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Of their own accord, her eyes drifted to the view of New York and her fingers tapped her knee, as if playing across the keys of the beloved piano she’d been forced to sell. ‘I’m good at it.’ She didn’t catch the way his features shifted, respect moving over his face.
‘How old are you?’
She turned back to face him, wondering how long he intended to keep her sitting there, knowing that it was very much within her job description to humour him even when this felt like an utterly bizarre way to spend her time.
‘Twenty-four.’
‘And you’ve a
lways lived in America?’
‘Yes.’ She bit down on her lower lip thoughtfully. ‘I’ve actually never even been overseas.’
His brows lifted. ‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’
She laughed softly. ‘I don’t know. You tell me?’
‘It is.’
‘Then I guess I’m unusual. Guilty as charged.’
‘You don’t have any interest in travelling?’
‘Not having done something doesn’t necessarily equate to a lack of interest,’ she pointed out.
‘So it’s a lack of opportunity, then?’
He was rapier sharp, quickly able to read between the lines of anything she said.
‘Yes.’ Because there was no point in denying it.
‘You work too much?’
‘I work a lot,’ she confirmed, without elaborating. There was no need to tell this man that she had more debt to her name than she’d likely ever be able to clear. Briefly, anger simmered in her veins, the kind of anger she only ever felt when she thought about one person: her waste-of-space ex-husband Max and the trouble he’d got her into.
‘I thought you were guaranteed vacation time in the United States?’
Her smile was carefully constructed to dissuade further questioning along these lines, but, for good measure, she turned the tables on him. ‘And you, sir? You travel frequently, I presume?’
His eyes narrowed as he studied her, and she had the strangest feeling he was pulling her apart, little by little, until he could see all the pieces that made her whole.
She held her breath, wondering if he was going to let the matter drop, and was relieved when he did.
‘I do. Though never for long, and not lately.’ His own features showed a tightness that she instinctively understood spoke of a desire not to be pressed on that matter.
But despite that, she heard herself say gently, ‘Your father was ill for a while, before he died?’
The man’s face paled briefly. He stood up, walking towards the window, his back rigid, his body tense. Daisy swallowed a curse. What was she thinking, asking something so personal? His father had just died—not even a month ago. She had no business inviting him to open that wound—and for a virtual stranger.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She stood, following him, bitterly regretting her big mouth. ‘I had no right to ask you that. I’m sorry.’ When he didn’t speak, she swallowed, and said quietly, ‘I’ll leave you in peace now, Your Highness.’
CHAPTER TWO
MANHATTAN WAS A vibrant hive of activity beyond the windows of his limousine. He kept his head back against the leather cushioning of his seat, his eyes focussed on nothing in particular.
‘That could not have gone better, Your Highness.’
Malik was right. The speech to the United Nations had been a success. As he was talking, he realised that he wasn’t the only one in the room who’d experienced anxiety about the importance of this. There was an air of tension, a fear that perhaps with the death of the great Kadir Al Antarah, they were to be plunged back into the days of war and violence that had marked too much of his country’s history.
