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She angled her head to face the man who had rescued – or abducted – her. His eyes were trained on the busy road ahead and a tension emanated from his body that Lilah completely understood.
“What did you tell my brother? Why have you broken me out of the apartment? And where are we going?”
His smile was lopsided. “Which question do you want answered first.”
“All of them,” she responded coldly. She was thirsty, and she hadn’t realised until that moment.
“The guard who cleared your tray –,”
“Abdim,” she supplied, her expression blank as she thought of the man in her detail.
“If you say so,” Will shrugged.
“What about him?” She prompted, after a nervous beat had passed and the journalist had failed to elucidate.
“He’s a member of an outlawed political faction.”
“An outlawed … what are you talking about?” She derided with a shake of her head. “I have known him for months. He had to jump through three thousand hoops to get the job in my team.”
“That might be true, Princess, but he’s not a good guy.”
“I don’t believe it,” she murmured, furrowing her brow. “Abdim is nothing but kind. He’s most certainly qualified for the role.”
“Sure, okay.” His sarcasm was spread thickly over the false admission.
“Don’t do that,” she implored, settling back in her seat and staring distractedly ahead.
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t infantilize me. If you think he is a danger to me then explain your reasoning.”
Now it was Will’s turn to look surprised. “I had no intention of infantilizing you. But if you want to believe a fiction rather than the facts then I’m not sure I’m particularly interested in arguing.”
Lilah’s cheeks flushed pink. “I beg your pardon, sir, but where I come from, people do what I ask of them.”
His laugh filled the cabin of his car, and it had the effect of making Her Royal Highness Jalilah Mazroui feel ever so slightly ridiculous.
“Why is that funny?” She enquired tightly.
He turned to face her, his eyes roaming her face with curiosity. “You really don’t think the statement is absurd?”
“No.”
“So you think the fact you happened to have been born to someone who happened to have been born to someone else and so on and so on gives you a special ability to command and inspire obedience?”
She heard his doubt and it made something strange swell in her chest. Embarrassment or annoyance? “I don’t feel that I’m inspiring your obedience,” she muttered.
He laughed again, then shook his head and looked back at the built-up traffic. He swore under his breath before yanking the steering wheel and pulling the car out of the lane. Lilah wrapped her fingers around the handle of her door as he weaved in and out of the bicycle lane, narrowly missing a parked moped.
“Would you please slow down?” She demanded, swallowing quickly. “I did not jump off a building only to die in something so pedestrian as a car accident.”
He didn’t respond. His full concentration was taken up by the task of getting past the backlog of vehicles waiting for the tunnel. Somewhere near the mouth, he pushed in front of a driver distracted by her cell phone and then turned to face Lilah.
“Have you heard of the Arabic Unity Coalition?”
“Yes,” she muttered. “They were an embarrassment to all three words. They were not Arabic, they did not represent unity and they certainly didn’t seek any kind of coalition. They were disbanded some time ago.”
“Two years ago,” he nodded. “And in fact, while the party was criminalized, there were some men remaining who were willing to fight under its banner. They continued to thrive and disseminate its hateful rhetoric.”
