‘In the name of Allah,’ he suddenly rasped out as he watched Leona’s jet-ski stop so suddenly that she was thrown right over the front of it.
‘What?’ Raschid got to his feet.
‘She hit something,’ he bit out, remaining still for a moment, waiting for her to come up. It didn’t happen. His heart began to pound, ringing loudly in his ears as he turned and began to run. With Raschid close on his heels he took the stairs two at a time, then flung himself down the next set heading for the rear of the boat where the back let down to form a platform into the water. Rafiq was already there, urgently lowering another jet ski into the water. His taut face said it all; Leona still had not reappeared. Samir had not even noticed; he was too busy making a wide, arching turn way out.
Without hesitation he wrenched the jet-ski from Rafiq and was speeding off towards his wife before his brother had realised what he had done. Teeth set, eyes sharp, he made an arrow-straight track towards her deadly still jet-ski as behind him the yacht began sounding its horn in a warning call to Samir. The sound brought everyone to the boatside, to see what was going on.
By the time Hassan came up on Leona’s jet-ski, Rafiq was racing after him on another one and Samir was heading towards them at speed. No one else moved or spoke or even breathed as they watched Hassan take a leaping dive off his
moving machine and disappear into the deep blue water. Three minutes had past, maybe four, and Hassan could not understand why her buoyancy aid had not brought her to the surface.
He found out why the moment he broke his dive down and twisted full circle in the water. A huge piece of wood, like the beam from an old fishing boat, floated just below the surface—tangled with fishing net. It was the net she was caught in, a slender ankle, a slender wrist, and she was frantically trying to free herself.
As he swam towards her, he saw the panic in her eyes, the belief that she was going to die. With his own lungs already wanting to burst, he reached down to free her foot first, then began hauling her towards the surface even as he wrenched free her wrist.
White, he was white with panic, overwhelmed by shock and gasping greedily for breath. She burst out crying, coughing, spluttering, trying desperately to fill her lungs through racking sobs that tore him to bits. Neither had even noticed the two other jet-skis warily circling them or that Raschid and a crewman were heading towards them in the yacht’s emergency inflatable.
‘Why is it you have to do this to me?’ he shouted at her furiously.
‘Hassan,’ someone said gruffly. He looked up, saw his brother’s face, saw Samir looking like a ghost, saw the inflatable almost upon them, then saw—really saw—the woman he held crushed in his arms. After that the world took on a blur as Rafiq and Samir joined them in the water and helped to lift Leona into the boat. Hassan followed, then asked Raschid and the crewman to bring in the other two men on the jet-skis. As soon as the jet-skis left the inflatable, he turned it round and, instead of making for the yacht, he headed out in the Red Sea.
Leona didn’t notice, she was lying in a huddle still sobbing her heart out on top of a mound of towels someone had had the foresight to toss into the boat, and he was shaking from teeth to fingertips. His mind was shot, his eyes blinded by an emotion he had never experienced before in his life.
When he eventually stopped the boat in the middle of nowhere, he just sat there and tried hard to calm whatever it was that was raging inside of him while Leona tried to calm her frightened tears.
‘You know,’ he muttered after a while, ‘for the first time since I was a boy, I think I am going to weep. You have no idea what you do to me, no idea at all. Sometimes I wonder if you even care.’
‘It was an accident,’ she whispered hoarsely
‘So was the trip on the gangway! So was the headlong fall down the stairs! What difference does it make if it was an accident? You still have no idea what you do to me!’
Sitting up, she plucked up one the towels and wrapped it around her shivering frame.
‘Are you listening to me?’ he grated.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Where are we?’
‘In the middle of nowhere where I can shout if I want to, cry if I want to, and tell the rest of the world to get out of my life!’ he raged. ‘I am sick of other people meddling in it. I am sick of playing stupid, political games. And I am sick and tired of watching you do stupid madcap things just because you are angry with me!’
‘Hassan—’
‘What?’ he lashed back furiously, black eyes burning, body so taut it looked ready to snap in two. He was soaking wet and he was trembling—not shivering like herself.
‘I’m all right,’ she told him gently.
He fell on her like a ravaging wolf, setting the tiny boat rocking and not seeming to care if they both ended up in the water again. ‘Four minutes you were under the water—I timed it!’ he bit out between tense kisses.
‘I’m accident prone; you know I am,’ she reminded him. ‘The first time we met I tripped over someone’s foot and landed on your lap.’
‘No.’ He denied it. ‘I helped you there with a guiding hand.’
She frowned. He grimaced. He had never admitted that before. ‘I had been watching you all evening, wondering how I could get to meet you without making myself appear overeager. So it was an opportunity sent from Allah when you tripped just in front of me.’
Leona let loose a small, tear-choked chuckle. ‘I tripped in front of you on purpose,’ she confessed. ‘Someone said you were an Arabian sheikh, rich as sin, so I thought to myself. That will do for me!’
‘Liar,’ he murmured.
‘Maybe.’ She smiled.