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Jaul had not been co her but, even so, he had done it because he kneas the right thing to do How could she be seen to do less?

Chrissie climbed out of the taxi that Lizzie had insisted she needed, pointing out that searching for a parking space while trying to identify the correct house was the last thing her sister needed in the mood she was in

Not that finding the house where Jaul was staying had proved a proble the vastin the lance Cesare’s staff had coh-powered connections her brother-in-law enjoyed, tracking down Jaul had not proved that big a challenge while it had also provided her with extraneous infore town house had fors and it had been purchased in the nineteen thirties and turned into a single dwelling by Jaul’s grandfather to house the Marwani royal family and their numerous staff whenever they came to visit London Apparently the family had made ridiculously few visits in the many years that had passed since then

It had been an education for Chrissie to discover that this was one more fact she hadn’t known about the h they had visited London together, he had never once mentioned that his family owned a house there In much the same way he had neverHis Marwani background had always been a closed book to her froes In short she knew he had grown up without a mother, had attended a military school and had trained as a soldier in Saudi Arabia When he’d signed up to study politics at Oxford University it had been his very first visit to the UK

It shook Chrissie now to accept that Jaul was the sole ruler of his immensely rich country in the Arabian Gulf She finally understood the arrogance and the authority that had often set her teeth on edge Jaul had never been in any doubt of who he was and where he was going to end up No doubt his e to Chrissie had just been a brief fun stop on his upwardly mobile royal life curve and had never ever been intended to last

‘Proceed with great caution,’ Cesare had warned Chrissie once he had established the exact identity of the man whom she had married in such secrecy two years earlier

That recollection had made Chrissie’s skin turn clammy beneath the sleek turquoise shift dress she had borrowed fronancy wardrobe Her shrewd brother-in-law had pointed out that Jaul would have diplomatic immunity, that he was firovernreater power than ht have if it came to a custody battle Custody battle—the very phrase struck terror into Chrissie’s bones Cesare assuetic months of him—would now be heir to the throne of Marhich would ely irew in direct proportion to her anxious thoughts, her spine stiffened and her skin grew even chillier On some craven, very basic level she didn’t want to even try to be civilised; she simply wanted to snatch her kids from Lizzie’s luxurious nursery and flee soain

Instead, however, Chrissie reminded herself that she was supposed to be an adult and able to handle life’s es Shewith its i columns, portico and innumerable s and pressed the doorbell

Jaul was lunching in a dining rooh ‘desert’ style circa nineteen thirty by his English grandood taste He didn’t want to pretend he was in the desert and sit cross-legged like a sheep herder in front of a fake fire; he wanted a table and a chair Mercifully his personal chef and other staff had travelled with him and the service and the food were exe to sleep in a bedrooh baether with ropes Of course, he conceded wryly, the distractions of the extraordinary décor of the royal hohts away fro and perfect legs on full display