‘She desires to make me blush,’ Hassan said dryly, then offered his hand first to his father-in-law then to Ethan. ‘Glad you could make it,’ he said congenially. ‘We are honoured to receive you into our home.’
‘The honour is all mine,’ Ethan replied with a smile that held only a touch of irony to imply that there was more to this invitation than met the eye.
Hassan sent him a slight grimace, then looked down at Leona who was too excited to notice any of the undercurrents flowing around her.
She didn’t know, Ethan realised. She had no idea that he was here to help save her reputation. His estimation of Sheikh Hassan rose a couple of notches in recognition of the lengths he was prepared to go to for his love of Leona.
Could he have ever loved her like that? Looking at her laughing, beautiful face, he found himself superimposing another laughing, beautiful face over the top of it, and had to ask himself if he’d ever loved Leona at all? For this other face didn’t just laugh at him, it teased and flirted and sent him secret little come-and-get-me smiles that made his insides sing. This other face looked at him and loved him.
Loved him? He stopped to question that.
Loved him, he repeated. His legs almost went from under him as his heart sank like a stone.
It was there, he could see it. It was there. He’d been blind!
‘Ethan, are you feeling okay?’
He blinked and found himself looking down at Leona’s anxious face. ‘Fine.’ He smiled. ‘I’m glad to see you looking so happy.’
Stupidly, utterly, totally blind!
‘I am!’ She smiled. ‘Deliriously happy.’
I need to get out of here…
‘Good,’ he said. ‘This time make sure you hang onto it.’
In solemn response, she linked her arm with Hassan’s arm. ‘Hanging on,’ she softly promised him.
He was supposed to laugh so he did laugh. Half the room turned to stare at the two of them and because Hassan must have seen all his hard work going down the tubes, he suddenly laughed as well and so did Victor.
As if cued by this brief moment of danger, another diversion was suddenly grabbing everyone’s attention. People stopped talking. Silence rained down on the whole assembly as Hassan’s half-brother, Rafiq, appeared pushing a wheelchair bearing Sheikh Khalifa ben Jusef Al-Qadim.
Ethan had only met the elderly sheikh once before, five years ago at his son’s wedding. But he still couldn’t believe the changes wrought since then. The old man looked so thin and frail against the height and breadth of his youngest son—a wasted shadow of his former self. But his eyes were bright, his mouth smiling and, in the frozen stasis brought on by everyone’s shock at how ill he actually looked, he was prepared, and ready to respond. ‘Welcome—welcome everyone,’ he greeted. ‘Please, do not continue to look at me as if you are attending my wake, for I assure you I am here to enjoy myself.’
After that everyone made themselves relax again. Some who knew him well even grinned. As Rafiq wheeled him towards the other end of the room, the old Sheikh missed no one in reach of his acknowledgement. ‘Victor,’ he greeted. ‘I have stolen your daughter. She is now my most precious daughter, I apologise to you, but am not sorry, you understand.’
‘I think we can share her,’ Victor Frayne replied smilingly.
‘And…ah.’ The old sheikh then turned to Ethan. ‘Mr Hayes, it is my great pleasure to meet Leona’s very good friend.’
He had the floor, as it should be, so no one could miss the message being broadcast. ‘Victor…Mr Hayes…come and see me tomorrow. I have a project I believe will be of great interest to you…Ah, Rafiq, take me forward for I can see Sheikh Raschid…’
And there it was, Ethan saw. In a simple exchange of pleasantries, the rumours had been scotched, dismissed and forgotten, because there wasn’t a person here who would continue to question Leona’s fidelity after Sheikh Khalifa himself had made his own opinions so very clear.
The old sheikh moved on, the spotlight shifted. For the next couple of hours, Hassan consolidated on what his father had put into place by taking Ethan and Victor with him around the room and introducing them to some very influential people.
I’m going crazy, Ethan decided. Because here I am smiling and talking to a lot of people I don’t even care about, when I could be somewhere else with someone I do care about.
And where was Eve? Was she still at the villa in San Estéban, or had she made good her word and gone back to Athens? He wanted to know. He needed to know. His mobile phone began to burn a hole in his pocket.
In the end he couldn’t stand it. He left the throng and went outside to see if he could get a signal. It wasn’t a problem, so he stabbed the quick-dial button that would connect him to the villa, then stood breathing in the jasmine-scented night air while he waited to discover what his fate was going to be. What he got was the answering machine, which told him exactly nothing.
Frustration began to war with tension in his breast. Someone came to stand beside him. It was Hassan, looking less the arrogant bastard that he’d always seen him to be.
‘Thank you,’ Hassan said. ‘I owe you a great debt of gratitude for coming here like this.’
Where it came from, Ethan had no idea, but he was suddenly so desperate to be somewhere else entirely that he knew he couldn’t stay here a single moment longer. ‘Do you think that debt of gratitude could stretch to a quick exit from here?’ he asked curtly.
Hassan stiffened. ‘You dislike our hospitality?’
‘No.’ He laughed. Only, it wasn’t a real laugh because it erred too close to the threshold of panic. ‘I just need to be somewhere else.’
She was calling him. Like the witch she was, she was casting a spell somewhere, he was
