‘Yes. I suppose that is what I’m asking.’ Lustrous dark eyes flaring gold and then veiling below black curling lashes, Jaul levelled his gaze on her.
Her frown deepened. ‘You want us to remarry even though we’ve agreed only to stay together until you feel a divorce would be acceptable to your people?’
His stunning bone structure tightened, brilliant eyes narrowing. ‘I don’t want a divorce. I haven’t wanted a divorce from the moment I learned that we had two children.’
Shaken by his proposition, Chrissie sank down onto a sofa before steeling herself to say rather woodenly, ‘I don’t care about what you want. I only care about what you agreed. And you agreed that I could have a divorce if I wanted one.’
‘But our children need both of us. I grew up without a mother—she died the day I was born. Children need mothers and fathers. I want this to be a real marriage and not a pretence,’ he countered without apology.
Chrissie sprang out of her seat, revitalised by that admission. ‘So, you lied to me in London. You just said what you had to say to persuade me to return to Marwan with you but clearly you never had any intention of giving me a divorce.’
Jaul stood his ground, wide shoulders rigid, lean, powerful body tense as he watched her pace. ‘I did not lie. I merely hoped that you would eventually change your mind about wanting a divorce. Hoping is not a lie, nor is it a sin,’ he assured her drily.
A bitter little laugh erupted from Chrissie at that exercise in semantics. ‘But you’re way too good at fooling me, Jaul. You did it two years ago when I first married you and I trusted you then and we both know how that turned out. Doesn’t it occur to you that I could never want to stay with a husband I can’t trust? And that going through a second wedding ceremony would only make a mockery of my feelings of betrayal?’ she demanded emotively, struggling to rein back her agitated emotions. ‘After all, you still haven’t explained why you left me two years ago and never got in touch again...’
Jaul was frowning and he lifted an expressive hand to silence her. ‘Chrissie, listen to—’
‘No.’ Her luminous turquoise eyes were bright with challenge and she lifted her chin, daring Jaul to deny her the explanation she deserved. ‘No more evasions between us, no more unanswered questions,’ she spelt out tautly. ‘You have nothing left to lose and you can finally be honest. Two years ago in spite of all your claims of love and for ever, you broke up with me, you dumped me... It is what it is.’
‘But that isn’t what happened...’ In a gesture of growing frustration as the tension rose, Jaul raked long brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair. ‘And what is the point of discussing this so long after the event? I want a fresh start in the present—’
‘What happened back then is still very important to me,’ Chrissie stressed, determined not to back down. ‘I think you realised that our marriage was a mistake and you couldn’t face telling me that to my face—’
‘No, that wasn’t what happened,’ Jaul broke in with sudden biting harshness. ‘When I left you in Oxford I had every intention of coming back to you. My father had asked for my help and I couldn’t refuse it. A civil war had broken out in Dheya, the country on our eastern boundary, and thousands of refugees were pouring over the border. The camps were in chaos and I was needed to co-ordinate the humanitarian effort—’
‘For goodness’ sake, you didn’t even tell me that much two years ago!’ Chrissie complained, her resentment unconcealed. ‘Did you think that I was too much of an airhead to understand that that was your duty?’
‘No, I didn’t want you asking me how long I’d be away because when I flew out I really had no idea,’ Jaul admitted with wry honesty. ‘I travelled down to the border in a convoy filled with medical personnel and soldiers. A missile fired by one of the factions fighting in Dheya went astray and crossed the border into Marwan. Our convoy suffered a direct hit...’
Chrissie was so utterly shaken by that explanation that she collapsed back down onto the sofa , her legs weak and her heart suddenly thumping very hard inside her chest. ‘Are you telling me that you got...hurt?’
‘I was the lucky one.’ Jaul grimaced. ‘I survived while everyone with me was killed. I was thrown clear of the wreckage but I suffered serious head and spinal injuries and I was in a coma for months.’
In the early days of his vanishing act, Chrissie had feared that Jaul had met with an accident, only to discount that as virtual wishful thinking when time had worn on and there had still been no word from him. Nausea now shimmied sickly through her stomach and she felt almost light-headed at the shock of what he had just told her.
‘But nobody told me anything. Nobody even contacted me. Why did nobody tell me what had happened to you?’ she asked weakly, struggling to comprehend such an inexcusable omission.
‘Very few people knew. My father put a news blackout on my condition. He was afraid that my injuries would provoke a popular backlash against Dheya and the refugees. In reality what happened to me was a horrible accident and not an uncommon event on the edge of a war zone,’ he pointed out with a sardonic twist of his lips. ‘I was still in a coma when my father came to see you in Oxford—’
‘You were hurt, you needed me...and yet your father didn’t tell me!’ Chrissie registered with rising incredulity and anger. ‘Obviously he didn’t want me to know what had happened to you but I was your wife! I had every right to be with you.’
‘Don’t forget that my father didn’t accept that we were legally married. I had only informed him of our marriage the night before my trip to the camps and he was very angry with both of us.’
‘But you were still in a coma when he came to see me,’ she reminded him, her eyes darkening with disgust when she considered that aspect. ‘Your father actually took advantage of the fact that you were unconscious. How low can a man sink?’
Lean dark, startlingly handsome features grim, his dark eyes sparking gold at that challenge, Jaul breathed curtly, ‘He was trying to protect me, but I do not and never will condone his interference.’
‘Oh, that’s good to know!’ Chrissie countered with biting sarcasm. ‘He kept your wife away from you when you needed her—very protective, I don’t think!’
Jaul was tempted to remind her that his father had offered her money to walk away from their relationship and forget she had ever known him and that after that meeting with his father she had agreed to do exactly that. But now that he knew that she had been pregnant and had given birth to his children, he saw the past in a very different light. She would very much have needed that money to survive as a single parent and he could no longer condemn the choice she had made.
‘So, you were in a coma,’ Chrissie recounted stiffly, mastering her raging rancour over his father’s behaviour with the greatest of difficulty because she knew that insulting the older man would only cloud and confuse more important issues. ‘When did you come out of it?’
‘Only after three months when they had almost given up hope. I didn’t remember you at first. I didn’t remember much of anything,’ Jaul admitted heavily. ‘I’d had a serious head injury and I was in a very confused state of mind with only fragments of memory all jumbled up inside my head. My memories returned slowly. My father told me that he had seen you and given you the money. He also reiterated his belief that our marriage was invalid and informed me that you would not be coming to visit me.’
Chrissie had turned pale as white paper because rage was storming through her in an almost uncontrollable surge. Had she known that Jaul was in hospital, nothing would have kept her from his side! But while he had lain in that hospital bed, his father had manipulated the situation and played on her ignorance of the accident to destroy a marriage he had abhorred. How could even the most loving son deem that a ‘protective’