“I’m sorry. I seem to have caused you quite a degree of inconvenience.”
“Just my standing reservation at Lin Lee Chin’s,” he said with a shake of his head.
“A restaurant?”
He laughed. “Not really. More of a small fast food outlet. Very authentic. The best Chinese you’ve ever eaten. I go every Tuesday.”
Lilah pushed aside the sharp sense of envy. What must it be like to have such rituals and independence?
“Did you carry me inside last night?”
His eyes were faintly mocking. “Well, Princess, you were asleep by the time we got here.”
He sat down on the floor beside her. It was a perfectly normal gesture but Lilah found the proximity instantly jarring. She might have wriggled a little away if she weren’t worried it would make too much of a big deal out of the simple action.
“It was either that or leave you in the car all night. Wild horses stampeding past wouldn’t have woken you.”
Her smile was distracted. “I must have been tired. I’m usually a light sleeper.”
“You were out cold.”
“Well, thank you.”
The utterance was stiff. It fascinated Will how she could go from charming-bordering-on-flirtatious to ice-cold-princess in the blink of an eye.
“I hope you weren’t too uncomfortable on the floor.”
“I’ve slept on worse floors.”
She nodded, and sipped the tea. For lack of milk, he’d prepared it black, but Lilah didn’t mind.
“You’ve been stationed overseas for several years,” she prompted, trying to recall the information Kiral had furnished her with in order to convince her to go through with the interview.
“Seven years,” he rubbed his jaw. “Feels like seven months.”
“Where exactly?”
“All over. Nigeria, Malawi, Iraq, Tel-Aviv, Brussels briefly, Delani, then back to Iraq.”
“That’s where you met Ki?”
“No. I met your brother in Brussels. He was there to sign a peace accord and I was covering it at the time.”
She frowned. “I adore my brother, but he has as little time for journalists as I do.” She speared him with her smile. “No offence.”
“None taken. It’s a double-edged sword for families like yours. You court the media because it helps to further your causes and to keep you popular, but the attention can be intrusive.”
“Yes. We are fortunate that in Delani the media is very respectful of our boundaries.”
“That’s not good fortune,” he interjected softly. “It’s the law. And it’s a law that carries severe consequences if it’s broken.
”
“You make it sound as though it’s some incursion against freedom of press.”
“Placing strictures on what journalists may or may not cover is exactly that,” he pointed out levelly.
“There are no such strictures. Journalists are free to write what they wish. What they are not allowed to do is trail about behind us looking for unflattering photographs.” She pressed a finger into his chest, warming to the theme of defending her country. “Do you know something? The only time I am ever hounded like that is when I travel to New York or London. These two cities I find quite atrocious. I have often felt almost unsafe to find that just I, and perhaps one or two bodyguards, are surrounded by maybe fifteen men with cameras and cars and motorbikes.”