‘Ouch,’ she said as her breasts brushed his breastbone.
Hassan froze. She didn’t notice because from absolutely nowhere she burst into tears! What was the matter with her? she wondered wretchedly. She felt sick, she felt dizzy, she hurt in places she had never hurt before! From another place she had never known existed inside her, one of her clenched fists aimed an accusing blow at his shoulder.
Expecting him to demand what he had done to deserve it, she was thrown into further confusion when all he did was release a strained groan from deep in his throat, then began striding back the way from which she had come. A door opened and closed behind them. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she recognised their old suite of rooms.
Laying her on the bed, he came to lean over her. ‘What did my father say to you?’ he demanded. ‘I knew I should not have left you both alone! Did he say you should not have come back, is that it?’
Her eyes flew open, tear-drenched and sparkling. ‘Is that what he thinks?’
‘Yes—no!’ His sigh was driven by demons. But what demons—? The demons of lies? ‘In case you did not notice, he does not think so clearly any more,’ he said tightly.
‘Sheikh Abdul was behind the plot to abduct me; there is nothing unclear about that, as far as I can see.’
‘I knew it was a mistake.’ Hassan sighed, and sat down beside her.
He looked tired and fed up and she wanted to hit him again. ‘You lied to me again,’ she accused him.
‘By omission,’ he agreed. ‘And Abdul’s involvement cannot be proved,’ he added. ‘Only by hearsay which is not enough to risk a war between families.’
‘And you’ve always got the ready-typed contract involving Nadira if things really do get out of hand…’
This time she saw the freeze overtake him. This time she got the answer she had been desperately trying to avoid. Sitting up, Leona ignored the way her head spun dizzily. Drawing up her knees, she reached down to ease the straps of her sandals off the backs of her heels, then tossed them to the floor.
‘He told you about that also?’ Hassan asked hoarsely.
She shook her head. ‘Zafina did.’
‘When?’
‘Does it really matter when?’ she derided. ‘It exists. I saw it. You felt fit not to warn me about it. What do you think that tells me about what is really going on around here?’
‘It means nothing,’ he claimed. ‘It is just a meaningless piece of paper containing words with no power unless several people place their signatures against it.’
‘But you have a copy.’
He didn’t answer.
‘You had it in your possession even before you came to Spain to get me,’ she stated, because she knew it was the truth even though no one had actually told her so. ‘What was it—firm back-up in case Raschid failed to bail you out of trouble? Or does it still carry a lot of weight around with it?’
‘You could try trusting me,’ he answered.
‘And you, my lord sheikh, should have tried trusting me, then maybe it would not be the big problem it is.’ With that, she climbed off the bed and began walking away.
‘Where are you going?’ He sighed out heavily. ‘Come back here. We need to—’
The cold way she turned to look at him stopped the words; the way she had one hand held to her forehead and the other to her stomach paled his face. ‘I am going to the bathroom to be sick,’ she informed him. ‘Then I am going to crawl into that bed and go to sleep. I would appreciate it if you were not still here when I get to do that.’
And that, Hassan supposed, had told him. He watched the bathroom door close behind her retreating figure.
He got up and strode over to the window beyond which an ink dark evening obliterated everything beyond the subtle lighting of the palace walls.
So where do we go from here? he asked himself. When Zafina Al-Yasin had picked her weapon, she’d picked it well. For Hassan could think of nothing more likely to shatter Leona’s belief in his sincerity than a document already drawn up and ready to be brought into use should it become necessary. She would not now believe that he had agreed to the drawing up of such a document merely to buy him time. Why should she when he had refrained from telling her so openly and honestly before she’d found out by other means?
Sighing, he turned to leave the room. It was simpler to leave her alone for now. He could say nothing that was going to change anything, because he had another problem looming, he realised, One bigger and more potentially damaging than all that had tried to damage his marriage before.
He had a contract bearing his agreement to take a second wife. He had a wife whom he suspected might be carrying his first child. Leona was never going to believe that the former was not an insurance policy to protect him against the failure of the latter.
‘Faysal,’ he said as he stepped into his aide’s office, which guarded the entrance to his own, ‘get Rafiq for me, if you please…’