by Penny Jordan
Was it really only a little over twenty-four hours since he had sat with her in the darkness of her room, holding her hand and cupping her face in his hands, whispering emotionally how much she meant to him?
‘I can’t wait for Dr Sayid to pronounce you fully fit. My bed has been as empty without you as my heart and my life would be if I lost you. I yearn to be with you, flesh to flesh, heart to heart and mind to mind. With nothing between us, no barriers to separate us.’
Sam’s heart turned over now, just replaying those words inside her head. Vere was such a passionate lover. Going into his arms was like opening a door into their own secret special world.
And yet now that Dr Sayid had pronounced her properly well, instead of taking her to his bed, as she so longed for him to do, Vere was ignoring her.
Why?
She ought to try and find out, Sam knew, but she just didn’t think she had the courage—even though a part of her said that she should find it. By staying here without knowing the truth of what Vere’s feelings were she was cheating them both, not just herself. Vere needed to be free to share his life with a woman he loved, and she was not that woman.
Her close brush with death had changed her, Sam recognised, making her all too aware of her physical vulnerability and the uncertainty of life, but at the same time giving her new emotional strength and an unshakable belief in the importance and value of love.
Like life itself, true love should not be treated lightly nor taken for granted. It demanded respect and the most tender of care.
She had had plenty of time to think about his life and the role she could reasonably expect to play in it whilst she had been recovering from the snake bite, and now that she was over the initial shock of his revelations about his misjudgement of her she was desperately trying to see past them and focus instead on the care he had shown her whilst she was ill. A care, she comforted herself, which must indicate that she meant something to him.
Vere stood in front of the formal state portrait of his parents. It dominated the palace’s formal audience room. It was here that subjects traditionally came to speak to their Ruler, and to have their voices heard.
The portrait was extraordinarily lifelike. During the early months after their death Vere had often come here to look at it, almost as though by focusing on the couple it would somehow bring them back to life. But of course he had known that this was not possible, and he had always left the room feeling as though he couldn’t bear the weight of his own pain.
It was in this room, beneath this portrait, that he had made a solemn mental vow that he must separate himself from his own vulnerability for the sake of his people, and that he must never allow himself to fall in love.
How could he rule wisely and properly if he was constantly in fear of life taking from him the person he loved? He could not.
But he had broken that vow in loving Sam, hadn’t he?
Vere knew he would never forget how he had felt when he had thought she was dying. He had had a vision then of his own future, his life stretching out ahead of him as a barren wasteland of nothingness.
But he could not afford that kind of vulnerability. Like someone once burned, he was mortally afraid of the remembered pain and of suffering it again. Better to live without the warmth of fire than to risk the agony it could inflict.
He couldn’t keep Sam here now. He knew that. It was too dangerous.
A protective veil had been ripped away from inside his heart, allowing him to see what was hidden inside it. He couldn’t pretend to himself any longer that it was only physical desire he felt for her, and that it was therefore safe to keep her with him in his life and in his bed.
He couldn’t send her away yet, though. Not until he was one hundred percent sure that she was fully recovered. It was all very well for Dr Sayid to say that she was, but Vere suspected that she still wasn’t restored to full physical strength. And besides, where would she go? How would she support herself?
A surge of protective urgency so strong that it caught him off guard thundered through him. He looked up at his parents’ portrait. His father’s arm rested protectively around his mother. The gesture reflected just how he wanted to keep Sam within the protection of his own love. But who could protect him from the pain he would suffer if he should lose her for any reason?
The only person who could do that was himself, by not loving her in the first place.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT was two days now since Sam had been told she was fully recovered, but she hadn’t seen Vere even once during that time... Tears pricked at Sam’s eyes. She felt abandoned and rejected, not knowing what she had done to cause Vere to treat her in such a way.
She put down the book she had been pretending to read and got up to wander aimlessly round the room, relieved to have someone else to talk to when Masiri appeared with a tray of coffee.
‘I am sorry I am late,’ she apologised. ‘Only the Princess called me and I had to go...’
‘The Princess?’ Sam queried uncertainly.
Vere had made no mention of any princess living in the palace.
‘Yes.’ Masiri nodded her head vigorously. ‘The Princess. She is the wife of His Highness. She has been away, visiting her own country, but now she has returned.’
Sam’s whole body had gone icy cold with shock.
Vere was married?
‘The Princess is the Prince’s wife?’ Sam could hear herself stammering, as the answer to her question as to why Vere was ignoring her became all too apparent.
‘Yes,’ Masiri confirmed.
Why hadn’t Vere told her he was married?
Did she really need to ask herself that?
He hadn’t told her because she was just his lover, his mistress, and men—especially men like Vere—did not discuss their wives with the women they chose to sleep with outside their marriage.
But Vere had told her he loved her.
That was what men told their lovers. And now that his wife was back he was regretting having said those words to her and wanted to back off from her. She hadn’t even really been his mistress, had she, never mind had his love? After all, the real reason he had brought her here had nothing to do with him wanting her.
It was as though two separate people were arguing inside her head. One the shamed, betrayed woman deeply in love, the other her cynical bitterly angry counterpart, savage with fury at the part she had unwittingly been forced to play in another woman’s marriage.
‘The Princess...?’
Masiri was looking at her, waiting for her to continue, but Sam knew that she had no right to ask the questions burning her heart.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told Masiri tonelessly.
Vere was married. Another woman had the right to call herself his wife, to share his life and his bed. Another woman. Never in the wildest reaches of her imagination had Sam ever envisaged herself playing the role of ‘the other woman’. If she had known right from the start that Vere was married...if he had told her...then she would never have...
She would never have what? Fallen in love with him? Gone to bed with him? Accepted his protection as her lover? At which one did she draw the line?
Sam felt sick with horror and shame.
She couldn’t stay here now. She would have to leave. It nauseated her to think what she had done. And what about Vere? How could he have done such a thing? Or did he expect his wife to understand that he had taken Sam to bed for the sake of Dhur
ahn, and that because of that it didn’t mean anything? Would she be able to accept that if she had been his wife? Or would it haunt her for the rest of her days that her husband might be lying to her and might have wanted that other woman?
The man she had thought Vere was could never have behaved as Vere had.
His behaviour was unforgivable, and he had dragged her down into its nastiness with him.
Sam knew that she would have left there and then but for the fact that Vere had taken charge of her passport for sakekeeping. She would have to wait until she could see him.
The smell of the coffee Masiri had poured for her before leaving the room was making her feel suffocated and sick. She badly needed some fresh air. She half ran and half stumbled into the pretty courtyard garden, now thankfully free of snakes.
She skirted the fish pond, hurrying down the path that led past it, unable to bear looking at it. Then she noticed for the first time that, almost obscured by the roses that smothered it, there was a high wrought-iron gate in the far wall of the garden.
What lay beyond it? Sam wondered absently, automatically going to look, pleased with any distraction from her thoughts on the horror of the reality of her situation.
At first all she could see was another garden, more modern in concept than the one she was in, ornamented with sleek pieces of artwork in stone and metal set in beds of gravel planted with grasses and spiky plants. Water jetted upwards in a thin straight plume from some unseen source. As she turned away she saw Vere, coming from the far corner of the garden. She drew in her breath. He was dressed in European clothes—a business suit that emphasised the breadth of his shoulders—and the greenery surrounding him threw shadows across his face. Sam waited for her heart to give its normal eager kick of recognition and joy, but strangely it didn’t.
He was turning his head away from her, without having seen her, holding out his hand to someone.
A woman came slowly towards him, wearing a white dress, a hat covering her head. She was very obviously pregnant, leaning into him and then smiling up at him. He was putting his arm around her to support her, bending his head to kiss her on the forehead, his hand resting protectively on her swollen body.
The desire to be violently sick cramped Sam’s insides. Unable to watch any longer, she turned and ran.
Sam had no idea how long she had been sitting there in the garden. She knew that every now and again her body shuddered violently of its own accord, and that in between those shudders her forehead broke out into a sweat. She knew too that she felt slightly light-headed. Light-headed, but oh, so very heavy-hearted.
Was Vere still with his wife? Was he cradling her and their child, his hand resting on the womanly flesh that held the new life they had created together, as it had done when she had seen them in the garden? Her teeth started to chatter together, but it was far from cold.
She could hear light footsteps on the path. Masiri, no doubt, coming to see where she was and if she wanted more coffee.
She stood up clumsily, the colour leaving her face as she stepped forward and saw that it wasn’t Masiri but Vere’s wife.
‘Oh, I’m sorry—I’ve startled you and I didn’t mean to.’
She had a light musical voice, and her smile was warm and genuine. ‘I’ve seen you walking in the garden, and I’ve been dying to come and talk to you. You’re English as well, aren’t you?’
Sam nodded her head, completely unable to speak.
‘I shouldn’t really be doing this, of course.’ She laughed, a soft, indulgent sound. ‘Vere won’t approve at all, and will be cross with me, I know, but I was so curious about you I couldn’t resist.’
Sam fought to match her calm, easy manner, feeling as though she had strayed into some surreal and alien world
‘Yes. Yes, you must have been curious.’
‘I can’t stay very long.’ She patted her stomach and pulled a face. ‘Vere’s been worrying that I might go into labour before my due date. I’m Sadie, by the way. I do hope that we’re going to be friends.’
Friends!
‘Yes,’ Sam agreed, wondering inwardly what on earth she was saying. She could never, ever be a friend to Vere’s wife. This was tearing her apart, destroying her. How could his wife be so nice to her? Unless...maybe she didn’t know that Vere had made love to her? Yes, that must be it, Sam decided feverishly. She didn’t know. Vere must have lied to her. How could it hurt so much, loving a man she knew wasn’t worthy of that love?
‘I’d better go,’ Sadie was saying. ‘I don’t want Vere to come and catch me here with you.’
Sam could feel herself trembling violently as she watched Sadie walk back the way she had come.
She had to get away from here. If only she could access her passport, Sam thought. She would do anything to escape her searing pain and equally searing guilt about having slept with Sadie’s husband. She didn’t have anything much to pack, as she certainly didn’t intend to take with her the clothes Vere had bought for her, even if she had given in and worn them these last few days.
Where was Vere now? With his wife? Reassuring her that she and their child were all that mattered to him? Was he whispering to Sadie the words of love and passion he had whispered to her? She would have to go and see him to demand that he return her passport, but she didn’t have any fears now that he would try to prevent her from leaving. He would probably be all too relieved to see her go.
Sam went back to her room and asked Masiri to have a message sent to Vere, telling him that she had to see him urgently.
Vere had been on the point of getting together with his twin so that Drax could update him on his recent trip when he was informed of Sam’s wish to see him ‘urgently’.
Sam’s use of the word ‘urgently’ produced within him a dangerous mix of volatile emotions, dominated by a recklessly urgent need of his own that had very little to do with dry dialogue and everything to do with a very male possessive instinct.
He had to confront his vulnerability, Vere decided. Avoiding any kind of contact with Sam was a coward’s way of dealing with the situation. A coward who was too weak to send her away, not strong enough to trust his own self-control. He inclined his head and gave instructions for Sam to be brought to his office.
The fact that Vere was seeing her in his office told her everything she needed to know, thought Sam as she was bowed into it, to find Vere seated at his desk, apparently engrossed in reading some documents he had in front of him.
He couldn’t have made it more obvious that it was over between them, and of course Sam knew exactly why. Beneath her pain the volcano of her pride sent up a lava-hot surge of protective anger.
‘It’s all right Vere,’ she told him. ‘I haven’t come to beg you to take me to bed, or to remind you about what you said to me when I was ill.’
Sam had the satisfaction of seeing the way the muscle in his jaw tensed beneath the lash of her latter comment.
‘All I want is my passport.’
He was looking at her now, a flicker of something unreadable briefly darkening his eyes before he averted his gaze.
‘So silly of me to feel concerned that I might be burdening you with my unwanted love, and that is why you haven’t been anywhere near me for the last couple of days, when the real reason is that your wife has returned to the palace. And so very naïve of me not to have guessed that you were married.’
She loved him. But then of course he knew that, because he now knew her. He knew that
without loving a man she could not and would not give herself in the way she had given herself to him.
A pain, slow and sharp and unending, was piercing him. He must endure it, because it was the price he had to pay for his future without her, and for the emotional security that future without Sam would bring him.
‘Your wife—Sadie—came to see me.’ Sam gave a laugh that was too high-pitched and haunted with despair. ‘She seemed to like me. She said she wanted us to be friends.’
All Vere had to do to stop her pain was tell her that she’d got it wrong and that Sadie was Drax’s wife. All he had to do to stop his own pain was take her in his arms and tell her that she was the one he loved, the one he would always love.
All he had to do to cross the chasm that separated his past from a future filled with love was to push his way past that mental imagine of his mother’s body, her face frozen into an unnatural calm by the undertaker’s skill. It had been his duty to see her—a horror from which he had protected Drax by taking it upon his shoulders alone.
Only he knew how often during those hours it had been touch and go for Sam. He had seen that memory reform inside his head, with Sam’s face replacing his mother’s. A fierce shudder ripped through him.
No wonder he shivered at the thought of his wife befriending her, thought Sam bitterly.
‘I’m packed and ready to leave, so if you will give me my passport I’m sure you’ll be only too happy to see that I get the first empty seat on a plane leaving for Zuran.’ Her head lifted proudly as she spoke. Not for the world was she going to let him see the heartache she was feeling inside.
It was the perfect solution to a situation that had become untenable and, if he was honest, unbearable. Far better to let Sam think the worst of him, for her to walk away from him despising and hating him—for her sake. Perhaps, in fact, that was the best gift he could give her. He had no idea just how she had come to think that Sadie was his wife, but it made sense to let her go on thinking so.
