what she had had to withstand at his father’s hands. His lean brown hands snapped into fists, anger stirring afresh because he had been incapable of protecting her. The guilt, which he was struggling to master, felt insurmountable.
‘I should’ve contacted you as soon as I was mobile again,’ he stated with savage regret, the hard, sculpted planes of his darkly handsome face stark with strain in the flickering light. ‘But I couldn’t face seeing you again knowing that I had lost you... It is hard for me to admit that but it is, at least, the truth of my feelings back then. Seeing you again, being in your presence when you were no longer mine, would have hurt too much.’
‘It still mattered that much to you?’ Chrissie pressed in surprise.
Jaul shot her an incredulous look. ‘I loved you. I loved you with all my heart! But I lost faith in you while I lay alone in hospital.’
Pained regret slivered through Chrissie. She was furious that his father had subjected him to that ordeal of believing that she no longer cared about him. I loved you with all my heart. It hurt Chrissie to hear that. ‘I would’ve been there with you if I’d known—’
‘I know that now...that’s what killing me!’ he bit out, swinging defensively away from her, broad shoulders bunched with tension below his thin shirt.
‘But it’s pointless wasting all this energy on a past that’s gone, done and dusted,’ she declared, tilting her chin. ‘We have to move on from it—’
‘How can I do that when my father’s lies cost us so much?’ Jaul framed emotively, turning back to her. ‘Once you were mine, completely, utterly mine and it is my dream that some day you will feel like that again. But, sensible and fair as I have tried to be, I still find myself thinking wholly unjust thoughts about the fact that—’ His hands fisted again and he turned away again. ‘No, I won’t say it...such jealousy and possessiveness are wrong!’
Chrissie was frowning. ‘What the heck are you talking about?’ she prompted uncertainly.
‘It is a topic better not discussed. What has happened has happened and we will not allow it to spoil what we do have,’ Jaul declared, still restively pacing the tiled floor.
Jealousy? Possessiveness? Abruptly she grasped his meaning and she reddened, cheeks heating fierily. ‘Are you talking about the fact that I said I was with other men while we were apart?’
His lustrous gaze narrowed. ‘It’s not something we need to discuss,’ he told her hastily. ‘You believed you were single and quite naturally...’
‘Well, maybe it would’ve been natural but I didn’t sleep with anyone else,’ Chrissie told him in a rush. ‘I said I did but it was a lie. I don’t know how you thought I could have found the time for another man when I was pregnant most of the first year you were gone and saddled with two newborns and working the second year.’
Jaul was studying her with fixed attention. ‘You...lied?’ he queried in disbelief. ‘About such an important issue?’
Chrissie winced. ‘It was a weapon and I used it. It’s the one and only lie I have told you. Obviously I assumed that you—’
Jaul stalked closer and gripped her forearms to hold her still. ‘No. No concubines, no girlfriends, no one-night stands. Nothing...zilch.’
Her eyes opened very wide in surprise. ‘But...er, why?’
‘When I finally got out of that wheelchair I decided that since I had got myself in such a mess with you it would be safer to avoid another liaison and instead get married.’
The tension in Chrissie’s slight shoulders relaxed and then reached full strength again because, while she was relieved he had not had any other women and his clear gaze convinced her that the once bitten, twice shy adage had worked a blinder on him, she still wanted to know who he had planned to marry. ‘So, who was picked to replace me?’
Jaul flushed. ‘I didn’t have anyone picked but I knew my people were waiting for me to do the picking.’ He brushed a gentle finger beneath her down-curved chin to raise it. ‘In truth, Chrissie, I have never cared for any woman the way I care for you. I don’t deserve you but you have always owned my heart—from the first moment to the last moment. I was depressed for a long time after I believed I had lost you and I was afraid of ever feeling for another woman what I felt for you.’
She lifted her hands to frame his proud cheekbones with tender fingers, emotion bright in her eyes as she gazed up into the scorching heat of his. ‘And I’m afraid that I’m always going to love you,’ she told him ruefully. ‘When you first came back I honestly did think I hated you but I never did get over losing you either.’
‘Chrissie—’
‘Shush,’ she hushed him tenderly. ‘Nobody else compared, nobody else can make me feel what you do and I do believe that you love me too.’
‘I do. I love you very deeply, habibti.’ Jaul planted a kiss against her caressing fingers, his black lashes low over golden eyes shimmering with a happiness Chrissie could not mistake. ‘The day I threatened you with the pre-nup was the day I understood that I still loved you because I have never done anything so dishonest in my whole life. And I wasn’t even ashamed. There was literally nothing I wouldn’t do to get a second chance with you and our children.’
Chrissie wrapped her arms round his neck. ‘Ruthlessness in pursuit of the right goal is acceptable.’
All her tension evaporated while he held her close and heat of a different ilk warmed at her feminine core.
‘But...who is to say...what the right goal is?’ Jaul quipped, running down the zip on her dress to ease it off her shoulders.
As the dress dropped to her feet, exposing the frilly silky lingerie he loved to see her in, he made a sound of appreciation low in his throat and carried her over to the orgy-sized bed to settle her down on the white linen sheet.
‘My only goal,’ he proffered softly, ‘is to keep you as my wife and the mother of my children for ever and make you so happy that you eventually forget our separation.’
Chrissie plucked at his collar. ‘I think that’s a terrific motivation,’ she told him sassily, her bright eyes dancing as he ripped off his shirt with more haste than cool. ‘Particularly since you’ve been so very separate from me in bed this past week...and I haven’t been at all happy.’
Jaul dealt her a troubled glance. ‘I burned for you but once I received Yusuf’s note...’
‘What note?’
Jaul explained the note. ‘And in the same moment I read it I knew I had got everything wrong with you. I couldn’t afford to take anything for granted.’
His wife ran worshipping fingers idly along the rippling muscles of his abdomen. ‘I thought you’d lost interest.’
‘You must be joking!’ Jaul exclaimed, rolling her back to come down over her, his taut lower body hard with an arousal she could feel. ‘I always want you. I just knew I didn’t deserve you.’
Chrissie ran an appreciative hand down over a lean, powerful thigh. ‘Love makes people more forgiving and I love you an awful lot.’
His kiss was hot, hungry and wildly exciting and her heart pounded and her pulses raced. Happiness was spinning and dancing inside her like a sudden burst of golden sunshine.
‘And I love you,’ he confessed with a flashing grin that tugged at her heart because the twins so strongly resembled him. ‘I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone and I always will.’
* * *
Three years after that incredibly romantic reconciliation in the former harem, Chrissie watched the twins squabble over a ride-on plastic car they were playing with in a shaded courtyard. At four years old, Tarif and Soraya were lively and opinionated and in need of firm handling from both their