Page 16 of Royally Promoted

‘Nothing has been determined on that front,’ he murmured. ‘Early days, as you must know, having seen so many hospital dramas. The consultant, the recuperation, the bracing words of advice...you’re probably better equipped than I am to predict what’s going to happen next.’

The mood suitably lightened, Lucy relaxed and burst out laughing. ‘I am quite knowledgeable on a range of various situations and their outcomes.’ She grinned.

‘I’m sure you are.’

They chatted. Questions of a practical nature were temporarily put on hold. However, Malik’s antennae were on red-alert: so open, so transparent...a woman with nothing to hide. Or so he had thought.

But he’d hit a nerve and, having hit that nerve, he was suddenly keen to discover more.

This time, when he looked at her from under thoughtful, brooding lashes, his gaze was laser-sharp. She had the body of a siren. A guy would have to be blind not to notice lush curves like the ones she had. Something about that dress had managed to reveal just enough to tease—enough for distant alarm bells to start ringing.

And now...there was a story lurking behind the fact that she’d not been to university. What?

Malik had never indulged in curiosity when it came to women. That was a road that either led to exploring a past they might wish to share in which he had little interest, or to a future about which they might wish to conjecture but in which he had even less interest. He was a guy who preferred the enjoyable business of living in the present when it came to his relationships. Back in that distant time when reason had been lost to insanity, in the first flush of love and lust he’d actually contemplated what a future with Sylvie might look like, fool that he’d been then.

Never again. But now...he wondered.

‘There.’

He pointed ahead of them and Lucy blinked at the impressive spectre of a palace slowly materialising in the distance. Darkness had fallen and out here, with the city lights behind them, it was deep and velvety, blanketing everything. The rolling sand dunes were interspersed with patches of trees but, as they drew closer to the palace, those dunes were replaced by carpets of grass, and the palm trees that clustered here and there were planted in rigid lines to form an avenue through which they now drove.

She fell back and stared. When he had told her that he lived in a palace, she had instantly conjured up something reasonably contained with multiple turrets. She could distinctly remember something of the sort in the cartoons she used to watch as a kid: tall and ivory-pale with small windows and lots and lots of turrets, often containing witches.

This was on a different scale altogether. It was illuminated and, against a backdrop of utter darkness, there was something ethereal about the sight. It sprawled, embracing a courtyard in front which was as vast as a park. Pillars and columns dissected a procession of windows, and gracing the centre of the structure was a multiple-domed rotunda. It was a thing of elegance and beauty.

‘That’s yours?’

‘It belongs to the Al-Rashid family. I did tell you that there was no risk of us crowding one another. Now you can see how it can be used for accommodation and workspace for a substantial amount of people.’

‘It’s huge, Malik.’

‘Indeed,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve never done a room count, but I’d say a minimum of twenty-five bedrooms, excluding various suites. So, yes...substantial.’

‘Well, that’s an understatement if ever there was one.’

She dragged awe-struck eyes away to look at him. Maybe for the first time she truly appreciated the depth of his wealth and the extreme privilege in which he had been raised. For the first time, she could see why he would consider an arranged marriage to a woman of equally noble standing.

‘I get it,’ she said quietly.

Leaning against the seat, legs spread, hands resting loosely on his thighs, Malik returned that pensive gaze with a speculative one of his own.

‘Tell me what you get.’

‘I get why you would want an arranged marriage,’ she said slowly. ‘All of this...’ she gestured to the magnificent, pale spectacle nearing them ‘...would be too much for anyone ordinary. You would have to marry a woman who was accustomed to it.’

‘You think so?’ Malik murmured. ‘Point of order, I agree with you, but even so...you don’t think an ordinary woman would be able to cope?’

‘I don’t think any ordinary woman would want to!’ She broke the sudden serious silence with a burst of laughter. ‘Personally? Give me a two-up, two-down any day of the week!’

She looked away, just in time to see the imposing front door opened by a man in uniform and from behind him came more of the same.

When her cornflower-blue eyes briefly turned to meet his, they confirmed what she had just said: no ordinary woman would want this.

CHAPTER FOUR

MALIK WONDERED...

No ordinary woman would want this? Palaces, wealth beyond most people’s wildest dreams, a life in which every need was met and every whim within easy reach...really?

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