The Sheikh's Secret Babies(27)

Powered by no similar onslaught of self-consciousness and regret, Jaul got the message and sprang out of bed. ‘We start again,’ he pronounced with decision as he stretched, his long brown back rippling with muscle in the sunlight.

And somehow the very fact that it was still daylight and that her innocent children were napping somewhere in the huge house made Chrissie feel even more guilty and conflicted than ever. In that turmoil of uneasy emotion she almost didn’t notice the scarring on Jaul’s back as he strode towards what she assumed to be the bathroom. Striated silvery lines marked his spine and she frowned, momentarily sidestepping her other anxieties to say abruptly, ‘How did you get the scars on your back?’

‘In an accident...car,’ Jaul told her flatly.

As he stood there, naked and brown and gorgeous, his perfect profile turned towards her, she wondered if he had always had the scars and she simply hadn’t noticed them. How observant had she been of his back view? she asked herself wryly, dismissing her momentary concern to let the other feelings of confusion and self-loathing engulf her again.

‘I still want the divorce,’ Chrissie told him stonily.

His strong jawline clenched. ‘We’ll discuss it after I have a shower.’

‘OK.’ Like someone desperate to pull clean linen over a mistake, Chrissie was eager for him to get dressed and leave her free to do the same.

‘There’s another shower off the room next door,’ Jaul remarked tautly. ‘I’ll use it.’

‘Your bodyguards aren’t standing outside the door, are they?’ Chrissie checked.

‘They’ll be downstairs.’ Jaul sent her a perceptive appraisal from grave dark eyes. ‘It is not their business to monitor or discuss my private life and they know it well.’

Chrissie was scarlet to her hairline, could feel her very cheeks throbbing with unwelcome heat. ‘I’ll use the other shower,’ she said quietly.

‘We are married. There is nothing to be embarrassed about,’ Jaul murmured soothingly.

He strode into the bathroom releasing Chrissie from paralysis and she fled from the bed, snatching up clothes, pulling them on any old way before creeping from the room and literally tiptoeing into the bathroom next door to make use of the facilities. But washing didn’t noticeably make her feel any better. She had insisted that she wanted a divorce and then fallen into bed with him again and now he thought he had her exactly where he wanted her. Was that so surprising?

Chrissie would not have put it past Jaul to have deliberately set out to get her horizontal. He was no slowcoach with women, no fool when it came to what mattered. His passion was irresistible but he would know perfectly well that she would feel tormented by what had just happened between them and he probably felt quite self-satisfied because he had proved his point: she did still want him and crave him in the most basic of ways.

That meant more to Jaul than it meant to her though. When she had first met Jaul he had been a sexual predator, programmed to take advantage of willing women even though he had not behaved that way with her. In fact, although they had hit astonishing highs in the lesser intimacy stakes, Jaul had married her before he actually had full sex with her, making her appreciate even back then that in some ways Jaul was much more anchored in his own culture than she had ever properly appreciated. It had also made her wonder in low moments after he had disappeared if she had won Jaul purely by saying no for so long and thereby acquiring all the glorious lustre of a challenge and a worthwhile trophy. Was that the simple explanation of why the heir to a Gulf throne had chosen to deem an ordinary Yorkshire girl special enough to marry? But then had he ever planned on it being a permanent marriage?#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#

But that past was long gone and she was over it, Chrissie reminded herself as she got dressed again. Just not as over him as she had thought she was, a little inner voice reminded her deflatingly. Jaul would think he had won now, would assume she would become his wife again. It probably was just that basic for him, his belief that if she had sex with him again it meant he had her back.

And whose fault was it that he would now be thinking that? Chrissie boiled with regret inside herself. Pure naked lust had overwhelmed her. It was a fallacy to believe that only men could react like that, she ruminated unhappily, a nonsense to assume that a woman couldn’t feel the same way. She had never been with anyone other than Jaul but she had learned a lot about that side of her nature even in the short time they had actually lived together and knew that she was a passionate woman. And the only reason she hadn’t slept with anyone else since Jaul was that she had yet to meet any male who had the same highly charged sexual effect on her that he did.