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Or at the very least, he shouldn’t remember. He shouldn’t want to remember. “I present the facts. I do not pass judgment.”
“Will the facts be presented in English?”
“No.”
“So you could say anything.”
“But why would I?” he countered sharply. “You’ve broken numerous laws. Important laws. Laws created to protect our borders and the safety and security of my people. There is no need to add weight or severity. What you’ve done is quite serious. The punishment will be appropriately serious.”
He saw a flash in her eyes, and he didn’t know if it was anger or fear but she didn’t speak. She bit down, holding back the quick retort.
Seconds ticked by, one after the other.
For almost a minute there was only silence, a tense silence weighted with all the words she refrained from speaking.
“How serious?” she finally asked.
“There will be jail time.”
“How long?”
He was uncomfortable with all the questions. “Do you really want to do this now?”
“Absolutely. Far better to be prepared than to walk in blind.”
“The minimum sentence is somewhere between five to ten years. The maximum, upward of twenty.”
She went white, and her lips parted, but she made no sound. She simply stared at him, incredulous, before slowly turning back to face her dressing table mirror.
She was trying not to cry.
Her shoulders were straight, and her head was high but he saw the welling of tears in her eyes. He felt her shock, and sadness.
He should leave but his feet wouldn’t move. His chest felt tight.
It was her own damned fault.
But he could still see her five years ago in the periwinkle blue bridesmaid dress at Morgan’s wedding.
He could hear her gurgle of laughter as she’d made a toast to her big sister at the reception after.
“We will leave as soon as you’re dressed,” he said tersely, ignoring Jemma’s pallor and the trembling of her hands where they rested on the dressing table.
“I will need five or ten minutes,” she said.
“Of course.” He turned to leave but from the corner of his eye he saw her lean toward the mirror to try to remove the strip of false eyelashes on her right eye, her hands still shaking so much she couldn’t lift the edge.
It wasn’t his problem. He didn’t care if her hands shook violently or not. But he couldn’t stop watching her. He couldn’t help noticing that she was struggling. Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes as she battled to get the eyelashes off.
It was her fault.
He wasn’t responsible for her situation.
And yet her struggle unsettled him, awakening emotions and memories he didn’t want to feel.
Mikael didn’t believe in feeling. Feelings were best left to others. He, on the other hand, preferred logic. Structure. Rules. Order.
He wouldn’t be moved by tears. Not even the tears of a young foreign woman that he’d met many years ago at the wedding of Drakon Xanthis, his close friend from university. Just because Drakon had married Jemma’s older sister, Morgan, didn’t mean that Mikael had to make allowances. Why make allowances when Daniel Copeland had made none for his mother?
“Stop,” he ordered, unable to watch her struggle any longer. “You’re about to take out your eye.”
“I have to get them off.”
“Not like that.”
“I can do it.”
“You’re making a mess of it.” He crossed the distance, gestured for her to turn on her stool. “Face me, and hold still. Look down. Don’t move.”
Jemma held her breath as she felt his fingers against her temple. His touch was warm, his hand steady as he used the tip of his finger to lift the edge of the strip and then he slowly, carefully peeled the lashes from her lid. “One down,” he said, putting the crescent of lashes in her hand. “One to go.”
He made quick work on the second set.
“You’ve done this before,” she said, as he took a step back, putting distance between them, but not enough distance. He was so big, so intimidating, that she found his nearness overwhelming.
“I haven’t, but I’ve watched enough girlfriends put on make up to know how it’s done.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her gaze searching his. “And you have no say in the sentencing?” she asked.
“I have plenty of say,” he answered. “I am the king. I can make new laws, pass laws, break laws...but breaking laws wouldn’t make me a good king or a proper leader for my people. So I, too, observe the laws of Saidia, and am committed to upholding them.”
“Could you ask the judge to be lenient with me?”
“I could.”
“But you won’t?”
He didn’t answer right away, which was telling, she thought.
“Would you ask for leniency for another woman?”
His broad shoulders shifted. “It would depend on who she was, and what she’d done.”
“So your relationship with her would influence your decision?”
“Absolutely.”
“I see.”
“As her character would influence my decision.”
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.
Pretending. Faking. Fighting.
“Ready?” Sheikh Karim asked as she reached his side.
“Yes.”
“You have no suitcase, no clothes?”
“I have a few traveling pieces here, but the rest is in my suitcase.” She clasped her oversized purse closer to her body. “Can we go get my luggage?”
“No.”
“Will you send for it?”
“You won’t need it where you are going.”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted to protest but his grim expression silenced her.
He held open the door. The car was already running.
“It’s time to go,” he said firmly.
