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shattered.
Emotionally, physically, she felt herself fragment into a thousand broken
pieces beneath his stone-cold, cruel gaze.
    Hassan didn't see it
coming. He should have done, he knew that, but he had been too angry to see
anything but his own affronted pride. So when she turned and ran he didn't
expect it. By the time he had pulled his wits together enough to go after her
Leona was already flying through the door on a flood of tears.
    The tears blinded what
was ahead of her, the abaya having prevented her from taking stock of her
surroundings as they'd arrived. Hassan heard Rafiq call out a warning, reached
the door as Leona's cry curdled the very air surrounding them and she began to
fall.
    What he had managed to
prevent by the skin of his teeth only a half-hour before now replayed itself
before his helpless eyes. Only it was not the dark waters of the Mediterranean
she fell into but the sea of cream carpet that ran from room to room and down a
wide flight of three shallow stairs that led down into the yacht's main foyer.
    CHAPTER THREE
    Cursing and swearing in
seething silence, Hassan prowled three sides of the bed like a caged tiger
while the yacht's Spanish medic checked her over.
    'No bones broken, as far
as I can tell,' the man said. 'No obvious blow to the head.'
    'Then why is she
unconscious?' he growled out furiously.
    'Shock—winded,' the medic
suggested, gently laying aside a frighteningly limp hand. 'It has only been a
few minutes, sir.'
    But a few minutes was a
lifetime when you felt so guilty you wished it was yourself lying there, Hassan
thought harshly.
    'A cool compress would be
a help—'
    A cool compress. 'Raflq.'
The click of his fingers meant the job would be done.
    The sharp sound made
Leona flinch. On a single, lithe leap Hassan was suddenly stretched out across
the bed and leaning over her. The medic drew back; Rafiq paused in his step.
    'Open your eyes.' Hassan
turned her face towards him with a decidedly unsteady hand.
    Her eyes fluttered open
to stare up at him blankly. 'What happened?' she mumbled.
    'You fell down some
stairs,' he gritted. 'Now tell me where you hurt.'
    A frown began to pucker
her smooth brow as she tried to
    'Concentrate,' he rasped,
diverting her mind away from what had happened. 'Do you hurt anywhere?'
    She closed her eyes
again, and he watched her make a mental inventory of herself then give a small
shake of her head. 'I think I'm okay.' She opened her eyes again, looked
directly into his, saw his concern, his anguish, the burning fires of guilt—and
then she remembered why she'd fallen.
    Aching tears welled up
again. From coldly plunging his imaginary knife into her breast, he now felt it
enter his own. 'You really went and did it,' she whispered.
    'No, I did not,' he
denied. 'Get out,' he told their two witnesses.
    The room emptied like
water down a drain, leaving them alone again, confronting each other again. It
was dangerous. He wanted to kiss her so badly he could hardly breathe. She was
his. He was hers! They should not be in this warring situation!
    'No—remain still!' he
commanded when she attempted to move. 'Don't even breathe unless you have to do
so! Why are females so stupid?’ he bit out like a curse. 'You insult me with
your suspicions. You goad me into a response, and when it is not the one you
want to hear you slay me with your pain!"
    ‘I didn't mean to fall
down the stairs,' she pointed out.
    'I wasn't talking about
the fall!' he bit out, then glared down into her confused, hurt, vulnerable
eyes for a split second longer. 'Oh, Allah give me strength,' he gritted, and
gave in to himself and took her trembling mouth by storm.
    If he had kissed her in
any other way Leona would have fought him with her very last breath. But she
liked the storm; she needed the storm so she could allow herself to be swept
away. Plus he was trembling, and she liked that too. Liked to know that she
still had the power to reduce the prince in him to this vulnerable mass