‘Was the Petronades yacht party an elaborate set-up?’ she asked suddenly.
A brief smile stretched his mouth, and it was a very self-mocking smile because he had truly believed she was as concentrated on his close physical presence as he was on hers. But, no. As always, Leona’s mind worked in ways that continually managed to surprise him.
‘The party was genuine.’ He answered the question. ‘Your father’s sudden inability to get here in time to attend it was not.’
At least his honesty almost earned him a direct glance of frowning puzzlement before she managed to divert it to his right ear. ‘But you’ve just finished telling me that I was snatched because my father was—’
‘I know,’ he cut in, not needing to hear her explain what he already knew—which was that this whole thing had been very carefully set up and co-ordinated with her father’s assistance. ‘There are many reasons why you are standing here with me right now, my darling,’ he murmured gently. ‘Most of which can wait for another time to go into.’
The my darling sent her back a defensive step. The realisation that her own father had plotted against her darkened her lovely eyes. ‘Tell me now,’ she insisted.
But Hassan just shook his head. ‘Now is for me,’ he informed her softly. ‘Now is my moment to bask in the fact that you are back where you belong.’
It was really a bit of bad timing that her feet should use that particular moment to tread on the discarded abaya, he supposed, watching as she looked down, saw, then grew angry all over again.
‘By abduction?’ Her chin came up, contempt shimmering along her finely shaped bones. ‘By plots and counter-plots and by removing a woman’s right to decide for herself?’
He grimaced at her very accurate description. ‘We are by nature a romantic people,’ he defended. ‘We love drama and poetry and tragic tales of star-crossed lovers who lose each other and travel the caverns of hell in their quest to find their way back together again.’
He saw the tears. He had said too much. Reaching out, he caught the glass just before it slipped from her nerveless fingers. ‘Our marriage is a tragedy,’ she told him thickly.
‘No,’ he denied, putting the hapless glass aside. ‘You merely insist on turning it into one.’
‘Because I hate everything you stand for!’
‘But you cannot make yourself hate the man,’ he added, undisturbed by her denunciation.
Leona began to back away because there was something seriously threatening about the sudden glow she caught in his eyes. ‘I left you, remember?’
‘Then sent me letters at regular intervals to make sure I remembered you,’ he drawled.
‘Letters to tell you I want a divorce!’ she cried.
‘The content of the letters came second to their true purpose.’ He smiled. ‘One every two weeks over the last two months. I found them most comforting.’
‘Gosh, you are so conceited it’s a wonder you didn’t marry yourself!’
‘Such insults.’ He sighed.
‘Will you stop stalking me as if I am a hunted animal?’ she cried.
‘Stop backing away like one.’
‘I do not want to stay married to you.’ She stated it bluntly.
‘And I am not prepared to let you go. There,’ he said. ‘We have reached another impasse. Which one of us is going to win the higher ground this time, do you think?’
Looking at him standing there, arrogant and proud yet so much her kind of man that he made her legs go weak, Leona knew exactly which one of them possessed the higher ground. Which was also why she had to keep him at arm’s length at all costs. He could fell her in seconds, because he was right; she didn’t hate him, she adored him. And that scared her so much that when his hand came up, long fingertips brushing gently across her trembling mouth, she almost fainted on the sensation that shot from her lips to toe tips.
She pulled right away. His eyebrow arched. It mocked and challenged as he responded by curling the hand around her nape.
‘Stop it,’ she said, and lifted up her hand to use it as a brace against his chest.
Beneath dark blue cotton she discovered a silk-smooth, hard-packed body pulsing with heat and an all-too-familiar masculine potency. Her mouth went dry; she tried to breathe and found that she couldn’t. Helplessly she lifted her eyes up to meet with his.
‘Seeing me now, hmm?’ he softly taunted. ‘Seeing this man with these eyes you like to drown in, and this nose you like to call dreadful but usually have trouble from stopping your fingers from stroking? And let us not forget this mouth you so like to feel crushed hotly against your own delightful mouth.’
‘Don’t you dare!’ she protested, seeing what was coming and already beginning to shake all over at the terrifying prospect of him finding out what a weak-willed coward she was.