Royally Promoted

Chapter Seven

LUCYHADFIFTEEN minutes during which she fought her way past hot thoughts of what had happened between them to the more prosaic business of what would happen next between them.

She knew what she wanted, and that was for a repeat performance or even several repeat performances. She was still flushed from love-making and her blood was still rushing through her veins while her emotions clamoured for more. Still, she slipped off the bed to retrieve her scattered clothes, which she put back on before sitting on the sofa by the window. Serious conversations were best had fully clothed and this was going to be a serious one. She wasn’t about to drift into something unless she was in the control room. She wasn’t going to let Malik start thinking that she might be a soft touch who was ready and willing to do whatever he asked.

And she wasn’t going to let him ambush her good intentions by touching her, which seemed to scramble her common sense and turn her to mush. Malik was going to marry. He might not love the woman he would marry, but that woman would be wearing his ring on her finger, and when that happened all bets would be off when it came to her own future.

She had already worked out that a career change would be on the cards. That was a bridge she would have to cross when it came and, even if Malik tried to reassure her that it wasn’t going to happen, she knew in her heart that it would—as she also knew that she wouldn’t try and hang onto to him by her fingernails, until he’d eventually have no option but to prise them off just to get rid of her.

Opening at her feet was a void and gut instinct told her that, if she peered down into that void for too long, she’d go mad. Because the thought of a life without Malik made her heart stop beating...made her want to moan in quiet despair.

It was nothing she couldn’t handle. Yet, she had to grit her teeth and stop herself from spiralling. Truth was that the future and whatever it held was obliterated by what was happening right now, because what was happening right now was unstoppable and would be worth whatever consequences she’d have to deal with at a later date. She accepted that, in a part of her that was primitive and all gut instinct.

She was primly upright, hands on her lap, when Malik pushed open the door, with two brandy glasses in his hands.

‘You’ve put your clothes on,’ he drawled, briefly pausing to look at her narrowly, head tilted to one side. ‘Why have you done that? I want to see you. Please don’t tell me that you’ve decided to become prudish with me. Not after the mind-blowing sex we’ve just had.’

‘The mind-blowing sex we shouldn’t have just had,’ Lucy countered truthfully. ‘But now that we have...’

‘And there’s no point pretending we haven’t...’

‘Correct. Now that we have...and there’s no point pretending that we haven’t...well, that’s a conversation I don’t want to have in bed, because it’s not lazy bed chat.’

‘Brandy?’

Lucy grimaced but accepted the glass from him. He was in his boxers, and seemed in no hurry to follow her lead and put back on his clothes, but he did join her on the sofa, one hundred percent lean, mean, sizzling temptation.

‘What happens next?’

Her eyes strayed to his burnished brown body, the width of his shoulders and the flex of sinew and muscle under the taut, smooth skin—way too delicious for her liking when she wanted to be serious.

And, seriously? Suitable wife on the horizon or no suitable wife on the horizon, Lucy knew that he was a guy who didn’t do commitment, and whatever they’d just shared was never going to go anywhere. She didn’t know whether his arranged marriage would require fidelity. Would that be part of the contract or would he be able to carry on as normal but with the status quo intact and an heir guaranteed?

She was someone who needed long-term commitment. So how did this fit into the picture? Of course, she knew: he was Fantasy Guy, the object of forbidden desire, and this was her one and only chance to decide whether she took what was temporarily on offer. Because it was on offer—she could see it in the flare of desire burning in his eyes as he sipped his brandy and watched her over the rim of the balloon glass.

‘What would you like to happen next?’ Malik asked softly. ‘And, as an aside, have you covered up because you’re scared that if you’re not we might just end up touching instead of talking?’ He grinned.

‘Absolutely not.’

‘And I absolutely don’t believe you. I should tell you that you’re just as much of a turn-on with your clothes on as you are with them off.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t say stuff like that when I’m trying to have this conversation, Malik. It means a lot to me that we have this out.’

‘Okay—you win. I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to undermine something you take seriously and you’re right, of course—we do need to have this conversation even though, from my perspective, the timing could be slightly altered.’

‘Malik, neither of us saw this coming. It...’ She lifted her shoulders helplessly. ‘I really never thought that these things happen, at least not in my world, but we’re here. I mean, we’re here in Sarastan, probably for a few more weeks. Do you know how much longer, actually?’

‘Three weeks, give or take.’

‘Right, so we’re here for three more weeks, and it’s going to be very awkward if we start circling around one another.’

‘Especially given the fact that we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off one another.’

Lucy went bright-red but had to admit to feeling heady at the flattery.

‘So maybe this has been all so sudden and unexpected but maybe, now that it’s happened...and I repeat it shouldn’t have happened...we could...’

‘Let me help you out here, Lucy, because you’re going round and round in circles. Okay, maybe it shouldn’t have happened. I, personally, beg to differ on that count. We’re both adults, and who knows? Maybe there was a simmering attraction between us before we came here but coming here unlocked doors that had been locked before. What do you think of that theory?’

‘It’s certainly a theory.’

‘But, now we’re here,’ Malik continued smoothly, ‘why not enjoy one another?’

Had he said out loud what she had been thinking? She wanted to have control over the situation. Was this the direction she wanted to explore?

‘I don’t like the thought of being anybody’s temporary plaything.’

‘You’re not my temporary plaything, Lucy. You’re my equal. I don’t see you as a toy to be picked up and dropped. I’m not a toddler.’

Would he be picking her up and dropping her?Lucy wondered. Wouldn’t she have to put herself in a position of helplessness for that to happen?

She looked at him steadily and what she saw was a guy who was being honest with her. She’d learnt about dishonesty, thanks to Colin. She valued honesty, and this was honesty—raw, unflinching honesty about a relationship that was here and now, to be enjoyed and then released. She’d wanted a serious conversation—she’d got it. She’d wanted to control the direction of her choices—this was what she was being offered.

‘Does this all seem very weird to you?’

‘That’s what lust is all about. Doesn’t always make sense and doesn’t always obey what our heads are saying. So, if by that you mean weird, then I guess so. But weird can often be wonderful.’

Malik was watching her carefully, eyes trained on her heart-shaped face. Had no man actually ever swept her off her feet? Had she been saving herself for Mr Perfect, just casually dating until someone came along who excited her and shared her dreams about fairy castles and everlasting romance?

He was uncomfortable with the notion that somehow she might start to get the wrong ideas about this new twist in their relationship. Underneath that discomfort, though, was a treacherous satisfaction that he could have roused her in ways no man ever had. He was, however, practical and wary enough to kill that illicit thrill stone-dead. He had hurt her when he’d told her that interacting with his family wasn’t going to become part of her life in Sarastan, however much his mother seemed to have taken to her. He didn’t want to hurt her again by pointing out pitfalls, but he knew he had to.

‘Word of warning, Lucy,’ he said gently. ‘I wouldn’t want you to start thinking that there might be more to this than what’s on the table.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning, as we come together, we will also pull apart. It’s just the way it is.’

‘That’s very poetic, Malik, but I can hear your ego talking.’ She looked at him with steely cool. ‘Do you honestly think that every woman you go to bed with is going to fall in love with you?’

‘Things have a way of happening. God,’ he said huskily, ‘you’re really sexy when you’re in dominant mode.’

‘You’re trying to distract me, Malik.’ Lucy blushed.

‘I’m driven to honesty. Carry on—I’m listening. Despite the obvious distractions.’

‘Malik, I know you’re going to marry someone suitable, and in fact this leads me on to something else I want to say. When you get married, you’re probably going to end up living here.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Common sense. A girl from here probably isn’t going to want to put down roots and start a family so far away from her own family, her friends, everything she’s accustomed to.’ She paused for breath without allowing any interruption. ‘Chances are you might end up splitting your time, at best. In which case, I don’t fit in. I’m here on temporary loan to you, Malik, but I have my own life and my own family in England, and I wouldn’t be able to hop from one continent to the other as your secretary.’

She drew in a deep breath and powered on. ‘So we...we... Yes, we want one another, and it’s all about lust and it’s going to end, and let that time be when we return to London. Or when I return to London. I’ll leave and start looking for another job and all I ask is that you give me a good reference.’

‘You’re giving me a timeline? I have no idea how you’ve managed to leap to so many conclusions, Lucy. You’ve married me off and, having married me off, you’ve now got me house-hunting for somewhere to live here because the woman I marry couldn’t possibly have any interest in relocating to London.’

‘Even if you did decide to return to London to work and live with whoever you’ve chosen to marry, then it still couldn’t work out for us. For me working for you—I would feel awkward and terrible for your wife.’

‘Marriages of convenience don’t obey the same rules.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Romantic attachments assume secondary importance to practical considerations. I give you my parents.’ He frowned. ‘Although, to be fair, maybe time mellowed what they had into something different. No matter; they would never have been like perhaps your parents were... I’m guessing there was nothing arranged about their marriage...?’

‘They fell in love at university. Met on the very first night at the freshers’ ball and, five daughters later, they’re still together, holding hands and having fun.’

‘They’re in love,’ Malik murmured.

‘It does happen, Malik—love and marriage and happy-ever-afters.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘But not for you.’

‘Not for me,’ Malik concurred with a shrug. ‘I’m not cut from that cloth. You are, however, which is why it’s important that we both accept the limitations of this...magical thing that’s materialised between us.’

He reached out and stroked the side of her face and then trailed a lazy finger just underneath the neckline of her tee-shirt.

‘Malik, I can’t think when you’re doing that.’ She flicked at his finger, but half-heartedly, because what more was there to talk about? She wanted to feel him again, next to her, under her, on her and in her.

‘Good. Thinking can be overrated.’

‘We still have things to work through.’

‘And we will—scout’s honour. Let me undress you.’

She hitched a soft moan as he tugged at her tee-shirt and then his eyes darkened when she obliged and pulled it over her head.

‘Let’s get back into bed,’ he coaxed, standing up and tugging her with a nod to a very tempting bed.

This time Lucy undressed before his lazy, intent, appreciative dark gaze. She didn’t rush. By the time she was lying in blissful abandon on the sheets, she was wet and ready for him. He parted her legs with his hand and inserted two fingers into her, slip-sliding them over the wet crease that sheathed her clitoris.

Naked on the bed, she could see the swelling of his erection and she nearly passed out when, his fingers still moving inside her, his dark eyes locked to hers, he began teasing the throbbing bud of her clitoris.

She dearly wanted to finish what they had been talking about. There was a lot happening in her head and she wanted to put it all into neat, manageable categories. She’d always loved a list.

Her body had other ideas, though. Her eyelids fluttered and she sank down the bed in little wriggling movements. She pushed her breasts up to him and sighed with pleasure when he began to pay them some attention. A girl could get dangerously used to this was the thought that floated in her head as she gave in to physical responses that were a lot more compelling than the intellectual ones she knew she would have to return to.

She discovered that he was absolutely right when he’d said that satisfaction could be guaranteed without penetration—a lot of satisfaction for both of them, as it turned out. She was spent at the end of an hour of sensual exploration, and then was tempted into more than just ‘satisfaction guaranteed, no penetration necessary’ as she spasmed against his mouth.

She tortured him with feathery kisses everywhere... She took his bigness into her mouth and used her hand and tongue to drive him to the very same place he had taken her. Then, when neither of them could handle the heat any longer, she sensually eased on his contraception, straddled him and felt him swell and release just before she did the same.

She flopped next to him, utterly exhausted, hair everywhere, her body damp with perspiration.

‘I feel like I’ve run a marathon.’

‘I’ve discovered that there are times when it’s very rewarding for someone else to take charge. You just proved that.’

Malik stared deep into her blue eyes in the darkness and something twisted inside him. What was she thinking? She talked the talk but could she really and truly walk the walk? She was deeply emotional and a romantic at heart and, while his head told him that they had both entered into this with their eyes wide open, his heart was struggling to follow suit.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said gruffly.

Lucy shrugged but there was a sadness in her expression that Malik couldn’t quantify.

‘It’s just that it’s...complicated: my life...my choices... You know how it is for me.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘It’s far from fine if I hurt you.’

‘You should stop banging on about that. You should stop treating me as though I’m breakable, like a piece of china. You could never hurt me. I could only be hurt if I was in love with you, and I’m not in love with you, and I never could be.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It doesn’t matter, Malik. I should head back to my bedroom. We marathon runners need our beauty sleep.’

‘Stay with me tonight.’

He meant it. Never had he issued that invitation to any woman but he meant this. He wanted to share his bed with her for the night; wanted to reach out and feel her soft, sexy body as he slept; wanted to open his eyes to her sweetly pretty face in the morning.

Wanted the sadness on her face to go away.

‘Talk to me, Lucy. You were hurt in the past. Talk to me about it...tell me...’

Lucy pulled away to stare up at the ceiling. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and moonlight picked up the dark, circular shapes of the concealed spotlights, the shadow of the enormous tapestry that hung on one wall and the scattering of their clothes on the ground.

Was this where she had ever planned to end up—in bed with a guy because she’d been overcome with lust? Colin had changed the direction of her life and her heart. She had turned her back on anything she felt wasn’t safe, and yet Malik couldn’t be more unsafe.

Still, she wanted this so badly. She thought about her friend Helen, who had felt so protected against falling in love with her boss, and yet she had fallen in love with him. She wasn’t going to be the same, was she? She was protected against that because of her past, wasn’t she? She’d learned lessons.

That was what she told herself as she continued to stare at the ceiling. She reminded herself that she had volunteered for this. She’d wanted it.

But her thoughts were all of a jumble as the silence lengthened between them until he eventually said, ‘I would never want to hurt you. You tell me I can’t because there’s no love between us, and I get that, but you’re lying there and you’re hurting all the same. For me, nothing about this feels sordid. It’s not a case of picking you up and putting you down. Does this feel sordid for you? Do you feel used?For me, what we just shared felt...damn near beautiful, if you want the truth.’

‘You’re just saying that.’ But she turned a little to look at him and her heart lifted a bit. She wanted to smile and nestle close to him. ‘And, no, I don’t feel used. Not at all.’

‘Tell me who hurt you.’

‘I never said anyone did. It’s just that... I want love and marriage and kids, and all that stuff, and I could never, ever fall for someone who wasn’t interested in any of that. Or, rather, someone who might be interested in all that but only if he can oversee the process and control it.’

‘Marriage and children... I admit they form part of the plan, but love? No. That’s a complication that doesn’t feature on the menu.’

‘Why not?’

‘Maybe,’ Malik murmured huskily, ‘we all absorb what we’ve grown up with and a sense of duty and responsibility is what I’ve absorbed.’ He paused. ‘And that’s why I felt I had to warn you against expecting more than what’s on offer. You want love and you deserve it.’

‘And it’s important I make sure not to stupidly get tempted to look for it in your direction.’

‘I’m being honest.’

‘You’re right. You’re honest with me and that’s why I can’t feel used. We’re honest with each other. But you’re right about me being hurt in the past.’

Malik stilled and stopped stroking her, all his attention focused on her lovely, subdued yet defiant face upturned to him.

‘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.’

‘I’m really sorry, Malik. Sylvie...what a pretty name. Was she very beautiful? I’m imagining long, straight hair, big green eyes and an elfin figure...’

‘This touchy-feely stuff really isn’t me, and whether she was beautiful or not with an elfin figure is by the by,’ Malik drawled in response, but there was a reluctant grin on his mouth. ‘But it seemed fair to put all the cards on the table because...’

‘You don’t have to spell it out. I know why you told me, and it was more than just putting those cards on the table, wasn’t it?’

‘Life, for me, is in a state of flux and I would never ask you to put yourself out to accommodate me. Like you said, you have friends and family and a social life in England.’

‘So you really think you’ll end up living here?’

‘I have no idea what that particular slice of the future holds for me, but you raised a good point when you said that there might be a need for anyone I marry to at least have a period of adjustment before heading to London to put down roots. However well-travelled and cosmopolitan a woman might be, there’s a difference between seeing the world and settling down to live in a part of it you’ve never lived in before.’

‘And while we both have this time together...’

‘We can both accept that there’s nothing beyond what we enjoy in the here and now and we both have our reasons. We understand one another. You wanted to reassure me that you weren’t going to want more than I could give, and I wanted to let you know why there would be nothing more than what’s on the table.’ He paused. ‘And what’s on the table will be...spectacular.’

‘Spectacular...’

‘I’ll leave you with memories to last a lifetime.’

Something uneasy feathered Lucy’s spine but she brushed that aside, because the slate was clean, and what lay ahead would be pure, carnal bliss...and she wanted that so badly, it hurt. Desire was powerful enough to stampede every niggling obstacle that lay in its way. They both knew the ropes; lines had been drawn. This would work, this freedom to taste, sample and enjoy one another without guilt or regret, a chapter closed once their time was up.

She wound her arms around him and drew him close enough to feel his heart beating in tune with hers.

‘Well, we might as well start with the memory box now, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, yes...’ Malik growled. ‘I very much think...’