The sheikh's chosen wife Read Free

can
feel the vibrations bouncing from one to the other across the thousands of
miles separating them as if they are communicating by some unique telepathy
that runs on pure pain! It's dreadful,' Victor had confided to Ethan.
'Something has to give some time.'
    Eventually, it had done.
Two months ago Leona had walked unannounced into the office of her family
lawyer and had instructed him to begin divorce proceedings, on the grounds of
irreconcilable differences. What had prompted her to pick that particular day
in that particular month of a very long year no one understood, and Leona
herself wasn't prepared to enlighten anyone. But there wasn't a person who
knew her who didn't believe it was an action that had caused a trigger
reaction, when a week later she had fallen foul of a virulent flu bug that had
kept her housebound and bedridden for weeks afterwards.
    But when she had
recovered, at least she'd come back ready to face the world again. She had
agreed to come here to San Estaban, for instance, and utilise her design skills
on the completed villas.
    She looked better for it
too. Still too pale, maybe, but overall she'd begun to live a more normal day
to day existence.
    Ethan had no wish to send
her back into hiding now she had come out of it, so he turned her to face him
and pressed a light kiss to her brow. 'Come on,' he said briskly. 'Let's go and
party!"
    Finding her smile again,
Leona nodded her agreement and tried to appear as though she was looking
forward to the evening. As they began to walk back across the terrace she felt
a fine tingling at the back of her neck which instinctively warned her that
someone was observing them.
    The suspicion made her
pause and turn to cast a frowning glance over their surroundings. She could see
nothing untoward, but wasn't surprised by that. During the years she had lived
in an Arab sheikhdom, married to a powerful and very wealthy man, she had grown
used to being kept under constant, if very discreet, surveillance.
    But that surveillance had
been put in place for her own protection. This felt different—sinister. She
even shivered.
    'Something wrong?' Ethan
questioned.
    Leona shook her head and
began walking again, but her frown stayed in place, because it wasn't the first
time she'd experienced the sensation today. The same thing had happened as
she'd left the resort site this afternoon, only she'd dismissed it then as her
just being silly. She had always suspected that Hassan still kept an eye on
her from a distance.
    A car and driver had been
hired for the evening, and both were waiting in the courtyard for them as they
left the house. Having made sure she was comfortably settled, Ethan closed the
side door and strode around the car to climb in beside her. As a man she had
known for most of her adult life. Ethan was like a very fond cousin whose lean
dark sophistication and reputed rakish life made her smile, rather than her
heart flutter as other women would do in his company.
    He'd never married.
'Never wanted to,' he'd told her once. 'Marriage diverts your energy away from
your ambition, and I haven't met the woman for whom I'm prepared to let that
happen.'
    When she'd told Hassan
what Ethan had said, she'd expected him to say something teasing like. May
Allah help him when he does, for I know the feeling! But instead he'd looked
quite sombre and had said nothing at all. At the time, she'd thought he'd been
like that because he'd still been harbouring jealous suspicions about Ethan's
feelings for her.
    It had been a long time
before she'd come to understand that the look had had nothing at all to do with
Ethan.
    'The Petronades yacht
looks pretty impressive.' Ethan's smooth deep voice broke into her thoughts. 'I
watched it sail into the harbour tonight while I was waiting for you on the
    Leandros Petronades was
the main investor in San Esteban. He was hosting the party tonight for very
exclusive guests whom he had seduced into taking a tour of the new resort, with
an