His Defiant Desert Queen(11)

                And he didn’t approve of her character.

                Jemma understood then that he wouldn’t help her in any way. He didn’t like her. He didn’t approve of her. And he felt no pity or compassion because she was a Copeland and it was a Copeland, her father, who had wronged his family.

                In his mind, she had so many strikes against her she wasn’t worth saving.

                For a moment she couldn’t breathe. The pain was so sharp and hard it cut her to the quick.

                It was almost like the pain when Damien ended their engagement. He’d said he’d loved her. He’d said he wanted to spend his life with her. But then when he began losing jobs, he backed away from her. Far better to lose her, than his career.

                Throat aching, eyes burning, Jemma turned back to the mirror.

                She reached for a brush and ran it slowly through her long dark hair, making the glossy waves ripple down her back, telling herself not to think, not to feel, and most definitely, not to cry.

                “You expect your tribal elder to sentence me to prison, for at least five years?” she asked, drawing the brush through her long hair.

                Silence stretched. After a long moment, Sheikh Karim answered, “I don’t expect Sheikh Azizzi to give you a minimum sentence, no.”

                She nodded once. “Thank you for at least being honest.”

                And then she reached for the bottle of make-up remover and a cotton ball to remove what was left of her eye make-up.

                He walked out then. Thank goodness. She’d barely kept it together there, at the end.

                She was scared, so scared.

                Would she really be going to prison?

                Would he really allow the judge to have her locked away for years?

                She couldn’t believe this was happening. Had to be a bad dream. But the sweltering heat inside the tent felt far too real to be a dream.

                Jemma left her make-up table and went to her purse to retrieve her phone. Mary had informed the crew this morning as they left the hotel that they’d get no signal here in the desert, and checking her phone now she saw that Mary was right. She couldn’t call anyone. Couldn’t alert anyone to her situation. As Jemma put her phone away, she could only pray that Mary would make some calls on her behalf once she returned to London.

                Jemma changed quickly into her street clothes, a gray short linen skirt, white knit top and gray blazer.

                Drawing a breath, she left the tent, stepping out into the last lingering ray of light. Two of the sheikh’s men guarded the tent, but they didn’t acknowledge her.

                The desert glowed with amber, ruby and golden colors. The convoy of cars that had descended on the shoot two hours ago was half the number it’d been when Jemma had disappeared into the tent.

                Sheikh Karim stepped from the back of one of the black vehicles. He gestured to her. “Come. We leave now.”

                She shouldered her purse, pretending the sheikh wasn’t watching her walk toward him, pretending his guards weren’t there behind her, watching her walk away from them. She pretended she was strong and calm, that nothing threatened her.

                It was all she’d been doing since her father’s downfall.