Maharaja's Mistress. Susan Stephens
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to the most glamorous principality on earth, where the language was French and the currency was good looks or money—and as she had neither, she wasn’t exactly off to a good start—but she had reasoned that if she could make it here she could make it anywhere, and Monsieur Michel had helped her to make that happen.
Mia would be the first to admit that her new look was ‘in your face’. It flaunted the fact that she was injured. There was nothing remotely apologetic about it. So she had a duff eye. So what? This was who she chose to be now. She had never been pretty, but at least now she had something that set her apart. Arabella Drummond? Dead-eyed Tic, more like, Mia concluded wryly as a muscle jumped in her damaged cheek.
Picking up a copy of that day’s newspaper, she glanced one last time at the front-page photograph of Ram. With perfect irony, he was one of the best-looking men in the world. But there was a definite improvement, she decided, studying the picture intently. Perhaps it was the air of danger surrounding him…Ram wasn’t even in his prime yet but he was clearly having fun getting there. Any sensible woman would run a mile…
Which was why she would be meeting with him tonight…
‘No more mirror-time. You look beautiful, chérie, and clients are waiting.’
Monsieur’s arrival meant Ram had to go on the back burner for the time being—not his seat of choice, but she had to concentrate on her duties, which wasn’t going to be easy with the Maharaja in town.
But when Monsieur Michel swung the door wide Mia knew that loyalty to her employer would soon sort that out. In Monsieur Michel’s view of the world lay the root of his success. Monsieur could always see beyond the flawed shell to the person underneath. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, he never tired of telling his staff. And Monsieur Michel saw beauty in everyone—
‘Chop chop!’ he exclaimed, shooing Mia ahead of him.
Neither of them was under any illusion as to why Mia was so valuable to the salon. They both knew there wasn’t a woman in the place who wouldn’t feel more beautiful when they compared themselves to Monsieur Michel’s flawed pirate queen.
The trouble with Ram’s rally car was sorted out sooner than expected. He took a shower and changed, and then his thoughts turned to meeting Mia. Why not bring the appointment forward? There had been far too many simpering, low-fat milksops in his life recently. Wasn’t it time to take a walk on the wild side and eat some clotted cream? Mia had never made life easy for him and he was bored with easy.
Mia and he hadn’t parted on the best of terms. The last time he’d seen Mia had been at Tom’s engagement party when he had already known that his fate was cast in stone. He was to return to Ramprakesh and take part in an arranged marriage. It was how things were done—
How things used to be done.
He’d bought Mia a dress in Paris—a goodbye gift totally over the top, he realised now. In hindsight, that gift seemed little more than a crass attempt to soften the words when he told Mia he was leaving to get married and take up his place in a world she could never be a part of. A crass attempt at telling Mia he loved her and would always love her, but he had to give her up without ever really knowing her.
While they’d packed the dress he’d had a vision of one last dream night together. He’d been young then. He was cynical now and couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered the possibility that their dream night would go wrong from start to finish.
But that was then and this was now. And he was eaten up by curiosity. There were so many blank spaces to fill in between that night and this.
Monte Carlo was so much more than a race track, Ram reflected as he walked the short distance to Mia’s place of work. The principality of Monaco was a tiny pink jewel, rich in culture and tradition set to perfection on an aquamarine sea. It was also a place where Mia was beginning to feel at home, he gathered. Five star plus suited her? It had never used to. Mia had always been dismissive of pomp and ceremony and all in favour of keeping it real. So what was she doing on the French Riviera where dreams were made of money? Or tinsel.
What wasn’t Mia telling him?
He’d soon find out.
Perching on the staffroom window sill eating a doughnut during her break, Mia had almost managed to convince herself that with this type of view she could forget Ram—
Well, that was a laugh. Staring at another flawless blue sky was bliss, but it was overshadowed by a pair of mocking eyes. Was she up to this? She stared unseeing out of the window. Maybe she’d go to the beach later to chill out in readiness for meeting Ram. Ram would never go to a public beach, though the beach was fabulous. You could dream there—you could be anyone you wanted to be. You didn’t have to go onboard one of the zillionaires’ yachts in order to feel special in Monte Carlo. In fact, there were far fewer complications if you decided not to go onboard—
‘You have a visitor, Mia.’
Mia’s heart stopped dead. Monsieur Michel had just entered the staffroom. A visitor? There could only be one visitor. Who else knew she was in Monte Carlo?
‘If you want I can send him away?’ Concern clouded Monsieur Michel’s face as he came close enough to see the shock on Mia’s face.
‘No—No, that’s fine,’ she said, licking the sugar off her fingers and rallying fast. ‘I’ll see him.’ Springing down from her perch, she rinsed her hands in the sink. She wasn’t going to turn this premature visit into a drama. Better to face Ram now and get it over with. She wasn’t a child to be overawed by him.
No, Mia mused, catching sight of herself in a full-length mirror as she left the room. She was hardly Miss Sugar ‘n’ Spice these days.
Chapter Three
‘I HAVE made my private sitting room available to you,’ Mia’s kindly old employer told her with obvious concern.
‘Thank you, Monsieur.’
‘And you only have to tug on the bell-pull if you need me.’
Monsieur’s concern was genuine and it touched her. ‘Thank you, Monsieur, but I’m happy to see him.’ On this occasion, a small white lie surely wouldn’t hurt.
Bold resolutions were one thing; acting them out was something else, Mia realised, glancing anxiously around as she crossed the salon full of mirrors. Everyone else was carrying on as normal, which seemed odd until she remembered that their world was still turning at the prescribed speed. But why should she worry about how she looked or what Ram thought of her? This was her life and Ram could accept it or not. But he was in for a shock—and not just because of the unconventional outfit. She’d always been alternative where fashion was concerned, but she hadn’t always been scarred. But she had wanted this. No one had forced her to make contact with Ram. She had wanted the challenge and the chance to prove herself on her own terms.
And it couldn’t be worse than Tom and Ram’s Leavers’ Ball. The event had been held in aid of charity and was the hottest ticket of the year. She’d been sixteen, so of course she didn’t have a date—she never had a date. She usually managed to frighten boys away with whatever outlandish new look she happened to be sporting.
On this occasion Ram had teased her into making up a foursome with her brother Tom and his girlfriend, when Ram’s date had gone down last minute with flu. He’d even told her she looked lovely when they both knew that was a lie—she had cut her black hair aggressively short that year and had dyed some of the spikes pillar-box red—but the chance for the ugly duckling to turn up with a hot, eighteen-year-old prince and shock all those pretty girls had proved irresistible. Not that she had improved any on the fashion stakes. She could never compete with the pretty girls and so she didn’t try. Her dress was a hand-me-down some well-meaning aunt had passed on to her mother. ‘It’s vintage,’ she remembered telling Ram defiantly, pretending the ankle-length, sludge-green chiffon with its smattering of sequins was what she wanted to wear. Tall, hard-muscled Ram, acting like the prince he was,