She shifted, more conscious than ever of her drab dress. They’d scrubbed off all her makeup, and her hair had definitely suffered from the wind whipping through the openings in the horse trailer.

“The British embassy?” she asked. Perhaps the Americans were busy.

“Harrison Rochester.” His pause was definitely for effect, and he watched her closely as he delivered the next sentence. “I own Cadair Racing.”

For the first time in several hours, a spurt of anger overtook her despair. It was this man’s fault she’d been manhandled, humiliated and strip-searched. “You had me arrested?”

He considered her for a short second. “You broke into my stable.”

“It was an accident.” She sure hadn’t meant to travel halfway across the United Arab Emirates pinned to the side of a horse trailer.

He eyed her with suspicion. “You mistook my trailer for the loo?”

She could feel her face flush, and she tried not to squirm under his intent scrutiny.

She had only a split second to decide how much to tell him. The truth might give her the best chance of getting out of jail. Then again, if she told him she was trying to discredit his racehorse in advance of the Sandstone Derby, he might be tempted to leave her right where she was.

“I was after a story,” she told him. She could always elaborate later.

His slate gaze locked with her blue one. “In my horse trailer?”

“I liked your horses.”

“You’re lying.”

“Check my credentials,” she countered, her confidence growing, since everything she was about to tell him was the truth. “I work for Equine Earth Magazine.”

His eyes narrowed. “I will.”

“Good.”