Page 1 of Royally Promoted

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’RE WET. WHY? Why are you soaking wet? You’re also late.’

The door to Malik’s office had been pushed open with its usual vigour and there she was, dripping on his pale-grey carpet, her blonde hair clinging to her in strands as she did her best to wring it out into semi-dried submission. He sat back in the leather chair, steepled his fingers and looked at his secretary with his head tilted to one side.

Lucy Walker, who had been working for him for a little over three years, was a force of nature. She was petite and curvy, with curly, bright blonde hair that had a will of its own, and a dimpled smile that had a disconcerting tendency to throw Malik off-track when he was taking her to task.

Right now was an excellent example.

Malik had long stopped asking himself how it was that she had stayed the course for as long as she had when, in every way, shape and form, she was precisely the sort of PA who normally wouldn’t come close to being shortlisted for the high-powered role she occupied.

But she had shown up for the interview, impressed him with her in-depth knowledge of negotiating the stock market, informed him that there was nothing she couldn’t turn her hand to, smiled that dimpled smile and challenged him to set any task so that she could prove her worth.

Malik had duly given her ten minutes to work out projections for investing several million over several companies. She’d proven her worth in half the time. She was outspoken to a fault and was impressively immune to what, Malik knew, was a forbidding side to him that made most people think twice about saying anything of which he might disapprove. In every single walk of life, he was respected and feared in equal measure. But not by her.

She rid herself of her waterproof, which she dumped on the chair she occupied when in his office. The coat, too, was dripping onto his expensive carpet.

‘Can you believe this weather, Malik? It’s a disgrace. Why don’t those overpaid people ever get the forecast right? No mention of a storm this morning when I switched on the telly—sunshine and showers!’

‘Perhaps you should have paid more attention to the showers part of the weather report. It’s after nine-thirty.’

‘I would have texted, but my phone was low on juice. Still, I’m here now and ready to go! Lots of thoughts about that IT company you’re looking to get hold of, by the way.’

‘You need to go and get into some dry clothes.’

Lucy grimaced. ‘That would involve a trip to the shops. I took the spare stuff I keep here back with me a couple of weeks ago and I completely forgot to replace them. I was bored of blues and greys. I thought that, with Christmas just round the corner, more festive colours might be in order.’

‘We’re in September.’ Malik sighed heavily and sat back in the chair to look at her in brooding silence, before buzzing through to one of his other employees, who scuttled in at speed to stare with badly disguised laughter at his dripping secretary.

‘Sir?’

‘You need to go and get some dry clothes for Lucy,’ he said, looking at Julia, who was secretary to one of the guys who worked for him. ‘I don’t care where. Put it on Robert’s company card and be quick.’

‘Malik...’

Malik looked at Lucy with an impatient frown. ‘I need you here right now. I can’t spare you for an hour hunting down a replacement outfit.’

‘Duly noted.’

‘Get one of the towels from the cloakroom and wrap it around you. I can’t afford to have you off work with flu.’

‘Trust me, flu is the last thing I want to have.’

Julia had hurried out, breathlessly promising to be back in under half an hour, which made Malik wonder how it was that his own secretary could be as stubborn as a mule when a snap of his fingers had every other person on the face of the earth jumping to attention.

‘Off you go, Lucy. I have things to discuss with you of some importance, and time’s moving along.’

Lucy ignored him to sit on the chair, causally pushing the wet waterproof off it and onto the ground.

‘First, you deserve an explanation or else you’re going to be in a grumpy mood with me all day.’ She dimpled. ‘I thought I’d walk in this morning. It was so lovely and sunny, not a hint of those showers Carol on the telly mentioned at seven when I left home—and, actually, I need the exercise, if I’m honest with myself. I don’t get nearly enough fresh air these days and—’

‘Cut to the chase, Lucy.’

‘So I headed off. Normally, it would have taken forty-five minutes, but then it clouded over, and forget about showers; this was a deluge. To top it all, the Tube drivers are on strike, which meant no Tube, and the buses were all packed out. Wasted nearly half an hour waiting at the bus stop. In the end, I had no option but to try and be as quick as I could on foot, but with the aforementioned deluge... You want to see the streets out there, Malik. They’ve turned into canals. We could be in Venice.’

‘Did it occur to you at all to buy an umbrella?’ He sincerely did not want to be amused.

‘Not really, no. I kept thinking it would blow over. Anyway, it was all a bit chaotic.’

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