ease that pain, he had to turn away from its source or risk revealing to her the emptiness of helplessness he suffered whenever he saw her hugging a son that was not their own.
But in trying to protect Leona from himself he had forgotten the other pairs of eyes watching him. The Al-Mahmuds and the Al-Yasins had seen, read and drawn their own conclusions.
‘A sad sight, is it not?’ Abdul had dared to say.
Leona had heard him, had known what he’d been referring to, and had been shunning Hassan ever since.
‘Talk to me, for Allah’s sake.’ He sighed into the darkness.
‘Find another bed to sleep in.’
Well, they were words, he supposed, then sighed again, took the bull by the horns and pushed himself up to lean over her, then tugged her round to face him. ‘What is it that you want from me?’ he demanded. ‘I am trying my best to make this work for us!’
Her eyes flicked open; it was like gazing into pools of broken ice. ‘Why go to all this trouble when I am still going to leave you flat the first moment I know I can do it without hurting your father?’
‘Why?’ he challenged.
‘We’ve already been through the whys a hundred times! They haven’t changed just because you have decided to play the warlord and win the battle against your rotten underlings without giving an inch to anyone!’
‘Warlord?’ His brow arched. ‘How very pagan.’ He made sure she knew he liked the sound of that title in a very physical way.
‘Oh, get off me,’ she snapped, gave a push and rolled free of him, coming to her feet by the bed. Her hair floated everywhere, and the cream silk pyjamas shimmied over her slender figure as she walked down the room and dumped herself into one of the chairs, then dared to curl up in it as if he would allow her to sleep there!
‘Come back here, Leona,’ he commanded wearily.
‘I regret ever agreeing to be here,’ she answered huskily.
Husky meant tears. Tears made him want to curse for making a joke of what they had been talking about when any fool would have known it was no time for jokes! On yet another sigh he got out of the bed, then trod in her footsteps and went to squat down in front of her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘that this situation is so difficult for you. But my father insisted that the family heads must talk to each other. I have no will to refuse 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.
