The sheikh's chosen wife by Michelle Reid Read Free Book Online Page B

out.
    Closing her eyes, she
lifted an arm up to cover them, and pressed her lips together to stop them from
trembling on the tears she was having to fight. For this was not a new
situation she was dealing with here. It had happened before—often— and was just
one of the many reasons why she had left him in the end. The pain had been too
great to go on taking it time after time. His pain, her pain—she had never been
able to distinguish where one ended and the other began. The only difference
here tonight was that she'd somehow managed to let herself forget that, until
this cold, solitary moment.
    Hassan stood beneath the
pulsing jet of the power shower and wanted to hit something so badly that he
had to brace his hands against the tiles and lock every muscle to keep the
murderous feeling in. His body was replete but his heart was grinding against
his ribcage with a frustration that nothing could cure.
    Silence. He hated that
silence. He hated knowing he had nothing worth saying with which to fill it in.
And he still had to go back in there and face it. Face the dragging sense of
his own helplessness and—worse—he had to face hers.
    His wife. His woman. The
other half of him. Head lowered so the water sluiced onto his shoulders and
down his back, he tried to predict what her next move was going to be, and came
up with only one grim answer. She was not going to stay. He could bully her as
much as he liked, but in the end she was still going to walk away from him
unless he could come up with something important enough to make her stay.
    Maybe he should have used
more of his father's illness, he told himself. A man she loved, a man she'd
used to spend hours of every day with, talking, playing board games or just
quietly reading to him when he was too weak to enjoy anything else.
    But his father had not
been enough to make her want to stay the last time. The old fool had given her
his blessing, had missed her terribly, yet even on the day he'd gone to see him
before he left the palace he had still maintained that Leona had had to do what
she'd believed was right.
    So who was in the wrong
here? Him for wanting to spend his life with one particular woman, or Leona for
wanting to do what was right?
    He hated that phrase, doing
what was right. It reeked of duty at the expense of everything: duty to his
family, duty to his country, duty to produce the next Al-Qadim son and heir.
    Well, I don't need a son.
I don't need a second wife to produce one for me like some specially selected
brood mare! I need a beautiful red-haired creature who makes my heart ache each
time I look at her. I don't need to see that glazed look of emptiness she wears
after we make love!
    On a sigh he turned
round, swapped braced hands for braced shoulders against the shower wall. The
water hit his face and stopped him breathing. He didn't care if he never
breathed again—until instinct took over from grim stubbornness and forced him
to move again.
    Coming out of the
bathroom a few minutes later, he had to scan the room before he spotted her
sitting curled up in one of the chairs. She had opened the curtains and was
just sitting there staring out, with her wonderful hair gleaming hot against
the pale damask upholstery. She had wrapped herself in a swathe of white and a
glance at the tumbled bed told him she had dragged free the sheet of Egyptian
cotton to wear.
    His gaze dropped to the
floor by the bed, where their clothes still lay in an intimate huddle that was
a lot more honest than the two of them were with each other.
    'Find out how Ethan is.'
    The sound of her voice
brought his attention back to her. She hadn't moved, had not turned to look at
him. and the demand spoke volumes as to what was really being said. Barter and
exchange. She had given him more of herself than she had intended to do: now
she wanted something back by return.
    Without a word he crossed
to the internal telephone and found out what she wanted to know, ordered some
food to be sent