“He got the highest grades without trying, while I had to struggle to keep up. He was a favorite with our elders for being so methodical and achieving. He was a sweeping success with girls for being so good-looking, yet so cool and detached. The only thing I could trounce him in was sports, and he came close to equaling me even in those by mere cunning.”
He gave a deprecating laugh. “And of course, all through, our mother was praising the hell out of his every breath. As a boy who then idolized his mother, I grew frantic for equal appreciation, and when I despaired of that, for any at all. She did show me some on occasion, but it always felt like the crumbs that were left over from Haidar’s feast. It took me years to outgrow the need for her validation, to be resigned to who she was, and the kind of relationship I had with her. But I could never become resigned to my and Haidar’s relationship.
“It was a paradox. I wanted to be with him the most of anyone in the world, yet no one could drive me out of my cool, collected mind but him…at least, no one then…” A dark, distracted look settled in his eyes. Before she could ask who else had later done the same to him, he shook his head slightly as if to rid himself of disturbing memories, resumed his focus. “He seemed to want my company as much, in his own contradictory way, showing me moments of emotional closeness before shutting me out again.”
You, too? she almost scoffed. Haidar had subjected her to the same dizzying, confusing, addicting pattern.
Jalal sat back, fists braced on his knees, eyes seeming to gaze into his own past. “As we got older, we showed the world a unified front, for the sake of the rest of our family, politics and business. But when we were alone, we butted heads like two stupid rams on steroids. And I think we both were addicted to the conflict. I believed that was who we were, the only relationship we could have, and I had to accept it.”
Roxanne gaped at his grim profile. She’d never thought things were that complex and complicated between them. It was fascinating in the most terrible way to learn how these two twins who had everything they needed to forge an unparalleled bond had been driven apart. Needing to reach out to each other yet held back by something inescapable.
And why was she including them both in that assessment? She’d bet Haidar felt no equal anguish for the state of affairs with his twin. She’d bet Haidar didn’t feel at all.
But where Jalal was concerned, so much now made sense. The wistfulness and guardedness that had come over him when Haidar was mentioned, the snarkiness that took over when his twin was around.
No matter if this snowball had started with an incident in which Jalal was the culprit—that Haidar had set out to punish his twin for it for the rest of their lives proved what a twisted, vindictive bastard he was. He’d even been proud of the fact that he made one hell of an unforgiving enemy.
Jalal threw his head back on the couch. “But accepting it didn’t mean I could handle it. Being unreasonable isn’t part of my makeup, but I became that with Haidar. And I no longer knew how much of our rivalry was due to what had turned him against me early on, or to my self-defeating tactics in trying to get him back, our mother’s divisive influence, or who we are, our choices, actions and reactions. Then we met you at that royal ball.”
Her heart did its best to flip over inside her rib cage.
How she remembered that night.
It had been in her first month in Azmahar. She’d thanked the fates for the job that had gotten her mother and herself here. When they were invited to that ball, she’d felt like a Disney heroine entering a world of wonders way beyond her wildest dreams. The impression had grown stronger when she’d met Jalal.
Then she’d seen Haidar.
Just the sight of him, an apparition of aloof, distant grandeur, had kicked to life every contradictory emotion inside her. She’d bristled with defensiveness, burned with challenge and melted with desire.
Jalal turned to her now, taking his account from the profoundly personal to the shared past. “I saw your instant attraction to him, and out of habit, I challenged him for you. We both know how far he took that challenge. But I swear to you, I forgot that silly bet in minutes. Everything you and I shared was real. You were the friend I could share everything with, the sister I never had.”
And he’d been her confidant, champion and the brother she’d always longed for.
Still afraid of reopening her heart and letting him seal the hole losing him had blown in it, she narrowed her eyes. “So why did you wait six years to approach me? And even then, give up after just one phone call?”
“Because after you walked out and didn’t call me, I assumed you’d overheard us and included me in your hostility. My first impulse was to run to you, tell you what I just told you now. But as I was heading out to your house the next morning, I learned that your mother had been…dishonorably discharged. I held back then because I believed further contact with me might cause you more…damage.”
She blinked her surprise. “Why did you think that?”
“Didn’t you ever suspect why your mother was fired?”
“Sure I did. I suspected Haidar.”
It was his turn to be shocked. “You thought he was punishing you for walking out on him through her?”
“You find that far-fetched?”
He clearly did, found her suspicion very disturbing. “I prefer to think there are some lines he wouldn’t cross.”
“You think seducing me for a bet was an okay line to cross, but destroying my mother’s career to get back at me wasn’t?”
“I…” He drove his fingers into his sable mane in agitation. “I guess it’s not impossible, considering he must have been enraged at the time, but it just doesn’t…feel like him.”
“So if it wasn’t Haidar you were worried would harm us more if you maintained a relationship with me, who were you afraid of?”
“My mother.” He grimaced when her jaw dropped. “I don’t have proof, but I felt her hand in this. She employed similar tactics to drive those she didn’t approve of away from Haidar and me. Again, I never found proof, but I just knew she was behind all those incidents. That’s why I ventured to contact you only when she was exiled. Until then, there was no telling how far she’d go if she learned you were still in my life.”
She gaped at him. This was a scenario she hadn’t considered. Not because she didn’t have the worst possible opinion of former queen Sondoss. But she’d thought the queen had already been done with her, had no more reason to go after her or her own.
Then again, knowing that woman, why not?
Could it be? All these years she’d been so busy demonizing Haidar, she’d missed the mother of all demons at work?
Feeling her entrenched convictions being uprooted, leaving her in a free fall of new confusion, she released a tremulous breath. “You’ve got yourself one effed-up family, Jalal.”
“Tell me about it.”
She teetered on the verge of throwing herself into his arms and hugging the despondency out of him.
One more thing first. “So why didn’t you persist, after your mother was out of the picture and I was no longer in her range?”
His look of self-blame almost made her stop him from answering. “Because I was going through some…heavy stuff, with Haidar, with…other people, and I acutely felt the kind of anger and hurt that could fuel your hanging up on me after six years. I thought I’d be a reminder of your worst memories after you’d moved on. I was also not in any shape to take more emotional upheavals at that time.”
Her hands fisted on the urge to reach out. “What’s changed?”
“You did.” His golden eyes blazed with pride and fondness so powerful and pure, hers started burning. “You came back. It proved to me you’re ready to face your demons, to snatch what you deserve from their fangs. I now think having me back in your life won’t resurrect painful memories—you’re ready to remember the good ones and form new and better ones. And I have also changed. I’m removed enough from my ‘effed-up’ family that I can be your haven again. And the big gun in your camp.”
The tears she’d been holding back for eight years cascaded down her cheeks. He reached for her as she did him, took her into his long-missed affection and protection.
He kissed the top of her head. “Does this mean you believe me?”
She raised a face trembling with mirth and emotion. “What else could it mean, you big, wonderful wolf?”
“That you’re too softhearted, that you forgive me even if you still believe I befriended you to seduce you away from Haidar.”
She smirked, poked her finger into that dimple in his left cheek. “As if you could have seduced me. Or even wanted to.”
His smile was relief itself. “Aih, I would have found Haidar’s accusations hilarious, if I hadn’t been so incensed with him. You felt like my real twin from the first time we met, ya azeezati.”
A sob escaped her at hearing him call her “my dearest” again. “You don’t know how much I missed you…ya azeezi.”
“That’s it?” he mock reprimanded her. “You’re taking me back into your heart? And I’d hoped you’d grown as diamond-hard as the exterior you project. You still have a gooey center.”