The sheikh's chosen wife by Michelle Reid Page B

was sure. Instead his mouth snapped
shut, his hands took hold of her and dumped her rudely into a chair.
    'Faysal, my wife requires
tea.' He shot Leona's own diversion at the other man. Glad of the excuse to
go, Faysal almost ran. To Leona he said, 'Eat,' but he wasn't making eye
contact, and the two streaks of colour he was wearing on his cheekbones almost
made her grin because it was so rare that anyone saw Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim
disconcerted.
    'You dare,' he growled,
swooping down and kissing her twitching mouth, then he left quickly with the
promise to return in moments.
    But moments stretched
into minutes. She ate one of the freshly baked rolls a white liveried steward
had brought with a pot of tea, then drank the tea—and still Hassan did not
return.
    Eventually Rafiq appeared
with another formal bow and Hassan's apologies. He was engaged in matters of
state.
    Matters of state she
understood having lived before with Hassan disappearing for hours upon end to
deal with them.
    'Would you mind if I
joined you?' Rafiq then requested.
    'Orders of state?' she
quizzed him dryly.
    His half-smile gave her
an answer. Her half-smile accompanied her indication to an empty chair. She
watched him sit, watched him hunt around for something neutral to say that was
not likely to cause another argument. There was no such thing, Leona knew that,
so she decided to help him out.
    'Tell me about your
Spanish mistress,' she invited.
    It was the perfect strike
back for sins committed against her. Rafiq released a sigh and dragged the gutrah
from his head, then tossed it aside. This was a familiar gesture for a man of
the Al-Qadim household to use. It could convey many things: weariness, anger,
contempt or, as in this case, a relayed throwing in of the towel. 'He lacks
conscience,' he complained.
    'Yet you continue to love
him unreservedly, Rafiq, son of Khalifa Al-Qadim,' she quietly replied.
    An eyebrow arched.
Sometimes, in a certain light, he looked so like Hassan that they could have
been twins. But they were not. 'Bastard son,' Rafiq corrected in that proud way
of his. 'And you continue to love him yourself, so we had best not throw those
particular stones,' he advised.
    Rafiq had been born out
of wedlock to Sheikh Khalifa's beautiful French mistress, who'd died giving
birth to him. The fact that Hassan had only been six months old himself at the
time of Rafiq's birth should have made the two half-brothers bitter enemies as
they grew up together, one certain of his high place in life, the other just as
certain of what would never be his. Yet in truth the two men could not have
been closer if they'd shared the same mother. As grown men they had formed a
united force behind which their ailing father rested secure in the knowledge
that no one would challenge his power while his sons were there to stop them.
When Leona came along, she too had been placed within this ring of protection.
    Strange, she mused, how
she had always been surrounded by strong men for most of her life: her father,
Ethan, Rafiq and Hassan even Sheikh Khalifa, ill though he now was had always
been one of her faithful champions.
    'Convince him to let me
go,' she requested quietly.
    Ebony eyes darkened. 'He
had missed you.'
    So did green. 'Convince
him,' she persisted.
    'He was lonely without
you.'
    This time she had to
swallow across the lump those words helped to form in her throat before she
could say, 'Please.'
    Rafiq leaned across the
table, picked up one of her hands and gave it a squeeze. 'Subject over,' he
announced very gently.
    And it was. Leona could
see that. It didn't so much hurt to be stonewalled like this but rather brought
it more firmly home to her just how serious Hassan was.
    Coming to his feet, Rafiq
pulled her up with him. 'Where are we going?' she asked.
    'For a tour of the boat
in the hopes that the diversion will restrain your desire to weaken my
defences.'
    'Huh,' she said, for the
day had not arrived when anyone could weaken Rafiq in any way