Taken by the Sheikh

‘Get dressed and go back to your quarters,’ he told Sadie curtly. ‘We’ll discuss this further later.’

CHAPTER NINE

WAS she really so weak that she was actually allowing Drax to treat her like this? Sadie derided herself angrily an hour later, as she sat alone in what should have been the tranquillity of the private gardens of the women’s quarters. Why hadn’t she objected when he had virtually ordered her to come here? Why hadn’t she refused and told him that she wanted to leave Dhurahn immediately? What was wrong with her?

Did she really need to ask herself that? What was wrong with her was the same thing that afflicted every woman who had ever fallen in love with the wrong man for the wrong reasons.

Fallen in love? Where had those words come from? She hadn’t fallen in love with Drax! No? Then what was the motivation behind her current driving compulsive need to be with him, to hold him and touch him, to talk with him and learn all about him, to open her heart and mind to him, to take his hand and cling to it while they walked together though the shadows of her past, to give him the intimacy of herself and to be given the same intimacy back from him? What was all that if not love? How could she deny to herself that this was how she felt? But how could she love him when she knew that he did not feel the same way? And how was she going to deal with that and protect herself from its pain?

It had been a simple enough matter for Drax to delay the return flight to Heathrow carrying the young bankers and MBAs who had leapt so eagerly at the chance to come to Dhurahn. He was actually in the terminal building when the Royal flight bringing his twin home a day ahead of schedule touched down—although he was not aware of Vere’s arrival.

Jack Logan wasn’t at all concerned at the delay in their flight’s departure—the only thing that hadn’t run to schedule in the whole of their superbly organised and tightly packed trip. He was quite happy to while away the time demanding more of the vintage champagne being served by the pretty hostesses, at the same time subjecting them to some heavily explicit flirtation. Nor was he too concerned when an immaculately dressed middle-aged official came to escort him off the plane. To the cat-calls, whoops and cheers of his companions, the older man explained to him that there was a small irregularity that needed to be dealt with.

‘Small, is it, Jack?’ one of his friends called out coarsely. ‘And there’s you always boasting that it’s six inches and rising.’

‘Nah—six inches without rising,’ Jack quipped back over his shoulder, grinning at the pretty hostess standing by the exit.

By the time he was actually shown into Drax’s presence ten minutes later he was swaggering boastfully, and blustering out an arrogant demand to be told what the hell was going on.

‘Forgive me for the inconvenience,’ Drax apologised calmly. ‘I assure you that you will soon be free to rejoin your flight. You know Ms Sadie Murray?’

Since Drax was now in western dress, and speaking very calmly, Jack had no sense of being in any danger. Nor did he make the association between the traditionally dressed man he had seen with Sadie and the urbane authority of this man seated in front of him. He immediately leapt to the conclusion that Sadie had lodged a complaint against him. The better part of a bottle of champagne had dulled his normally sharp awareness of how to protect his interests, and led him now to laugh and say unkindly, ‘Yes, I know her. She’s the type that acts like she’s wearing a chastity belt and enjoying it. As sexless as it’s possible for a woman to be.’

‘You saw her earlier on today, I believe?’ Drax continued, outwardly ignoring Jack’s swaggering manner but inwardly registering every betraying word and look.

‘Yeah, I saw her. Ms Don’t-touch-me,’ he told Drax mockingly, and then swore crudely before continuing, ‘God, but I really hate her smugness. If anyone has it coming to her, she does. Acting like she’s too good for me.’

There was an ugly look in his eyes, and Drax had to swallow hard against the sour taste in his mouth as he realised the danger Sadie had been in. ‘You wanted to show her who was boss? Scare her a bit…punish her?’ he suggested.

‘Yeah, right.’ Jack was warming more and more to his interrogator by the second. ‘She deserved it. Turning me down like she did. I’d have been a fool not to take the opportunity to pay her back.’

‘So you slipped away from the others and followed her?’

‘Yeah. She’s complained about me, has she? That’s typical of her. Just because I gave her a bit of a scare. If I’d been that desperate I’d have found myself a woman who knows what it’s all about—not some prim, innocent virgin-type like her.’ He gave a contemptuous shrug. ‘Man, what a turn-off she is. But she owed me, and she had it coming to her.’

How could he not have believed Sadie? Drax was torn between a need to walk—no, run from the small enclosed room and go straight to her, and a savage urge to grab Jack by the throat and tell him what he thought of him. Instead he had to conceal what he was actually thinking and ask pleasantly, ‘What do you mean, she had it coming to her?’

Jack Logan grimaced. ‘She turned me down and made me look a fool, so it was payback time. Come on, mate, you must know what it’s all about when a woman acts that way.’

‘What way do you mean?’ Drax asked.

‘You know. She made out that I was some kind of pervert just because I made a bit of a play for her, and threatened to complain if I did it again. So I thought I’d pay her back for it.’

‘Frighten her, you mean?’ It was an effort for Drax to keep his voice empty of emotion and to offer Jack a small, man-to-man conspiratorial smile.

Jack was starting to relax. This was a man’s man, he could tell—the type who understood what life was all about.

‘Yeah, that’s right. Okay, so I grabbed hold of her and touched her up a bit. If she’s fool enough to make a big deal of it then that’s her problem. Anyway, don’t you have a law out here about women being guilty as hell if they get themselves raped?’

Drax decided he would very much like to tear Jack Logan limb from limb and throw his body to the d

esert vultures to pick clean. But of course he could do no such thing.

‘Thank you for your time, Mr Logan,’ he said distantly. ‘You will now be escorted back to your plane.’

Jack stood up and gave him a lewd grin.

‘Great—I’ve got one of those pretty little trolley dollies all set up, ready and waiting to go.’