Jane Porter - The Desert Sheikh's Defiant Queen

“No one will be offended.”

“If you’re sure …?”

“You doubt me?”

She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry and she did both, smiling unsteadily as she dashed away a tear. “I’m not normally this emotional and yet ever since yesterday I’ve been a disaster.”

“It’s a shock seeing each other,” he answered.

Her head tilted and she looked up at him, her gaze searching his face. “You feel it, too?”

“How could I not? We were once very close. You knew me better than anyone.”

A shiver coursed through her, a shiver of remembrance and hurt and pain. But she hadn’t known him better than anyone. His mother had known him better. His mother had known he’d choose his future, and his throne, over her.

Over love.

And he did.

Chilled, she turned, rubbed her arms. “Show me where the books are. I’m ready to look at everything, plan the afternoon’s lessons.”

“There won’t be any teaching today. Use today to meet the children and settle in.”

A knock sounded up the stairs on the outer door. “Ah, the children,” Sharif said. “I believe they’ve arrived.”

Instead Sharif’s personal butler stepped into view at the top of the stairs. “Your Highness, an urgent call.”

Sharif frowned. “The children aren’t here?”

“No, Your Highness.”

“They should have been here over an hour ago.”

The butler paused, head bowing further. “I believe that is the nature of the phone call.”

Sharif’s expression didn’t outwardly change, but Jesslyn felt a whisper of tension enter the room. “If you’ll excuse me a moment,” he said to her.

“Of course.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” he added.

“Don’t worry. Take as much time as you need. I can unpack.”

“I’m sure that has already been done for you, but if you’d like to see your bedroom and ensuite bath, they are just through that door. In the meantime, I’ll send for refreshment,” he said as he started toward the stairs.

“I’m fine, Sharif. I can wait.”

He turned in midstep, powerful shoulders shifting, robes swirling, his brilliant gaze locking on her face. “That’s where we disagree,” he said, his voice so rich, so beautifully pitched it pierced her chest, burying deep to beat in time with her heart. “I think we’ve waited long enough.”

She didn’t know if it was his expression or his tone of voice, but suddenly she couldn’t breathe. “For tea?”

He paused, considered her, one eyebrow lifting. “If that makes you feel better.”

AS HE LEFT to take the call, Sharif’s thoughts lingered on Jesslyn.

She’d always been beautiful in that haunting English-beauty sort of way. A heart-shaped face framed by loose, dark curls. Flawless skin. Warm brown eyes. Perfectly arched eyebrows.

But there was something else different, something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on but made him look and look again.

Beautiful yes, but more so.

Changed.

More reserved. Distant. Closed.

He’d watched her face, these past few days, as they’d spoken, and she’d treated him the way everyone now treated him—supremely politely. With deference, if not respect. And it didn’t exactly bother him, but he missed the easiness between them. She’d always been the one person who had treated him like a man not a prince.

She’d teased him, laughed at him, loved him.

She’d loved him.

She didn’t anymore. She hadn’t when she’d left him nine years ago. And she hadn’t when she’d begun accepting bribes from his mother.

But that was to come later. He’d get his answers later. In the meantime he was determined to enjoy her beauty and revel in her softness and take what he could. Just as she’d once taken so freely from him.

After Sharif left to take the call Jesslyn anxiously paced the sunny living room with Sharif’s parting words played endlessly in her head.

I think we’ve waited long enough.

What did he mean by that? What had they waited long enough for? And waited too long for what?

Was he referring to the girls? Was he wishing he’d taken action to help them sooner? Or …

Or …

She gulped a panicked breath, fingers squeezing into nervous fists. Was he referring to something far more personal, something that had to do with them?

Almost immediately she squelched the thought. Sharif had brought her here for his children. He wanted her for his children.

But still her heart raced and her body felt too warm and her veins full of fear and hope and adrenaline.

A soft musical sound in the doorway interrupted Jesslyn’s pacing and turning. She watched a young, robed woman, a woman she guessed to be in her early twenties, descend the stairs carrying a heavy tray.

“Something for you, Teacher,” the woman said in halting English as she carried the tray laden with food and flowers and a pot of tea into the living room.

Jesslyn felt some of her tension ease. “Thank you, that’s lovely.”

The woman smiled shyly as she placed the heavy silver tray on one corner of the low tables next to the cream-covered sofa. “I pour?” she asked, indicating the pot of tea.

There was something infinitely endearing about this young woman, and Jesslyn sat down on the couch. “What is your name?”

“Mehta, Teacher,” she answered, kneeling and patting her chest and smiling again, this time revealing two deep dimples in her cheeks.

Jesslyn couldn’t help smiling back. “Mehta, I am Jesslyn.”

Her head bobbed. “Teacher Jesslyn.”

“No, Jesslyn’s fine.”

She bobbed even more earnestly. “Teacher Jesslyn Fine.”

Jesslyn liked Mehta, liked her a great deal. It couldn’t be so bad here, not if she could see Mehta now and then. “Will I see you much, Mehta?”

“Yes, Teacher. I help you every day. With your clothes and bath and tea.” She leaned forward, pointed to the tea. “I pour now?”

Jesslyn’s cheeks ached from smiling. “Yes, please.”

Along with the tea there were crescents of honey-soaked pastry stuffed with walnuts and pistachios, and the ever-popular makroudi, ground dates wrapped in semolina.

Jesslyn was shamelessly licking the sweet sticky honey from her fingers when Sharif reappeared. Mehta, spying Sharif, bowed and slipped soundlessly from the room.

In the meantime Jesslyn watched Sharif descend the pale stone stairs, and she could tell from his expression that he wasn’t happy. His brow was dark and his jaw looked as though it’d been hammered from stone.

Sitting upright, she watched his progress across the floor of her lovely living room, troubled by the anger and frustration in his face.

It struck her that there was something else going on, something he wasn’t telling her, something he didn’t want her to know.

She cocked her head, looked at him, trying to see past his striking good looks to what lay beneath. What was he really worried about? The girls failing academically, or the girls having emotional issues?

“It’s the children, isn’t it?” she asked

He nodded distractedly, his gray eyes burning with fire and frustration. “Yes.”

“Are they hurt?”

“No. They’re safe.” He dropped onto the couch opposite hers, covered his face briefly with his palms and for a long moment said nothing, tension rippling through him in waves. He took a deep breath and then another before finally looking at her. “They’re just not here.”

“When will they be here?”

He didn’t answer but she saw one hand curl, fingers forming a fist.

Did this happen often, she wondered, or was there something else troubling him, something more he hadn’t told her?