The Desert Sheikh's Defiant Queen. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ