by Penny Jordan
Walking through his bedroom, which was as elegantly minimalist as the rest of his quarters, Drax paused in his dressing room to remove clean clothes and then walked into his bathroom, shrugging off his towelling robe as he did so.
He showered quickly, almost brusquely, refusing to focus on his body in any way as he put up a mental barrier to stop himself from thinking about Sadie and the effect she had had on him earlier. But, while he could control his thoughts, he couldn’t hide from himself the knowledge that both the ache and its urgency were still there, and that were she to come to him now…
Were she to what? Angrily he reached for a towel, jerking it off the heated towel rail. What the hell was he letting himself think that for? She was nothing to him—less than nothing. She was just someone he could use to solve his brother’s current problem.
So he wasn’t going to mind when Vere took her to bed? Vere probably wouldn’t be taking her to bed; all his brother needed to do was persuade her to marry him. He didn’t have to consummate the marriage. In fact it would be better if he didn’t.
Better for whom? For him? Because he couldn’t control the white-hot surge of male blood-lust that possessed him at the thought of his twin touching Sadie? Why should he think something like that? He dropped the towel and strode into his dressing room, pulling on clean clothes—not the white tee shirt and the stone-coloured chinos he had originally intended to wear, but traditional Arab dress instead. Because wearing it would reinforce the barrier he needed to create between him and Sadie?
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘AND this, as you may remember from the plans I showed you earlier, is the main building of the complex.’
Sadie nodded her head, glad that she was wearing her sunglasses and had covered her head against the strong sun as she stood next to Drax, looking towards the gleaming, mirror-fronted building that rose up in front of her from the desert floor and was so many storeys high it seemed as though it was trying to reach the sky.
Apart from being able to recognise the central completed building, Sadie couldn’t pick out any of the other distinguishing features she had seen on the plans in the vast construction site all around them.
Drax had driven them both here himself, not for the first time surprising Sadie with his preference for informality—or at least what passed for informality for him. Sadie hadn’t missed the way people turned to look at him, obviously well aware of who he was.
‘This new four-lane highway you see under construction runs from the complex to the airport, with this spur, which they are currently working on, going into Dhurahn city. Dhurahn Financial, as we intend to call the new development, will in effect be a city within a city. It will operate under English mercantile law and have its own judiciary system and buildings. Those who work here will have the option of living within its environs in apartment blocks or of moving out to the coast. We find that many overseas nationals prefer to live by the sea if they can, and so we plan to construct another four-lane highway to a sleeper township on the coast.
‘The official language within Dhurahn Financial will be English, but naturally translation services will be provided in much the same way as they are in Brussels. Although our system will be rather more state-of-the-art.
‘The new city is being constructed on a circle plan. The central building will be ringed with roads and additional rings of buildings, which will be divided into segments of quarters, eighths, then sixteenths and so on as the circles widen. Each segment will have its own national flavour with regard to facilities and food outlets, as we intend to become a global financial meeting point.’
Sadie listened in awe. The sheer scale of the plan was breathtaking now that she was here at its centre.
‘No one will ever have seen anything like it,’ she said. ‘No,’ Drax agreed calmly. ‘That is our plan: that it shall be unique and remain unique. In order to maintain security we intend to operate a chip and pin pass system for everyone who works here. No one will be allowed to enter Dhurahn Financial without the correct authority. Now, let me show you inside the main building.’
As they walked towards it Sadie could see a fleet of immaculate mini-coaches parked outside the main entrance.
‘We have been inviting certain financial sector personnel to come to Dhurahn for inspection tours,’ Drax explained.
‘You’ve done so much already. I can’t see why you would need to employ someone like me,’ Sadie told him impetuously, turning to him as she spoke, and then giving a small gasp as her foot slipped on the rubble underfoot.
Drax reacted immediately, reaching out to take hold of her bare arm to steady her.
She was so close to him that she was convinced he must be able to hear the frantic thudding of her heart, never mind see the swift rise and fall of her breasts as she gulped in air. She was suddenly aware that her fingers were clutching at his forearm. The white cotton of his robe felt crisp and fresh beneath the hot stickiness of her hand. She could smell the elusive but sensual scent of male skin and sunshine, and some subtly pleasant cologne; it enticed her to move closer to him so that she could breathe it in. She had taken a step towards him before she could stop herself.
The hand he had placed on her arm moved up to her shoulder, to accommodate her move forward. She could feel its warmth cupping the rounded ball of her shoulder joint where her bare skin met the cotton edge of her top’s short sleeve—only his hand wasn’t on her sleeve, it was on her bare flesh, as though he had slid his fingers beneath the edge of her sleeve. Just thinking of that kind of intimacy made her tremble as though a fine thread inside her linking every erogenous zone she possessed had been pulled tighter. She could see the dark column of his throat, its skin taut and golden. If she lifted her gaze a little higher she would be able to see his mouth.
Her heart missed one beat and then another as she did exactly that. She couldn’t remember ever studying a man’s mouth so closely before, or wanting to do so. If she had, the moment was completely overwhelmed now by the experience of absorbing every tiny detail of Drax’s mouth. His bottom lip was full and curved, indenting sharply into the corners. She wanted to touch it, to draw her fingertip slowly along it. She wanted…She wanted to lean forward and press her own mouth against his. She wanted…
Did she know what she was doing, looking at him like that? Looking at his mouth with those big eyes, their gaze drowned in open desire? Drax’s fingers tightened on the warm, bare flesh of her shoulder, where he had slipped his hand beneath her sleeve, kneading and caressing its curve. He looked down at her body and saw how her nipples were pressing against the fabric of her top, signalling her arousal. It would be the easiest thing in the world to lift his free hand to shape them and then pluck erotically at the boldly aroused flesh, to whisper to her how he would kiss and caress its nakedness before taking it into his mouth to unite them in fierce physical pleasure.
The easiest thing, and the most dangerous. The erection he had controlled earlier throbbed urgently with aching need. He could take her back to his car now. They would be back within the palace and the privacy of his own quarters within half an hour, and then he could take his pleasure of her in all the ways his body was demanding.
Except that he had vowed that she would be Vere’s. Vere’s—not his!
He released her so swiftly that Sadie wasn’t sure if what she was feeling was relief or disappointment. What had possessed her to simply stand there like that? she wondered uncomfortably as she tried to keep pace with Drax’s long stride. Was it possible that somewhere deep inside every sensible woman there was a throwback gene to a more primitive age, with a secret desire to be claimed by a man strong enough, daring enough and powerful enough, to snatch her up and make her his own?
‘It is a pity that my brother isn’t here to show you round the building. I am sure that when he returns he will wish to do so. This venture is very close to his heart.’
‘But the design concept for the overall plan is yours?’ Sadie guessed intuitively, as they reached
the entrance to the building.
She didn’t want Drax to bring his brother into the conversation. Somehow it broke the intimacy between them, almost as though he was actually physically standing between them. The sharp stab of jealousy she felt shocked her. What kind of foolishness was this? Surely only a woman teetering on the verge of falling wildly and passionately in love with a man could feel jealous of a brother she had yet to meet?
Drax was holding the door to the building open for her. Relieved to have an excuse not to pursue her unwanted line of thought, Sadie stepped through it, shivering a little at the chill of the air-conditioning.
As she gazed upwards from the spacious ground floor with its inner atrium, Sadie couldn’t help but be impressed. She knew from the plans Drax had shown her earlier that the building had its own state-of-the-art health club complex, complete with a gym, a swimming pool, treatment rooms, and a restaurant. It also had a cinema that could be used for conferences as well as to show the latest films, several bars and restaurants, and off-duty meeting rooms for the use of those who worked in it. And this was only one of the planned buildings that would form the whole complex.
‘What do you think?’
Sadie was astonished that Drax felt he needed to ask her opinion.
‘With a set-up like this you’re bound to be able to attract top-quality personnel,’ she told him honestly. ‘I can’t imagine anyone turning down the opportunity to work here and be part of such an exciting new venture.’
‘We’ve tried to plan for all contingencies. Some of the more senior personnel will be older, with families, so we’re planning to open schools in the new complex on the coast. Dhurahn already has a university, originally endowed and established by our grandfather, but my brother has taken on its expansion as a personal project. He is the philanthropist, while I am more the hard-headed businessman. I think when you meet him that you will find Vere is very much more on your wavelength than I.’
Sadie tensed. For some reason she was beginning to feel almost hostile at Drax’s frequent references to his brother’s virtues—although she knew there was no logical reason why she should feel that way.
As they waited for a lift to take them to the upper floors Drax’s mobile rang. He turned aside to answer it at the same time as the lift doors opened to disgorge a group of European men in business suits, all of them young and, to Sadie, very obviously what she privately termed ‘trading floor types’. They exuded the male confidence, arrogance and street cred that epitomised the City boy, and Sadie wasn’t surprised to find herself being openly inspected.
That didn’t bother her particularly, but she felt far less sanguine when one of them suddenly detached himself from the others and came over to her, saying loudly in an over-familiar way that infuriated her, ‘Well, if it isn’t Sadie! Prim little Sadie, who doesn’t do sex. What brings you here? You can’t be up for a job. They only want the top graduates—although Lord knows you must need the money since you got the push from the bank.’
To Sadie’s relief Drax, still speaking into his mobile, was standing too far away to hear what was being said, although he had turned round to face them.
‘Actually, I already have a job, thank you, Jack,’ Sadie answered as calmly as she could.
Jack Logan. Jack the Lad, as the other men in the office had admiringly nick-named him. Sadie had disliked him from the moment they had been introduced—and she had ended up disliking him even more after he had trapped her in an empty office and tried to coerce her into having sex with him. Luckily she had managed to escape before he had tried to force her, but Sadie knew that he hadn’t forgiven her for rejecting him. His comments now were, she acknowledged, a form of payback.
Drax had finished his conversation and was looking enquiringly at her. Sadie wriggled past her unpleasant former colleague and hurried over to rejoin him.
‘An old friend?’ Drax asked her coolly.
‘We used to work together,’ Sadie answered shortly, wondering what Jack the Lad would make of the deference being shown to Drax by his guide as he salaamed with deep reverence and Drax responded with a small inclination of his head.
‘And this, of course, is the main dealing room.’
Sadie nodded her head in acknowledgement as they completed their tour of the building. As yet the vast room did not reek of male hormones and the sharp scent of bullish aggression, like the dealing rooms she was used to, but no doubt they soon would.
‘That young man you were talking to earlier,’ Drax demanded abruptly. ‘What exactly is your relationship?’
If the question had come from anyone else, Sadie knew she would have refused to answer it. But she was becoming used to Drax’s autocratic belief that he had a right to have even his most intimate questions answered. Either that or her emotions were becoming so entrapped by him that she wanted him to know everything about her and her past. Though of course she wasn’t silly enough to let herself get emotionally involved with a man who had shown no signs of wanting an involvement, was she?
‘As I’ve already told you, we worked together.’
‘His body language suggested that his relationship with you was more than that of a mere work colleague,’ Drax said.
Sadie shook her head. ‘The young men from the trading floor always behave like that. It’s part of their macho image; it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘So you weren’t involved in a sexual relationship with him?’ Drax persisted.
He wasn’t asking these questions on his own account, he assured himself. Why should he be? After all it was of no interest to him how many men had taken her to bed. No, he was thinking of his brother.
He knew Vere would never accept as his wife a woman whose ex-lover was the kind of man he had seen talking to Sadie—even as his temporary wife. It was unrealistic, of course, to expect her not to have had a sexual partner—even more than one—but the people of Dhurahn would have certain expectations about the wives of their rulers, and those expectations would have to be met—even if its rulers knew the marriage was only going to be temporary.
‘No, I wasn’t,’ Sadie reaffirmed, almost fiercely. Was her face burning as much as she thought? Betraying how uncomfortable she felt? It wasn’t that she had anything to hide, or at least not the kind of thing that her employer seemed to think she might have to hide, but she was acutely sensitive about the fact that for a woman of her age and situation she was lacking the kind of sexual experience she might be expected to have. There probably never had been an age when a woman in her twenties was proud to say openly that she was still a virgin; in earlier times, when female virginity had been prized, girls had been married in their teens, and unmarried virgins past that age would probably have been looked upon as objects of pity—rejects, unable to find a husband and bringing shame on her family.
Now, while it was laughable that any woman should feel rejected because she wasn’t married, there was a certain stigma—a certain sniggering kind of unkindness, especially from men—attached to a woman who remained a virgin.
Sadie could well imagine how someone like Jack Logan would react if he knew the truth about her. Which was, of course, why she had made sure that no one did know, keeping her secret to herself.
It wasn’t as if she had made some kind of vow to cling to celibacy—far from it. It was just that the right partner had never come along at the right time, and then, when she had begun to realise that she might have left it later than normal to lose her virginity, she had started to worry about how any potential partner might react to the knowledge that he was to be her first lover. That in turn had caused her to keep the men she did date at arm’s length, so that the whole situation had grown steadily more burdensome—rather like compound interest, she told herself with grim humour.
Drax watched her, wondering what it was causing the defensive and almost secretive look to darken her eyes, and what it was she was so obviously withholding from him. There could, of course, be only one thing. She was lying to him about her
relationship with the man he had seen talking to her. Normally the knowledge that a woman was lying to him about her sexual past would have caused him to feel merely cynically amused. But, as he was slowly being forced to recognise, nothing that had happened to him since he had first set eyes on Sadie came anywhere near being close to his ‘normal’ reaction. That alone was enough to infuriate him, without the added thought of Sadie with another man. He could see her now, giving herself to that man with wanton abandon, inciting him with her soft full mouth and her sweetly curved body to take them to the savage erotic heights he himself so ached to show her.
Drax fought desperately to ignore what he was feeling and thinking. But it was too late. As surely as any genie let loose from its imprisoning bottle, the reality of his desire for her had been exposed.
‘We need to return to the palace,’ he told her curtly. ‘I have a meeting I need to attend.’
There wasn’t any meeting, but he didn’t trust himself to remain alone with her in his present mood, and at least if they returned to the palace he could distance himself from her.
Sadie was too relieved that he had stopped questioning her about her non-existent sex-life to worry about his brusque manner.
They were waiting for the lift when the man who had been escorting Jack Logan’s group came hurrying towards them, salaaming to Drax and then saying something urgently to him in Arabic.
‘Go downstairs and wait for me in the foyer,’ Drax told Sadie after he had listened to the older man. ‘There is something I have to attend to. I won’t be very long.’
Nodding her head, Sadie got in the lift.
The foyer really was magnificent, she acknowledged, as she stepped out of the lift on the ground floor. Drax and his brother were bound to make a success of their venture, and she admitted that she hoped there might be a real future for her here.