Then the teasing vanished from both of them. Eyes darkened, drew closer, then dived into each other’s to dip into a place so very special it actually hurt to make contact with so much feeling at once.
‘Don’t leave me—ever.’ He begged her promise.
Leona sighed as she ran her fingers through his wet hair. Her throat felt tight and her heart felt heavy. ‘I’m frightened that one day you will change your mind about me and want more from your life. Then what will I be left with?’
‘Ethan Hayes is in love with you,’ he said.
‘What has that got to do with this?’ She frowned. ‘And, no, he is not.’
‘You are frightened I will leave you. Well, I am frightened that you will one day see a normal man like Ethan and decide he has more to offer you than I ever can.’
‘You are joking,’ she drawled.
‘No, I am not.’ He sat up, long fingers reaching out to pluck absently at the ropework around the sides of the boat. ‘What do I offer you beside a lot of personal restrictions, political games that can get nasty enough to put your well-being at risk, and a social circle of friends you would not pass the day with if you did not feel obliged to do so for my sake.’
‘I liked most of our friends in Rahman,’ she protested, sitting up to drape one of the towels around her head because the sun was too hot. ‘Those I didn’t like, you don’t particularly like, and we only used to see them at formal functions.’
‘Or when we became stuck on a boat with them with no means of escape.’
‘Why are we having this conversation in this small boat in the middle of the Red Sea?’ she questioned wearily.
‘Where else?’ He shrugged. ‘In our stateroom where there is a convenient bed to divert us away from what needs to be said?’
‘It’s another abduction,’ she murmured ruefully.
‘You belong to me. A man cannot abduct what is already his.’
‘And you’re arrogant.’ She sighed.
‘Loving you is arrogant of me?’ he challenged.
Leona just shook her head and used the corner of the towel to dry her wet face. Her fingers were trembling, and she was still having a struggle to calm her breathing. ‘Last night you promised me a divorce.’
‘Today I am taking that promise back.’
‘Here…’ she held her arm out towards him. ‘…can you do something about this?’
Part of the netting she had been tangled in was still clinging to her wrist. The delicate skin beneath it was red and chafed. ‘I’m sorry I said what I did last night,’ he murmured.
‘I’m sorry I said what I did,’ Leona returned. ‘I didn’t even mean it the way it came out. It’s just that sometimes you look so very…’
‘Children are a precious gift from Allah,’ Hassan interrupted, dark head sombrely bent over his task. ‘But so is love. Very few people are fortunate enough to have both, and most only get the children. If I had to choose then I would choose, to have love.’
‘But you are an Arabian sheikh with a duty to produce the next successor to follow on from you, and the choice no longer belongs to you.’
‘If we find we want children then we will get some,’ he said complacently, lifting up her wrist to break the stubborn cord with the sharp snap of his teeth. ‘IVF, adoption…But only if we want them.’ He made that fine but important point. ‘Otherwise let Rafiq do his bit for his country,’ he concluded with an indifferent shrug.
‘He would give you one of his stares if he heard you saying that.’ Leona smiled.
‘He is an Al-Qadim, though he chooses to believe he is not.’
‘He’s half-French.’
‘I am one quarter Spani
sh, and one quarter Al-Kadah,’ he informed her. ‘You, I believe, are one half rampaging Celt. I do not see us ringing bells about it.’
‘All right, I will stay,’ she murmured.