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

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      “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 СКАЧАТЬ