Page 17 of Royally Promoted

Lucy’s amused, heartfelt declaration that she couldn’t be less interested in stuff like that, that no ordinary woman would be, had buried in his head like a burr and had been churning around there for the past week, even though no more had been said on the subject.

Instead, he had focused on work, on familiarising Lucy with the layout of where they were staying and on introducing her to a routine with which she felt comfortable. It was up to him to ensure she settled in. He was very much aware that she was here at his request and would probably feel like a fish out of water for the first few days or even weeks.

He thought long and hard about how to ease the temporary transition and decided to stick to a routine similar to the one they had shared in London. They discussed plans for the day over a breakfast brought to them at nine sharp in the conservatory that overlooked the manicured gardens at the back. By then, he had been working for at least two hours, catching up on his own business concerns. As soon as she joined him, they dived into what had to be done that day—it was not unlike discussing plans for the day in his office in London, where she would sit opposite him scrolling through her laptop and quickly taking notes on what had to be packed in.

Twice, they had taken the Bentley to the headquarters in the capital and spent a hectic day there. Things had been well run under his father’s eagle-eyed stewardship. Concerns raised about what happened next now that Ali Al-Rashid was recuperating had to be dealt with.

Accustomed to her input, the clever way she communicated with clients, her chattiness and constant upbeat, vocal personality, a suddenly subdued Lucy had taken some getting used to.

‘Am I background enough?’ she had asked four days ago, on their return from the head office in Sarastan. Then she had smiled and he had wanted to tell her that ‘background’ was the last thing he wanted her to be—even though here it was exactly what she had to be.

‘Perfect,’ he had said instead, and she’d smiled a little more.

Then, head tilted, she’d said, ‘Well, that’s a shame. It’s very annoying not being able to chat. I don’t think I was ever this quiet even when I had laryngitis four years ago.’

Sitting here now, Malik glanced at his watch and immediately frowned at his lack of focus. His mother was talking. His mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about Lucy, thinking about how much he missed the free and easy ebullience of her rapport with him.

He was absently wondering how he had managed to become used to a working relationship with Lucy that bore no resemblance to anything he had ever experienced with a woman before. He didn’t quite know at what point he’d gone from indulging her enthusiasm for saying exactly what she thought about a thousand random things with long-suffering patience to actually expecting it and finally to enjoying it.

Was it because of the novelty of being in the company of someone who didn’t tiptoe around him? Sylvie had been a novelty for him on the romantic front. She had knocked him for six because she had been a curiosity he hadn’t been able to resist. After a diet of all the right food, she had represented something sweet and tempting but ultimately bad for him. The relationship had crashed and burned, and he would never go there again, but Lucy...?

This was completely different. She posed no threat to his peace of mind because he wasn’t and never would be romantically involved with her. He could appreciate her outspokenness because it was something that he left behind when he shut the office door behind him at the end of play.

Malik was unaccustomed to his mind drifting. He shifted, tried to bring it back to heel and tilted his head to one side as his mother, in her usual perfectly well-mannered, utterly restrained way, updated him on what his father’s consultant had said following his visit to the palace earlier.

‘Of course,’ she was saying, her voice cool and well-modulated, ‘Jafna, the senior nurse he has allocated, is in charge of dispensing all the medication. It is a complicated regime, but I am assured, once your father is fully recovered, he will be able to halve the number of tablets he is currently on. We hope for a good outcome by the end of the month.’

He looked at her and marvelled at how rigidly contained she was. Nadia Al-Rashid was a beautiful woman. Her dark hair was now lightly streaked with grey and tied back in an elegant chignon, and every inch of her was impeccably regal, from her finely chiselled features and haughty posture to the elegant, flowing gold-and-blue dress she wore that fell to the floor. She was not quite sixty, but her face was unlined.

She moved on from his father, who was resting upstairs, to Lucy, whom she had yet to meet.

‘And this young lady you have brought with you, Malik—tell me what she is like before she arrives. You say she works well alongside you?’

‘She knows the ropes,’ Malik confirmed wryly. ‘She’s clever, quick and, as I explained, there’s too much happening within my own companies to delegate to an outsider. Hence her presence in Sarastan.’

‘I understand. Your father’s secretary, Zahra... He has been upset that she will no longer have the job she has enjoyed for over two decades. She was a mature woman in her forties when your father took her on, ten years older than him, and he has much respect for her.’

Malik was startled at this piece of information because he knew next to nothing about the people in his parents lives, far less the ones who worked for his father.

He was also startled by the softening in his mother’s voice.

‘He can surely shift her to someone else?’

‘It is not as easy as that. They have a very special working relationship because her mother was a cherished retainer in our household, and I am afraid Zahra might be too old now for a transfer. Perhaps it is the same with your employee?’

Malik shifted and thought about the shapely body that had made him sit up and take notice ever since she’d come to Sarastan. Maybe that was a little different from his father and Zahra, who was probably well into her sixties if he did the maths.

Yes...definitely a different scenario.

‘Perhaps...’

He was about to return to the subject of his father when the door to the sitting room was quietly pushed open and Yusuf entered, who had been with his parents for what felt like a thousand years, bowing, his flowing white robes practically enveloping him. He was small and thin and as loyal an employee as it was possible to be.

Lucy’s arrival was announced.

Malik rose to his feet.

She had been here a little over a week and this would be her first meeting with his mother. His father would not be making an appearance; that was fine—one out of two worked.