His Temporary Cinderella: Ordinary Girl in a Tiara / Kiss the Bridesmaid / A Bravo Homecoming. Cara Colter
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get used to being comfortable together?’
‘There’s nothing comfortable about watching you strip off in front of me,’ she snapped. ‘I bet you don’t even have a pair of pyjamas!’
‘I can’t rival yours for style, I agree, but I’ve got these.’ He waved a pair of dark silk pyjama bottoms at her. ‘I’ve had to get used to wearing them in this damn place. People are wandering in and out the whole time.’
Alarmed, Caro pulled the sheet up to her chin. ‘Not in here?’
‘Not unless there’s a constitutional crisis, but you never know, so don’t worry, I’ll be decent,’ said Philippe. ‘But I’ll get changed in the bathroom if that makes you feel better.’
When he came out, Caro was lying under the cover, holding it tight under her nose. A pillow was wedged firmly down the middle of the bed.
‘I know what you said about having no trouble keeping your hands off me,’ she said, seeing his expression. ‘It’s just to stop me rolling against you in the night by mistake. I think we’ll both sleep better having it there.’
Philippe threw back the cover on his side of the bed and got in. ‘If you say so,’ he said.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: I’m here … where are you?
I’m here, and loving it! Thank you so much for being there, Caro. Without you and Philippe, I’m not sure I would ever have had the courage to go. I won’t tell you where I am, but it’s wild and beautiful, and I’ve got a job!!! I’m doing all sorts of things I’ve never done before—peeling potatoes, answering the phone, writing a shopping list, making a pot of tea—and it’s fun! I know you’ll roll your eyes, but it’s exciting for me. By the time I go to bed, though, I’m exhausted, so I’d better be quick. Just so you know that I’m fine, and yes, I’ve sent a message to Grandmère as well.
I know she can be daunting, but her bark is really worse than her bite. And if Apollo liked you, that will be a big thing. Grandmère might not let on, but she adores that dog. He’s her only weakness, so I’m sure she’ll be impressed that he’s taken to you, as he hates everyone else and is always biting people.
I’m really glad you and Philippe are getting on so well. How well, exactly????? Should I be reading anything between the lines??? Tell me all!
Grosses bises
Lxxxxxxxxxxxx
Caro was smiling as she read Lotty’s message—only Lotty would be excited at peeling potatoes!—but her smile faded when she got to the end. How had Lotty got the idea that there might be anything between her and Philippe? She thought she’d been so careful to make it clear that they were just friends!
Not that there had been much friendliness that morning. Philippe had been crabby from the moment he woke up, and had stomped off to a meeting with the First Minister in a thoroughly bad mood. When Caro had told him she planned to take Apollo for a walk, he’d just grunted at her and told her to stick to the grounds—as if she’d risk taking the Dowager Blanche’s dog out into the city. She wasn’t stupid.
The truth was that Caro was feeling scratchy and out-of-sorts too. She hadn’t slept well. How could she be expected to sleep when Philippe was lying next to her half naked?
Yes, he’d had those low-slung pyjama bottoms on, but that had left his chest bare. Solid, brown, tautly muscled, it taunted Caro from the other side of the bed. Her hands had twitched and throbbed with the longing to reach out and touch him, to feel the flex of muscles beneath the smooth skin. She’d tried not to look, but it had been impossible not to notice the powerful shoulders, the fine dark hairs arrowing downwards.
Heart racing, blood pounding, Caro lay and imagined sliding her fingers through those hairs. His body would be hard, solid, warm. He was so close, too. It would be so easy to roll over and reach for him.
And that would have been a big mistake.
Thank God for that pillow.
She’d been too hot in her pyjamas, but she didn’t want to thrash around in case she woke Philippe. As far as she could tell from her side of the pillow, he was sleeping peacefully, quite unbothered by her presence in the bed with him. She might as well be a bolster, Caro decided vengefully.
Eventually irritation had subsided into glumness, swiftly followed by brisk practicality. What did she think? That Philippe would take a look at her in her pyjamas and rip them off her? She looked like a bolster, and if she knew what was good for her she would behave like a bolster too.
Otherwise it was going to be a very long two months.
Well, there was no point in sitting around feeling cross. Caro finished the pain au chocolat that the palace kitchen had sent up for breakfast along with a perfect cup of coffee—she was going to be the size of a house, if not a palace, by the time she left—and pushed back her chair.
From the kitchen window she could look down at the courtyard at the front of the palace. Outside the railings, tourists milled around, pointing and taking photographs.
She belonged down there with the ordinary people, Caro thought, not up here in a palace, like a Cinderella in reverse, having her breakfast brought up by soft-footed servants. She belonged with an ordinary man, not a prince.
It wouldn’t do to forget that.
The pain au chocolat had been delicious, but she wanted to make her own breakfast. Philippe was in meetings most of the day, so she could amuse herself. She would go back to the real world where she belonged, Caro decided, washing up her breakfast dishes without thinking in the kitchen. Grabbing her bag, she thrust her feet into comfortable walking sandals and set off for the great sweeping staircase that led down to the palace entrance.
She would go and explore.
INSTINCT led Caro away from the smart part of town and into the old quarter, with its crooked lanes and balconies strung with washing. Even at that hour of the morning it was warm, but the tall buildings cast the narrow streets into shadow and Caro was content to wander in the shade until she found herself on the edge of the market square, dazzled and blinking at the sudden flood of sunlight.
Settling her sunglasses on her nose, Caro took one look at the stalls selling a spectacular range of local produce and drew a long breath of appreciation. There were glossy aubergines, and artichokes and great piles of onions, stalls selling great hams and salamis or piled high with bread, or enormous wheels of cheese. Her bad mood quite forgotten, Caro drifted along, sniffing peaches, squeezing avocados, tasting tiny bits of cheese and hams that the stallholders passed over for her to try.
Her French was rusty, to say the least, but when it came to food Caro had never had any problems communicating. She pantomimed swooning with pleasure, which seemed so much more appropriate than the only words she knew: c’est très bon, which didn’t seem at all adequate. It went down well with the stallholder, anyway, who laughed and offered her a different cheese to try.
Before she knew what had happened, she was being plied with different cheeses and urged to try every one. Everyone was so friendly, Caro thought, delighted. They were all having a very jolly time. She learnt what all the fruit and vegetables were called, and the stallholders or her fellow shoppers corrected her pronunciation with much laughter and nods of encouragement. This was much more fun than sitting in the palace feeling cross about Philippe.
She would get some cheese and bread for lunch, Caro decided, and some of those tomatoes that looked so much more delicious than the perfectly uniform, perfectly red, perfectly tasteless ones they sold in the supermarkets in Ellerby. It was only then that she remembered that she hadn’t had an opportunity to change any money yet. All she had was some