Page 39 of Royally Promoted

‘Tell me.’

‘I’ve never told anyone this before,’ Lucy admitted, but then she added quickly, ‘And the only reason I’m telling you is because I want you to realise that I really do mean it when I say that what we have...isn’t something I’m going to want more of. That you don’t have to start quaking with fear every time we make love because at the back of your mind you wonder whether I’m going to suddenly start trying to cling to you like a limpet.’

Malik grinned wryly. ‘Your talent for exaggeration never fails to impress, Lucy.’

‘I fell for a guy when I was eighteen and about to go to university. You asked me once how come I was the only one in my family not to go to university. Well, this guy... I thought it was the real thing. I trusted him. When I accidentally became pregnant, it turned out that, for him, what we had was about as real as a three-pound note. He dumped me fast, said he was never into commitment, didn’t know what gave me the idea that he was. I miscarried very early on but...it was devastating, Malik.’

She shouldn’t have gone down this road because now she could feel tears gathering and beginning to leak out of her eyes and she couldn’t control them. She could also feel the gentle touch of his fingers wiping the tears away, which actually made her feel even sorrier for herself.

‘Oh, Lucy...’

‘I coped.’ But her voice wobbled. ‘I dumped university and headed out into the big, bad world.’

‘And none of your family knew?’

‘I couldn’t deal with the sympathy fest. They would all have meant well, but it was just something I had to deal with on my own.’

‘I get it.’

‘Do you? Really?’ She sighed, in control now after that shaky patch, although in fairness she still rather liked the feel of his fingers brushing her cheek. ‘No matter. Put it this way, I came through the other side. More than that, I realised that Colin had never been the one for me. I also realised that the one for me would always be someone who was into marriage and commitment, and nothing else would do when it came to an investment in my heart. So, you see, what we have here... I’ll never want anything more than what it is because I could never invest my feelings in someone who wasn’t into returning the favour. If this is all about sex for you, then it’s the same for me.’

Malik wanted to hold her close, wrap her up tightly. He also wanted to beat the hell out of the guy who had broken her heart.

And something else was nudging inside him, something unsettling—a feeling of somehow being reduced by what she had said even though what she’d said had been spot on. This was all about the sex. There would be nothing more to come. Because he was that man she’d just described—the one who didn’t do commitment, the one who had to oversee the process and control the outcome. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that guy. That was an uncomfortable thought and one he discarded as fast as it appeared on the horizon.

‘Music to my ears,’ Malik said huskily, moving to take her in a gesture that was tender and sensual at the same time.

He wondered whether he should try and prise some more details about that guy from her: names, addresses...the lot. Years had gone by but wherever he was now, whatever job he held, he could still find himself paying for the wrong he had done to Lucy. Malik was a powerful guy. Jobs could be terminated with a word in the right ears.

He had hurt her—an eye for an eye and all that stuff.

He gritted his teeth and pushed past those thoughts of vengeance. What was all that about? As she’d said, what they had was about sex, without complications.

‘There’s something you should know about me as well, Lucy...’

Malik was astonished at the urge to trade confidences, but then why was that so surprising? She deserved to know, didn’t she, why he was the man that he was and what had helped to shape him? If she didn’t want him thinking that she might cling, then why would he not want her to realise why her clinging would never work? With all the facts on the table, there would be no room for misunderstandings, because she was right—the time left to them was limited. He would marry and, yes, at least to start with he would end up splitting time between Sarastan and London until everything was settled: until his new wife found her feet within the marriage sufficiently to commit to living in London full-time, always with the expectation of returning to Sarastan to live.

There was no point dodging what was probably inevitable. Also...being lumped into the same box as a commitment-phobic, lying snake of an ex who had strung her along and hurt her made Malik’s teeth grind together with impotent fury. It was an insult!

‘What?’ She smiled. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I know you for who you are—no surprises in store for me. I know the man I’m dealing with. You don’t have to warn me off you.’

She stroked his tough, hard body, skimming her hand over his chest, but he stilled her hand.

‘In a minute.’

‘Sex in a minute? Should I diarise that, Malik? You’re the guy who’s all about the sex. Right here and right now, no promises made, no questions asked.’

‘Now you’re making me sound shallow.’

‘If the cap fits...’

‘I’ve had my own share of crap,’ he confessed gruffly. ‘Not on a par with you, but I too met a woman who let me down, a woman who wasn’t what she claimed to be. I met her when I was the same age as you were when you got your heart broken by that creep.’ She was staring at him with her wide, cornflower-blue eyes and her mouth half-open. He should have felt uncomfortable breaking habits of a lifetime and telling her something he’d never told a soul but he didn’t. He felt a sense of release.

‘She hurt you.’

‘She hurt my pride,’ Malik corrected grimly. ‘It was enough for me to realise that what my parents had was foolproof—no room for anyone getting hurt, and I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about a woman getting into a relationship with me and wanting more than I feel capable of giving because, after Sylvie, there’s no room in me for love and fairy tales—not that, looking back, love was part of what I felt for the woman. May have seemed so at the time, but in the final reckoning I believe it’s an emotion that’s alien to me.

‘Like I said to you, we all bounce right back to what we’ve been exposed to. In your case, heartbreak didn’t make you turn your back on love, because you look to your parents and want what they have. It just narrowed the pursuit. And for me? No broken heart but an experience that made me look over my shoulder to my parents’ arranged marriage and admire it for what it was—and even more so now because I suspect, after all this time, that despite the practical nature of their marriage they opened a door to affection and possibly even love.’

---