CHAPTER SEVEN
CHRISSIE SAT ON Jaul’s private jet during the flight to Marwan like a small grave statue, slender body straight-backed and rigid, hands circumspectly folded on her lap, eyes veiled.
Jaul compressed his sensual lips and grimly returned his attention to his laptop. What had he expected? A relaxed and happy travelling companion? It was wiser to concentrate on the positives: Chrissie was on board with his children and, even better, was considerately wearing the sort of outfit for her first public appearance that would impress his people. The simple blue shift dress enhanced the slender grace of her figure. In the sunlight coming through the porthole behind her, she looked incredibly beautiful with her hair gleaming like a liquid fall of bright reflective silver. That same exacting light accentuated her almost transparent porcelain skin and the lush perfection of her soft pink lips.
All too fast and predictably, Jaul recalled the silky brush of her hair across his thigh and the hot, erotic grip of her mouth. Long brown fingers braced on the table edge in front of him as arousal coursed through him with the force of a volcanic flow of lava, leaving him hot and hard and throbbing with need. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated instead on thinking about how she would react to the special request he had to make of her. He compressed his wide, sensual mouth, resolving to approach the topic with tact.
Chrissie’s stillness cloaked her inner turmoil. She wanted to scream and shout with angry frustration. Jaul had, quite literally, hunted her down and trapped her like prey. Two years too late she was taking up the role of being his wife and the mother of his children, a role that she would once, most ironically, have eagerly embraced. A trickle of perspiration beaded her short upper lip as she recalled the incredible crush of paparazzi fighting to photograph the Marwani royal party at the airport and the sheer wall of security men it had taken to hold them back. It had not occurred to her that their marriage would so quickly incite that amount of attention. Jaul had taken it in his stride but Chrissie had been unnerved by that level of public exposure.
But then, in truth, the past twenty-four hours had been equally unsettling. Cesare and Lizzie had reacted to her announcement that she was returning to Marwan with Jaul with far less surprise than Chrissie had naively expected. Her sister and brother-in-law had assumed that Jaul and Chrissie were making an effort to rebuild their marriage for the sake of their two young children.
‘And if it doesn’t work out, at least you know you tried and you can come home again,’ Lizzie had proclaimed in her innocence of the fact that ‘coming home’ was an option that Chrissie had legally surrendered two years earlier. To come home, she would have to be willing to leave her children behind her and that was not an option she could ever imagine choosing.
That same day, Chrissie had boxed up her possessions for storage and had put her apartment in the hands of a rental agency. For what had remained of her meagre twenty-four hours of freedom, she had gone shopping with her sister for a more suitable wardrobe of formal clothing. In the evening her father had arrived in London for a visit and Jaul had joined them for dinner. Jaul had dealt calmly with her father’s often barbed comments and he had laughed when Chrissie had remarked on his discretion before his departure.
‘When it comes to temperament, your father is a walk in the park. My father lost his head in rage at least once a week. There was no reasoning with him and he would often say offensive things. Of course, he was very much indulged growing up and because he saw himself as an all-powerful ruler he never studied to control his temper,’ he had confided, startling her with his candour. ‘It was a good learning experience for me.’
That glimpse into Jaul’s background had sharply disconcerted Chrissie because to her it had sounded less like a learning experience and rather more like living with a tyrant. Recalling the raging man she had once briefly met, Chrissie had made no comment as she suppressed an inner shiver while contemplating the possibility that, with such an intolerant and inflexible parent, Jaul’s childhood could not possibly have been as secure and privileged as she had always assumed.
Before boarding the flight, Chrissie had gone to a beauty salon to have her hair trimmed and her nails painted, small measures to enable her to present herself as the well-groomed royal wife people would be expecting to see by Jaul’s side. Royal? That very word made her roll her eyes. The only royal thing about her was that she had allowed Jaul to royally shaft her in every sense of the word, she thought with rebellious bitterness.
She had agreed to return to a husband who had once abandoned her and who had yet to explain himself on that score. How on earth had she allowed him to get away with that? How had she let that huge question get buried beneath her terror of losing custody of the twins? And what the heck was Jaul still hiding from her?