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

“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.”