‘A plot to use her as a lever to make me concede to certain issues they desire from me,’ he amended. ‘I am still holding onto the belief that they did not want to turn this into an international incident by harming her in any way.’
‘Just snatching her could do it,’ Ethan pointed out.
‘Only if it became public property,’ Hassan responded. ‘They would be betting on Victor and myself holding our silence out of fear for Leona’s safety.’
‘Does she know?’ Ethan asked.
‘Not yet,’ Hassan confessed. ‘And not at all if I can possibly get away with it.’
‘So why does she think she’s here?’
‘Why do you think?’ Hassan countered, and gained some enjoyment out of watching Ethan stiffen as he absorbed the full masculine depth of his meaning. ‘As long as she remains under my protection no one can touch her.’
Ethan’s response took him by surprise because he dared to laugh. ‘You’ve no chance, Hassan,’ he waged. ‘Leona will fight you to the edge and back before she will just sit down and do what you want her to do simply because you’ve decided that is how it must be.’
‘Which is why I need your support in this,’ Hassan replied. ‘I need you to leave this boat before she can have an opportunity to use your departure as an excuse to jump ship with you.’
He got it. In the end, and after a bit more wrangling, he watched Ethan Hayes turn to the door on a reluctant agreement to go. And, oddly, Hassan admired him for trusting him enough to do this, bearing in mind the year that had gone before.
‘Don’t hurt her again.’ Almost as if he could read his thoughts, Ethan issued that gruff warning right on cue.
‘My wife’s well-being is and always has been of paramount importance to me,’ Hassan responded in a decidedly cooler tone.
Ethan turned, looked him directly in the eye, and for once the truth was placed in the open. ‘You hurt her a year ago. A man gets only one chance at doing that.’
The kid gloves came off. Hassan’s eyes began to glint. ‘Take a small piece of advice,’ he urged, ‘and do not presume to understand a marital relationship until you have tried it for yourself.’
‘I know a broken-hearted woman when I see one,’ Ethan persisted.
‘And has she been any less broken-hearted in the year we have been apart?’
Game, set and match, Hassan recognised, as the other man conceded that final point to him, and with just a nod of his head Ethan went out of the door and into the capable hands of the waiting Rafiq.
At about the same time that Rafiq was escorting Ethan to the waiting launch presently tied up against the side of the yacht, Leona was slipping her arms into the sleeves of a white linen jacket that matched the white linen trousers she had chosen to wear. Beneath the jacket she wore a pale green sun top, and she had contained her hair in a simple pony-tail tied up with a green silk scarf. As she turned towards the door she decided that if she managed to ignore the throbbing ache happening inside her then she was as ready as she ever could be for the battle she knew was to come with Hassan.
Stepping out of the stateroom, the first person she saw was a bearded man dressed in a long white tunic and the usual white gutrah on his head.
‘Faysal!’ Her surprise was clear, her smile warm. Faysal responded by pressing his palms together and dipping into the kind of low bow that irritated Hassan but didn’t bother Leona at all simply because she ignored it. ‘I didn’t know you were here on the boat. Are you well?’ she enquired as she walked towards him.
‘I am very well, my lady,’ he confirmed, but beneath the beard she had a suspicion he was blushing uncomfortably at the informal intimacy she was showing him.
‘And your wife?’ she asked gently.
‘Oh, she is very well,’ he confirmed with a distinct softening in his formal tone. ‘The—er—problem she suffered has gone completely. We are most grateful to you for taking the trouble to ensure she was treated by the best people.’
‘I didn’t do anything but point her in the right direction, Faysal.’ Leona smiled. ‘I am only grateful that she felt she could confide in me.’
‘You saved her life.’
‘Many people saved her life.’ Daring his affront, she crossed the invisible line Arab males drew between themselves and females and reached out to press her hands against the backs of his hands. ‘But you and I were good conspirators, hmm, Faysal?’
‘Indisputably, my lady.’ His mouth almost cracked into a smile but he was too stressed at having her hands on his, and in the end she relented and moved away.
‘If you would come this way…’ he bowed ‘…I am to escort you to my lord Hassan.’
Ah, my lord Hassan, Leona thought, and felt her lighter mood drop again as Faysal indicated that she precede him down the steps she had taken a tumble on the night before. On the other side of the foyer was a staircase which Leona presumed led up to the deck above.
With Faysal tracking two steps behind her, she made her way up and into the sunlight flooding the upper deck, where she paused to take a look around. The sky was a pure, uninterrupted blue and the sea the colour of turquoise. The sun was already hot on her face and she had to shade her eyes against the way it was reflecting so brightly off the white paintwork of the boat.
‘You managed to make Faysal blush, I see,’ a deep voice drawled lazily.
Turning about, she found that Faysal had already melted away, as was his habit, and that Hassan was sitting at a table laid for breakfast beneath the shade of a huge white canvas awning, studying her through slightly mocking eyes. Her heart tried to leap in her breast but she refused to let it. ‘There is a real human being hiding behind all of that strict protocol, if you would only look and see him.’
‘The protocol is not my invention. It took generations of family tradition to make Faysal the man he is today.’
‘He worships you like a god.’
‘And you as his angel of mercy.’
‘At least he felt I was approachable enough that he could bring his concerns to me.’
‘After I had gently suggested it was what he should do.’
‘Oh,’ she said; she hadn’t realised that.
‘Come out of the sun before you burn.’
It was hot, and he was right, but Leona felt safer keeping her distance. She had things to say, and she began with the one subject guaranteed to alter his mellow mood into something else entirely. ‘I was hoping that Ethan would be here with you,’ she said. ‘Since he isn’t, I think I will go and look for him.’
Like a sign from Allah that today was not going to be a good day, at that moment the launch powered up and slipped its ties to the yacht.
Attention distracted, Leona glanced over the side, then went perfectly still.
Hassan knew what she was seeing even before he got up to go and join her. Sure enough, there was Ethan standing on the back of the launch. As the small boat began to pick up speed he glanced up, saw them and waved a farewell.
‘Wave back, my darling,’ he urged smoothly. ‘The man will appreciate the assurance that all is well.’
‘You rat,’ she whispered.
‘Of the desert,’ he dryly replied, then compounded his sins by bringing an arm to rest across her stiff shoulders and lifting his other to wave.
Leona waved also, he admired her for that because it showed that, despite how angry she was feeling, she was—as always—keeping true