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‘Unhappily that is not the case’ Bandar sighed ‘To be free of the e you require a divorce under UK law and Marwani law’

Jaul stalked over to thebeyond which Zaliha could still be seen entertaining her niece and nephew, but he was no longer remotely conscious of that view ‘I had no suspicion of this I should have been inforo—’

‘As I mentioned, Yusuf was my superior and he refused to allow me to raise the subject—’

‘It is three months since my father passed away,’ Jaul reminded him stiffly

‘I had to ensure my facts were correct before I could raise this matter with you I have now discovered that in spite of your separation your wife has not sought a divorce either—’

Jaul froze, his lean, darkly handso hard ‘Please do not refer to her as my wife,’ he murmured flatly

‘Should I refer to the lady concerned as your queen?’ Bandar pressed with even less tact ‘Because that is what Chrissie Whitaker is, whether she knows it or not The wife of the King of Marwan is always granted the status of Queen’

Jaul snatched in a ragged breath of restraint, lean brown hands closing slowly into fists of innate aggression He had made one serious mistake in his life and it had come back to haunt him in the worst possible way at the worst possible tier who had deserted hiot in return for cold, hard cash

‘Naturally I respect the fact that your father did not approve of the young woman but perhaps now—’

‘No, my father was correct in his assessment of her character She was unsuitable to be either rittily, a faint flare of colour accentuating the line of his spectacular high cheekbones as he forced out the lowering ad his pride ‘I was a rebellious son, Bandarbut I learnt my lesson’

‘The lessons of youth are often hard,’ Bandar co was unlike his late parent, who had raged and taken u he did not want to hear

Jaul was barely listening In fact he was being bombarded by unwelcoround at the back of hisre Chrissie walk away fro back in the breeze, her long, shapely legs fluid and graceful as a gazelle’s

But she had always been walking away froht froame of seduction Hot-blooded as he was and never before refused by a woo with her much-vaunted indifference It had taken a two-year-plus can for him to win her and she had only truly beco Unsurprisingly during that long period of celibacy and frustration, Chrissie Whitaker had become a sexual obsession whose allure Jaul had not been able to withstand

The payback for his weakness had not been long in co rohen he’d left Oxford to fly back to Marithout her and, extraordinarily, he had never seen her again after that day At that point and perhaps most fortunately for him, fate had intervened to cut hi a serious accident, Jaul had surfaced in a hospital bed to find his father seated like a sentry beside hirief and apprehension

Before he had broken the bad news, King Lut had reached for his son’s hand in a cluesture of comfort for the first time in his life Chrissie, Lut had then confided heavily, would not be coe, Lut had declared, was illegal and Chrissie had accepted a financial pay-off as the price of forgetting that Jaul had ever figured in her life King Lut had purchased her silence and discretion with a large sum of money that had evidently compensated her for her supposed loss of a husband while providing her with support for the future

For a split second, Jaul recalled one of the ripped him while he lay helpless in that hospital bed Aware of his diplomatic i Chrissie Now in the present he shook his proud dark head slowly, utterly astonished at the tricks his led to co fact that, not only was his wife not his wife, but also that given generous enough financial coer wanted to be his wife Chrissie had been quite happy to ditch her Arab prince once she’d had the eful thoughts had driven Jaul while he’d fought his injuries to get back on his feet