thumping in the region of her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe or vocalise. In a flash, gut reaction took over and she snapped the front door firmly closed again, spinning round in shock to rest back against it because her legs were wobbling.
Jaul swore and hit the bell again twice in an impatient buzz.
Chrissie slid down the back of the door until she was in a heap at the foot of it and hugged her knees. It was Jaul...two years too late, it was Jaul. Anguish flooded her, a sharp, sharp pain of loss and grief that she had buried long ago in the need to move on and survive his betrayal. She couldn’t believe that Jaul would just turn up like that, without any warning. But then he had disappeared without any warning, she reminded herself darkly.
The bell went again as though someone had a finger stuck to it and she flinched. Jaul was very impatient. She breathed in deep and slow, struggling to calm herself. What on earth was he doing here in London? How had he even found out her current address? And why would he come to see her after all this time? Had it anything to do with the fact that his father had died recently and he had inherited the throne? After his father’s visit Chrissie had refused to allow herself to succumb to the morbid interest of checking out Jaul on the Internet. She had closed the door very firmly on that kind of curiosity but she had, quite accidentally in early spring, read a few lines in a newspaper about his father’s sudden death.
‘Chrissie...’ he grated behind the door and his voice washed over her, accented and deep, unleashing a tide of memories she didn’t want to relive.
She squashed those memories so fast that her head literally hurt as she sprang upright. No way was she hiding behind a door from the male who had torn her life apart!
CHRISSIE PEERED OUT from behind the curtain. Jaul was stationed on the pavement, his back turned to her again. Several men in dark suits, undoubtedly his protection unit, surrounded him. Her heart was still hammering so feverishly that her chest felt tight.
She had shut the door in Jaul’s face, not the sort of welcome he was accustomed to receiving. He would be angry and when Jaul was angry he was dangerously unpredictable. Refusing to open the door had possibly not been her wisest move, Chrissie reasoned worriedly. As his imperious dark head began to turn she hid back behind the curtains and, second-guessing his next move, she returned to the front door and squared her slim shoulders. Loosening the chain she opened the door.
Jaul ground to a sudden halt with his hand still reaching out for the bell. Chrissie appeared in the doorway and he snatched in a ragged breath at the sight of the shorts and T-shirt that exposed every line of her long, slender legs and the sleek, pert curves of her breasts. Lashes swiftly veiling his gaze, he compressed his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Chrissie...’
‘What are you doing here?’ Chrissie asked woodenly, inwardly amazed at how much the passage of time altered situations. Two years ago, had he finally shown up, she would have snatched him in and covered him with grateful, loving kisses. But that time was long gone. He had broken her heart, left her to sink or swim and had never once contacted her with an explanation or even an apology. That wounding silence had spoken the loudest truth of all: Jaul had never loved her, indeed could never have really cared for her in any genuine way. If he had he couldn’t have walked away without once enquiring as to how she was.
‘May I come in? I have to speak to you,’ Jaul imparted in his rich velvety drawl.
‘If you must.’ Rigid-backed, Chrissie stepped aside. She was fighting not to look at him, not to personalise his appearance in any way. It was a mark of strength on her terms that she would see him again, deal with him and let him leave without any feelings whatsoever getting involved.
He was dressed much as she remembered in a soft leather jacket and jeans, casual and effortlessly elegant, his every physical movement a study of languorous grace. He stood six feet four inches in his sock soles, a fitting match for a girl of five feet nine, who liked high heels. Broad of shoulder, slim of hip, he had the long, powerful thighs of a horseman and the flat washboard stomach of a very fit and healthy male. Luxuriant blue-black hair brushed his shoulders, framing a lean-featured and wildly eye-catching face with a classic nose, high cheekbones and a shapely, sensual mouth. But it was his beautiful dark deep-set eyes that you noticed first and remembered longest, Chrissie reckoned, black as jet in some lights, bright as stars in a dark sky in others and pure tiger-gold enticement in the sun. Something pulled taut at the apex of her thighs, leaving a melting sensation in its wake.
Chrissie only realised how much shock she was in when she saw the children’s toys littering the lounge floor and realised in amazement that it had not once occurred to her that Jaul might be visiting to ask about the children. But how would he ever have found out about the twins when he had deserted her long before she’d even discovered that she was pregnant? And why would he show the slightest interest in the existence of illegitimate children by an ex-girlfriend? That was all she was now to him—an ex-girlfriend! He wouldn’t want to know she had fallen pregnant. He wouldn’t want to open up that can of worms, would he? Of course not. Her lush, full lips curled with scorn. Marwan wasn’t the sort of country that would turn a comfortable blind eye to the immoral doings of its king. Of course, very possibly, his relationship with Chrissie might well fall into the forgivable ‘youthful sowing of wild oats’ category, she reasoned darkly.
Without a word, Chrissie bent down to scoop up the abandoned toys and toss them into the basket by the wall.
‘You have children now?’ Jaul prompted, watching her beautiful platinum-blonde hair slide like a veil of polished silk off her shoulder to screen her profile as she bent down. His riveted gaze rested on the gleaming curve of an upturned hip, a slender section of spine and the long, taut stretch of a svelte porcelain-pale thigh.
Slender thighs that he had parted, lain between, revelled between, night after night. He had never got enough of her. His muscles pulled taut to the point of rigidity, savage sexual heat zinging through him at speed and setting up a pounding pulse at his groin. His strong white teeth ground together, rage at his lack of control gaining on him.
Chrissie thought fast while she snatched up the last brick, grateful he couldn’t see her face. It was a relief that he didn’t know about the twins, a huge relief, she conceded, but it felt unreal for Jaul to ask whether or not she had children as though they were complete strangers.
‘I’ve been babysitting...for a friend,’ she lied as lightly as she could. ‘Now, what can I help you with?’
Jaul picked up on the insolent note of that question immediately. That supposed politeness was pure honeyed Chrissie scorn and he knew it. A faint line of colour accentuated his exotic cheekbones while his dark eyes flashed as golden as the sun at midday. ‘I have something to tell you that may come as a shock...’
Chrissie tilted her head to one side, eyes bright as a turquoise sea and luminous below soft brown lashes. ‘I lived with you, Jaul. Nothing you do or say could shock me.’
Not after the way you abandoned me, but she swallowed that final assurance, too proud and too scared of losing face to risk throwing that in his teeth. But his apparent equanimity burned through her restraint like acid. It was offensive that he could approach her so casually after what he had done to her and utterly unforgivable that he should dare.
‘The sooner you tell me, the sooner you can leave,’ Chrissie quipped, dry-mouthed with the anger she was holding back.
Jaul breathed in deep and slow, fighting to master the stirring ache below his belt. It had simply been too long since he had had sex. He was a normal healthy male in need of release and there was nothing strange about the reality that proximity to Chrissie should awaken old familiar impulses. Somewhat soothed by that conviction, he settled grim dark eyes on her. ‘I have only recently learned that our marriage was legal and that is why I am here.’
So great was Chrissie’s incredulity at that news that she blinked and stumbled back against the bookcase behind her. ‘But