Page 30 of Royally Promoted

‘My father is doing fine and, yes, that was the plan,’ Malik agreed, drinking straight from the bottle and looking at her at the same time.

He’d breathed a sigh of relief the minute he’d returned from seeing his parents. With decisive plans underway for a marriage he had previously put off thinking about until necessity had brought it to his front door, Malik had suddenly felt hemmed in and constrained. That glimpse of his parents, the depth of their affection, had also thrown him.

A ball... Women he knew, and many he did not, would be at a glittering and impressive event and he would be able to converse with them, perhaps have his curiosity piqued by some of them...or else he would merely attend and assess the suitability of who was there.

He was going to be Prince Charming but without Cinderella, the glass slipper and the midnight cut-off. Something like that would certainly reduce the time spent looking. From a distant memory involving one of his cousins, he could remember an amusing but long-winded situation that had involved a matchmaker and a series of dates which had taken for ever, although in fairness had concluded in a positive result.

One fancy ball, a few dates and his fate would be sealed. The minute he had walked into the kitchen and seen Lucy at the kitchen table, he’d felt more settled. Looking at her was like looking at normality and he couldn’t help but enjoy the view.

She was in a weird outfit. The tee-shirt looked as though it belonged to a kid—maybe it was of sentimental value—and the jogging bottoms were faded. But nothing could diminish the startling prettiness of her heart-shaped face and enormous cornflower-blue eyes, not even the fact that she was completely bare of make-up and there was a trace of tomato sauce on her chin.

Memory of that kiss shared surged through him like a sudden shot of potent adrenaline.

He should go.

He drained the bottle, dumped it on the table and remained where he was. The tee-shirt might be baggy, but he could still make out the shape of her breasts, big enough to more than fill his hands.

‘That looks good,’ he said huskily. ‘What you’re eating. What is it? I... I actually haven’t had anything to eat tonight.’

Lucy tilted her bowl to show him what was left of her meal. ‘It’s spaghetti with tomato sauce from a bottle and some onions and garlic and cream, Malik. I won’t be fronting my own cookery programme with the recipe. Why are you back here, anyway? You haven’t said.’

‘Any left?’

He stood up, edgy and restless, and peered into an empty saucepan on the cooker. There were two shining silver-and-black range-cookers in the kitchen, built into the marble and granite counter tops. He knew he would find something splendid, hand-prepared and delicious in the fridge. Instead, he helped himself to some water, a block of cheese and some bread, and resumed his place on the chair facing her.

‘What have you got up to this evening?’

‘You’re looking at it.’ Lucy half-lifted her laptop.

‘You spent the evening on your computer? Tell me you weren’t working.’

‘Of course I wasn’t working, Malik.’

‘No need to be defensive.’ He looked up from his plate of cheese and bread and grinned. ‘But admit it, it’s not the first time you’ve worked after hours.’

‘It’s impossible to do that here.’

‘I’d have thought it was easy without the usual distractions.’

‘Usual distractions?’

‘Friends, family and pub crawls.’

‘Once. I’ve been on a pub crawl once and woke up the next morning swearing I’d never do that again. Have you ever done something like that? Or is all your outside time taken up with work?’

‘Seldom with work,’ Malik murmured, and Lucy reddened, struck into immediate silence.

She rose to clear her plate and Malik told her to leave it. It would be taken care of in the morning when his staff arrived. She ignored him and began washing the dishes she had used.

‘Some of us had to get on with the business of tidying up after ourselves,’ she threw over her shoulder. ‘In the absence of anyone around to tidy up after us. In my family there was a strict rota and woe betide anyone who decided to abscond.’

Malik pushed his plate to the side, angled his chair so that he could stretch out his legs and looked at her. Her hair was casually pulled back into a ponytail. Half of it had escaped to curl down her back in feathery tendrils. He could have sat there and watched her like that for ever, and he wondered whether it was because he had just come from having a conversation with his parents about the future that awaited him.

Did the promise of a suitable wife make him suddenly lust for the possibility of an unsuitable lover? Or had he opened a door that should have remained shut but, now that it was opened, continued to tempt him to go inside and discover what lay behind it?

He fidgeted. He could feel the rush of excited blood stiffen him. When she spun round and he noted the bounce of her breasts, he hardened yet further to a point where he was uncomfortable and over-conscious of his erection.

‘You still haven’t told me why you’re back early. If I’d known you were going to show up, I would have...’

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