she had no idea where they were
taking her.

Her frightened gasp
brought Hassan's hand to cup her elbow. 'Be calm.' he said quietly. 'I am
here.'

His reassurance was no
assurance to Leona as he began urging her to walk ahead of him. The ground
beneath her feet gave way to something much less substantial. Through the thin
soles of her shoes she could feel a ridged metal surface, and received a cold
sense of some dark space yawning beneath it.

'What is this?' she
questioned shakily.

"The gangway to my
yacht,' Hassan replied.

His
yacht, she repeated, and
thought of the huge dark vessel squatting in the darkness. 'New toy, Hassan?'
she hit out deridingly.

'I knew you would be
enchanted,' he returned. 'Watch your step!' he cautioned sharply when the open
toe of her flimsy shoe caught on one of the metal ridges.

But she couldn't watch
her step because the wretched abaya was in the way! So she tripped, tried to
right herself, felt the slender heel of her shoe twist out from beneath her.
Instinct made her put out a hand in a bid to save herself. But once again the abaya
was in the way and, as she tried to grapple with it, the long loose veil of
muslin tangled around her ankles and she lurched drunkenly forward. The sheer
impetus of the lurch lost Hassan his guiding grip on her arm. As the sound of
her own stifled cry mingled with the roughness of his, Leona knew she hadn't a
hope of saving herself. In the few split seconds it all took to happen, she had
a horrible vision of deep dark water between the boat and the harbour wall
waiting to suck her down, with the wretched abaya acting as her burial shroud.

Then hard hands were
gripping her waist and roughly righting her; next she was being scooped up and
crushed hard against a familiar chest. She curled into that chest like a
vulnerable child and began shaking all over while she listened to Hassan
cursing and swearing beneath his breath as he carried her, and Rafiq answering
with soothing tones from somewhere ahead.

Onto the yacht, across
the deck, Leona could hear doors being flung wide as they approached. By the
time Hassan decided that it was safe to set her down on her own feet again,
reaction was beginning to set in.

Shock and fright changed
to a blistering fury the moment her feet hit the floor. Breaking free, she spun
away from him, then began dragging the abaya off over her head with angry,
shaking fingers. Light replaced darkness, sweet cool air replaced suffocating
heat. Tossing the garment to the floor, she swung round to face her two
abductors with her green eyes flashing and the rest of her shimmering with an
incandescent rage.

Both Hassan and Rafiq
stood framed by a glossy wood doorway, studying her with differing expressions.
Both wore long black tunics beneath dark blue cloaks cinched in at the waist
with wide black sashes. Dark blue gutrahs framed their lean dark faces. One
neatly bearded, the other clean-shaven and sleek. Both held themselves with an
indolent arrogance that was a challenge as they waited to receive her first
furious volley.

Her heart flipped over
and tumbled to her stomach, her feeling of an impossible-to-fight admiration
for these two people, only helping to infuriate her all the more. For who were
they—what were they—that they believed they had the right to treat her like
this?

She began to walk towards
them. Her hair had escaped from its twist and was now tumbling like fire over
her shoulders, and somewhere along the way she had lost her shawl and shoes.
Without the help of her shoes, the two men towered over her, indomitable and
proud, dark brown eyes offering no hint of apology.

Her gaze fixed itself
somewhere between them, her hands closed into two tightly clenched fists at her
side. The air actually stung with an electric charge of anticipation. 'I demand
to see Ethan,' she stated very coldly.

It was clearly the last
thing either was expecting her to say. Rafiq stiffened, Hassan looked as if she
could not have insulted him more if she'd tried.

His eyes narrowed, his
mouth grew thin, his handsome sleek features hardened into polished rock.
Beneath the dark robes, Leona saw his wide chest expand and remain that way as,
with a sharp flick of a hand, he sent Rafiq sweeping out of the room.

As the door closed them
in, the sudden silence stifled almost as much as the abaya had done. Neither
moved, neither spoke for the space of thirty long heart-throbbing seconds,
while Hassan stared coldly down at her and she stared at some obscure point
near his right shoulder.

Years of loving this one
man, she was thinking painfully. Five years of living the dream in a marriage
she had believed was so solid that nothing could ever tear it apart. Now she
couldn't even bring herself to focus on his face properly in case the feelings
she now kept deeply suppressed inside her came surging to the surface and
spilled out on a wave of broken-hearted misery. For their marriage was over.
They both knew it was over. He should not have done this to her. It hurt so
badly that he could treat her this way that she didn't think she was ever going
to forgive him for it.

Hassan broke the silence
by releasing the breath he had been holding onto. 'In the interests of harmony,
I suggest you restrain from mentioning Ethan Hayes in my presence,' he advised,
then simply stepped right past her to walk across the room to a polished wood
counter which ran the full length of one wall.

As she followed the long.
lean, subtle movement of his body through desperately loving eyes, fresh fury
leapt up to save her again. 'But who else would I ask about when I've just
watched your men beat him up and drag him away?' she threw after him.

'They did not beat him
up.' Flicking open a cupboard door, he revealed a fridge stocked with every
conceivable form of liquid refreshment.

'They fell on him like a
flock of hooligans!'

'They subdued his
enthusiasm for a fight.'

'He was defending
me!"

'That is my prerogative.'

Her choked laugh at that
announcement dropped scorn all over it. 'Sometimes your arrogance stuns even
me!' she informed him scathingly.

The fridge door shut with
a thud. 'And your foolish refusal to accept wise advice when it is offered to
you stuns me!'

Twisting round, Hassan
was suddenly revealing an anger that easily matched her own. His eyes were
black, his expression harsh, his mouth snapped into a grim line. In his hand
he held a bottle of mineral water which he slammed down on the cabinet top,
then he began striding towards her, big and hard and threatening.

'I don't know what's the
matter with you,' she burst out bewilderedly. 'Why am I under attack when I
haven't done anything?'

'You dare to ask that,
when this is the first time we have looked upon each other in a year—yet all
you can think about is Ethan Hayes?'

'Ethan isn't your enemy,'
she persisted stubbornly.

'No.' Thinly said. Then
something happened within his eyes that set her heart shuddering. He came to a
stop a bare foot away from her. 'But he is most definitely yours,' he said.

She didn't want him this
close and took a step back. 'I don't know what you mean,' she denied.

He closed the gap again.
'A married woman openly living with a man who is not her husband carries a heavy
penalty in Rahman.'

'Are you daring to
suggest that Ethan and I sleep together?' Her eyes went wide with utter
affront.