Hot-Blooded Husbands: the Sheikh's Chosen Wife

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LEONA was asleep when Hassan let himself back into the room the next morning. She was still asleep when, showered and dressed, he left the room again half an hour later, and in a way he was glad.

He had spent the night stretched out on a lounger on the shade deck, alternating between feeling angry enough to stand by every word he had spoken and wanting to go back and retract what he had left hanging in the air.

And even now, hours later, he was not ready to choose which way he was going to go. He’d had enough of people tugging on his heartstrings; he’d had enough of playing these stupid power games.

He met Rafiq on his way up to the sun deck. ‘Set up a meeting,’ he said. ‘Ten o’clock in my private office. We are going for broke.’

Rafiq sent him one of his steady looks, went to say something, changed his mind, and merely nodded his head.

Samir was already at the breakfast table, packing food away at a pace that made Hassan feel slightly sick—a combination of no sleep and one too many arguments, he told himself grimly.

Leona still hadn’t put in an appearance by the time everyone else had joined them and finished their breakfast. Motioning the steward over, he instructed him to ring the suite.

‘I’ll go,’ Evie offered, and got up, leaving her children to Raschid’s capable care.

And he was capable. In fact it irritated Hassan how capable his friend was at taking care of his two children. How did he run a Gulf state the size of Behran and find time to learn how to deal with babies?

The sun was hot, the sky was blue and here he was, he acknowledged, sitting here feeling like a grey day in London.

‘Hassan…’

‘Hmm?’ Glancing up, he realised that Sheikh Imran had been talking to him and he hadn’t heard a single word that he had said.

‘Rafiq tells us you have called a meeting for ten o’clock’

‘Yes.’ He glanced at his watch, frowned and stood up. ‘If you will excuse me, this is the time I call my father.’

To reach his office required him to pass by his suite door. It was closed. He hesitated, wondering whether or not to go in and at least try to make his peace. But Evie was in there, he remembered, and walked on, grimly glad of the excuse not to have to face that particular problem just now. For he had bigger fish to fry this morning.

Faysal was already in the office. ‘Get my father on the phone for me, Faysal,’ he instructed. ‘Then set the other room up ready for a meeting.’

‘It is to be today, sir?’ Faysal questioned in surprise.

‘Yes, today. In half an hour. My father, Faysal,’ he prompted before the other man could say any more. He glanced at his watch again as Faysal picked up the telephone. Had Leona stayed in their suite because she didn’t want to come face to face with him?

But Leona had not stayed in their suite because she was sulking, as Hassan so liked to call it. She was ill, and didn’t want anyone to know.

‘Don’t you dare tell anyone,’ she warned Evie. ‘I’ll be all right in a bit. It just keeps happening, and then it goes away again.’

‘How long?’ Evie looked worried.

‘A few days.’ Leona shrugged. ‘I don’t think I’ve got anything your children might catch, Evie,’ she then anxiously assured her. ‘I’m just—stressed out, that’s all.’

‘Stressed out.’ Evie was looking at her oddly.

‘It’s playing havoc with my stomach.’ Leona nodded and took another sip of the bottled water Evie had opened for her. ‘Who would not be feeling sick if they were stuck on this boat with a load of people they liked as little as those people liked them? You and your family excluded, of course,’ she then added belatedly.

‘Oh, of course.’ Evie nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed, a bed with one half that had not been slept in. Hassan had not come back last night, and Leona was glad that he hadn’t.

‘I hate men,’ she announced huskily.

‘You mean you hate one man in particular.’

‘I’ll be glad when this is over and he just lets me go.’

‘Do you really think that is likely?’ Evie mocked. ‘Hassan is an Arab and they give up on nothing. Arrogant, possessive, stubborn, selfish and sweet,’ she listed ruefully. ‘It is the moments of sweetness that are their saving grace, I find.’

‘You’re lucky, you’ve got a nice one.’

‘He wasn’t nice at all on the day I sent him packing,’ Evie recalled. ‘In fact it was the worst moment of my life when he turned to leave with absolutely no protest. I knew it was the end. I’d seen it carved into his face like words set in stone…’

‘I know,’ Leona whispered miserably. ‘I’ve seen the look myself…’

Evie had seen the same look on Hassan’s face at the breakfast table. ‘Oh, Leona.’ She sighed. ‘The two of you have got to stop beating each other up like this. You love each other. Can’t that be enough?’

Raschid was not in agreement with Hassan’s timing. ‘Think about this,’ he urged. ‘We have too much time before we reach dry land. Time for them to fester on their disappointment.’

‘I need this settled,’ Hassan grimly insisted. ‘Leona is a mess. The longer I let the situation ride the more hesitant I appear. Both Abdul and Zafina Al-Yasin are becoming so over-confident that they think they may say what they please. My father agrees. It shall be done with today. Inshallah,’ he concluded.

‘Inshallah, indeed,’ Raschid murmured ruefully, and went away to prepare what he had been brought here specifically to say.

An hour later Evie was with her children, Medina and Zafina were seated quietly in one of the salons sipping coffee while they awaited the outcome of the meeting taking place on the deck below, and Leona and Samir were kitting up to go jet-skiing when Sheikh Raschid Al-Kadah decided it was time for him to speak.

‘I have listened to your arguments with great interest and some growing concern,’ he smoothly began. ‘Some of you seem to be suggesting that Hassan should make a choice between his country and his western wife. I find this a most disturbing concept—not only because I have a western wife myself, but because forward-thinking Arabs might be setting such outmoded boundaries upon their leaders for the sake of what?’

‘The blood line,’ Abdul said instantly.

Some of the others shifted uncomfortably. Raschid looked into the face of each and every one of them and challenged them to agree with Sheikh Abdul. It would be an insult to himself, his wife and children if they did so. None did.

‘The blood line was at risk six years ago, Abdul.’ He smoothly directed his answer at the man who had dared to offer such a dangerous reason. ‘When Hassan married, his wife was accepted by you all. What has changed?’

‘You misunderstand, Raschid,’ Jibril Al-Mahmud quickly inserted, eager to soothe the ruffled feathers of the other man. ‘My apologies, Hassan, for feeling pressed to say this.’ He bowed. ‘But it is well known throughout Rahman that your most respected wife cannot bear a child.’

‘This is untrue, but please continue with your hypothesis,’ Hassan invited calmly.

Flustered, Jibril looked back at Raschid. ‘Even in your country a man is allowed, if not expected, to take a second wife if the first is—struggling to give him sons,’ he pointed out. ‘We beg Hassan only take a second wife to secure the family line.’ Wisely, he omitted the word ‘blood’.

‘Hassan?’ Raschid looked to him for an answer.

Hassan shook his head. ‘I have the only wife I need,’ he declared.

‘And if Allah decides to deny you sons, what then?’

‘Then control passes on to my successor. I do not see the problem.’

‘The problem is that your stance makes a mockery of ev-erything we stand for as Arabs,’ Abdul said impatiently. ‘You have a duty to secure the continuance of the Al-Qadim name. Your father agrees. The old ones agree. I find it insupportable that you continue to insist on giving back nothing for the honour of being your father’s son!’

‘I give back my right to succession,’ Hassan countered. ‘I am prepared to step down and let one or other of you here take my place. There,’ he concluded with a flick of the hand, ‘it is done. You may now move on to discuss my father’s successor without me…’

‘One moment, Hassan…’ It was Raschid who stopped him from rising. Worked in and timed to reach this point in proceedings, he said, ‘I have some objections to put forward against your decision.’

Hassan returned to his seat. Raschid nodded his gratitude for this, then addressed the table as a whole. ‘Rahman’s land borders my land. Your oil pipeline runs beneath Behran soil and mixes with my oil in our co-owned holding tanks when it reaches the Gulf. And the old ones criss-cross our borders from oasis to oasis with a freedom laid down in a treaty drawn up and signed by Al-Kadah and Al-Qadim thirty years ago. So tell me,’ he begged, ‘with whom am I expected to renegotiate this treaty when an Al-Qadim is no longer in a position to honour his side of our bargain?’

It was an attack on all fronts. For Rahman was landlocked. It needed Behran to get its oil to the tankers that moored up at its vast terminals. The treaty was old and the tariffs laid down in it had not been changed in those thirty years Raschid had mentioned. Borders were mere lines on maps the old ones were free to ignore as they roamed the desert with their camel trains.