The sheikh's chosen wife Read Online Free PDF

to her.
    She looked at the glass,
long dusky lashes flickering over her beautiful green eyes when she realised he
was going to make her come and get the drink. Would she do it? he wondered
curiously. Would she allow herself to come this close, when they both knew she
would much rather turn and run?
    But his beautiful wife
had never been a coward. No matter how she might be feeling inside, he had
never known her to run from a challenge. Even when she had left him last year
she had done so with courage, not cowardice. And she did not let him down now
as her silk stockinged feet began to tread the cream carpet until she was in
reach of the glass.
    'Thank you.' The wine
spritzer was taken from him and lifted to her mouth. She sipped without knowing
she had been offered the glass so she would place her lips where his lips had
been.
    Her pale throat moved as
she swallowed; her lips came away from the glass wearing a seductively alluring
wine glossed bloom. He watched her smother a sigh, watched her look anywhere
but directly at him, was aware that she had not looked him in the face since
removing the abaya, just as she had stopped looking at him weeks before she
left Rahman. And he had to suppress his own sigh as he felt muscles tighten all
over his body in his desire to reach out, draw her close and make her look at
him!
    But this was not the time
to play the demanding husband. She would reject him as she had rejected him
many times a year ago. What hurt him the most about remembering those bleak
interludes was not his own angry frustration but the grim knowledge that it had
been herself she had been denying.
    '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 carefuDy 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