him because in truth his reasons are wise. You know I have no automatic right to succession. I must win the support of the other family leaders.’
‘Stop being so stubborn and just let me go and you would not have to win over anyone,’ she pointed out.
‘You know…’ he grimaced ‘…I think you are wrong there. I think that underneath all the posturing they want me to fight this battle and win, to prove the strength of my resolve.’
She brushed a tear off her cheek. Hassan had wanted to do it for her, but instinct was warning him not to. ‘Tonight Zafina asked me outright if I had any idea of the life I was condemning you to if I held onto a marriage destined to have no children.’
His eyes flashed with raw anger, his lips pressing together on an urge to spit out words that would make neither of them feel any better. But he made a mental note that from tomorrow Leona went nowhere without himself or Rafiq within hearing.
‘And I saw your face, Hassan,’ she went on unsteadily. ‘I heard what Abdul said to you and I know why he said it. So why are you being so stubborn about something we both know is—’
He shut her up in the most effective way he knew. Mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue, words lost in the heat of a much more productive form of communication. She fought him for a few brief seconds, then lost the battle when her flailing fingers made contact with his naked flesh.
He had no clothes on, she had too many, but flesh-warmed silk against naked skin achieved a sensual quality he found very pleasurable as he lifted her up and settled her legs around his hips.
‘You are such an ostrich,’ she threw into his face as he carried her back to bed. ‘How long do you think you can go on ignoring what—!’
He used the same method to shut her up again. By then he was standing by the bed with her fingernails digging into his shoulders, her hair surrounding him and her long legs clinging to his waist with no indication that they were going to let go. If he tried for a horizontal position he would risk hurting her while she held him like this.
So—who needed a bed? he thought with a shrug as his fingers found the elastic waistband to her pyjama bottoms and pushed the silk far enough down her thighs to gain him access to what he wanted the most. She groaned as he eased himself into her, and the kiss deepened into something else.
Fevered was what it was. Fevered and hot and a challenge to how long he could maintain his balance as he stood there with his hands spanning her slender buttocks, squeezing to increase the frictional pleasure, and no way—no way—would he have believed three nights without doing this could leave him so hungry. Twelve months without doing this had not affected him as badly.
‘You’re shaking.’
She’d noticed. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t just shaking, he was out of control, and he could no longer maintain this position without losing his dignity as well as his mind. So he lowered her to the bed with as much care as he could muster, pushed her hair from her face and stared blackly into her eyes.
‘You tell me how I deny myself this above all things?’ he demanded. ‘You, only you, can do this to me. It is only you I want to do it with.’
The words were spoken between fierce kisses, between possessive thrusts from his hips. Leona touched his face, touched his mouth, touched his eyes with her eyes. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ she whispered tragically.
It was enough to drive an already driven man insane. He withdrew, got up, swung away and strode into the bathroom, slammed shut the door then turned to slam the flat of his palm against the nearest wall. Empty silences after the loving he had learned to deal with, but tragic apologies in the middle were one large step too far!
Why had she said it? She hadn’t meant to say it! It was just one of those painful little things that had slipped out because she had seen he was hurting, and the look had reminded her of the look he had tried to hide from her when she had been cuddling Hashim.
Oh, what were they doing to each other? Leona asked herself wretchedly. And scrambled to her feet as the sickness she had been struggling with for days now came back with a vengeance, leaving her with no choice but to make a run for the bathroom with the hope that he hadn’t locked the door.
With one hand over her mouth and the other trying to recover her slipping pyjama bottoms, she reached the door just as it flew open to reveal a completely different Hassan than the one who had stormed in there only seconds ago.
‘You may have your wish,’ he informed her coldly. ‘As soon as it is safe for me to do so, I will arrange a divorce. Now I want nothing more to do with you.’
With that he walked away, having no idea that her only response was to finish what she had been intending to do and make it to the toilet bowl before she was sick.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEONA was asleep when Hassan let himself back into the room the next morning. She was still asleep when, showered and dressed, he left the room again half an hour later, and in a way he was glad.
He had spent the night stretched out on a lounger on the shade deck, alternating between feeling angry enough to stand by every word he had spoken and wanting to go back and retract what he had left hanging in the air.
And even now, hours later, he was not ready to choose which way he was going to go. He’d had enough of people tugging on his heartstrings; he’d had enough of playing these stupid power games.
He met Rafiq on his way up to the sun deck. ‘Set up a meeting,’ he said. ‘Ten o’clock in my private office. We are going for broke.’
Rafiq sent him one of his steady looks, went to say something, changed his mind, and merely nodded his head.
Samir was already at the breakfast table, packing food away at a pace that made Hassan feel slightly sick—a combination of no sleep and one too many arguments, he told himself grimly.
Leona still hadn’t put in an appearance by the time everyone else had joined them and finished their breakfast. Motioning the steward over, he instructed him to ring the suite.
‘I’ll go,’ Evie offered, and got up, leaving her children to Raschid’s capable care.
And he was capable. In fact it irritated Hassan how capable his friend was at taking care of his two children. How did he run a Gulf state the size of Behran and find time to learn how to deal with babies?
The sun was hot, the sky was blue and here he was, he acknowledged, sitting here feeling like a grey day in London.
‘Hassan…’
‘Hmm?’ Glancing up, he realised that Sheikh Imran had been talking to him and he hadn’t heard a single word that he had said.
‘Rafiq tells us you have called a meeting for ten o’clock’
‘Yes.’ He glanced at his watch, frowned and stood up. ‘If you will excuse me, this is the time I call my father.’
To reach his office required him to pass by his suite door. It was closed. He hesitated, wondering whether or not to go in and at least try to make his peace. But Evie was in there, he remembered, and walked on, grimly glad of the excuse not to have to face that particular problem just now. For he had bigger fish to fry this morning.
Faysal was already in the office. ‘Get my father on the phone for me, Faysal,’ he instructed. ‘Then set the other room up ready for a meeting.’
‘It is to be today, sir?’ Faysal questioned in surprise.
‘Yes, today. In half an hour. My father, Faysal,’ he prompted before the other man could say any more. He glanced at his watch again as Faysal picked up the telephone. Had Leona stayed in their suite because she didn’t want to come face to face with him?
But Leona had not stayed in their suite because she was sulking, as Hassan so liked to call it. She was ill, and didn’t want anyone to know.
‘Don’t