The Sheikh's Secret Babies(48)

Bearing in mind my actions two years ago, it would have been an offence for me to enter the same room as your queen and offer my best wishes on the occasion of your wedding.

And there it was in a handful of words: what Jaul had most feared. It was confirmation of everything Chrissie had told him because it was obvious that Yusuf had felt too ashamed of his treatment of Chrissie in the past to attend their wedding. That confirmation struck Jaul like a body blow. His stomach lurched and he sprang to his feet, too unsettled to sit still. Evidently, everything Chrissie had told him was the truth. She had been thrown out of his Oxford apartment and humiliated. She had gone to the Marwani Embassy in London to enquire about her missing husband, only for those visits to be mocked and hushed up. She had not accepted money from his father.

Jaul had nourished a secret hope that Chrissie could be exaggerating her experiences after his disappearance, that perhaps what she had endured was not quite as traumatic as she had made it sound, but Yusuf’s reaction to Chrissie’s reappearance in Jaul’s life as his queen was uniquely revealing. Jaul still wanted to hear the details of Yusuf’s dealings with his wife on King Lut’s behalf but he would wait until the older man returned to Marwan to receive them. After all, he already knew the most crucial facts, he reminded himself heavily. His wife had told him how she had suffered and he had doubted her every word, had literally prayed that her lively imagination had encouraged her to embellish her story. And wasn’t this his due reward for his lack of faith in his wife and his all-consuming loyalty to his father’s memory? What had happened to his loyalty to the woman he had married?

Self-evidently, his father had lied to him shamelessly over and over again. Lut clearly hadn’t cared what he’d had to say or do to destroy his son’s marriage. Jaul was appalled that the man he had respected and cared for could have gone to such brutally selfish lengths to deprive his son of the woman he loved.

As the sun began to climb higher in the sky, driving off the early morning chill, Jaul paced the sand, oblivious to the anxious watch of his guards. He could not escape certain devastating conclusions: he had virtually wrecked Chrissie’s life and, worst of all, he had not just done it once, he had done it twice. The first time he had married her and left her pregnant and without support and the second time he had blackmailed her into moving to Marwan and giving their marriage a second chance. How did any man come back from such grievous mistakes? What right did he have to try and hold onto a woman he knew he didn’t deserve?

While being angry and hostile at the outset, Chrissie had come round sufficiently to offer him a measure of forgiveness and understanding. But she didn’t owe him either, did she? He had done nothing to earn her forgiveness. An honourable man would let her go free, Jaul reckoned, perspiration dampening his lean dark features in the heat of the sun. An honourable man would instantly own up to his mistakes and give her the freedom to make a choice about whether she wanted to stay or go...

It was the most humiliating moment to discover that he was evidently not an honourable man, for the prospect of facing life without Chrissie and the twins by his side was not one that Jaul could bring himself to even contemplate.

He had screwed up, he had screwed up so badly, he reasoned fiercely, that he could only do better in the future. But the shame of his misjudgement felt like a giant rock lodged in his chest. He watched Chrissie curl up on a seat in the shade while fruit and rolls were brought to her for breakfast. Her shining hair was loose round her lovely face and she wore not a scrap of make-up, her slender body fetchingly clad in khaki capris and a plain white tee. She was his wife...but for how much longer? Stress locked tight every muscle in his lithe, powerful body.





CHAPTER TEN

‘WHAT HAPPENED TO that horse you idolised?’ Jaul asked lazily.

‘Hero’s in a sanctuary close to the farm where I used to live with Dad,’ Chrissie told him as they rode back to the oasis encampment with the sun slowly rising to chase the coolness from the sky. Her eyes were wide and bright, appreciative of the surprising and colourful beauty of the barren landscape at dawn. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen him in months. While I was working and looking after the twins, it was just impossible to get up there for a visit but maybe next time we’re in London I could make a special trip to see him.’

‘Why’s your horse in a sanctuary?’ Jaul pressed with obvious incomprehension.

‘Because, Mr Spoilt-Rotten-Rich, when my father had to vacate the farm tenancy I no longer had anywhere to house Hero and no money to pay for his upkeep either. Then, luckily for me, we sold the island to Cesare and I gave the sanctuary an endowment to give Hero a home for life,’ Chrissie explained without heat as she gently stroked the neck of the beautiful Arabian mare she was riding. ‘He’s safe, well-looked-after and happy. It was the best I could do for him.’