Taken by the Sheikh

Drax made a mental note to make sure that the cabin crew were warned to keep a close watch on him on the return flight—but his thoughts were really on Sadie and how fast he could get back to her and apologise.

Sadie hadn’t realised that there was another entrance into the garden until she saw Drax walking towards her from the opposite end to her own quarters. He was wearing traditional robes, the sunlight falling across his arrogantly handsome face.

Her heart leapt and then abruptly stopped leaping, and then did nothing except beat in its normal way. Even when Drax was standing within a few feet of her, looking at her with that small, half curling twist of his lips that normally sent her heart-rate into overdrive and turned her weak with longing, she didn’t want him. She felt like pinching herself, just to make sure she could feel something and hadn’t somehow gone completely numb. How could she not feel anything? But she didn’t. Not a single throb of desire or an ache of longing, not a single inclination to run to him, not even the anger she had every right to feel after the way he had treated her. Which meant…Which meant that she didn’t love him after all. She was safe; she no longer needed to worry. And yet…

‘If you’ve come to apologise—’ she said fiercely.

‘I do owe you an apology, it is true.’ He was inclining his head slightly, his voice cool and remote, almost as though…

‘You aren’t Drax,’ she accused, not knowing really why she should say it or how it could be true, and yet at the same time utterly convinced that she was right.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I’m not Drax. I’m his brother—Vere. And you, of course, are Ms Sadie Murray?’

‘Yes,’ Sadie said, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious.

‘I must congratulate you, Ms Murray. Very few people can tell Drax and I apart, even though they may have known us for years. You, on the other hand, perceived almost instantly that I was not my brother.’

‘I don’t know why I said that,’ Sadie admitted. ‘You look like him.’

‘Actually, he looks like me, since I am older. But, yes, we are identical.’ He smiled at her. ‘You will forgive me, I hope, if—having introduced myself to you and bade you welcome to our country and our home—I make my excuses?’

‘Yes. Yes of course.’

The wonder wasn’t that she had realised he wasn’t Drax, but that she had ever imagined he might be, Sadie reflected as she watched him leave. They might look identical, but in character and manner they were very different. Vere was so much more formal than Drax, so much more reserved and withdrawn. Just as arrogant, no doubt, but stiffer, more wary and ‘ruler-like’. And, of course, not anywhere near so desirable as Drax. But she had already warned herself that she must not love him.

How much more easy her life would be if Drax was more like his twin and she didn’t want him, Sadie reflected ruefully, as she watched the goldfish swimming lazily amongst the water lilies in the pond.

On his way back to the palace all Drax could think about was Sadie. He had been wrong in refusing to believe her, but right in recognising that the real motivation for his anger hadn’t been so much that he had thought she was lying as the fact that he had begun to realise his true feelings for her.

Vere, no doubt, would be highly amused when Drax informed him that he intended to take his advice and marry Sadie himself. But, instead of her being a temporary wife, he wanted her to be his permanent wife—his one and only wife, the wife of his heart.

He drove faster than normal, anxious to get back to Sadie, and the first thing he did when he reached the palace was to make his way straight to the women’s quarters.

Sadie had come inside, out of the heat of the sun, to have a cooling shower and drink the glass of mint tea Hakeem had brought for her. When she heard the faint tap on the door to her suite, she thought at first it must be the maid—until the door opened and Drax strode in, closing it firmly behind him.

This time her heart knew exactly who he was. She longed to throw herself into his arms. But she hadn’t forgotten the cruel things he had said to her, so she stood tensely, watching him as he came towards her.

‘I’ve come to apologise,’ he said simply.

Just the scent of his skin was enough to send her dizzy with longing and to reactivate the unsatisfied ache he had left deep within her body.

‘I’ve spoken to Jack Logan.’ Sadie watched as his mouth tightened and anger flashed darkly in the depths of his eyes. ‘He’s scum.’

‘But you were prepared to believe him when you wouldn’t believe me?’ Sadie pointed out quietly.

‘I was jealous,’ Drax said quietly. ‘I’m not trying to make excuses for myself, Sadie, but it maddened me to see you in his arms and to think—Jealous men do stupid things; they think stupid things as well. I was wrong, and I should have believed you. Can you forgive me?’

Could she? She already knew the answer to that, and she saw from the way he was looking at her that Drax knew it too.

He was walking very purposefully and determinedly towards her, and there was a gleam in his eyes that warned her of what he was going to do.

‘Well?’ he whispered huskily as he took her in his arms. ‘You haven’t answered me yet.’

‘I don’t know,’ Sadie whispered. She couldn’t stop looking at him, even though she knew he would read in her eyes how much she loved him. He was going to kiss her…

‘Drax—’ she began, but she knew she wanted her denial to be too late and ignored.

He was still holding her, and he could feel the unsteady thudding of her heart. ‘Are you feeling what I’m feeling?’ he asked softly.