The Sheikh's Secret Babies(38)

Jaul swung impatiently away from her, his fierce loyalty to his late father strained by her candour. ‘I must be honest with you. At that point in my recovery I didn’t want to see you either. I did initially intend to visit you when I was stronger but by the time I was fit to see you so much time had passed that it seemed like a pointless exercise,’ he divulged, tight-mouthed with restraint.

Inwardly Chrissie reeled as though he had struck her because that admission, that very dismissive terminology, was a body blow beyond her comprehension. ‘I don’t understand how you can say that it would have been pointless. How much time passed after the accident before you were fit to travel?’ she demanded, folding her arms defensively as if she could hold in the emotions still churning inside her. His self-command, his granite-hard hold on control maddened her.

‘It took well over a year for me even to get back on my feet again.’ His lean dark features were taut and pale with the strain of being forced to recall that traumatic period of his life. ‘My spine was damaged. It took further surgery and weeks of recovery before my doctors were able to estimate whether or not I could hope to walk again.’#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#

In point of fact at a time when his whole world seemed to have fallen apart and he was confined to a hospital bed unable to move and requiring help for every little thing, Jaul had felt quite ridiculously unsurprised by the announcement that his new bride had run out on him as well. In truth he had been seriously depressed back then and traumatised by survivor’s guilt because military friends and bodyguards he had known since childhood had died instantaneously in the same accident.

In addition to his deeply troubled state of mind and his belief that his father had bought Chrissie’s loyalty off, he had been painfully aware that he and Chrissie had parted on very bad terms in Oxford. She’d been angry with him for leaving her behind. In so many ways back then Chrissie had been an idealistic dreamer and, while he had loved those traits so very different from his own, he had also seen them as a potential weakness should life ever become tough. What could be tougher for a youthful bride than a husband suddenly sentenced to a wheelchair? Ultimately, his conviction that their marriage was invalid as his father had asserted had played the biggest role in his lack of action. After all, if Chrissie wasn’t even his wife what possible claim could he have on her?

‘But surely by that stage you must’ve had access to a phone and to visitors and you could have contacted me yourself?’ Chrissie pressed accusingly.

Jaul’s broad shoulders went rigid, his jawline squaring at an aggressive slant. ‘I was in a wheelchair...what would I have said to you? I will be frank—I did not want to approach you as a disabled man. You had accepted a five-million-pound settlement from my father and I assumed that money was all you had ever really wanted from me.’

Chrissie was outraged that Jaul had believed that she had taken his father’s money and run. Without a doubt he had found that easier than confronting her with his disability and the risk that he might not regain the use of his legs. Jaul, the original action man and macho to the core, was very physical in his tastes. Deprived of his freedom of movement, forced to accept such bodily weakness and restriction, how must he have felt? But Chrissie suppressed that more empathetic thought and tried to concentrate purely on facts. Jaul, she realised with a sinking heart, had put his wretched pride first when he’d chosen not to approach her in a wheelchair and that truth hurt her more than anything else.

‘But I didn’t actually accept the money,’ she whispered almost absently, so deep was her sense of rejection that he had found it impossible to reach out to her even when he was injured.

‘You did.’

‘No, I didn’t. Your father left a bank draft for a ludicrous five million pounds on the table but I never cashed it.’

‘But you said you had plenty of money when I first saw you again and naturally I assumed—’

‘Only I wasn’t referring to your father’s bank draft,’ Chrissie cut in ruefully. ‘Cesare bought the Greek island which my sister and I had inherited from our mother. My share of the purchase price was very generous. I bought my apartment with some of it and put the rest into trust until my twenty-fifth birthday next year. That’s what I meant about having plenty of money. I didn’t touch a penny of your father’s cash. I left that bank draft lying on the table.’

Jaul was transfixed by that claim. His keen gaze lowered, ebony brows drawing together in a frown. Five million pounds had impressed even him as an enormous sum to offer as a bribe to a young woman from an impoverished background. People lied, cheated and killed for far less money than Chrissie had been given. That was the main reason why he had never questioned his father’s story but now he was determined to check out her story for himself. Could it be true that she had not claimed that money?#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#