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

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.”