As Jenna listened, she found herself wondering where she’d seen him before. He looked familiar somehow. Had he told Farzad his name? No, she didn’t think so.
Farzad seemed to relax. “Health and peace be upon him as well. I am Farzad Mazari, head of security here.”
“I’m Derek Tower, Jenna Hamilton’s half-brother. I’ve been sent by her father to bring her home.”
Stunned, Jenna gaped at him through the closed window.
Derek Tower.
She recognized that name, but he wasn’t her half-brother. He’d been her brother James’ best friend, the fellow Green Beret whose life her brother had saved at the cost of his own. But Derek’s lie wasn’t what made her blood boil.
Her father had sent Derek to bring her back to the United States.
To hell with that!
Jenna threw open the door and jumped to the snowy ground. “You can turn your fancy Land Cruiser around and get out of here. I’mnotgoing back to the U.S.”
She knew she had probably startled Farzad with her lack of hospitality, but this wasn’t any of his concern.
She’d spoken to Derek in English, but he kept speaking Dari, a smile on his face as if he were happy to see her. “Hey, sister. I’ve missed you.”
“This man is your relative?” Farzad asked in Dari.
Jenna had no choice but to go along with the lie—unless she wanted Farzad and his men to beat the hell out of Derek and drag him away. “Yes.”
Farzad seemed satisfied. “He says he has come at your father’s request to take you home to America.”
“That’s too bad.” Jenna turned and reached inside the Land Cruiser for her anatomy chart and other things. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Farzad seemed surprised. “But your father sent him.”
Jenna took the venom out of her voice. None of this was Farzad’s fault. It wasn’t Derek’s fault either. “In the United States, a grown daughter can do as she chooses without her father’s approval.”
Farzad turned to Derek as if to confirm this.
“She tells the truth,” Derek said. “She can go wherever she wants—even if it is unsafe and gets her killed.”
“I came here to save women’s lives and train student midwives, not to be safe. I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing,brother.” Jenna shut the vehicle’s door and stomped off through the snow to the dormitory, leaving Farzad and Derek in the cold.
She keyed herself in and walked back to her small dorm room, where she dropped the chart and other materials on her bed.
Oh, thegall!
It was just like her father to do something like this. He always claimed he was acting in her interests, but it was really about control. She was thirty years old, for God’s sake, not seventeen. The man had no say in any aspect of her life. It wasn’t really about her anyway. Her father was a toxic narcissist who viewed his children, his staff, and everyone around him as nothing more than extensions of himself. The more she tried to block him out of her life, the more he tried to interfere.
“We need to talk.”
Jenna whirled to find Derek behind her. “You can’t be here. It’s a women’s dorm. You’ll get all of us in trouble.”
“I won’t stay.” He was so tall that his head almost touched the top of the door frame, his body filling the space. He stood there, arms crossed over his chest, watching her through hard blue eyes, his skin tanned from the sun, his face rugged—and irritatingly handsome. “Your father is worried about you.”
She ignored the punch of attraction—or tried to. “He told you that?”
Derek nodded. “You’re his only surviving child, and he wants you out of the line of fire. He paid me a fortune to fly here just to ask you to come home.”
“Well, you’ve got your answer. Hopefully, he paid for your return flight as well.”
The room went dark—another power outage. Then the generator kicked in, and the lights came back on.