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Chrissie wasn’t stupid. After all, that was obviously why Jaul was in London in the first place talking about needing a divorce and fast. While he was planning to marry wife number two, he had discovered he was still married to wife number one. How very inconvenient, she thought bitchily while Sofia and Maurizia stared goggle-eyed at Jaul and sat down at a table across the way to happily tuck into the champagne and snacks laid out for them.
‘I hope my arrival has not disrupted your evening,’ Jaul remarked stiffly, striving not to react to his ringside-seat view of her long, perfect legs crossed, little feet he had kissed shod in glittery pink high heels. With difficulty he dragged his attention up to linger on the lovely face he knew so well, willing back the almost instantaneous surge of blood to his groin with an actual prayer for self-control.
‘Of course not,’ Chrissie lied, angling her pale head back, shimmering hair swishing across her shoulders like silk as she strove to be gracious for the sake of peace. ‘I assume you wanted to see me about something?’
Jaul confided that he had gone to her brother-in-law’s home in the hope of seeing the twins.
Chrissie was disconcerted. ‘You want to see Tarif and Soraya?’
Jaul elevated a fine ebony brow. ‘And that surprises you?’
Chrissie reddened in sudden severe mortification. She had told him he was a father and obviously he was curious. To have assumed that he would simply accept that news and walk away again had been sheer folly, she conceded ruefully. ‘I could bring them on a visit tomorrow morning,’ she suggested, prepared to show willing in the civilised stakes. ‘Before the lawyers kick in—’
‘The lawyers?’ Jaul repeated as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘The divorce meeting,’ Chrissie leant forward and whispered, endeavouring to be tactful in the presence of the bodyguards who, it seemed, had not taken their eyes off either her or Jaul since the moment she’d sat down.
Jaul recognised the restrictions of the meeting place he had chosen and cursed his inability to speak freely. He expelled his breath on a slow hiss. At least she was speaking to him again, at least she wasn’t shouting, he reasoned grimly.
‘Cesare’s legal team will soon get it all sorted out,’ Chrissie told him on an upbeat note intended to offer comfort. ‘He says they’ve dealt with much more complex stuff than this.’
Jaul’s veiled dark gaze glittered and dropped down to the bareness of her left hand. ‘What did you do with the rings I gave you?’ he asked softly.
‘They’re in Cesare’s safe. I was keeping them for Soraya,’ Chrissie responded, wanting to let him know that she had not retained them for any sentimental reason.
‘They have Arabic names—’
‘A nod to their heritage,’ Chrissie cut in carelessly.
‘My grandfather was called Tarif—’
‘It’s pure coincidence,’ Chrissie declared deflatingly, lying through her teeth because she had named her son after his grandfather, reasoning that her baby had the right to use a name from the royal family tree. ‘I never would have dreamt of naming them after anyone in your family.’
In receipt of that snub, Jaul wanted to punch the wall and shout, but he mastered the surge of anger with a silent, strong self-discipline honed by long months in a hospital bed and even longer months of painfully slow rehabilitation. She hated him; his wife hated him. He could sense the animosity still bubbling away below her newly calm surface, could see the sharp evasiveness in her beautiful eyes.
He had brought this hellish situation down on himself, he decided harshly. Two years ago he had still been immature and impatient and reckless. He had taken what he’d wanted without hesitation and without thought of the risk he could be running...
CHAPTER FIVE
‘THEY LOOK CUTE as buttons,’ Lizzie said fondly, studying the twins garbed in their smartest outfits. ‘Jaul will fall in love with them at first sight.’
Chrissie wrinkled her nose. ‘I hope not because he’s not likely to see much of them when we live in different countries. I also hope he’s not always going to be asking me to put them on planes to go and see him.’
