Jane Porter - The Desert Sheikh's Defiant Queen - The Sheikh's Chosen Queen / The Desert King's Pregnant Bride

“How are you?” he asked, as they climbed the stairs to the jet.

“Good,” she answered, ducking her head as she entered the sleek jet. “How are you?”

He gave her a quick look, catching her tone. “Sounds like a loaded question.”

She shrugged as they stepped into the jet. “People are talking about you.”

“They always talk about me,” he answered flatly, walking her to a chair in a cluster of four seats, two on each side of an aisle. Behind the seating area was a paneled wall with a handsome paneled door. “Which reminds me, I’ve a few calls to make. I’ll be back out when we’re airborne.”

“Of course.”

With a nod in her direction he disappeared through the paneled door. Jesslyn couldn’t see what lay behind the door other than a room with pale plush carpet, the corner of a buttery leather couch or chair and lots of open space.

As the door closed, the flight attendant appeared at Jesslyn’s side, checking to see if she needed anything. And then the door to the jet closed and within minutes they were taxiing down the long runway and lifting off.

Once at cruising altitude, the flight attendant returned, offering Jesslyn a choice of refreshments. “Tea, please,” she answered, as Sharif reappeared, taking a seat opposite hers.

“Coffee, Your Highness?” the flight attendant asked.

“Yes, thank you,” he said before looking at Jesslyn. “So what did you hear? What are the gossips saying about me today?”

She listened to the flight attendant’s footsteps recede and looked at Sharif, really looked at him, seeing the fine lines fan from his eyes and the deeper grooves shaping his mouth. He looked pensive, even tired. Silently she debated whether she should even repeat the talk, if it was worth mentioning, but she’d heard the same talk twice now and it was better to know something like this than just wonder. “I heard you’re to be married again.”

His eyebrows lifted but he said nothing.

She watched his face. “Is it true?”

He hesitated a long moment. “There would be advantages to remarrying,” he said at last. “And there are those who feel it would be advantageous for me to marry their daughter, but is there a bride? A wedding date?” He shrugged. “No. Nothing is set.”

“But you will eventually marry?”

“I’m young. I’m a widower. It makes sense.”

“It’s just business, then.”

He made a low, rough sound. “What would you prefer me to say? That I’ve met the most wonderful woman and I can’t wait to marry my one true love?” He made the rough sound again. “I don’t have time for love. I’m too busy running my country.”

“How long have you been king now?”

Sharif frowned, trying to remember. “Five years? Six? Hard to recall. It’s been long enough that it’s starting to blur together.”

“Your father had a heart attack.”

“Died in his sleep.”

“I remember reading it was a shock to the family. No one had expected it.”

“That’s what the media reported but it wasn’t true. Father had problems several years before that, but his personal physician thought things were better. Mother hoped things were better. But I sensed that Father wasn’t the same, but then, he hadn’t been, not since my sisters’ death.”

Since the fourth form Jesslyn had loved his sisters, fraternal twins who had been completely different in every way and yet were still best friends, and over the years they’d become her best friends, too. Whatever Jamila and Aman did, wherever they went, Jesslyn could be found there, too.

After graduating from university Jamila and Aman had insisted Jesslyn come to live with them in London at the home of Sharif’s aunt in Mayfair. Together they had dived into work, building their careers during the day and enjoying each other’s company in the evenings. To celebrate finishing their first year as career girls, they planned a summer holiday in Greece.

They were on their last night on Crete when their car was broadsided by a drunk driver. Jamila died instantly, Aman was rushed to the emergency room, and Jesslyn, who’d been on the opposite side of the car, was hospitalized with injuries that hadn’t appeared life threatening.

The hospital in Athens had been a nightmare. Jesslyn was desperate to see Aman but no one would let her into the intensive care ward since Jesslyn wasn’t family.

Jesslyn remembered standing in her gown, leaning on her walker, sobbing for someone to let her in. She knew Jamila was gone. She was desperate to see Aman. It was then Sharif appeared and, learning what the commotion was about, he opened the door to Aman’s room himself, firmly telling the hospital staff that Jesslyn was family, too.

That was how they met. In the hospital, the day before Aman died.

“I’m not surprised it affected your father so much,” Jesslyn said, fingers knotting together. “I still can’t believe they’re gone. I think about Jamila and Aman all the time.”

“The three of you practically grew up together.”

She dug her nails into her palms, her throat aching with suppressed emotion. “Your parents blamed me for the accident, though.”

“My father never did. He knew you weren’t even at the wheel.”

“But your mother …”

“My mother has found it difficult to accept that her only daughters are gone. But that’s not your responsibility.”

Jesslyn nodded and yet his words did little to ease her pain. The day of the funeral she wrote a long letter to King and Queen Fehr telling them how much she’d loved their daughters and how much she would miss them. The letter was never acknowledged.

A week after the funeral Jesslyn received a call from one of the queen’s staff telling her she had to be out of the Mayfair house by the weekend because the house was being sold.

It was a scramble finding a new place to live on such short notice, but she did find a tiny studio flat in Notting Hill. Just days after moving into the new flat she collapsed. Apparently, she’d been bleeding internally ever since the accident.

The upside was they stopped the bleeding and did what they could to repair the damage.

The downside was that they warned her the scar tissue would probably make it impossible for her to ever have kids.

And then in the middle of so much sadness and darkness and loss, flowers appeared on her Notting Hill doorstep, white tulips and delicate purple orchids, with a card that said, “You can call me anytime. Sharif.”

Sharif had scribbled his number on the card. She tried not to call. He was Prince Fehr, the eldest of the beautiful royal Fehr clan, the one Jamila and Aman had said would eventually inherit the throne.

But he’d also been kind to her, and he’d been the one to break the news to her that Aman had died.

Jesslyn called him. They talked for hours. Two days later he called her, inviting her out to dinner.

Sharif took her to a little Italian restaurant, one of those rustic hole-in-the-wall places with great food and friendly service. Jesslyn thought it was fantastic. Dinner was fantastic because it was so normal, so comfortable, with Sharif putting her immediately at ease. That night they talked about Jamila and Aman, they talked about Greece, they talked about the unseasonably cold weather they were having for late August, and at the end of the evening when he dropped her off, she knew she’d see him again.

She did see him again, she saw lots of him despite the fact that he was this famous rich gorgeous prince and she was, well, she was very much a nice, middle-class girl. But they enjoyed each other too much to think about their differences, so they just kept seeing each, never looking back, never looking forward. Not for two and a half years. Not until his mother found him a more suitable woman, a princess from Dubai.