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

Eyes that seemed to pierce her heart now.

The air left her in a rush, forcing her to take a quick breath and then another.

Her prince had become a king. Her Sharif had married and then been widowed. Her own life with him had been a lifetime ago.

“You’re displeased with me, and yet it’s the opposite for me. You’re more than I remembered,” he continued in the same deep, husky voice, “more confident. More beautiful. More of everything.”

Once again her chest tightened, her heart feeling as mashed as a potato.

He made her feel too much. He made her remember everything.

Inexplicably she suddenly wanted to seize all the years back, the nine years she’d buried herself in good works and deeds, the years in higher-education courses and summer school and night school, arduous activities and pursuits designed to keep her from thinking or feeling.

Designed to keep her from regretting.

Prince Sharif Fehr, her Prince Sharif Fehr, her first lover, her only love, had married someone else only months after they broke off.

Shifting restlessly, she glanced out the window, saw they were less than a mile from her apartment and felt confusing emotions of disappointment and relief.

Soon he’d drop her off and be gone.

Soon she could be in control of her emotions again.

Sharif’s gaze still rested on her face. “So tell me more about your school, your current job. Are you happy there? What is the faculty like?”

This Jesslyn could answer easily, with a clear conscience. “I love being a teacher. I always end up so attached to my students, and I still get a thrill teaching literature and history. And yes, the school is very different from the American School in London, and the American School in Dubai where I taught one year, but I have a lot more control over my curriculum here and I get to spend more time with my students, which is what I want.”

“Your students,” he repeated.

She smiled, finally able to breathe easier. Talking about teaching put her firmly back in control of her emotions, and she wanted to keep it that way. She had to keep it that way. “I do think of them as my kids, but I can’t help it. I have such high hopes for each of them.”

“If you love children so much, why don’t you have any of your own?”

Immediately she was thrown back into inner chaos, her sense of calm and goodwill vanishing. Did his mother never tell him? Did he still really not know?

Her fingers balled into fists as she felt anger wash through her, anger toward his cold, manipulative mother, and anger toward Sharif. Sharif was supposed to have loved her. Sharif was supposed to have wanted her.

“Haven’t met the right person,” she answered tightly, looking into his face, seeing again the hard, carved features, the way his dark sleek hair touched his robe, and the shadow of a beard darkening his jaw.

That face …

His eyes …

Heat rushed through her, heat followed by ice because she could never have been his wife. She could never have been the one he married and cherished. She was, as his mother had put it so indelicately, a good-time girl. Someone frivolous and fun to pass the time with.

“You’ve never married?” he asked.

“No.”

“I’m surprised. When you left all those years ago I was sure there was someone, or something, you wanted.”

No, there was nothing else she wanted, but she hadn’t known how to fight then. Hadn’t known how to keep, protect, what she loved. “We’re almost to my apartment,” she said numbly, gesturing to the street.

“My girls need a teacher this summer. They’re home from boarding school and lagging academically.”

They were so close to her apartment, so close. Just another block and she could get out, run away, escape.

“I’ll pay you three times your annual salary,” he continued. “In ten weeks you could make three times what you make in a year.”

She wanted to cover her ears. She didn’t want to know about the job, didn’t want to hear about his children—children he’d had with his fabulously wealthy and stunningly beautiful princess—or their academic deficiencies. “I’m going on holiday, Sharif. I leave tonight.”

“I thought you cared about children. I thought you wanted what’s best for children.”

But these weren’t her children and she wasn’t going to get involved. “I’ve plans,” she repeated woodenly.

“Plans you could change,” Sharif said so pleasantly that Jesslyn felt a prickle beneath her skin. She didn’t trust Sharif when he used that tone of voice.

But then, she didn’t trust Sharif at all.

Maybe that’s because she didn’t know the real Sharif. The Sharif she’d dated and adored would have never married a Dubai princess just to further his career and kingdom, much less married that princess less than six months after they’d broken up. But that’s what he’d done. His wedding had been covered by virtually every glossy magazine in the UK, and in every article about the wedding, below every photograph the caption read, Prince Sharif Fehr Marries Princess Zulima of Dubai after a Year-Long Engagement.

Year-long engagement?

Impossible. Six months before the wedding Jesslyn was still dating Sharif.

The car had stopped but Jesslyn didn’t wait for the driver to appear. Gathering her things, she flung the door open. “Good luck, Sharif,” she said, sliding her legs out and standing. “Goodbye.”

And Jesslyn rushed to the entrance of her building, racing to the lobby and the entrance as though her life depended on it. And in a way it did, because Sharif would annihilate her if she gave him the chance.

She wouldn’t give him the chance.

In her apartment Jesslyn forced herself to focus on finishing packing. She wasn’t going to think about Sharif, not again, not anymore. She had more pressing things to think about, things like her passport, sunscreen and extra batteries for her digital camera.

Her trip required more luggage than she would normally take, but ten weeks and radically different climates meant swimsuits and shorts for the warmer temperatures in Northern Queensland, slacks and elegant blouses for the big Australian cities, and then down jackets and fleece-lined boots for the ski slopes in New Zealand.

She was just zipping the biggest suitcase closed when her phone rang.

“Hello,” Jesslyn said, answering the phone as she dragged her big suitcase into the hall.

It was Sharif. “I’ve news I thought you’d want to hear.”

She straightened, leaving the suitcase by her door. “I’ve a million things to do before the flight, Sharif—”

“It concerns one of your students.” He hesitated. “Perhaps you’d like to sit down.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously. “What’s happened?”

“I just had a call from Mahir, my chief of security, and he’s on his way to the Sharjah police station. They’ve arrested one of the school students for vandalizing the campus this afternoon. It was thought that I’d want to press charges.”

She walked into the small living room and leaned against the back of her couch. “Are you pressing charges?”

“Mahir is handling the matter.”

“But what does that mean?”

“It means that Mahir makes those decisions. He’s responsible for my security.”

Jesslyn’s hand shook as she held the phone to her ear. “Which student?”

“Aaron.”

Aaron?

She frowned, bewildered. It couldn’t have been Aaron. Aaron wasn’t like that. Aaron didn’t pull pranks. He was a good kid, a serious kid, almost nerdy. “He didn’t do it,” she said faintly, folding one arm across her chest to fight the icy weakness in her limbs. “He wouldn’t pull the fire alarm. He wouldn’t.”