But what had always tormented Haidar was that the older he got, the more he realized what a “true part” of her he was. He’d felt the taint of her temperament, the chronic disease of her traits spreading inside him. He’d lived in fear that they’d one day obliterate his decent and compassionate components.
It was ironic that Jalal had thrown that similarity in his face now, when he’d been feeling his mother’s shadow recede, her legacy loosening its noose from around his thoughts and inclinations. Ever since he’d met Roxanne …
“I take it back.” Jalal, the twin who resembled him the least of probably anyone in the world, shook his head in disgust. “You’re worse than her. And that I didn’t think was possible.”
“You talk as if she’s a monster.”
They’d never spoken this openly about their mother. They’d been speaking less and less about anything at all.
Jalal shrugged, the movement nonchalant but eloquent with leashed force. A reminder that though they were similar in size and strength, Jalal was the … physical one.
“And I love her nonetheless. But that’s the unreasoning affection a mother wrings from her child. You don’t get the same leniency. Not on this. This is one instance where I cannot, will not, rationalize or forgive your heartlessness.”
Unable to deal with his twin’s disapproval any better than he ever had, he let the fury and suspicion that had brought him to this confrontation take over. “So this is your strategy? Like they say in Azmahar, ‘Yell accusations lest your opponent beats you’?”
“It’s you who are resorting to ‘Hit and weep, preempt and cry foul.’”
Jalal’s derision scraped his already raw nerves. “I never suspected you’d be such a sore loser when Roxanne chose me.”
Jalal snorted, his eyes smoldering like black ice. “You mean when she was manipulated by you. Conned by you.”
Haidar suppressed another spurt of indignation, the frost at his core resurfacing. “Can’t find a more realistic excuse for trying to steal her from me? We both know I can get any woman I want without even trying, no manipulation involved.”
“You couldn’t have gotten Roxanne without it. She saw you for the ice-cold fish that you are that first night. It must have taken some Academy Award–winning acting to create the fictional character that she fell for.”
Haidar had never resorted to violence, not even while growing up among an abundance of male-only relatives who relished rough … resolutions. He’d always suppressed his temper, used cold deliberation to outmaneuver them. Now he wanted to smash in Jalal’s well-arranged face.
He gritted down on the urge. “The fact remains—she’s mine.”
“And you have been treating her like property. Worse, like a dirty secret, making her hide your intimacies from even her mother, forcing her to watch you flaunt the other women ‘you have without even trying’ in public. You told her they’re decoys to draw suspicion away from her, right? It must be killing her, even if she believes your self-serving lies. I can’t imagine what it would do to her if she knew you’d been playing her from the start, that she’s just another source to feed your monstrous ego.”
Haidar vibrated with a charge that seemed as if it would burst his every cell if it wasn’t released. “And you know all about her supposed turmoil because you’re her selfless confidant, right? And you want to take your so-called friendship from your squash dates into her bed. Well, hard luck. That’s where I am. Constantly.”
Jalal’s snarl felt like an uppercut. “Very gentlemanly of you, to kiss and tell.”
“No need for evasions since you know we’re intimate. And still you try to take her away from me.”
“You don’t even want her,” Jalal hissed. “You seduced her to beat me. She’s just a pawn in another of your power games.”
“You were the one who started that game, as you’ve conveniently forgotten.”
“I forgot about that silly bet in five minutes. But you took it like you take everything, with obsessive competition. You went all out to entrap her.”
“And you’re out to save her from monstrous me? You’re admitting you want her for yourself?”
Jalal’s jaw hardened. “I won’t let you use her anymore.”
Rage blotched Haidar’s vision. He wanted to pulverize Jalal’s convictions. Arguments and defenses pummeled his mind. Then he opened his mouth and something from the repertoire of his lifelong rivalry with his closest yet furthest person came out.
A taunt. “How are you going to stop me?”
Jalal shot him a lethal glance. “I’ll tell her everything.”
His head almost burst.
Out of the rants clanging there, he snarled only “Good luck.”
If he’d thought he’d seen antipathy in his twin’s eyes before, he was wrong. This was the real thing. “Nothing good can come of this. You’re not only like Mother—you inherited the worst of both sides of our families. You’re manipulative and jealous, cold and controlling, and you have to win no matter the cost. It’s time I exposed your true face to her.”
Haidar’s blood charred with the futility of watching this train wreck. “There’s one hitch in that plan. If you do, it won’t only be my face she won’t want to see again, but yours, too.”
“I’m okay with losing Roxanne, as long as you lose her, too.”
The detonation of fury and frustration shattered his brakes. “If you tell her, Jalal, never show me your face again.”
Bleakness spread in Jalal’s eyes. “I’m okay with that, too.”
A door closed, aborting the salvo of reckless bitterness he would have volleyed at his twin’s intention.
Roxanne.
As she walked into the sitting room, his blood heated, his breath shortened. Her effect on him deepened with every exposure. Even when he had thought theirs would be a mutually satisfying liaison that would end when his fascination dissipated. Until her, he hadn’t suspected himself capable of attaining such heights of emotion, plumbing such depths of passion.
She was fire made flesh, incandescent in beauty, tempestuous in spirit, consuming in power. And she was his.
He had to prove it, know it, once and for all.
The fear that she had feelings for Jalal had been compromising his sanity. His mother’s passing comment about how Roxanne and Jalal shared so much had colored his view of their deepening closeness. But dread had taken root when he’d realized Roxanne had revealed the essence of her self to Jalal but not him. That had snapped his restraint, forced him to have this confrontation with both of them.
Jalal had made his position clear.
But it wouldn’t matter, not if she chose him. As she had to.
He tried to get confirmation from the hunger that always ignited in her eyes at the sight of him. But for the second she spared him the touch of her focus, her eyes were blank. Then they swept to Jalal.
Haidar pounced on her, his fingers digging into her flesh, almost vicious in their urgency, his heart thundering. “Tell Jalal that he can’t come between us no matter what he does or says. Tell him that you’re mine.”
Her face became a canvas of stupefaction. Then it set in hardness, her eyes becoming emerald icicles. She knocked his hands off as if they soiled her. “That’s why you so imperatively demanded I drop everything? How creepy can you get?”
It was his turn to gape. “Creepy? And this is imperative. I’ve sensed Jalal developing