The Desert Sheikh's Defiant Queen: The Sheikh's Chosen Queen / The Desert King's Pregnant Bride

CHAPTER SIX

JESSLYN’S heart thudded as she stood in the doorway of the royal courtyard. She couldn’t take another step, painfully self-conscious in the open-shoulder silk blouse Mehta had insisted she wear after going through all of Jesslyn’s clothes. The black silk was sheer and heavily embroidered with silver, the top draping off her shoulders and then dipping low.

It was a splurge top she’d bought for the Australia trip, a dressy fun top she’d imagined wearing in Cairns or Port Douglas for a special dinner out. Instead she wore it tonight for dinner with Sharif, the top paired with slim black satin trousers and high heels.

“Where did Miss Heaton go?” Sharif’s deep voice sounded from the opposite end of the courtyard, and Jesslyn searched the shadowy walled garden lit only by moonlight and the odd torch.

“I’m not sure,” she answered nervously, taking another step into the courtyard, feeling the chunky, black wood bead necklace sliding across her bare skin. “This wasn’t my idea,” she added defensively, pressing the big glossy wood beads to her sternum, wishing the beads covered more of her as her top left far too much bare. She shouldn’t have allowed Mehta to dress her. She should have finally, firmly, put her foot down.

Sharif moved from the shadows into the light. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

Instead of his traditional robes, he wore Western clothes, tailored black trousers and a long-sleeved white dress shirt open at the throat.

She’d never seen him like this, either. In London they’d never dressed up, never gone to very expensive or trendy restaurants. Instead their lives were simple and low-key and yet so full of happiness.

“This isn’t my idea of business attire,” she added nervously, shoulders lifting at the warm caress of the evening breeze. “But Mehta doesn’t listen to me. Not about anything.”

“Ah, yes, Teacher Fine,” he remarked moving leisurely toward her as the torches jumped and flickered in the breeze. “And you do look very fine.”

She touched one bare shoulder, aware that her top’s black silk was so sheer her skin and the curve of her breast could be seen. The fact that the silk had been bordered in silver ribbon and embroidered with fanciful silver designs did little to comfort her. The top had merely seemed playful when she’d planned to wear it on holiday. Now it felt far too daring, provocative and sexual and it mortified her.

She wasn’t trying to seduce Sharif. She wasn’t trying to do anything but fulfill her promise to him. All she wanted to do was help his children and then return to Sharjah in eight weeks for the new school year.

“Would you like a cocktail, a glass of wine or champagne?” he asked.

She fidgeted with the black beads. “No, thank you. I don’t really drink. I know a lot of the expats in the Emirates do, but since most people don’t drink …” Her voice trailed off as she looked up into his face, her train of thought disappearing as she got lost in his eyes, eyes that tonight looked like the pewter gray of the precious Tahitian pearl.

“How is life in Sharjah as an expat?” he asked, his head tilting to one side, his lips curving lazily, and yet the cool, sardonic smile only made the spark in his eyes hotter.

“Good. I’m happy there. It’s become my home.” She tried to smile, but found it impossible when Sharif was looking at her like that.

Looking at her as though she was the most interesting thing in the world.

But she knew what she was and she knew what she wasn’t, and this—all of this—was a huge mistake. She should never have come to dinner dressed this way.

A lock of her dark hair fell forward, and reaching up, she shyly pushed it back from her brow. Mehta had done her hair, as well, brushing and backcombing the crown, before sweeping most of it away from her face and pinning it at the back of her head with small jeweled hairpins that left some hair loose in soft dark curls.

Looking in the mirror at her reflection earlier, Jesslyn had nearly fainted. It wasn’t that she didn’t look beautiful, but the hairstyle and the blouse and the dark eyeliner and pale glossy lips all whispered sex. Seduction. Pleasure.

She’d tried to take the jeweled hairpins out, but Mehta had shocked her by bursting into tears. “No Teacher Fine, no,” she’d wept and Jesslyn had been so stunned and so uncomfortable she’d left her hair and makeup alone.

Jesslyn tried to smile but couldn’t quite pull it off. “Sharif, I really feel awkward. This outfit, this hair—” She lifted a hand, gesturing to her head, hating how her hand shook like a nervous schoolgirl’s. “This isn’t me. It isn’t right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, that’s really not necessary. But I do agree with you. Something’s not right.” Sharif folded his arms across his chest, his features firming in lines of concentration as he slowly walked around her, studying her from head to toe.

Then, turning away, he called a quiet command and one of Sharif’s uniformed butlers appeared. Sharif spoke quickly, two or three abrupt sentences that Jesslyn couldn’t follow. She spoke basic Arabic, but he wasn’t speaking a dialect she understood.

She looked at Sharif questioningly as the butler disappeared. Sharif simply looked at her, his expression unreadable. “This shall be an interesting evening,” he said at length, allowing himself the smallest hint of a smile.

His smile filled her with fresh trepidation. She didn’t want an interesting evening. She wanted a safe evening, a predictable evening, an evening that was courteous, professional, routine. The Sharif standing before her at the moment represented none of those things.

“I spent the afternoon reading through the children’s textbooks,” she said with unintentional force. She was nervous, so nervous, and already she felt wound too tight. “I’m quite familiar with the publisher as I’ve taught the middle school editions of the literature and language books, and as textbooks go, they’re very good.”

His silver gaze gleamed. Deep grooves bracketed his sensual mouth. “I’m glad you approve.”

She had to look away, unnerved by the intensity of his gaze. He was looking at her far too intently, looking at her as though he could strip her bare at any moment, as though he would strip her bare at any moment….

“The science and math textbooks are of course new to me. I’m not credentialed in those subjects, but it’s not difficult material to teach.” She was babbling, knew she was, but couldn’t help it. Anything to keep from thinking about his eyes, his mouth, his lips. Anything to keep from looking at the width of his chest and the beautiful bronze skin revealed by his open shirt. A shirt like that wouldn’t be acceptable in his culture, but he didn’t seem to care about rules.

Regulations.

Propriety.

“I’ll work with them on handwriting, too,” she added breathlessly. “I imagine Takia is still just learning to print.”

He didn’t answer and she glanced up, looking at him from beneath her mascara-coated lashes. His jaw flexed. He was fighting a smile. She knew because she saw the briefest flash of his white teeth.

“Are you afraid to be alone with me?” he asked, an eyebrow half rising.

“No.” She laughed and it came out high and thin, more like a hysterical bleat. “No,” she repeated more firmly. “I’m just thinking about the children. Our first day of school.”

“You’re a most dedicated teacher.”

She refused to meet his gaze and she stared at her fingers and the ring on her right hand. “I try.”

“I like that about you.” He paused expectantly as the butler returned with a stack of medium to large jeweler’s boxes. “Let me see what we have.”

Jesslyn watched as the butler opened one box after the other for Sharif. A priceless necklace nestled inside each box’s black velvet and satin lining, thick diamond clusters, long strands of large black and white pearls, a glittering sapphire, diamond and South Sea pearl necklace.

She’d never seen jewelry like this, never in her life. She’d seen photographs in magazines of exquisite jewels, had watched a famous actress claim an award with borrowed Harry Winston diamonds, but that was on TV and everyone knew television wasn’t real life.

As each box opened Sharif glanced at Jesslyn, his gaze narrowed consideringly. After the third and final box opened he turned to her, “Which do you prefer?”

Heat stormed her cheeks. “Don’t tease.”

He shrugged. “I’ll pick the necklace for you, then.” And after perusing the selection for another minute, he lifted the dazzling, thick, diamond necklace, an entire strand of diamond starburst after diamond starburst, and moved behind her.

“Lift your hair,” he said.

“This is absurd, Sharif.”

“Your hair.”

A shiver raced down her back as she hesitantly reached up to take off her wood bead necklace and to pull her heavy hair off her neck, revealing her bare nape and nearly naked back.

She closed her eyes as she felt him settle the heavy necklace around her neck, his fingers brushing her skin as he deftly fastened the small hook. The necklace was cold against her chest, hitting four inches below her throat.

“Turn. Let me see,” he said.

Slowly she turned to face him and he took a step back to give her a critical once-over. “Pretty,” he said, but he didn’t sound very convincing, and yet with so many huge diamonds she knew the necklace had to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. If not more.

“Please take it off,” she urged, looking down and catching sight of the diamonds’ white fire.

Instead he turned to another jewelry box, the one with the decadently long strand of flawless South Sea and Tahitian pearls, each pewter and cream-colored pearl the size of her knuckle. Unhooking the clasp, he lifted the pearls from its box and, again moving behind her, he draped these around her neck. The pearls fell between her breasts, hung so low that the luxurious strand brushed the full swell of her breast before settling low against her breastbone.

“Turn,” Sharif commanded.

She gave him a fierce look over her shoulder. “Remember our conversation from last night? I am your employee, not your servant.”

He met her angry gaze and he smiled slowly, a provocative gleam that quickened her pulse and turned her belly inside out. He was playing a game, a game she didn’t understand, a game where he made the rules and she was to follow.

“What do you want?” she whispered, her voice failing her.

“I want to see you covered in jewels, the way you could have been.” His lashes dropped, concealing the pearl gray of his eyes. “The way you would have been.”

Goose bumps covered her arms. The fine hair at her neck stood on end.

“You could have been my queen,” he repeated.

She looked at him, seeing him as the world must see him, that noble face both beautiful and severe, and then there were those eyes of his, those silver eyes that had haunted her in her sleep for years.

She’d told herself after leaving him that she’d never regretted ending their relationship, told herself she was better off without his controlling mother and foreign culture and far-off palace, but at night her dreams told her differently.

At night, even years later, she still dreamed of him, and in her dreams she tried to cling to him, tried to make the differences go away. Tried to redeem herself.

Now she reached up to try to remove one of the necklaces, but before she could unfasten a clasp Sharif gently batted her fingers away and, taking the diamond, sapphire and pearl strand from his butler, he told her to lift her hair.

She shook her head. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“But you still have one more.”

“No. I don’t want it, I don’t want any of these.”

“But you like jewelry. You love fine jewelry. And best of all, you look stunning in exquisite jewels like these. Now lift your hair because dinner is being served and we don’t want it cold.”

She looked up at him, bemused. She’d never owned fine jewelry, only trinkets and hand-me-down bracelets and necklaces and rings from her mother. An antique cameo. A silver Art Deco brooch. Wooden bangles. A jade pendant.

“I don’t feel comfortable, Sharif.”

“But you look beautiful. You’re absolutely gorgeous. Like a living treasure.”

He was paying her compliments and yet there was an edge to his voice, an unspoken anger.

“Maybe we should just eat,” she whispered.

“One last gift,” he said. “Please move your hair.”

Eyes burning, she gathered her heavy hair into her hands and lifted it high to give him access to the back of her neck. His fingers brushed her skin, his fingertips so light, so teasing she arched helplessly at his touch.

She didn’t want him.

But she did want him.

She didn’t love him anymore.

But she loved the way his skin felt on hers, loved the heat and how he made her feel so hot, so electric.

She wanted more heat, more hot, more electric. Closing her eyes she could imagine his hands on her hips, his hard body against the back of her thighs, his palms sliding up her ribs to cup her breasts.

Then suddenly his lips were there at the back of her neck, planting a fleeting kiss where his fingers had been.

“There,” he said, his voice deep, warm reminding her of honey and sun. “Perfection.”

Turning her around, he extended her a hand. “Dinner, laeela.”

They were eating outside at the opposite end of the courtyard, dinner served in a beautiful pale-ivory tent lit by a delicate crystal chandelier hanging above the linen-covered table. Three more white candles flickered on the table, making the porcelain china shimmer. Tuberoses and white lilies floated in water, their fragrance so sweet it nearly made her dizzy.

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