Page 11 of Royally Promoted

‘I find I’m managing just fine. Believe it or not, in the absence of siblings you tend to develop quite robust coping mechanisms. Moving on...’

‘You are super self-contained, now that you mention it. Well, I guess when your dad returns home—and return home he will,’ Lucy stressed, ‘it might be a bit frantic and chaotic.’

Malik said nothing.

‘Frantic and chaotic’ were not words he would ever have associated with his highly organised, utterly controlled parents and he was sure that, whatever the circumstances at the moment, nothing at all was going to be frantic or chaotic within those palace walls. His mother had broken the news of his father with her usual cool, emotionless restraint and he was under no illusions that things would be in place at the palace for his father’s eventual return there for recuperation. A calm, well-run, highly efficient household would be on offer, as it always had been from the day he’d been born.

His parents had had an arranged marriage and he had never spied anything within it that could even be loosely described as ‘passion’. Which, he reflected now, mouth tightening, was actually no bad thing. Bitter experience had long taught him that, however stultifying his once-youthful self had found his parents’ marriage, it was a damned sight better than the alternatives that lay out there, like steel traps in wait of the unwary.

‘I’ll naturally make sure that photos of where you’ll be staying are emailed to you and you’ll be given ample opportunity to approve it. You can trust me on this, Lucy—we won’t be under one another’s feet. I will retreat to my own quarters when the working day is done, and you’ll be free to do whatever you want to do in your spare time. I could have arranged for a PA over there, to spare you the ordeal of this situation, but no PA would be able to get up to speed with all the complex deals in progress that you’re currently handling. And also, of course, as you’ve said, you can’t sit in a vacuum for weeks at a stretch.’

‘I get it, Malik, but back to the end of the working day situation... How I can build a personal life for myself over there?’

‘There’s a wealth of very comprehensive tourist blurb on the place. I’ll also make sure you’re emailed with information on things you might be interested in. Obviously, there might be one or two things you’ll simply have to accept as quite different to what you’re accustomed to.’

‘Name a few.’ She relaxed into a smile, mind soothed by what he had said about their living arrangements.

‘Pubs: not really many of those, although there are some magnificent hotels with excellent nightlife. Public transport is sparse.’ He smiled. ‘Your hair might go grey-whilehunting for the nearest Tube. Taxis, however, are cheap and plentiful and, most importantly, air-conditioned. There’s the coast and a wealth of museums and galleries and, of course, it’s a vibrant hub should you want to fly out to visit any of the surrounding cities or countries. The family jet will be on standby, as will any number of drivers. A fleet of cars is always available for use.’

‘A fleet of cars...what luxury.’

Malik remained silent. It would be interesting to see how she dealt with what would await her in his country. She would be exposed to a level of luxury that might come as a shock. How would she react?

He was surprised to feel a certain amount of tension at what could be an unfortunate outcome, but didn’t he have experience in that particular area? And wasn’t it wise to expect nothing and therefore never court disappointment?

He looked at her in brooding silence but his mind was elsewhere, playing with memories of the woman he had foolishly fancied himself in love with at the tender age of eighteen, when he had been at university in London. She had been as bedazzling as any woman he had ever met in his life before.

He had boarded from the age of thirteen, a tremendous place on the outskirts of Paris where he had learned to speak French fluently. But during those years he had spent all his holidays in Sarastan, where he had become accustomed only to meeting girls from the same social circle as his—girls who had been born knowing their place in the world and the extremely privileged status they enjoyed. Most of them had never strayed beyond the confines of a very rarefied social circle.

Sylvie had defied all those stereotypical images he had grown up with. Slight, and as graceful as a ballerina with green eyes and long red hair, he had met her in his first week and it had been lust at first sight. At the age of eighteen, love and lust had been immediate bedfellows and he hadn’t fought any of it. He’d fallen hard for the girl, who’d worked in a hip, vintage record shop. With knowing eyes and raucous laugh, she was a girl with three earrings in each ear and a tiny, interesting tattoo just below her belly button.

She’d known how deep his pockets were. He hadn’t tried to conceal his wealth. She had accepted the gifts with open arms and over the course of time had changed from the carefree girl he’d fallen for to a woman who had begun to see the people around her as less than her. She’d learnt arrogance. She’d felt it her right to complain to the people who served her in restaurants. Petulance had kicked in if she didn’t get her own way. She’d become demanding.

Maybe those traits had always been there, but Malik had been left bitterly disillusioned, and even more so when, at the end of their disastrous relationship, she had laughed in his face and told him that she’d been fooling around behind his back the entire time.

Maybe she had. Maybe she’d concocted something to hurl at him because he had dumped her.

There was no maybe about the fact that he’d been a complete fool. He’d allowed himself to lose control of his emotions and had paid the price. He’d taken lessons with him from that experience. Never again would he trust emotions. They’d let him down once; he wasn’t going to risk them letting him down ever again.

Avoiding those pitfalls? Easy. He dated women who were single-minded in their careers and weren’t interested in long-term relationships. He’d been honest with each and every one of them from the very start; had told them that, if they were in search of Mr Right, then they should look somewhere else. He’d had fun but he’d decided, somewhere deep inside, that when it came to marriage he would choose as his father had—with his head and not with his heart.

It would be an arranged marriage with a woman who came from the same background as his and would be unimpressed with the magnificent riches that accompanied him. She would understand the value of spreading wealth around those less fortunate who lived in the country, and promoting all those causes that furthered infrastructure in Sarastan, as his parents had over the course of their marriage. With money and power came responsibility.

He wondered whether Lucy would have her head turned by the treasures she would find at the end of the rainbow. When he thought of that, something inside him twisted. Time would tell.

‘Actually,’ he surfaced to hear her say, dimpled smile back in place, ‘who needs a fleet of cars? If I had just the one, I would have been in work on time today. No, scratch that—I would still have decided to walk in. Exercise is essential. Although, thinking about it, it was a very ambitious walk. So...well... I probably would have arrived at exactly the same time, because I would have ended up trying to grab a Tube train that was never going to show up.’

‘Thank you for that wealth of information.’ Malik looked at her, still caught up wondering what she would think of what was awaiting her. ‘You should get a car. I have no idea how anyone can survive without one.’

‘You probably have no idea how anyone could survive without lots of things,’ Lucy returned drily. ‘A car being the least of those things.’

‘Maybe you have a point.’

He smiled slowly. Flustered by that lazy smile, Lucy drew in a sharp, unsteady breath. Sprawling palace or no sprawling palace, she felt a shiver of thrill, excitement and quaking panic all rolled into one. The roof might be huge but they were still going to be living together under it.

Her heart sped up. She would be in ‘her own quarters’, whatever that meant, but she would still be aware of him in the same place as her, within the same palace walls. Hardly the same as when she headed off to her box in Swiss Cottage.

‘Are you going to tell me about this interviewing for a bride thing?’ she asked quickly.

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