Taken by the Sheikh

Sadie was guiltily aware that a part of her almost wished that Drax wasn’t a twin. Why? Was it because knowing he shared such a close relationship with someone else who had been there for him all his life somehow threatened her own relationship with him? How could that happen? She was looking for problems where none existed, she told herself firmly. After all, hadn’t Drax just told her that he loved her and wanted to marry her?

‘I don’t want to leave you, but I’d better go and find Vere.’

‘To tell him about us? Me?’ Why was she asking that? Did she feel some kind of need to test Drax?

‘To tell him about you, yes,’ Drax agreed. After all, it was the truth.

CHAPTER TEN

‘VERE! I didn’t realise you were back until Sadie told me she’d seen you. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.’

Drax embraced his twin warmly. Vere would be amused when he told him that he had taken his advice and that he was going to marry Sadie himself, Drax admitted. Not that he intended to tell him yet. For the first time in his life Drax was experiencing an emotional need to separate himself slightly from his twin and keep the discovery of his love for Sadie within the special circle of intimacy that belonged to those newly in love. Yes, part of him wanted to tell not just Vere but the whole kingdom how he felt—that he had found the woman with whom he wanted to send the rest of his life—but another part of him wanted to hold Sadie close while they got used to the sensation of the world rocking slightly beneath their feet, reaching for mutual support at the awesome mystery of loving and being loved. The truth was that a part of him was so jealously protective of Sadie and their love that at the moment he didn’t want to share its existence with anyone other than Sadie herself.

Because he wasn’t entirely sure of that love? No. He was sure beyond any kind of doubt about his own feelings. But not Sadie’s? Sadie loved him. He knew that.

‘Drax, I was just about to come and find you. I want to talk to you about Sadie, and to offer you my apologies for not listening to you when you first spoke of her to me. She is charming. Quite irresistible. Delightfully so,’ Vere emphasised softly, with a gleam in his eyes that turned Drax’s stomach and filled him with an unfamiliar and furious jealousy.

Vere found Sadie attractive? He wanted her? He hadn’t let himself think that this might happen, that Vere might want Sadie. But why not? Why shouldn’t Vere recognise how wonderful she was, just as he had done?

‘A beautiful young woman,’ Vere continued approvingly. ‘You were right to bring her to Dhurahn, and I was wrong. She is indeed perfect wife material.’

Vere was smiling expectantly at him, but the last thing Drax felt like doing was smiling. Murderous probably came closer to describing his feelings, he admitted bitterly. But he couldn’t blame his twin for recognising, now that he had spoken with Sadie, just how lovable and wonderful she was, and acting to stake a claim on her. After all, he had been the one who had been stupid enough to suggest that Vere should marry her. And he was the one who had refused to accept his own reaction to her within minutes of having blackmailed her into getting into his car. He should have acted then, instead of being too proud to admit that he had fallen head over heels in love with her. He should have told Vere then. Not that he had found the perfect temporary wife for him, but that he had found the perfect, the only, permanent love for himself.

‘Drax?’

He could hear the concern in his brother’s voice, as well as see it in his eyes.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Drax said shortly. ‘As you say, she will make a perfect wife.’

‘You don’t look very pleased that I’m agreeing with you. I expected you to be more enthusiastic than this,’ Vere told him lightly.

Was there a subtle warning in Vere’s words? A hint, perhaps, that he was on the verge of guessing his feelings? A reminder that Vere, as the elder twin, had the right to ‘first choice’? Drax could taste the acid bitterness of his own jealousy. He could feel its burning heat and its savaging pain. He had never imagined he could harbour such feelings toward his twin, nor had he imagined that there would come a day when his love for a woman would be so intense and so total that she and it would eclipse the bond he had with Vere.

But he was, Drax reminded himself, a man of principle. It wasn’t, after all, Vere’s fault that he too had fallen for Sadie. They shared the same genes, so why shouldn’t they love the same woman? But only one of them could have her. And he had already promised her to Vere.

Why didn’t he tell his twin that he had changed his mind? That he had already declared his feelings to Sadie and that she, in turn, returned them? an inner voice urged him. He was tempted to listen to it and take its advice—but how could he? He was a man of honour, a man of his word, and he had already given Vere a promise that he should have Sadie. How could he tell him that he had changed his mind and now wanted her for himself? How could he force his twin to suffer the dark bitterness of the emotions now gripping him?

So he was prepared to sacrifice his love for his twin, and he was prepared to sacrifice Sadie as well, was he? After she had told him she loved him? Was that fair to her? No, Sadie might believe she loved him, but Vere was more worthy of her love, Drax decided bleakly. Vere’s were the shoulders that carried the greater burden of responsibility for their country. How could he, his twin, who knew him better than anyone else, see him denied the love and companionship of a woman as unique as Sadie? And she would learn to love Vere. How could she not do so? She would love him, and bear his children, and in time he—

The savagery of the pain that gripped him almost made him cry out. These were thoughts of a future he could not and would not endure. Sadie was his! Less than an hour ago

he had only just stopped himself from making her his. If he hadn’t done so, right now within her there could have been the life force that would create their child…

The darkest of thoughts stormed through his mind, both tempting and threatening his loyalty to his twin. The Drax who was so deeply in love with Sadie wanted to destroy anything and anyone who might come between them and take her from him. But the Drax who was Vere’s twin fought against the dark pull of those feelings.

As he struggled to overcome them, Vere watched his twin with a small frown. Drax’s reaction wasn’t what he had been expecting.

‘Drax, if there’s a problem you want to discuss with me…?’ he began.

This was Drax’s opportunity to confide in his twin, to ask him to step back and allow him to claim Sadie, but a mixture of loyalty and pride refused to let him do so. Even if Vere agreed that he should have Sadie, how could he ever be sure that Vere might not regret his decision and…and what? Blame him for taking Sadie from him? Try to steal her away from him? How could he ever feel the same way about his twin? How could there be that bond of absolute trust and loyalty between them there had always been? How could he trust himself not to betray it? Drax wondered bitterly. And yet that knowledge couldn’t make him regret what he and Sadie had already shared. He would carry the memory of that sweetness locked away within himself until his dying day.

‘No, there isn’t a problem. Why should there be?’ he asked Vere flatly.

Drax was withholding something from him, Vere sensed, but his pride would not allow him to press the point and insist on an explanation. They were grown men now, after all, not children and each was entitled to his privacy.

As always when he was hurt Vere retreated into the austere aloofness that Drax normally coaxed him out of.