Surrounded by the exotic beauty and

heat of a desert kingdom …

An ordinary woman fights her own desires

and the indomitable will of the handsome

king who has decided he wants her!

Two passionate, sensual novels by favourite

authors Jane Porter and Annie West

THE DESERT
SHEIKH’S
DEFIANT QUEEN
The Sheikh’s Chosen Queen
JANE
PORTER
The Desert King’s Pregnant Bride
ANNIE
WEST

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Sheikh’s Chosen Queen

About the Author

JANE PORTER grew up on a diet of Mills & Boon® romances, reading late at night under the covers so her mother wouldn’t see! She wrote her first book at age eight, and spent many of her school and college years living abroad, immersing herself in other cultures and continuing to read voraciously. Now Jane has settled down in rugged Seattle, Washington, with her gorgeous husband and two sons. Jane loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 524, Bellevue, WA 98009, USA. Or visit her website at www.janeporter.com

Don’t miss Jane Porter’s exciting new novel, A Dark Sicilian Secret, available in May 2011 from Mills & Boon® Modern™.

For my mother-in-law, Jackie Gaskins.

God has a new and feisty angel in heaven.

PROLOGUE

HOW DID A king ask for a favor?

In the palace courtyard, King Sharif Fehr broke the rosebud off the stem and held the half-opened bud in his palm, the blush petals almost pink against his skin. Roses were difficult to grow in his country’s desert heat, which only made them more rare and beautiful.

So how did a king ask for help?

How did a king get what he needed?

Carefully, he answered himself, his thumb stroking a tender petal. Very carefully.

CHAPTER ONE

THE LOW heels on Jesslyn Heaton’s practical navy pumps clicked briskly against the sidewalk as she left the administrative office.

It was the last day of school and mercifully the students had finally been sent home stuffed full of cupcakes and gallons of shocking red punch. All she had to do now was close her room for the summer.

“Going anywhere fun for holiday, Miss Heaton?” a student asked, his thin, reedy voice breaking on her name.

Jesslyn glanced up from the paperwork she’d pulled from her faculty mailbox. “Aaron, you haven’t left yet? School ended hours ago.”

The freckle-faced teen blushed. “Forgot something,” he mumbled, his flush deepening as he reached into his backpack to retrieve a small package wrapped in white paper and tied with a purple silk ribbon. “For you. My mom picked it out. But it was my idea.”

“A present.” Jesslyn smiled and adjusted the pile of paperwork in her arms to take the gift. “That’s so thoughtful. But Aaron, it’s not necessary. I’ll see you next school term—”

“I won’t be back.” His shoulders rose and he hunched miserably into the backpack he’d slung again onto his thin back. “We’re moving this summer. Dad’s been transferred back to the States. Anchorage, I think.”

Having taught middle school at the small private school in the United Arab Emirates for the past six years, Jesslyn had witnessed how abruptly the students—children of ex-pats— came and went. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I really am.”

He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Maybe you could tell the other kids? Have them e-mail me?”

His voice cracked again, and it was the crack in his voice along with the way he hung his head that nearly undid her. These children went through so much. Foreign homes, foreign lives, change the only constant. “I will, of course.”

Nodding, he turned around and was gone, rushing down the empty corridors of the school. Jesslyn watched his hasty departure for a moment before unlocking the door to her deserted classroom with a sigh. Hard to believe that another school year had ended. It seemed like only yesterday she was handing out the mountain of textbooks and carefully printing children’s names in her class register. Now they were gone, and for the next two months she was free.

Well, she’d be free as soon as she closed up her classroom, and she couldn’t do that until she tackled her last, and least-favorite task, washing the chalkboards.

Twenty minutes later her once-crisp navy dress stuck to the small of her back, and perspiration matted the heavy dark hair at her nape. What a job, she thought, wrinkling her nose as she rinsed out the filthy sponge in the sink.

A knock sounded on her door and Dr. Maddox, her principal, appeared in the doorway. “Miss Heaton, you’ve a guest.”

Jesslyn thought one of her students’ parents had shown up, concerned about a grade on a report, but it wasn’t Robert. Heart suddenly racing, she stared stunned at Sharif Fehr. Prince Sharif Fehr.

She convulsively squeezed the wet sponge, water streaming through her now-trembling fingers.

Sharif.

Sharif, here?

Impossible. But he was here, it was without a doubt Prince Fehr standing in her doorway, tall, imposing, real. She stared at him, drinking him in, adrenaline racing through her veins, too hot, too cold, too intense.

Dr. Maddox cleared her throat. “Miss Heaton, it is my pleasure to introduce you to our most generous school benefactor, His Royal Highness—”

“Sharif,” Jesslyn whispered, unable to stop herself.

“Jesslyn,” Sharif answered with a slight nod.

And just like that, her name spoken in his rich, deep voice made the years disappear.

The last time she’d seen him they’d been younger, so much younger. She’d been a young woman in her first year of teaching at the American School in London. And he’d been a gorgeous, rebel Arab prince who wore jeans and flip-flops and baggy cashmere sweatshirts.

Now he looked like someone altogether different. His baggy sweatshirts were gone, and the faded, torn jeans were replaced by a dishdashah or a thoub, as more commonly known in the Arabian Gulf, a cool, long, one-piece white dress and the traditional head gear comprised of a gutrah, a white scarflike cloth, and the ogal, the black circular band that held everything together.

He looked so different from when she’d last seen him, and yet he still looked very much the same, from the piercing pewter eyes to his chiseled jaw to his dark, glossy hair.

Confused, Dr. Maddox glanced from one to the other. “You know each other?”

Know? Know? She’d been his, and he’d been hers and their lives had been so intertwined that ending their relationship had ripped her heart to shreds.

“We … we went to school together,” she stammered, cheeks heating as she unsuccessfully tried to avoid his eyes.

But his gaze found hers anyway and held, the corner of his mouth sardonically lifting, challenging her.

They didn’t go to school together.

They weren’t even enrolled in school at the same time. He had been six years older than her, and although he hadn’t dressed the part, he had been a very successful financial analyst in London when they met.

They’d dated for several years, and when she broke it off, she walked away telling herself she would never see him again. And she hadn’t.

That didn’t mean she hadn’t hoped he’d prove her wrong.

Finally he had. But why? What did he want? Because he did want something. Sharif Fehr wouldn’t be in her Sharjah classroom without a very good reason.

“We went to school in England,” she added, striving to sound blasé, trying to hide how deeply his surprise appearance had unnerved her. There were boyfriends in life from whom you parted on good terms and then there were the ones who had changed you forever.

Sharif had changed her forever, and now, despite all the years that had passed, just being in the same room with him made her nerves scream, Danger, danger, danger.

“What a small world,” Dr. Maddox said, looking from one to the other.

“Indeed,” Sharif answered with a slight inclination of his royal head.

Jesslyn squeezed the sponge even tighter, her pulse leaping as she wondered yet again what he was doing here. What did he want?

What could he want with her?

She was still a teacher. She still lived a simple, rather frugal life. She still wore her brown hair at her shoulders in virtually the same style she’d worn nine years ago. And unlike him, she hadn’t ever married, although the man she’d been dating a couple of years ago had proposed. She hadn’t accepted the proposal, though, knowing she didn’t love him enough, not the way she’d loved Sharif.

But then, she’d never loved anybody the same way she’d loved Sharif.

Abruptly turning, she dropped the sponge in the sink, rinsed her hands and used one of the rough paper towels to dry them. “What can I do for you, Sharif?”

“I suppose I’m not needed here anymore,” Dr. Maddox said with a sigh of disappointment. “I’ll head back to my office. Good afternoon, Your Highness.” And with a respectful nod of her head, she left them, gently closing the door behind her.

Jesslyn heard rather than saw her classroom door close, and she drew a quick painful breath realizing they were alone.

Alone with Sharif. After all these years.

“Sit, please,” Sharif said, gesturing for her to sit down at her desk. “There’s no reason for you to stand for me.”

She glanced at her chair but didn’t think her legs could carry her across a room, at least not quite yet. “Would you like a chair?” she asked instead.

“I’m fine,” he answered.

“Then I’ll stand, too.”

His expression never changed. “I’d be more comfortable if you sat. Please.”

It wasn’t a request, though, it was a command, and Jesslyn looked at him, curious as well as surprised. He would never have used such an authoritative tone with her before. He’d never raised his voice or issued commands when she knew him. He’d always been gorgeous, confident, comfortable in his own skin. But he’d never been regal, never formal. He was both now.

Studying him more closely, she realized his face had changed more than she’d initially thought. His face was different. The years had subtly reshaped his features. His cheekbones were more pronounced, his jaw wider, stronger, his chin and brow also more defined.

Not a young man anymore but a man.

And not just any man but one of the most powerful leaders in the Middle East.

“Okay,” she said, her voice suddenly husky, betraying her nervousness, “let me just clean up and I’ll be happy to sit down.”

Turning back to the sink, she quickly tucked the bucket and sponge beneath the sink, wiped the sink down with another paper towel and then threw it away.

“You have to wash the chalkboards yourself?” Sharif asked as she made her way to her desk, stepping carefully around a crate of athletic gear and a stack of books that still needed to be put away in the closet.

“We’re responsible for our own boards.”

“I would have thought the janitor would take care of that.”

“We’re always trying to save money,” Jesslyn answered, kneeling down to pick up a misplaced paperback novel. She’d taught at this school, a small private school in Sharjah for four years now, and her classrooms were always warm, and downright sweltering in May, June and September.

Sharif’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why it’s a hundred degrees in here?”

She grimaced. So he’d noticed. “The air conditioner is on. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to put out as much cool air as warm air.” Taking a seat behind her desk, she prayed she looked more put together than she felt. “Is that why you’re here? To make a list of our school’s needs and then make a contribution?”

“If you help me, I’d be happy to make a contribution.”

There it was, why he was here. He wanted her help. Jesslyn felt a heavy weight in her chest and realized she wasn’t breathing.

Jesslyn forced herself to exhale and then inhale, trying to keep from dissolving into a state of panic. There was no reason to panic. She owed him nothing. Their relationship had ended nearly ten years ago.

Her attempt at cool, calm and collected ended when she caught sight of his expression. He was observing her intently, assessing her from head to toe.

Flushing, she shuffled papers nervously. “What kind of help do you need?”

“The kind you’re good at.” He was walking toward her, very slowly.

She tried to concentrate on what he was saying instead of his proximity, but he was coming too close, moving too quickly. “I’m a teacher, Sharif.”

“Exactly.” He stood over her, tall and imposing.

Had he always been this tall? “It’s been a long time,” she said.

“Nine years.”

“Nine,” she repeated, finding it nearly impossible to tear her gaze from his fiercely handsome features, features that had only grown harder and more beautiful over the years. The handsome prince had become a man. But then, he wasn’t merely a prince anymore. He was Sarq’s king.

With one hand she smoothed her skirt, feeling miserably dowdy, all too aware that her wardrobe and hairstyle were basic, practical, no nonsense. She’d never been a fashionista to start with, and nine years in the classroom had reduced both her wardrobe and her sense of style to nil.

She forced her lips into a professional smile. “After nine years, what could I possibly do to help you?”

“Teach,” he answered simply.

She felt a funny flicker of emotion, an emotion that fell somewhere between unreasonable fury and tears. “That’s right. I’m a teacher and you’re a king.”

Sharif’s gray eyes held hers, his expression enigmatic. “You could have been my queen.”

“You were never serious, Sharif.”

A spark flared in his eyes, and explosive tension whipped the room. “Neither were you.”

And just like that they were adversaries, on opposite sides of an insurmountable wall.

“Unfair and untrue,” she said through gritted teeth, anger making her chest too hot and tight. “There was no room for me—” She broke off, unable and unwilling to continue. It was history, so long ago it shouldn’t matter. The fact that they were even discussing events of nine years ago struck her as tragic, especially as she had someone else in her life, someone who mattered a great deal to her. “So what really brings you here, King Fehr?”

His jaw hardened and his narrowed gaze ruthlessly swept her, head to toe. “I’ve told you. You do. I’ve come to offer you a job.”

He was serious, then. This was about a job. Teaching.

Heat rushed through her, heat that left her deeply shaken. Swallowing, she looked up at him, her smile so hard it felt brittle even to her. “I have a job.”

“Apparently not a very good one,” he answered, indicating the old chalkboards and battered room fixtures.

She wouldn’t stoop to his level, wouldn’t let herself be ridiculed, bullied or criticized. “It’s one I like very much, thank you.”

“Would you feel better if I told you the position is just for the summer?”

Her chin tilted even more defiantly. “No.”

“Why not?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she didn’t have to answer to him, she didn’t owe him anything. But that was a pointless exercise. It wasn’t even the past holding her back, it was the future. She had plans for the summer, a wonderful eight and a half weeks of gorgeous, lovely travel—two weeks to beaches in Australia’s Queensland, ski slopes in New Zealand, and lots of museum and theater excursions highlighted by great food in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland. “Because … no.”

“You’d be back here before school started in September,” Sharif persisted, his tone so cool and smooth and relentless that goose bumps peppered her flesh.

“You remind me of my students when they’re not listening.”

He just smiled, grimly. “You haven’t even considered the proposal.”

“There’s nothing to consider,” she countered, amazed at his arrogance. “I’ve plans that can’t be changed. Not even for you.”

She saw his eyes narrow at her tone. She hadn’t meant to be sarcastic, but there was a definite edge in her voice, an edge due to her discomfort. She didn’t like the way he was towering over her desk, issuing dictates as though he were in his palace instead of her classroom, didn’t like the way he pushed, didn’t like his disregard for her, her feelings or her interests. “I appreciate you thinking of me, and I thank you for the invitation, King Fehr, but the answer is no.”

“I’ll pay you twice your salary—”

“Stop!” Her voice rang out as she slapped a heavy textbook down on her desk. The book thudded loudly, echoing in the classroom. “This isn’t about money. I don’t care about money. I don’t care if you were to pay me two thousand dollars a day! I’m not interested. Not interested. Understand?”

Silence descended, a silence that felt positively deafening.

But it wasn’t her fault she lost her temper, she reminded herself. He wasn’t listening. “I’m going on holiday,” she added, squaring her shoulders, refusing to be intimidated, even as her gaze clashed with his. Their relationship ended years ago, and there was no reason to start anything again— professionally or personally. “I leave tonight.”

His features hardened, his expression so flinty his cheekbones and jaw looked as though they’d been chiseled from stone. “You can go on holiday next summer. I need you.”

Jesslyn couldn’t stifle a hysterical laugh. “You need me? Oh, that’s a good one, King Fehr. Very funny indeed.”

He wasn’t laughing. His brows flattened over glittering gray eyes. “Give me one good reason why you won’t even consider the position.”

“I can give you three,” she answered, impatiently stacking the teacher editions on her desk, one on top of the other. “I’ve just finished a year of teaching and need a break. I’ve planned a wonderful holiday traveling in Australia and New Zealand and everything’s paid for. And last, and perhaps most important, having once been your girlfriend I’ve no desire to be—”

Jesslyn wasn’t able to finish the rest, drowned out by the blare of the school fire alarm.

It was a loud, piercing sound, and for a moment Jesslyn stood transfixed. Normally she’d snag her attendance book and swiftly march the students out, but there were no young charges to lead to safety.

The door to the classroom flew open and two hulking men appeared, dressed in dark clothes, their weapons cocked and ready. One of them spoke quickly, loudly to Sharif who just nodded and looked back at Jesslyn.

“Happen often?” he shouted over the deafening blare.

“No,” she shouted back, reaching for her purse, briefcase and blazer, momentarily taken aback by the quick action of Sharif’s security detail, but not totally surprised as Sharif had security even when they lived in London.

“I imagine it’s a false alarm,” she added distractedly. “One of those end-of-year student pranks the graduating seniors like to pull. But we still have to leave until the fire inspector gives us the okay to return.”

She’d just lifted her blazer from the back of her chair when the ceiling sprinklers came on, drenching the classroom in a torrent of warm water.

Sharif grabbed her briefcase and purse from her desk. “Let’s go.”

The hallway connecting the classrooms was slick with water, and as they dashed down the hall they could hear sirens in the distance and a lot of yelling in Arabic.

By the time they reached the front steps of the main administrative building, the fire trucks were pulling into the parking lot and the rest of Sharif’s security team, another half-dozen men, were on full alert.

As his men spotted Sharif they moved toward him, but Sharif quickly checked their progress.

Dr. Maddox, who’d been pacing the school’s front steps, rushed toward them. “I’m sorry,” she said, wringing the hem of her skirt and then her hands. “I’m so terribly sorry about all this. We pride ourselves on our school and yet here you are, absolutely soaked—”

“We’re all soaked,” Sharif said, “and we’ll dry.” He glanced past her to the school where the firemen had gone to do a formal check to make sure there wasn’t a fire anywhere. “Miss Heaton’s classroom was drenched. Are all classrooms that wet?”

“I imagine they are. It’s a new sprinkler system, put in this year on recommendation by our school board. And they work—” Dr. Maddox paused, pushed back wet gray hair from her forehead “—a little too well.”

“But it’s worth it if it’ll save lives,” Jesslyn interjected as she took her things from Sharif. “We can replace books and carpeting, and fortunately the school is insured. With nearly three months before classes resume, there’s time to fix everything.”

“Are you volunteering to give up your holiday, Miss Heaton?” Dr. Maddox asked irritably. “Because to get everything done, someone will have to be here overseeing the repairs.”

“Miss Heaton has plans, I believe,” Sharif answered smoothly, and turning his back on Dr. Maddox he focused his full attention on Jesslyn. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I don’t have a car,” she said, shouldering the strap of her purse. “I take a taxi home.”

Sharif frowned. “But you drive.”

“Cars are expensive, and I’m happy taking taxis. No one bothers me.” And no one would, she knew, not in Sharjah.

Jesslyn loved her adopted country. Sharjah might not have the same glittering nightlife of Dubai or the mad hustle bustle of the business world, but it retained a charm and elegance not found so easily in Dubai’s sleek skyscraper-studded skyline and artificial island paradise.

In her mind Sharjah was quieter, smaller, less splash and cash. She adored the stately palm-tree-lined boulevards and the handsome tall buildings in the center. It was always a pleasure to walk or take a taxi to wherever she needed to go. And she didn’t have to worry about the parking, either. She felt welcome here. Welcome and wanted.

“I’ll take you home, then,” Sharif announced, and with a nod toward his guards, he indicated he was ready to leave. “My car is waiting just there.”

Jesslyn had already spotted the limousine and two black escort vehicles, but she wasn’t about to accept a ride. “I’d prefer to hail a taxi,” she answered, with a swift glance at her wristwatch. “And if I leave now, I can just avoid the afternoon rush hour.”

She’s walking away.

Walking away from me.

Incredulous, King Sharif Fehr bit down so hard he felt as if he was choking on his own tongue, but it was that or say something he might regret.

Not that he thought he’d regret it.

In fact, right now he was certain he’d derive a great deal of pleasure from putting Jesslyn Heaton in her place.

“I shall take you,” he repeated, teeth flashing in a barely civil smile. “I insist.”

Her brown eyes lifted, met his. He saw her full lips compress, her mouth a dark rose.

Hot sparks lit her eyes. Leaning forward she whispered so only he could hear. “I do not work for you, King Fehr, nor am I one of your subjects. You can’t insist. I’m afraid you forget, Your Highness, that you have no jurisdiction over me.”

Once again she’d told him no. Once again she’d flat-out rejected him.

He frowned, trying to digest her rejection.

It’d been years since anyone had refused him so absolutely. People didn’t say no to him. People needed him. People came to him wanting favors, assistance, support.

Studying her pale, oval-shaped face, he let his gaze drift from her dark, winged eyebrows to the heat in her warm eyes to the set of her firmly molded chin. He’d never noticed just how firm that chin was until now. He’d never noticed her backbone until now, either.

When he’d first known her she’d been a broken girl, literally broken from the accident that had taken his sisters. Jesslyn had been in the hospital, all white plaster and gauze and pins.

She wasn’t broken anymore.

“You don’t like me,” he said, almost amused. On one hand he was angered by her cool dismissal, and on the other hand he was surprised and intrigued, which was a novelty in and of itself. As king of a Middle Eastern country enjoying its tenth year of peace and economic stability, these days he found himself surprised by little and intrigued by even less.

Jesslyn eyed him steadily, her feelings for him definitely mixed. “Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I don’t trust you.”

“Why on earth wouldn’t you trust me?”

She again shouldered her purse, her damp coat dripping over her arm. “You’re not the Sharif I knew. You’re King Fehr.”

“Jesslyn.” His voice suddenly dropped, turned coaxing. He didn’t like his integrity being questioned. “Obviously, I’ve offended you. That wasn’t my intention. I’ve come to you to ask for help. At least let me explain.”

She glanced toward his limousine and then his half-dozen men who stood at attention, their eyes shielded by dark glasses. “I’m catching a redeye flight tonight, and I’m going to be on that plane.”

“So you’ll let me drive you home?”

She turned her head, looked up at him, her damp dark hair forming soft ringlets around her face. “I’m going to be on that plane,” she repeated.

He liked the way the dark-chestnut curls framed her pale face, liked the stubborn press of her lips and the defiant lift of her chin. “Then let me take you home.”

CHAPTER TWO

AFTER giving Sharif’s driver her address, Jesslyn placed her purse and briefcase on the floor and laid her damp coat on her damp lap as she tried to ignore the fact that Sharif was sitting so close.

Unfortunately, he was impossible to ignore. He was the kind of man who dominated a room, drawing light, attention, energy. And worse, sitting so close to him she could feel his warmth, smell a hint of his fragrance, and it threw her back to the past, filling her with memories of his skin. She loved his skin. He’d always known how to hold her.

Her heart turned over, and her fingers curled into her coat as the strangest pain shot through her.

Sorrow. Grief. Regret.

He was awakening memories and feelings she didn’t want or need, memories and feelings of a past—a life—she’d accepted was gone.

“You don’t look at me,” he said, as the car started.

She couldn’t exactly tell him that looking at him made her hurt worse. Made her realize all over again how foolish she’d been when she’d left him. She hadn’t really meant to walk away, not forever. Instead she’d thought he would have come running after her, had hoped he would have pursued her, beg her to reconsider, pledge undying love.

“Endings are awkward. It was awkward then, and it’s awkward now.”

“But you’re happier. Look at you. You’re living your dream.”

Her dream. She inhaled softly, a quick gasp of protest. She’d never dreamed of being single at her age. Her dream had always been to have a family, a family of her own. Having been raised by an elderly aunt after her parents’ deaths—three years apart—made her realize how much she needed people to love and people to love her. Instead here she was still single, and still teaching other peoples’ children.

“Yes,” she agreed, hiding the pain his words caused her. “It’s wonderful.”

“I’ve never seen you this confident,” he added.

Jesslyn glanced out the window and watched the fire trucks and school buildings fall away as the limousine exited the parking lot and pulled onto the street. “It’s not hard being stronger or more confident,” she said after a moment, turning to look at him. “All those years ago I was a different person.”

He knew immediately what she alluded to. His eyes darkened. “It was a terrible accident.”

She nodded, and suddenly the accident wasn’t eleven years ago, but yesterday, and the loss was just as fresh. “I still dream about it sometimes,” she said, knotting her hands, her fingers interlocking so tightly the tips of her fingers shone pink and the knuckles white. “I always wake up on impact. I wake up before I know what’s happened.”

Sharif didn’t speak, and she fought the enormous heaviness bearing down on her chest. “But when I wake I know what happened.”

“You weren’t at the wheel.”

“But Jamila did nothing wrong. No one in our car did anything wrong.”

“That’s why they’re called accidents.”

Tragedies, she whispered in her mind.

“Otherwise, you’ve healed,” he said. “You’re lucky.”

His sisters hadn’t been.

Hot tears stung her eyes, and Jesslyn swiftly reached up and brushed them away before they could fall. It’d been a long time since she’d talked about the accident, and still she carried the grief and loss in her heart. Jamila and Aman had been her best friends. She’d met them when she was ten, and they’d become instantly inseparable.

But the past was the past, she reminded herself, trying to focus on the present. She could only live right now, in the present time, a time where she could actually make a difference. “You’ve changed, too, but I suppose you had to, being a …”

“Yes?” he prompted when her voice faded away without finishing the thought.

Jesslyn shifted uncomfortably. “You know.”

“But I don’t. Why don’t you tell me.”

She didn’t miss the ruthless edge in his voice, and suddenly she wished she’d never said anything at all. “You have to know you’ve changed,” she said, dodging his question even as she looked at him, really looked at him and saw all over again how much harder, fiercer, prouder he’d become. Beautiful silver into steel.

“You don’t like me now, though.”

Her shoulders shifted. “I don’t know you now.”

“I’m still the same person.”

But he wasn’t, she thought, he wasn’t the man she knew. He’d become something other, larger, more powerful, and more conscious of that power, too. “Maybe what I should say is that I don’t see the man anymore, I see the king.” She could see from the hardening of his expression that he didn’t like what she’d said, so she hastily added, “But of course you’ve changed. You’re not a young man anymore. You’re now … what? Thirty-eight, thirty-nine?”

“Thirty-seven, Miss Heaton.” He paused, his voice deepening. “And you’re thirty-one.”

Something in his voice made her look up, and when she did, she stared straight into his stunning silver-gray eyes, eyes she’d once found heartbreakingly beautiful.

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.”

“They caught him running from the scene.”

“It just … it’s not … it’s not what he’d do …” And then her voice faded as she pictured the small gift Aaron had brought her earlier that day, after school had ended. She could see the white paper, the colorful silk ribbon. She’d left it on her desk when the sprinklers turned on.

“Wait.” Jesslyn chewed on her mouth. “He was on campus after school, but that’s because he had a goodbye gift for me. He’s moving back to the States.”

“Which probably explains his stunt,” Sharif answered. “I may be in my thirties but I remember being a teenager, and kids do things to get attention—”

“So you will forgive him?” she interrupted eagerly.

“If that’s all he did, the punishment would be light. But he didn’t just pull the fire alarm. Apparently he also broke into the vice principal’s office and stole copies of exams from a filing cabinet. Dr. Maddox intends to prosecute.” He paused. “She’s asked me to press charges as well.”

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“It’s not just me, though. The police are involved, as well. Theft is a serious crime.”

Swallowing, Jesslyn felt her heart lodge up in her throat. There was absolutely no way Aaron did what they said he’d done. “Sharif, he didn’t steal anything. He brought me a gift. It’s on my desk. We can go to school, retrieve that—”

“A janitor spotted the boy running away.”

“He was running to get home, not running away!”

“Jesslyn, there’s nothing we can do right now.”

She continued to shake her head. It wasn’t true. She wouldn’t believe it until she talked to Aaron herself. “I must see him. Take me to the jail, Sharif, please take me right now.”

“They won’t allow you to see him. They’ve called his parents, but the police must finish questioning him first.”

Jesslyn closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. “You’re telling me they won’t let you in? You’re telling me they won’t let Sheikh Sharif Fehr in to see a child?”

He sighed. “Jesslyn.”

Her heart was racing so hard it hurt. “You can get me in to see him, Sharif.”

Silence stretched over the phone line. “I know how protective you are of your students—”

“Sharif. Please.” Her voice broke. “Please.”

Again silence answered her request, a silence that just grew longer, heavier until she heard him sigh again. “I’ll send my car for you, laeela, but understand this is serious. Understand he’s being formally charged.”

Sharif’s car arrived for her within the hour, and while sitting in the back of the dark Mercedes sedan, Jesslyn replayed the afternoon scene with Aaron in her mind again and again.

He’d been upset when he gave her the gift, touchingly emotional. But had he been acting? Or was it a ruse? The gift of the present an opportunity to cover his crime?

She didn’t know and still couldn’t decide when the car pulled up in front of the station. Sharif was already there, appearing from the police station to meet her at the car.

Jesslyn had changed before the car arrived for her, selecting a conservative, loose-fitting chocolate linen dress with long sleeves and a simple skirt. It was a dress she wore when she didn’t want to draw attention to her figure as she knew both men and women traditionally wore robes to hide the body. Sharif, she noticed, had changed, too.

He offered his hand to her as she stepped from the car. She didn’t want to take it but couldn’t refuse him, not with so many of his men watching.

Reluctantly she put her hand in his, felt his fingers wrap around hers.

“You’re cold,” Sharif said, as she stepped onto the pavement.

“I’m nervous,” she confessed, worriedly glancing up into the sky. It was beginning to grow dark. Her flight would board in a little more than three hours.

His expression sharpened. “You think he did do it, then?”

“No.” She shot Sharif a desperate look. “I’m certain he didn’t, but I’m afraid for him. If his parents have been called they’ll be upset. He’ll be upset.” She shook her head. “Oh, I wish none of this had happened.”

“But it has. Now we just have to see what the situation is.”

They headed for the police station’s entrance, Sharif’s security detail surrounding them. The bodyguards were everywhere tonight—in front of them, behind them, beside them, and while the security had been with them earlier today, it unnerved her tonight.

Or maybe it was Sharif who was unnerving her by walking so close.

Inside the station Sharif was received with great respect. The entire station staff, from desk sergeants to detectives to the chief of police, made a point of welcoming Sharif, and after ten minutes of warm greetings, the police chief and Sharif stepped aside to have a private talk.

Jesslyn waited anxiously for them to return, praying that Sharif could convince the police chief to let her see Aaron. Finally Sharif summoned her. “We have been granted permission to speak to your student, and you may ask him whatever you’d like, but you must understand they’ve a good case against him.” He looked at her, his gray gaze shuttered. “Jesslyn, the consequences would be severe.”

Another one of her fears.

Sharjah was Jesslyn’s second home and she was loath to criticize any of it, much less the government and the very good police force that worked so hard to protect both Western expats and Arab citizens, but there were dangers here, particularly for careless or reckless American teenagers who failed to heed the law.

Fortunately, teenage boys didn’t go to prison for stealing or destroying private property, but the punishment wouldn’t be light and could be emotionally scarring.

“I understand,” she whispered.

They were escorted to a small office, and while they waited for Aaron, Jesslyn nervously twisted the ring on her third finger, a ring given to her by her grandmother when she’d turned eighteen. She’d always called it her good luck ring and she played with it now, praying for good fortune.

The door finally opened and the police chief appeared, escorting young Aaron.

She was devastated that he was handcuffed, but before she could say a word the police chief removed the boy’s handcuffs and pulled out a chair for him.

Aaron tumbled into the chair, his head hung so low he couldn’t see anything but the floor.

“Aaron.” She said his name softly.

His head lifted slightly but she could at least see his face. He’d been crying. His cheeks still bore traces of tears and his nose was red and shiny. “Miss Heaton,” he choked.

Her heart contracted. He’d always been one of her favorite students and to see him like this made her feel absolutely desperate. She didn’t even know what to say.

As if he could read her mind he shook his head. “I didn’t do it, Miss Heaton. I swear I didn’t. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t.”

She wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how, not when she knew she couldn’t reassure him that everything would be fine. It was impossible to promise him anything. “They found you on campus,” she said carefully. “They said they caught you running.”

He groaned. “I was on campus because I’d taken you a gift.”

“But why were you running?”

“I was late getting home. I didn’t want my father to know I’d missed the school bus.”

She bit her bottom lip, bit down to keep her emotions in check. “Apparently someone saw you running from the office—”

“Not me.” He looked at her, eyes brilliant with unshed tears. “And maybe someone was running from the office, and maybe someone had stolen papers, but it wasn’t me.”

Sharif glanced from Jesslyn to the boy. “What do you know about the papers?”

Aaron’s jaw hardened and yet his eyes were filled with pain. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t.” And then he dropped his head, his shoulders slumping.

Jesslyn moved forward on her chair. “Aaron, if you know who did it, it would save you from serious trouble.”

“And if I tell you, he’d be in serious trouble and I can’t do that. His mom is already dying—“Aaron broke off on a soft sob. His head hung so low that a tear fell and dropped onto the floor.

Jesslyn inhaled sharply, knowing who he was referring to. Only one boy in the upper grades had a mom dying, and it was Will. Will McInnes. Will’s mother had just been moved to a hospice facility, and Will’s father was coping by drinking too much and then terrorizing the children.

She turned to Sharif. “I need to talk to you.” They stepped out of the room and stood in the narrow hall.

She told Sharif everything, about Will and Aaron’s friendship, how Aaron’s parents had done their best to include Will in their family life as Will’s family life unraveled. “Will is barely getting by,” she said, her eyes stinging. “He’s had such a hard year, and the only person who’s really been there for him is Aaron. And now Aaron’s leaving.”

“But why steal?” Sharif replied. “And why pull the alarm? He flooded the school, which destroyed nearly every classroom. He’s going to have a criminal record and his family will have to pay for the damage, damage that will be in the thousands.”

“Then we can’t tell anyone it was Will. We’ll deal with Will ourselves.”

“We will?” Sharif repeated.

“We have to. His dad has a fierce temper. I can’t bear to think what he’d do to Will if he found out about this afternoon.”

“So you’ll let Aaron, who just might be innocent, pay for the crime instead?”

Jesslyn could picture Aaron in her mind, could see his ashen face and the tear that trembled on his lower lash before spilling and falling to the cement in a wet plop. “No. We get Aaron off.”

“Jesslyn.”

She lifted her shoulders. “He didn’t do it, he can’t be punished. Will did do it—”

“So he should be punished.”

“But he’s a child, Sharif, in the process of losing his mother. She doesn’t have long. Not even a month. It’s all about pain management for her now, and imagine what Will is going through, imagine how helpless he feels, imagine his rage.”

Sharif gazed down into Jesslyn’s upturned face.

It wasn’t hard for him to imagine what Will was going through, he thought, nor was it difficult to imagine the grief, the fury, the pain as his children had lost their mother just three years ago. Unlike Will’s mother, Zulima’s death had been sudden, and there had been no time for goodbyes. One moment she was resting in her room after her cesarian section and the next gone, dying from a blood clot.

“My children also lost their mother,” he said roughly. “It’s not fair for children to lose their mother so early in life, but it does happen.”

“But if we can do something, change something, make it more fair—”

“We can’t.”

“We can.” She took his arm with both her hands, pleading. “Please, Sharif. Please help me help these children. Get Aaron released. Help me find Will, let me speak with him. Perhaps we can get the papers back, get them returned.”

“You’re asking for a miracle.”

Her hands gripped his arm tighter. “Then give me a miracle, Sharif. If anyone can make this happen, you can. You can do anything. You always could.”

Sharif stared down into her upturned face, fascinated by the pink bloom in her cheeks and dusky rose of her lips. Emotion lit her features; passion and conviction darkened her eyes.

She looked at him with such faith. She looked at him with all the confidence in the world. She was so certain he could do all this, certain he would.

Her fierce faith in him made his breath catch. Her fire made something in his chest hurt. In all his years of marriage Zulima had never once looked at him that way.

“I’d have to pull a million strings,” he said, even as his brain already worked through the possibilities of getting Aaron released and Will sorted out. It’d be complicated, far from easy, but he did know the right people and he could put in calls …

“Then pull them,” she answered, dark-brown brows knitting.

“It’s more than a snap of my fingers,” he answered, intrigued by this Jesslyn Heaton standing in front of him. This woman was neither naive nor helpless. In fact, this Jesslyn Heaton had grown into something of a warrior and a defender of the young.

“I understand that, but I love these kids and I know these kids. I’ve taught them for years. Will’s acting out and Aaron’s protecting him, and yet in the end, they’re just boys. Just children.”

He’d never heard any other woman but Jesslyn speak with so much feeling, but that was the kind of woman Jesslyn had always been. From the time he met her she wore her heart on her sleeve, and eleven years after first meeting her he realized her heart was still there for everyone to see.

Impulsively he reached out and touched her smooth, flushed cheek. Her skin was warm and surprisingly soft. He dropped his hand quickly and hardened himself to her pleas. “It’d be better to let the boys take the blame and accept the consequences. That way they’d learn from this.”

“Maybe,” she argued, “maybe in other circumstances they would learn. But not now, not when Will’s mom is nearly gone.” She held his gaze, held it long, her expression beseeching. “Do this for me, Sharif, do this and I will do whatever I can for you.”

His pulse quickened. His interest sharpened. “What exactly are you offering?”

Shadows chased through her eyes, shadows of worry and mistrust, and then she shook her head and her expression cleared. “You need me,” she said firmly. “You came to me today because you wanted me for the summer. Well …” her voice wavered for a moment before she pressed on. “Help me sort the boys out, and then I will help you for the next two weeks—”

“No. Not two weeks. The summer.”

The clouds were back in her eyes, and some of the pink faded from her cheeks. “But the trip. My trip …”

“So what do you want more? Your holiday or your children rescued?”

She stared up at him, her lips pressing grimly, and he could see her thoughts, could see her frustration and resentment but also the realization that he alone could do what she needed, wanted, done.

“You love children,” he added quietly, surprised by the sudden tightness in his chest. Pressure and pain. “And my children need you. My children need you as much as these two.”

And still she looked up at him, weighing, judging, deciding. She didn’t trust him, he could see it in her eyes and that alone made him want to drag her back to Sarq. She was the one who had betrayed him, not the other way around. She had no right to mistrust him. He was the one who’d been deceived.

He was the one who was owed not just an apology but the truth. And he’d have the truth. After nine years he was going to have that truth.

Jesslyn touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. “So, if I give you the summer, you will make this problem go away?”

“The entire summer,” he said.

If Jesslyn felt any trepidation she didn’t show it. Instead her eyes flashed and her chin jutted up. “We have a deal, then?”

His lashes dropped and his gaze drifted slowly across her face. “Your head for his?” He paused, considered her. “I don’t know if it’s fair, but I’ll take it.”

CHAPTER THREE

AN HOUR and a half later Sharif stood in the shadows of the McInnes house and listened to Jesslyn give Will McInnes the talking to of a lifetime.

If Sharif hadn’t heard Jesslyn’s severe tone, he wouldn’t have known she had it in her. But apparently she did, for she let Will know in no uncertain terms that she knew what he had done, and he was in serious trouble.

Not only did she want all the stolen tests back—tonight— but he should also consider himself on probation. If he so much as broke a pencil or stepped on a bug, she’d have his head. That is, if she didn’t go to his father right now and tell him what Will had done this afternoon.

When Jesslyn returned to the car twenty minutes later, she carried a stack of exams and handed them to Sharif before getting in the car. “There. Yours. Mission completed.”

“You weren’t easy on him,” he said.

Seated in the car Jesslyn sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, her head aching. The day felt positively endless. “No, I wasn’t. I was angry and disappointed, and I let him know it.”

One of the guards closed the door behind her. “Is that why he was crying when he brought you the tests?” Sharif asked.

Her lips pursed. “He was crying because I told him if he ever did anything stupid like that again that you’d have him arrested and thrown into prison, and who knew what would happen to his family.”

Sharif’s eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t.”

“I did.” She wrinkled her nose as she reflected on what she’d said and done. “Was that so terrible?”

“Not if you can save him from a life of crime.”

“My thoughts exactly.” She turned to look out the tinted window. The limousine was again winding through the quiet downtown streets, but this time they were heading the opposite direction from which they’d come, away from her apartment and on toward Dubai. “We’re not going back to my apartment?”

“No. We’re going to stay at a hotel in Dubai tonight and then fly out in the morning.”

“But my things …”

“I’ve taken care of that. A courier picked your suitcase and travel bag up from your apartment. You’d left both by the front door.”

She shot him a cool glance. “You left nothing to chance.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, but it wasn’t much of a smile. “I try not to.”

So that was that, she thought. There’d be no holiday this summer. Instead she was going back to work.

Tired tears started to come, but she squeezed her eyes closed, forced them away, refusing to feel sorry for herself. She’d done the right thing. She knew she had. How could she possibly have gone on holiday when Aaron would have faced horrible fines and stiff charges? Better to miss some beaches and skiing and live with a clear conscience.

“You must be hungry,” Sharif said, his voice deep in the car’s dark interior. “It’s nearing eleven, and I can’t imagine you’ve eaten since noon.”

“No, but I haven’t been hungry. Too many emotions,” she answered, sinking back deeper against the impossibly soft leather seat. She was tired and thirsty and virtually numb from the roller-coaster day.

When she’d woken up this morning she’d thought she would be flying to Brisbane tonight. Instead the plane had taken off without her and she was facing the prospect of a long summer in Sarq.

The thought alone sent prickles of fresh panic up and down her spine.

How could she do this? How could she spend ten weeks with Sharif and his family? The fact that he was widowed changed nothing for her.

“I know nothing about this job I’ve accepted,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me about your children. How many … then-names, their ages, as well as your objectives.”

“I will,” he answered. “But first things first, and that’s a proper dinner, because I know you—you need to eat. You always skimp meals to get things done, but in the end, it backfires. You just end up irritable.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. And you are already. You should see your face. You’re famished and exhausted.”

She bit back her immediate retort. It wouldn’t help to get into a hissing contest with Sharif. The fact was, they were going to spend a considerable amount of time together. Better to try to get along with him than become adversaries. “So, distract me from my hunger. Tell me something about your family. How many children will I be teaching?”

“Three.”

“Boys and girls, all boys …?”

“All girls.” His expression never outwardly changed, but Jesslyn sensed tension and didn’t know why or what it was.

“They’re bilingual?” she asked, knowing her Arabic would get her by on market day but wouldn’t be considered proper Arabic by any stretch of the imagination.

“Yes, but you’ll discover all that tomorrow when we head home.”

Home. His home. Sarq. A country she’d visited only once, and very briefly, to attend Aman’s funeral. She’d flown in and out the same day, and in her grief, she remembered nothing but the heat. It was summer after all and hot, so very very hot.

But they weren’t in Sarq yet. No, they were heading for the glossy and busy city-state of Dubai.

A 200-year-old city, once populated by pirates and smugglers, today Dubai was a cosmopolitan melting pot, teeming with more foreigners than locals. The city had blossomed overnight with the discovery of oil and now had so much money that the powers that be kept coming up with the most interesting ways to put it all back into the country and boost tourism. Jesslyn hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of manmade islands shaped like the world, or the snow ski facility in the desert. There were already plans underway for a huge theme park called Dubailand, along the lines of Disneyland and even an underwater hotel.

Dubai Creek ran through the middle of the city-state with the business district Deira to the east, and Bur Dubai, the commercial and historic district, to the west.

But the driver wasn’t going to Deira or Bur Dubai, he was destined for Jumeriah Beach, the playland for the rich, royal and beautiful.

Despite living in the Emirates for six years Jesslyn had spent very little time at Jumeriah Beach’s posh waterfront resorts. For one, you couldn’t even get into some of the hotels unless you were a hotel guest, and “treating” oneself to a night at the Burj Al Arab, reportedly the most luxurious hotel in the world, wasn’t in the budget, not when rooms started at $1,280. But obviously that wasn’t a problem for a man with Sharif’s wealth.

“We’re eating here?” she asked Sharif as the car turned into the hotel’s private drive.

“And staying here. I’ve my own suite reserved for my exclusive use.”

“That’s nice.”

He merely smiled at her, the smile of a king who’d become used to having his way.

As they stepped from the car, Jesslyn felt as if she’d entered a production of Arabian Nights: gilded doors magically opened, overhead lights dimmed, lush green fronds parted.

The uniformed staff scrambled to assist Sharif, and while Jesslyn knew hotel staff were exceptionally attentive in Dubai, she personally found the attention overwhelming. There were too many people, too much bowing, too much of everything.

“You’ll have your own suite,” Sharif said. “And the hotel manager has promised to see you there and make sure you’ve everything you need.”

Jesslyn glanced around. “My luggage—”

The hotel manager nodded. “It’s already there, ma’am.”

While Sharif took one elevator, she took another, escorted by the hotel manager and a young woman in a fashionable robe and veil. The hotel manager described the hotel, explained where everything was, including the numerous restaurants and lounges. “You’ll have your own butler,” he added, gesturing to the veiled young woman, “and anything you should need will be taken care of. Also, you will be dining with His Highness in thirty minutes. Meena will escort you to the restaurant where you’ll be joining Sheikh Fehr.”

Jesslyn barely had time for a quick bath, a change into a simple black skirt topped by a soft silk pearl-gray blouse and a quick brush of her hair before it was time to go.

She followed the robed woman back to the elevator where they went to a lower level, transferred to a different elevator, which went straight to the restaurant at the very top of the luxurious hotel.

Jesslyn had to skirt a group of robed men who were in animated discussion. She caught bits and pieces of the conversation—impossible not to as they were talking quite loudly—and discovered their conversation had to do with Sheikh Fehr. Apparently two or more of the men had daughters and each father was quite adamant that it was his daughter who would be marrying King Fehr next September.

Jesslyn froze and stiffened as though she’d just been doused with a bucket of ice water.

Was Sharif getting married again? Were plans in the works for another Dubai princess?

Her head practically throbbed. Jesslyn put a hand to her temple, closed her eyes, wondering all over again just what kind of personal hell she’d agreed to. Tragically, she had no one else to blame for her situation. She’d agreed to this scenario. Had offered herself up.

Her ridiculous morals and values. Her ridiculous Joan of Arc complex!

One day she’d wise up. One day she’d put herself first, protect herself first.

“Headache?” a deep voice murmured at her elbow. Lifting her head, Jesslyn looked up into Sharif’s face.

The lashes fringing his silver eyes were thick and black. Strong cheekbones jutted above an equally strong jaw.

“Terrible,” she admitted, but unwilling to tell him that he was the source of her tension.

“Food will help and they have our table waiting.”

Sharif signaled to the maître d’ that they were ready, and immediately the host showed them to a prime window table with a view of the entire city where skyscrapers glittered in every direction.

Sharif ordered several appetizers to be brought right away as well as platters for dinner. “Eat,” Sharif said when the first of the appetizers arrived, pushing the small plates of seasoned meat, fish and assorted flat breads toward her. “You’ll feel better.”

But eating in front of Sharif was almost impossible. Even though the dishes were superbly prepared, chewing and swallowing required a Herculean effort, and after a few more bites of food Jesslyn gave up.

Sharif had watched her attempt to eat and now observed her pushing her food around her plate. “Have you developed one of those eating disorders? You never had a problem with food before.”

Jesslyn was grateful to drop the pretense. “It’s been a long day and a hard day. I thought I’d be on a plane right now and instead …” Her voice drifted off and, looking across the table at Sharif, she gave her head a slight, bemused shake. “It’s hard to take in, hard to accept.”

Just saying the words filled her with fury and resentment. Sharif could have helped her without insisting she give up her holiday. He could have helped her just because he was in a position to be able to help.

“You’re upset because I won,” he said, his tone deceptively mild.

She turned her head, gave him a long, level look. “Is that what this is to you? A competition? Or better yet, a battle where one person must win and the other loses?”

The edge of his generous mouth curved, and yet his gaze was hard, hot, sharp, and he looked at her so intensely that she felt bolts of electricity shoot through her.

“You haven’t yet learned that everything in life is a competition?” he drawled, his deep voice pitched low, his tone lazy, almost indulgent. “Life is just one endless battle after another. It’s all about power. It’s nothing but a quest for control.”

The chemistry between them had always been strong, and even though nearly a decade had passed since she’d last seen him, Jesslyn felt wildly, painfully aware of Sharif.

“Is that what being a king has taught you?”

He suddenly leaned forward, close enough that she could see the sparks of fire and ice in his eyes. “It’s what being a man has taught me.”

She didn’t know if it was his tone or his words but she shifted nervously, strangely self-conscious. Sharif had never made her feel this way before. Anxious. Unsettled. Undone. But then, he’d never been an adversary before and yet somehow it’s what he’d become.

Winners and losers, she silently repeated as she crossed her legs beneath the table and accidentally touched his knee with her own. Abruptly she drew back, but not before heat washed through her, heat and embarrassment and a painful awareness.

Their table was too small.

The dining room was too dark.

The atmosphere too charged.

Fortunately just then more food arrived, plates and platters and bowls. Jesslyn thought the food would be a distraction and Sharif would now eat and she’d have a moment to gather her composure. But Sharif threw her all over again with his command.

“You’ll serve,” he said with such authority that she immediately gritted her teeth.

“Has something happened to your hands?” she flashed, unable to control her burst of temper and defiance.

“You know it’s the custom for the woman to serve the man.”

“If she has a relationship with or to him. But I am not yours. I don’t belong to you—”

“But you do work for me,” he interjected softly. “And as one that is now in my employ, it would be proper for you to serve me.”

Her chin jerked up and she stared at him in mute fury. He was enjoying this, she thought. He enjoyed having power over her. “Why exactly did you come looking for me today?”

“I needed your help.”

But it wasn’t just that. It was more than that. She knew it was more because this wasn’t the Sharif she’d known. This wasn’t a man she’d want to know. “For what?”

He sighed. “You already know this. My children need a tutor. I want you to be their tutor—”

“Then don’t treat me like a second-class citizen,” she interrupted. “I agreed to teach your children this summer but that doesn’t make me your servant or part of the royal staff, and it doesn’t mean I’ll wait on you or any other member of the royal family.”

He held her gaze, his own silver eyes glittering with heat and an emotion she couldn’t discern. “Did I upset you by not saying please?”

It was all she could do not to dump her glass of water over his arrogant head as she bit back one angry retort after another. Battling to control her temper, she looked away, out the window to the sparkling lights of the city as it curved to meet the dark sea. A helicopter buzzed past the window on its way to the hotel’s landing pad.

“You upset me,” she said at length, “by asking me to do something you would have never asked me to do ten years ago.” She drew an unsteady breath. “Ten years ago you would have served me.”

“We were in London then,” he answered.

Her lips lifted in a hard bitter smile. “And you weren’t the sheikh.” Her head turned and she met his gaze once more. “Isn’t that right? This is back to your new philosophy on winning and losing and everything in life being a battle for control.”

Sharif reached for the tongs on one of the platters and served himself a generous portion of the lamb and then a scoop of the seafood-laced rice. “There,” he said, pushing the bowl of rice toward her. “Consider that a victory. You’ve won that round.”

Jesslyn blinked, her chest hot with bitter emotion. Where had the old Sharif gone, the one who’d once been so kind, so relaxed, so thoughtful?

Shifting in her seat, she accidentally bumped into his leg again beneath the table, his body big, hard, warm, and she nearly ran. She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t sit here and play nice, not when she remembered how it’d been between them, how he’d once been with her.

She realized that for her the attraction hadn’t gone. The old desire hadn’t died, and Sharif of ten years ago flashed through her mind—long hair, faded tattered jeans, beach flip-flops on his feet.

As if he knew what she was thinking he said, “I’m not a heartless ogre. I’m not cruel. I care very much about duty, family, responsibility.”

Words he would never have used ten years before, at least not like that. From the first time she’d met him, he’d been concerned about his family, concerned about peoples’ feelings. He would never have run roughshod over anyone.

Painful memories returned, memories of them as they’d once been—arm in arm walking through Hyde Park, laughing, talking, oblivious to the prince’s security detail tailing them everywhere.

Back then Sharif had lived as though he wasn’t royal, as though he had only himself to answer to.

He was wrong. And they both knew that. But they could pretend, and they did. For the two and a half years they were together, they pretended….

With an effort she swallowed around the funny lump in her throat. “Now tell me about your girls, their school, everything. Why are you so concerned about them? What is it you want me to do?”

He made a rough sound. “Give me a miracle.”

She frowned, not understanding. “What does that mean?”

Sharif didn’t immediately answer. Instead he toyed with his spoon, his gaze fixed on a distant point across the restaurant. “I don’t actually know what the problem is,” he said after a moment. “The girls apparently had considerable problems this year at school, problems I wasn’t aware of until they returned home for the summer. The headmistress sent word that it had been a difficult year and she wasn’t sure she could have them back, at least, not all of them.”

He set the spoon down, pushed it away, his eyes shadowed. “I don’t want the girls split up. They’ve already lost their mother. They shouldn’t lose each other.”

Jesslyn nodded slightly. She totally agreed with him on that. “Did the headmistress give any specifics about the ‘difficult’ year? Were the girls struggling academically or was it something else?”

“I’ve looked at their end-of-year marks and they are down across the board, but it’s their conduct marks that trouble me. My daughters aren’t spoiled princesses. They’re good girls. Polite children. And yet it seems the school … the teachers … have come to view them as troubled.”

“Troubled?”

He took a quick rough breath, as though the entire subject was so painful he could barely endure it. “The youngest had the worst marks. She essentially failed everything. She’s the one the school isn’t sure should return.”

Jesslyn waved off the waiter who was trying to refill her water. “Perhaps it isn’t the right school for the girls.”

“They’ve been there for nearly two years.”

“Not every school is right for every child.”

“My wife attended the same school. It was her desire they go there.”

“How old are your children?”

“Takia is five, Saba is six and Jinan, the eldest, is seven,” Sharif answered.

“They’re babies!”

“My wife went away to boarding school early, too.”

Jesslyn had also gone to boarding school in England, but she’d never enjoyed it, never felt happy about the long school term and the all-too-brief summer and winter holidays. She’d also been terribly homesick at first, but she’d adapted. But then again, she’d been quite a bit older, almost nine when she’d first gone away. And she hadn’t been grieving the loss of a mother, either.

“Maybe they’re too young,” she said carefully. “Or maybe it’s too much, too soon after the loss of their mother.”

Sharif nodded, jaw flexing. “If that were the case they would be happy now that they’re home. But they’re not. They’re still quite withdrawn. It’s as if they’ve become someone else’s children.”

“Maybe it’s not an academic issue at all.”

“I wondered the same thing myself, so I invited a doctor, a specialist in children’s mental health issues, to come meet them, spend the day with them, and the doctor said that children go through different adjustment periods and that eventually they’ll be fine.”

Jesslyn heard the tension and frustration in Sharif’s voice. He genuinely cared about his girls. He wanted to help them. He just didn’t know how.

He said as much when he continued speaking. “That’s why I’ve come to you. You were always so good with children, even back when you’d just started your teacher training in London. I thought that if anyone could help them, it’d be you.”

“Sharif, you know I’m not a therapist, I’m a teacher.”

“Yes, and I need you to teach them. Takia can’t return with her sisters if she doesn’t make up missed and failed coursework, and the other two are struggling in several subjects. You’re to teach all of them. They will attend lessons with you every day. I’ve converted the palace library into a classroom and purchased all the necessary textbooks.”

“I haven’t taught children as young as yours in years,” she reminded him. “My specialty is older children, middle schoolers and high school students, and the curriculum is American based, not UK—”

“That’s fine. I’ve bought teacher’s editions, and should you find you require something else, materials, computers, an assistant to help you, just let me know and it’s yours.”

Why did his reassurance not make her feel better? Why did that niggle of doubt within her just grow? Was it because elementary education wasn’t her area, or because she was afraid of failing when it came to teaching Sharif’s children?

“Sharif, I just want to make sure you understand that in this instance, I am not the best teacher for the job. I spend my days teaching literature, grammar, social studies to eleven-through-fourteen-year-olds. I don’t teach how to read but how to interpret literary themes, how to deconstruct plot structure, character and conflict.” Swallowing quickly she looked up into his eyes. “There are a thousand teachers in Europe more qualified than me—”

“But none more suitable,” he answered, leaning forward to touch the back of her hand.

It was a light touch and yet the brush of his fingers across her skin made her breath catch and her belly knot. His touch was still familiar, achingly familiar. For years he had no place in her heart, her mind or her life, and yet in less than twelve hours he’d changed all that.

“What makes me so suitable?” she asked, her voice suddenly husky, colored with emotions and desire she hadn’t even known she still could feel. Immediately she fought back, reminding herself, he isn’t yours anymore. And you’re not his.

But that didn’t seem to matter right now, not when she was awash in emotions, stirred by desire. It’d been so easy to be his. It’d felt absolutely natural. And she hadn’t known then that what they had was rare and magical. She hadn’t known she would never feel that way about anyone again.

Sharif stared across the room, off into the distance, his eyes so striking, his silver-gray irises framed by the densest black lashes with black winged eyebrows beneath a strong forehead. He was her Valentino of the desert.

“There are advantages to being king,” he said at last, speaking slowly, thoughtfully. “It didn’t take me long to appreciate those advantages—everyone bows to you, acquiescing to keep you happy. I’m surrounded by people desperate to please me.”

He paused, frowned, before continuing. “It’s taken me longer to understand the disadvantages. No one wants to earn my disapproval. No one wants to lose a job, a connection, a reward. So people are afraid to tell me unpleasant things and bad news, even if it happens to be the truth.”

He turned now to look at her. “Maybe once I wanted that blind obedience, the adoration of my people, but it was a mistake. What I really needed were people who’d give me the truth.” His expression shifted, growing troubled and remote. “Truth. Whatever it is.”

Truth, she repeated silently, mesmerized by the shadows in his gaze. Those shadows hadn’t been there when she knew him. When they’d been together, he’d been so bold, so confident, so … free.

But that wasn’t the Sharif sitting before her now. No, this man had the weight of the world on his shoulders, weight and worry and a hundred different concerns.

“It hasn’t been easy, I take it,” she said, remembering how she and Sharif had once loved their evenings and weekends, time for just the two of them, time for long walks and talks followed by a stop at the corner video store and then Chinese or curry take-out. They used to hole up in her apartment and sit on her bed and eat Kung Pao chicken with chopsticks and kiss and laugh.

And laugh.

Looking at Sharif she wondered when he’d last laughed. For that matter, when had she?

But maybe that was all part of growing up. Maybe one became a full-fledged adult and let all those romantic dreams go….

“I’m not complaining,” he answered. “I love my country. I love my children. But nothing is easy, no. There are always compromises. Sacrifices. But you’ve had those, too, I’m sure.” His head turned and he looked at her. “Haven’t you?”

CHAPTER FOUR

DESPITE her sumptuous room with the most amazing Egyptian-cotton linens on the bed, Jesslyn couldn’t sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes, she could feel that fleeting brush of Sharif’s fingers against the back of her hand, a touch that had scorched her then, a touch that burned her still. But it wasn’t just his touch that stayed with her, it was his low voice, a voice that hummed inside her head.

In the dark of her room she felt caught in a time warp, suspended in a moment where they were still together and still very much in love.

After such a fitful night’s sleep, the alarm came too early, jarring Jesslyn awake. For a long moment she sat on the edge of her bed, struggling to get her bearings, and then she remembered she was in a hotel room in Dubai waiting for her morning flight to Sarq.

She was going to Sarq to take care of Sharif’s children.

Jesslyn very nearly crawled back under the covers to hide but knew it wasn’t really an option. Instead she dragged herself into the shower where she turned the faucets on full force.

Drying her hair, she styled it into loose waves to take advantage of her hair’s natural curl. Hair done, Jesslyn chose a simple amethyst sheath dress to wear for the flight. The dress had a matching travel coat which she’d carry over her arm.

She was slipping her feet into bone-colored heels when two of Sharif’s men arrived at her hotel door. They’d come to take her luggage and escort her to the car. Sharif however wasn’t in the car.

“His Highness had an unexpected meeting come up this morning. He’ll meet you at the terminal in time for your flight,” one of the men said, holding the door for her while the other tucked her luggage into the trunk.

Jesslyn wasn’t surprised that Sharif had a meeting come up, and she wasn’t surprised that she was traveling to the airport alone, as he was an exceptionally powerful man, but that didn’t stop her intense whoosh of disappointment.

The fact that she even felt a whoosh of disappointment scared her. The whoosh meant she still had strong feelings for him. The whoosh meant she cared about his opinion, which made her fear her motivations for taking this job.

The truth was she couldn’t afford to get involved with Sharif, not when there was so much history between them.

The truth was she’d gotten involved. There was no backing out of the deal now, not after Sharif had done his part sorting out Aaron’s and Will’s problems.

The closer the car got to the airport, the more her stomach did crazy flips. Nervously she ran her hands along the slim-fitting skirt of her dress. She’d dressed with such care this morning, had even put on her favorite dress. And yet, wanting to be attractive, wanting him to find her attractive was just asking for trouble.

It was like cutting open an old wound.

She wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t his equal. She wasn’t his colleague. She was just a teacher. The schoolteacher Sharif had hired to mind his royal children for the summer.

The limousine turned through the airport gates, and her stomach did another nosedive. She was here. Her bags were here. Soon she’d be on her way to Sarq, a place she’d wanted to visit for as long as she could remember, and now she was on her way. As Sharif’s employee.

Jesslyn swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth as she stepped out of the Mercedes. Sharif’s security detail was already there. They ushered her into the beautiful marble-and-glass executive terminal. The very rich and famous used the private terminal, and various sheikhs and businessmen mingled in groups, even as private jets carrying celebrities landed one after the other.

It was a busy terminal, and Jesslyn stood aside just people watching, fascinated by the parade of wealth, glamour and beauty. She was still taking it all in when the exterior doors opened again and another group entered, this group predominantly male with one tall, robed man commanding the most attention.

The atmosphere in the terminal almost instantly changed, charged with a tangible energy, an electric awareness. Heads through the terminal turned, and even Jesslyn felt the frisson of excitement.

Sharif.

She pursed her lips, checking her smile. Wouldn’t you know that Sharif could bring a bustling terminal like the Dubai Executive Airport to a standstill.

Even before he was King Fehr he commanded attention. Ever since she’d known him he’d managed to combine physical beauty with easy grace, an innate elegance and a brilliant mind.

She’d loved his mind, and she wasn’t going to think about his body—that had already kept her awake far too late last night.

Now she watched as he walked swiftly through the airport, shaking hands with several people he knew along the way. He was beautiful—ridiculous, movie star beautiful—with his thick onyx hair and incredible bone structure, and again whispers of conversation reached her, murmurs about news and weddings, and Jesslyn listened to the bits of gossip swirling through the terminal.

Was Sharif really thinking about getting married again? Was he close to taking a new bride? Had that decision already been made? And is that why he wanted her to work with his children this summer? To manage any problems the children might have before their problems became public?

Puzzled, she watched him reach the exit on the far side of the terminal. He hadn’t once looked at her or for her, and she felt strangely numb, like a piece of office furniture.

But then he turned at the glass door, pushed up his sunglasses and looked straight at her with his startling eyes and that half smile of his that made her suck in air, dazzled despite herself.

So he’d known all along she was there, had been aware of her as he made his way through the terminal. Her heart did a painful little jump, an embarrassing little jump.

His eyes crinkled further, his mouth quirking higher, and he gestured to her, two fingers bending, calling her. Come.

Come.

If only he’d done that when she’d broken up with him. If only he’d called her, come after her, asked for her to return.

Sharif’s men walked her to him now, and together she and Sharif stepped onto the tarmac, the June sun blisteringly hot despite it still being early in the morning.

“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.

“There are few people in this world like your sisters,” Jesslyn said, her voice husky. “They were just so much fun, and so good humored.” She tried to smile, but tears filled her eyes. “They knew how to live. They embraced it, you know?”

“I do know,” he said as the hum of the jet changed and the nose dipped down. “Check your seat belt,” he added gruffly. “We’ll be on the ground soon.”

A fleet of black Mercedeses waited at the airport, all in a line on the tarmac, not far from where the jet had parked.

In less than three minutes they disembarked, settled into the cars and were off, exiting the small private terminal reserved for the royal family’s use and heading through the city streets to the palace.

Jesslyn already knew that Sarq was ninety percent Muslim and yet as they drove through the streets Jesslyn saw relatively few women wearing the veil, apart from a few still wrapped in white robes, and although she’d lived in the Emirates for the past six years, she was still surprised by how relaxed everything seemed, the people on the streets appearing open and friendly.

“It feels like everyone’s on holiday here,” she said, as the car idled at a traffic light waiting for it to turn.

“People say Sarq is becoming the southern Mediterranean’s Costa del Sol.”

“Is that good or bad?” she asked, watching a cluster of girls cross the street linked arm in arm.

“It depends on who you talk to. In the past ten years a rather staggering number of beach resorts—inexpensive as well as deluxe properties—have opened along the coast. Some welcome the growth with open arms—my brother Zayed— for one, while others, like my nomadic brother Khalid, want to ban further development.”

“What do you think?”

“I’m in between. Economic stability enables Sarq to remain free and independent of any other country, and yet growth has a price. While the developing tourism industry has strengthened our economy, the environment’s paid a stiff price with the destruction of sand dunes and the troubling disappearance of wildlife.”

“You sound like you lean toward wildlife conservation,” she said.

“I have to. My father didn’t consider the impact development would have on our country’s natural resources, and now I’m forced to deal with the consequences.”

The car turned down a long drive marked by high stuccoed walls, lush, towering palm trees and flowering citrus trees beneath.

“We are here,” Sharif added as the Mercedes sedan slowed before immense wood and iron gates and the ten-foot-tall gates smoothly swung open.

Jesslyn craned her head to get her first look at the palace, a place she’d heard so much about from Jamila and Aman.

The girls had called the palace “heaven” and “paradise.” They’d said it was like a jewel in the most beautiful garden ever, and indeed, as the car turned round a corner, she spotted a sprawling pink building, the palace a compound of one-story stuccoed villas draped with trailing purple, pink and peach bougainvillea.

Elaborately carved columns and miniature domes marked the entrance, and Jesslyn knew from her friends’ description that inside were elaborate courtyards filled with fountains, dwarf palms and date palms and flowers.

White-robed and uniformed staff appeared in the entrance, greeting Sharif and welcoming the king home.

Sharif introduced Jesslyn, explaining that the teacher would be with them for the summer and he wanted everyone to make sure she lacked for nothing.

While Sharif communicated his wishes, Jesslyn surreptitiously glanced around. The palace’s cool, crisp interior contrasted with the soft pastel hues of the exterior. The walls inside were white, the high ceilings painted blue and gold, huge carved wood columns soared up to support the elaborate ceilings forming cool narrow columned corridors and intimate seating areas.

Introductions finished, the staff dispersed and Sharif offered to take her on a minitour while they waited for his children to return.

“Where are they now?”

“Out for an afternoon excursion,” he answered, “but they’ll be back soon for tea.”

Sharif’s pride was tangible as he pointed out some of the rare works of art housed within the palace walls—paintings, sculptures, armor, weapons and more. Jesslyn was awed by the history of the collection, sculptures dating back to Greco-Roman civilization, a flawless mosaic from the tomb of a Byzantine king, an enormous scarlet rug that could be traced to the Ottoman Empire.

“And this has always been here?” she asked.

“For generations.” He smiled faintly. “Some people go to museums to see priceless artifacts. I grew up with them, am still surrounded by them.”

They’d reached the end of a long arched corridor, the stone floor patterned with sunlight shining through the dozen square windows high on the wall. The ceiling, painted shades of cream and gold, reflected the brilliant late-morning light and cast sparkly star bursts and circles on the whitewashed walls.

Before they’d even turned the corner, Jesslyn could hear the tinkling notes of a fountain, and indeed, as they walked through an arched doorway, they came to stone stairs that led to a sunken living room from which she could see the fountain in a picture-perfect courtyard.

“This must be where you entertain,” she said, dazzled beyond words. The living room exuded elegance and beauty and calm, every detail exquisitely thought out, from the sweet spicy perfume of antique roses, to the huge glass doors drenched in sunlight, to the low cream couches that formed comfortable conversation areas.

“It’s actually where you’ll entertain,” he said, an enigmatic smile lighting his eyes. “This is part of your room, the most public of your quarters.”

She walked behind one of the sofas heaped with beaded and embroidered silk cushions in mouthwatering orange, lime and dusky rose. Impulsively she leaned over to touch one tangerine-colored pillow, and it gave beneath her hand, the down-filled insert deliciously soft.

“Oh, lovely,” she whispered, unable to hide her delight. She’d lived such a Spartan existence these past six years, and the luxury here was beyond her comprehension. “This room is fit for a princess!”

“This was Jamila and Aman’s room.”

Straightening, Jesslyn turned to face him. “Really?”

He nodded.

Pain splintered inside her as she looked at the beautiful room and the fantasy courtyard with fresh eyes. “Maybe I shouldn’t stay here.”

“It’d be wrong for you not to stay here. My sisters loved you dearly. They’d want you here.”

Blinking back tears, she drew a quick breath and ran a light hand over the tangerine pillow. “As long as it won’t offend anyone. I don’t want to offend anyone—”

“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.”

CHAPTER FIVE

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?

“In time for dinner?” she persisted when he didn’t answer.

He shook his head. “Hopefully tonight by bedtime, but realistically, it’ll be tomorrow morning.”

“Hopefully? Realistically? You’re talking about your kids, right?”

Again his eyes flashed with frustration, but he didn’t answer her directly, and his silence troubled her as much as the information he was telling her.

“Sharif, where are they?”

“With their grandmother.”

“Zulima’s mother?”

“Until recently Zulima’s mother lived here, but she’s returned to her family in Dubai. She lives with her second son now.”

“So the children are with your mother.”

He nodded.

Jesslyn was watching his face closely, trying to put the various puzzle pieces together. Sharif was leaving far more unsaid than said. “Why did Zulima’s mother leave? Was there a problem?”

Sharif made a low mocking sound. “Is there ever not a problem here? The two mothers-in-law never did get along. It was always a battle of wills, and my mother tended to win.”

His mother usually won, Jesslyn thought, more than a little concerned about what he was telling her.

Jesslyn knew Sharif’s mother well enough to know that the queen had always been in charge. Sharif’s late father might have been king, but Sharif’s mother was the ruler of the palace.

Sharif’s mother had never liked her. Not as Jamila and Aman’s close friend. And definitely not as Sharif’s girlfriend.

“So where are your mother and the children right now?” she persisted.

“She has a small house on the coast, about an hour and fifteen minutes north from here. It used to be the summer house where we’d go for holidays, but my mother has claimed it for herself.” He reached across to the table, checked to see if she had any hot water left in the pot. There was none and he let the lid fall. Meanwhile his expression grew blacker. “She took the girls there this morning and they’re with her now.”

“Did she not know you’d be returning today?” she asked, thinking that it was going to be hard enough living in the palace without having to contend with Her Highness, Queen Reyna Fehr. Her Highness had actually grown up as a commoner in the Emirates but had made up for her lack of royal connections with stunning cheekbones, a perfect nose and best of all, a very rich father.

“She knew,” he answered tautly. “We talked last night and again this morning. But she does what she wants when she wants and everyone else can be damned.”

Jesslyn bunched an iridescent pillow and held it to her chest. “You and the girls see her often then?”

“Every day. She might have claimed the summer house but this is where she still lives, this is home. She just goes to the summer house when she wants to make a point.”

Jesslyn was having a hard time taking in everything Sharif was telling her. Queen Reyna had never wanted Jesslyn to be friends with her daughters and she’d made that clear in a hundred different ways over the years, but this, this was a relationship between a doting mother and her eldest son. “And what is the point your mother is trying to make?”

Sharif made a rough, mocking sound. “That she’s in charge.”

Things were starting to become clearer. “Does Her Highness know I am going to be working with the girls for the summer?” she asked.

He paused, and that hesitation alone gave Jesslyn her answer.

Sighing, Jesslyn sank back against the low couch and clutching the pillow even tighter, closed her eyes. “She doesn’t know.”

“She knows I was bringing back a tutor.”

She opened her eyes and gave him a pained look. Sharif was in fine denial mode today, wasn’t he?

And maybe, just maybe, this denial mode wasn’t helping the children adjust to their school or their life without their mother.

But before she could find a delicate way to say any of this, Mehta returned with another tray. “Tea, Your Highness,” she said bowing low before Sharif and placing the tray on a table in front of him.

“Mehta, I can pour for His Highness,” Jesslyn said, drawing the tray closer to her so it wouldn’t be in Sharif’s way.

“Yes, Teacher Jesslyn Fine,” Mehta answered with yet another bob of her head before hurrying away.

Sharif glanced at Jesslyn. “Teacher Jesslyn Fine?”

Jesslyn grimaced. “I think she believes Fine is my last name.”

Sharif just looked at her a long moment before shaking his head. “You’re an interesting woman.”

“A euphemism for an odd, peculiar spinster?”

“We know you’re not a spinster,” he flashed, watching her fill his cup. “You’ve had boyfriends.”

“I have,” she said after a moment. “And it seems you have your mother.”

Sharif’s head jerked up and he nearly spilled his tea. “What?”

“You said your mother wants to think she’s in charge, and I’m curious to know, is she?”

Sharif gave her a withering look. “No.”

He might say no, she thought, but if Queen Reyna thought she was, or could be, you had the makings of a classic power struggle, the kind she’d seen between parents many times before, but in this case, the struggle was between father and grandmother. “Are you and your mother disagreeing on how to raise the girls?”

He barked a laugh, ran his hand through his dark hair, his expression tortured. “Not that I know of.”

“Then what?”

He lifted his hands in mute frustration. “There’s something wrong here, but I don’t understand it. I don’t see the children enough to know how they really are. When we are together, they hardly look at me or speak to me. When I ask them a question they do answer, but they stare at the floor the entire time and—” He sighed. “I’ve never known children to behave this way. My sisters certainly didn’t behave this way. I’m confused.”

“So what is it that you really want me to do, Sharif? Teach the children? Be a companion to them? Observe their behavior? What?”

He looked up at her, gray eyes shot with bright silver, and yet there was no light in his eyes right now. “All of the above.”

“So essentially you want a nanny.”

“No, they have a nanny. I need …” His voice drifted off and his forehead creased. “I need you.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but there was something in his eyes, something in his expression that made her heart ache. Impulsively she reached out toward him. She’d meant it to be a friendly touch, warm and reassuring, but instead of touching the loose sleeve of his robe, her fingers grazed his forearm, his bronzed skin warm like the sun, and she shuddered, stunned by the electric heat.

Abruptly she pulled back, pressing her hand to her breastbone. She’d imagined that fire, she told herself, she’d imagined that wild streak of sensation that had raced up her arm, into her shoulder, into her chest. But looking into Sharif’s eyes she suddenly wasn’t so sure.

There was the same fire in his eyes, a fire that made her remember how it’d been in his arms, beneath his body, in his bed.

“Something wrong?” he asked, his gaze traveling slowly over her hot face.

Fresh heat surged through her cheeks making her skin sensitive and her lips tingly. “No,” she breathed, nervously pressing her hands to her lap. “I just think it’ll be good when your daughters get here. It sounds as though there is much work to do.”

“You will be very busy,” he agreed, his gaze now resting on her mouth as if fascinated by the curve and color of her lips. “Perhaps you should welcome having the rest of the afternoon and night free. Once the girls return you won’t have much time to yourself.”

She felt her lower lip begin to throb as though it had taken on a life of its own. It was all she could do not to cover her mouth. “I just wish it was sooner rather than later. It’s still early in the day and I know you have work to do—”

“I’m sure Mehta would be delighted to show you the library. It’s where you’ll be teaching tomorrow. Feel free to have a look around and examine some of the books I’ve bought.”

“That’s an excellent suggestion. I’ll use the afternoon to begin preparing tomorrow’s lessons. Thank you.”

Rising to his feet he smiled vaguely, amused by her enthusiasm. “So you’ll be fine on your own this afternoon?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Great. I’ll see you at dinner—”

“Maybe we should pass on dinner,” she suggested hurriedly, unintentionally interrupting him. “I’ll have tons of reading to do tonight and I know you’ve a great deal of work.”

He stared down at her, and she had to tilt her head back to see him.

“We’ll talk about the children during dinner,” he said blandly. “That should make you feel better.” He started to leave but paused on the stairs. “And dinner, Jesslyn, is always at seven.”

The afternoon passed far too quickly for Jesslyn. She’d discovered the library and had immediately fallen in love. The room was huge and airy, a beautiful gold dome topping high walls lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves. The library reminded Jesslyn of some people’s ballrooms, large enough to comfortably hold two couches, two wooden desks, four armchairs and a long antique table with impressively carved legs.

She found the stack of teacher’s editions right away, but before sitting down with those, she looked at the books the children were using. She was familiar with the publisher, and had taught the middle school version of the literature and language books. The material she’d be teaching was simple enough. Her concern was the quantity. There were stacks of books for each child. Math, science, social studies, literature, grammar, foreign language, and then music and art books, too.

Jesslyn carried the stack of children’s books to one of the armchairs and sitting down with notepad and pen, she looked at the number of chapters in each book, and then the number of days between now and school starting, and mapped out a plan of how much could be comfortably covered in each subject.

She was still hard at work four hours later when Mehta lightly knocked on the door. “Ready for a bath, Teacher Fine?” she asked with her dimpled smile.

Jesslyn glanced up quizzically. “A bath?”

“Before dinner.”

“Ah. Right.” Closing the science textbook she wondered how to explain to Mehta that she didn’t feel it necessary to take a bath before dinner. She’d taken a shower that morning and it was just a business dinner. “I have so much to do before tomorrow that I might just wash my face and touch up my hair for dinner.”

Mehta looked at her uncomprehendingly. “No bath?”

“I took one earlier.”

“No bath before dinner?”

Jesslyn set the book down. “I don’t take a bath before every meal, Mehta.”

“No bath.”

“No.”

Mehta’s dark brows pulled. “No dinner?”

“No, I will have dinner. I’m meeting Sheikh Fehr for dinner at seven. We are meeting to discuss business—”

“Dinner with His Highness.”

“Right.” Jesslyn smiled with relief. Finally. They were both on the same page. “Dinner,” she said. “At seven.”

Mehta held up her wrist, tapped her wrist as though there was a watch there. “Half past five. Dinner seven. Bath now.”

Jesslyn sighed heavily. She really didn’t want to argue about a bath with a young member of Sharif’s palace staff. She’d only just arrived and she was going to be here all summer. And from the sound of things she was going to need someone on her side.

“A bath sounds lovely,” she answered with forced cheer as she reluctantly moved all the books off her lap and chair so she could stand. “But I’m not finished with these,” she added. “I’ll want to read them later.”

Mehta was delighted. “Yes, Teacher Fine. Now come.”

Jesslyn hadn’t seen the bedroom before, but following Mehta down the columned hall into the bedroom, she discovered that the bedroom with its spacious antique bed was just as lovely, and even more feminine, than the sunken living room.

The antique bed reminded Jesslyn of a Russian ballet with dramatic floor-to-ceiling pink and rose silk and satin curtains that could be untied and draped around the bed to provide intimacy and seclusion. The bed, built like an oversize daybed, had neither headboard nor footboard but high sides softened with pillows to match the silk panels.

A short silver vase teeming with fragrant pink rosebuds sat on a side table, and Jesslyn bent over to breathe in the heady sweet perfume. It wasn’t easy to grow roses in the blistering heat of the desert, which made these all the more precious.

“Your bath,” Mehta said, standing in yet another doorway gesturing to a room beyond.

The bath was a Roman bath with sunken tub and endless white marble. A delicately painted dome arched over the airy room, capping high walls with high narrow windows that drew in early-morning and late-afternoon sun but didn’t sacrifice privacy.

“I will help you?” Mehta asked, gesturing to Jesslyn.

The huge sunken tub had already been filled, and steam rose from the surface. “I can manage,” Jesslyn answered, thinking the whole help thing had gone far enough. Turning, she spotted a white robe on a small iron stool, and she picked it up, held it against her. “I’ll take the bath and then put this on and then I’ll come out, okay?”

Mehta smiled. “Okay.”

Once the bathroom door was shut, Jesslyn dropped her clothes and slid into the tub’s hot water with an appreciative sigh. She hadn’t wanted to take the bath, but now that she was here, chin-deep in water scented with a tantalizing vanilla and spice oil, she couldn’t imagine not bathing.

The little bathroom in her apartment had a tiny tub, but the water never got properly hot and then turned cold halfway before the tub was even filled. Soaking in this deep tub was pure decadence. Closing her eyes, Jesslyn just floated, content, absolutely content—

“Massage now, Teacher Fine. Okay?”

Mehta’s voice suddenly pierced Jesslyn’s dream state and her eyes flew open. Mehta was leaning over the tub smiling at her. “Okay?”

Jesslyn sat up abruptly, drawing her knees to her chest. “I don’t need a massage.”

“Nice massage before dinner.”

Spotting a large woman, Jesslyn shook her head. “The bath is perfect. The bath is lovely. I’ll just get dressed.”

“Dinner with His Highness,” Mehta said.

“Yes, yes, I know, but—”

“Massage before dinner with His Highness.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake! Enough with this dinner-with-His-Highness. It was just Sharif. She’d had hundreds of meals with Sharif. It was ridiculous to go through all of this just because she’d be joining him to eat.

“No.” Jesslyn hugged her knees tighter. “I really—” she broke off as the masseuse behind Mehta scooped up the robe and came marching toward her.

Mehta and the masseuse waited expectantly.

Jesslyn looked up at them, water trickling down her chest and back. She honestly didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. Coming here, she thought Sharif would be the problem, but Sharif was no problem, not compared to her baby-faced attendant with the biggest dimpled smile in the world.

“Anything for the king,” she said from between gritted teeth as she stood up in the bath and was wrapped in the robe.

Mehta smiled, her deep dimples growing bigger, deeper.

But of course Mehta smiled. Mehta was having a great time. She’d managed in less than a day to turn Jesslyn into a living Barbie doll.

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.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.