Jaul frowned as he thought of his grandmother, regretting that their time together had been so short. Lady Sophie had died peacefully in her sleep the year before. Prior to that, Jaul had made frequent visits to the old lady’s home in London, keen to make up as best he could for the decades his late father had spent ignoring his mother’s very existence.
The iron ring on the huge outer door was smartly rapped and rapped a second time when he was only halfway down the room to answer it. Jaul grinned, well acquainted with his wife’s impatience.
‘I haven’t quite finished the candles,’ he warned her.
‘I’m here to help.’ Chrissie looked up into his stunning dark golden eyes and could have sworn that her knees wobbled.
‘No, you’re pregnant. You’re not allowed to do anything but put your feet up.’ Jaul ushered her over to an armchair furnished with a footstool.
‘Anything?’ Chrissie teased as she kicked off her shoes and sat down.
‘Conserve your energy for what’s really important.’ Glancing wickedly at the bed awaiting them with his eyes alight with amusement, Jaul knelt down beside her to reach for her hand and slide a platinum ring adorned with a glowing sapphire onto her middle finger. ‘Thank you for another wonderful year.’
Chrissie studied her latest gift in consternation. ‘We agreed that you weren’t going to buy me any more jewellery.’
‘I didn’t agree. I simply chose silence over argument.’
‘Sometimes you can be so devious.’ Chrissie lifted a hand to brush an errant lock of blue-black hair off his brow.
‘And you love it,’ Jaul told her with assurance, planting a kiss on the delicate skin of her inner wrist while tracing tender fingertips over the slight swell of her pregnant tummy. ‘You wear everything you feel on the surface but I hide it...except when I’m with you. I love you, habibti.’
‘I know.’ And Chrissie gloried in that sense of security, standing up to enable him to band his arms around her and claim her mouth with the hunger that neither of them ever tried to hide or suppress.
‘I’m so excited about the baby,’ he confided. ‘I missed so much with the twins. This time around I will treasure every moment with you.’
‘I bet you embarrass me by fainting or something,’ Chrissie forecast, surveying him with loving intensity as the dancing light and shadow of the candles played over his lean, strong face.
But Jaul won that bet. He was fully conscious for the birth of his second son, Prince Hafiz, a healthy seven-pound baby with his mother’s astonishingly blue eyes. There was a hint of his English grandfather in his bone structure. His elder brother gave him a teddy and Soraya gave him a picture she had drawn. In the first official photographs, with Hafiz’s parents holding him safe in their arms, happiness and contentment radiated from the entire royal family.
* *
Read on for an extract from THE SINS OF SEBASTIAN REY-DEFOE by Kim Lawrence
PROLOGUE
Blaisdon Gazette. 17 November 1990
A hospital spokesman this morning said that two babies, believed to be twins, found yesterday on the steps of St Benedict’s Church, are now in a serious but stable condition. Police are anxious to trace the mother, who might be in need of medical care.
London Reporter. 17 November 1990
The foundation stone of the hospital’s new wing was laid by the late Sebastian Rey’s grandson, who was named after his philanthropist grandfather. Stepping in for his father, whose duties captaining the Argentine national polo team kept him away from the ceremony, seven-year-old Sebastian Rey-Defoe is the son of the well-known English socialite Lady Sylvia Defoe. Sebastian is set to inherit the Rey billions and the Mandeville Hall estate in England. He suffered only minor injuries in the crash that killed his grandfather outright.
14 February 2008
‘THERE IS A REASON, I suppose, why I am staying in a place called the Pink Unicorn?’ Not a name you could say and think of minimalist decor, and not a name Seb could even say without a grimace of distaste.
‘Sorry.’ His irritatingly cheerful PA pretended she hadn’t heard the sarcasm. ‘But it is Valentine’s Day and there isn’t a decent place within twenty miles of Fleur’s school that isn’t fully booked. The Lake District is considered romantic. Don’t worry, it’s not contagious,’ she soothed. ‘And it is five star, so you won’t be slumming it, and it has great reviews—people on the website rave about the little personal touches. Your room is... What does it say...? That was it: charming and bijou with beams and—’
‘Oh, God!’ he groaned. Six-five in his bare feet, he did not do bijou or beams... Was his petite PA punishing him for something?