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