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The door burst open and all four of his bodyguards rushed in to stare at Chrissie in disbelief. As collected as ever, indeed as if such interruptions were part of his normal life, Jaul sent them into retreat with the instruction that on no account was he to be disturbed again. He knew what had happened: his highly anxious protection squad had heard her shout when nobody shouted at him and had feared that some sort of a dangerous incident was developing. But they were nervous and on edge, having never been abroad before and London was a very scary place as far as they were concerned.
Turquoise eyes glittering with rage, Chrissie knotted her fingers into fists. ‘Well, maybe I expected something a little more human and you asked me a very, very stupid question!’
Jaul gritted his strong white teeth. ‘Stupid how?’
‘You asked me why you’re only finding out about Tarif and Soraya now and I want to ask you...is that a joke?’
‘No. It was not a joke,’ Jaul responded with perfect diction, studying her with assessing dark eyes. ‘Why would I joke about it? Try to calm down and think about what you’re saying. This is a very serious matter.’
And that was the moment when Chrissie lost even the slight hold she still retained on her temper. The father of her children was poised there like a granite pillar and acting as coolly and politely as though they were discussing the weather. It was too much, too great an insult after that offensive question to be borne in silence. How dared he ask her to calm down? How dared he talk down to her when he had just about wrecked her life and abandoned her to sink or swim?
‘You complete bastard,’ she breathed in a raw undertone, barely able to get the harsh syllables past her parted lips. ‘Why weren’t you told? You deserted me—’
‘I did not—’
‘You went back to Marwan and you never returned to me—that’s desertion. You didn’t answer your phone. You didn’t call, email, write, even text...I never heard another word from you!’ Chrissie slashed back at him shakily, bitter wounding memories surfacing inside her head to power her on. ‘You left me no way of contacting you. Of course I appreciate now that that was deliberate because you knew before you left that you weren’t coming back—’
‘That is untrue—’
‘Shut up!’ Chrissie practically screamed at him, her sense of injustice and furious hurt too great to be silenced now that she finally had Jaul in front of her. ‘Don’t lie to me! At least be honest...what could you possibly have to lose now?’
His lean, devastatingly handsome features clenched hard. ‘I have never lied to you—’
‘Well, the “love you for ever” bit was certainly a lie! Telling me that the Oxford apartment was our home when your father could throw me out of it at a moment’s notice was a lie! And according to him even our marriage was a lie!’ she reminded him, half an octave higher, and it did not help her mood when Jaul visibly winced. In punishment, she snatched up a sugar bowl and flung it at him, sugar cubes flying like tiny missiles as the china bowl shattered on the edge of a small table.
Jaul was right in the middle of the three-act drama he had hoped to avoid. Urging calm wasn’t working, listening quietly wasn’t working either. But then all that had ever worked with Chrissie when she was angry was dragging her off to bed until they were both thoroughly satisfied. That was a totally inappropriate thought, he admitted, struggling to concentrate on what mattered most: the children. But how could children he had never heard of until this day or even seen seem real to him?
‘Thanks to your father’s little “mistake”, Jaul, my children are listed as illegitimate and without a father!’ Chrissie ranted, almost running out of breath but quickly powering up for the next. ‘Now my family may not be from a culturally conservative place as sensitive as Marwan but my father didn’t speak to me for over six months once he realised that I was pregnant and unmarried because he was ashamed and embarrassed—’
If possible Jaul froze to an even greater extent.
Having been convinced by King Lut that she was not a married woman, Chrissie had not had the power to put Jaul’s name on the birth certificates as to do so he would have had to accompany her to the register of births to register their birth or have made a statutory declaration that he was the twins’ father. Chrissie had also been afraid to mention a marriage that she had already been told was illegal, fearful that in some way she might have accidentally broken the law by going through with such a ceremony. She had also been very much afraid of the risk of attracting embarrassing publicity should the royal status of her children’s father ever become public knowledge. Anonymity and silence all round had seemed the safest option after her fruitless visits to the Marwani Embassy.
