The Sheikh's Secret Babies(15)

Instead, however, Chrissie reminded herself that she was supposed to be an adult and able to handle life’s more difficult challenges. She mounted the front steps of the monstrous building with its imposing columns, portico and innumerable windows and pressed the doorbell.

Jaul was lunching in a dining room decorated in high ‘desert’ style circa nineteen thirty by his English grandmother and marvelling at her sheer lack of good taste. He didn’t want to pretend he was in the desert and sit cross-legged like a sheep herder in front of a fake fire; he wanted a table and a chair. Mercifully his personal chef and other staff had travelled with him and the service and the food were exemplary. It didn’t quite make up though for having to sleep in a bedroom decorated like a tent on a ginormous bed made of rough bamboo poles literally lashed together with ropes. Of course, he conceded wryly, the distractions of the extraordinary décor of the royal home in London served to keep his thoughts away from how Chrissie had looked in shorts with those impossibly long and perfect legs on full display.

Ghaffar, Jaul’s PA, appeared in the doorway and bowed. ‘A visitor has arrived to see you without an appointment—’

Jaul suppressed a groan and waved a dismissive hand. He was in London on a private visit and had no desire to make it anything else. ‘Please make my apologies. I will see no one.’

‘The woman’s name is Whitaker—’

Jaul sprang upright with amazing alacrity. ‘She is the single exception to the rule,’ he incised.

Chrissie tapped her heels on the marble floor of the giant echoing hall full of what looked like a display of actual mummy cases from an Egyptian tomb. It was creepy and the lack of light made it even creepier. Staring at a two-headed god statue did nothing for her nervous tension, only ratcheting it up a degree or two and making the events of the past twenty-four hours all the more challenging to bear, never mind accept.

Without warning, Jaul appeared in a doorway and he seemed almost as strange to her bemused eyes, his tall, lean physique sheathed in an exquisitely cut light grey business suit. The only other time she had seen him in a suit had been on their wedding day and she stared, reckoning that that formality didn’t detract an ounce from his dark, exotic appeal.

‘Chrissie,’ he said with a level of gravity that unnerved her, for it was a quality that she had only glimpsed in him at the worst moments of their relationship when he had proved how very serious he could be when she crossed him. ‘I was not expecting you to come here.’

‘Well, that makes two of us!’ she admitted with an uneasy laugh that sounded raw in the echoing silence. ‘But I had to see you in private and this was the most straightforward way of doing it.’

‘You are welcome,’ he breathed and he snapped his fingers and a servant came out of nowhere and thrust open another door while bowing and scraping. ‘We will have tea and be...polite?’

Colour ran up to the roots of her pale, shining hair. To her horror, her throat developed a lump, emotion swishing through her again in an unwelcome and treacherous wave. Lustrous dark golden eyes rested on her and her heart started to go thumpety-thumpety-thump as if she had suffered a really bad fright. ‘Yes...polite,’ she agreed shakily, longing for the hostile, aggressive edge that had powered her earlier that morning when he had visited. Anger and antagonism had provided a blessed bumper between her and the maelstrom of emotions his appearance had awakened inside her.

‘I would’ve phoned in advance of my arrival had I known your number,’ Jaul breathed as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Mercifully he couldn’t know, she thought wretchedly, searching his startlingly handsome features with an appreciation that felt terrifyingly familiar. So, he’s a painting, a perfect painting, she acknowledged with self-loathing, but she didn’t have to keep on noticing, did she?

‘Perhaps we should exchange phone numbers now,’ she suggested and he dug out his phone and took a note of hers while passing her a sleek business card. ‘This feels so weird, Jaul...all of it.’

‘Of course it does. Naturally we have both changed a great deal,’ he fielded with a level of smooth assurance that made her want to slap him.

It was a welcome interruption when a knock sounded on the door and someone entered with a tray, followed by another person, who surged forward with a deep bow in Jaul’s direction to yank out a small table and spread it with a cloth. A china stand loaded with miniature French fancies and tiny scones was put on display and the English tea was poured.

The sight shot Chrissie back in time to what she supposed had effectively been her first date with Jaul although she had not seen it as such at the time. He had taken her to an exclusive hotel for afternoon tea, a quintessentially English tradition he had naively assumed everyone followed. Feeling like a lady of the manor, she had very much enjoyed the experience.