His Temporary Cinderella: Ordinary Girl in a Tiara / Kiss the Bridesmaid / A Bravo Homecoming

It was a stupid thing to have done, given everything Philippe had had to say about convincing the Dowager Blanche that he was serious about her, Caro thought, and told herself that was the only reason she was feeling monumentally miffed. She wasn’t silly enough to be jealous. I’m more than capable of keeping my hands to myself, Philippe had said, and Caro had no problem believing him, kiss or no kiss. A man like Philippe, used to hanging around with beautiful women the likes of Francesca Allen, was hardly likely to be tempted by an ordinary, overweight, eccentrically dressed Caroline Cartwright, was he?

No, being friends was the only way to get through the next few weeks. As a friend, she wouldn’t have to worry about what she looked like, and there would be no need to feel twitchy about other, far more beautiful, women prowling around him. She could relax and enjoy herself with a friend.

Caro had barely reminded herself of that when Philippe appeared, ducking out of the cabin, long and lean and tautly muscled in a pale yellow polo shirt and chinos, and the breath whooshed out of her. He looked the same, and yet different, more immediate somehow: the cool mouth, the winged brows, the crisp line of his jaw, the startling contrast between the icy eyes and the darkness of his hair.

It must be something to do with the brightness of the light, the freshness of the breeze. Why else would the sight of him sharpen her senses and make her feel as if every cell in her body was alert and tingling?

At the top of the steps, Philippe looked down at Caro and was startled by how pleased he was to see her.

Of course, it would have been horribly awkward if she’d changed her mind, Philippe told himself. His announcement that he was bringing a girlfriend no one had ever heard of back to Montluce hadn’t gone down well, to say the least, and he’d been subjected to endless harangues on the subject from his great-aunt, while his father had retreated into bitter disappointment as usual. Only Lotty, hugging him with a speaking look of gratitude, had stopped him from telling them what they could all do with their duty and responsibility and booking himself on the first plane back to Buenos Aires.

Philippe had been glad to escape to London and enjoy his last few days of freedom for a while. He’d met up with friends, played polo at the Guards Club, been to parties and dinners and renewed his acquaintance with the beautiful Francesca Allen. He wasn’t looking forward to the next six months, and couldn’t decide whether this mad pretence with Caro Cartwright was going to make things better or worse. She was so different from the other women he knew. Not beautiful, not glamorous. Just ordinary. And yet Philippe had been surprised at how vividly he remembered her.

How vividly he remembered that kiss.

He’d been prepared for awkwardness, not for sweetness. Not for softness a man could lose himself in if he wasn’t careful.

The memory made Philippe uncomfortable. He didn’t do losing himself. But he’d been taken unawares by the way the dress slipped over her skin. The heat shooting through him had sucked the air from his brain, and the message to step back and keep his cool hadn’t reached his hands.

Or his mouth.

Or the rest of him.

Philippe didn’t understand it. Caro Cartwright ought to be the last woman to have that kind of effect on him. She wasn’t even pretty, and as for her clothes …! Today she wore jeans and boots, with a plain white T-shirt, which wouldn’t have looked too bad if she hadn’t spoiled it by wearing an oversize man’s dinner jacket over the top, its sleeves rolled up to show a brilliant scarlet lining. At least she was tall enough to carry it off with a certain panache, he allowed grudgingly.

No, Caro wasn’t his type at all.

And yet there she stood, blue eyes wary and all that hair blowing around her face, and his heart unmistakably lifted.

Odd.

‘There you are,’ he said, pushing the discomfited feeling aside. It was too late to change his mind now. He went down the steps to greet her. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind.’

‘I did think about it,’ Caro confessed. ‘But then I heard from mutual friends that George is worried I might be going off the rails. He’s obviously found out who you were, and he thinks you’ve got a bad reputation,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Now he’s afraid that I’m going to do something stupid and get hurt—and, as we all know, he’s the only one allowed to hurt me! So I thought I’d come after all, and send lots of messages home to make sure he knows what a glamorous time I’m having while Melanie is going to the supermarket and making George his tea the way he likes it. Then we’ll see who’s having the most fun, fun, fun!’

‘Excellent,’ said Philippe. ‘In that case, you’d better come aboard.’

Caro was deeply impressed by the inside of the plane, which was fitted out with six plush leather seats, wall-to-wall carpeting and a lot of polished wood. Yan was already there, sitting in the cockpit.

‘Take a seat,’ Philippe said. ‘Now you’re here, we’re ready to go.’

Caro looked around. ‘Where’s the pilot?’

‘You’re looking at him.’

‘You’re not a pilot!’

‘I’m not? Then we’re going to be in trouble because there’s no one else to fly the plane.’

‘I’m serious,’ said Caro uneasily as she sat down in the seat nearest the front. ‘Are you sure you know how to fly?’

Philippe settled himself in the cockpit and began flicking switches. ‘Sure. I did a five-minute course a few years ago.’

‘Really?’

‘No, of course not really!’ he said, exasperated. ‘You don’t think they let you in the air unless you’re properly qualified, do you?’

‘They might if you can stick Prince in front of your name,’ said Caro with a dark look, although she was reassured to see Yan beside him. Surely he wouldn’t let Philippe fly unless he knew what he was doing? ‘The rules don’t usually apply to people like you.’

‘Well, in this case they do,’ said Philippe. ‘I’ve got a licence, I assure you. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past few years?’

‘I don’t know. Playing polo?’

‘Pah! Who wants to get on a horse when you can fly a plane?’

‘What, you mean you just get in your plane and fly around in the sky?’ It seemed a bit pointless to Caro.

‘No, I fly to places,’ he said, his hands busy checking dials and switches. Caro just hoped he knew what he was doing.

‘What places?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘I go wherever a plane is needed. I’ve got a friend who organises logistics for a number of aid organisations. They might need a development worker transported in a remote village, or tents dropped after an earthquake … if you haven’t got the time or the money to get through the bureaucratic red tape, I’m your man.’

Philippe glanced over his shoulder at Caro. ‘It gives me something to do when I’m bored,’ he said, as if he feared he might have given too much of himself away. ‘And it’s more fun than polo! Now, fasten your seat belt while we finish the pre-flight check here.’

He turned back to the controls. ‘Er, what’s this red button again?’ he pretended to ask Yan. ‘Oh, right, the eject seat. Oops, better avoid that one! So the start button must be … oh, yes, I remember now. All right in the back there?’ he called over his shoulder to Caro.

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ she said in a monotone. ‘That’s a fake laugh, by the way!’

‘Relax,’ he said. ‘I hardly ever crash. Besides, I thought you’d decided to have fun, fun, fun, and what could be more fun than flying around in a private jet?’

‘It won’t be much fun when the plane crashes,’ she grumbled.

The plane didn’t crash, of course, but it felt as if something even more disastrous was happening inside her as she watched Philippe push the throttle remorselessly forwards. His long hands were absolutely steady as they shot along the runway, and Caro’s stomach dropped away as the plane lifted into the air.

She was more impressed than she wanted to admit. Why had she assumed that he had been living an idle trust fund existence? She should have realised that a man like Philippe would be bored with nothing to do but party all day. There was that reckless edge to him that she had noticed even as a boy. It was all too easy to imagine him flying planes into war zones, dodging bullets or volcanic ash or pot-holed runways. He would thrive on the danger.

Philippe had been very quick to dismiss what he did, Caro had noticed. Something to do when I’m bored, he had said. There must be plenty of other jaded rich people out there, but how many of them would risk their lives for others the way he did? Philippe could get his thrills racing cars or helicopter skiing or doing any of the other extreme sports that catered to the very rich and very bored, but instead he flew his plane where it was needed. No doubt he did enjoy it, but Caro thought it was more than possible that he would go anyway.

She liked that about him, and she liked the fact that he clearly didn’t publicise what he was doing. He wasn’t like so many other celebrities, using charity work to raise their own profiles. Caro wondered if even Lotty knew.

From where she sat, she could see the hard edge of Philippe’s jaw, the flash of his smile as he turned to speak to Yan beside him. Caro could see one powerfully muscled arm. Her eyes drifted from the dark, flat hairs on his forearm to the broad, strong wrist, and on to the firm fingers holding the joystick, and a disquieting ache stirred low in her belly.

She made herself look away, out of the window. The seat was pressing into the small of her back as they climbed up through great blowsy drifts of clouds, up into the blue. There was no going back to real life now. Instead, she would spend the next two months as Philippe’s girlfriend. Caro’s eyes slid back to his profile, etched now against the bright sky. She could see the creases at the edge of his eye, the corner of his mouth, and remembering how warm and sure it had felt against her own made her stomach tilt anew.

Two months beside him. Two months trying not to notice the cool set of his mouth or remember the feel of his hands.

The squirmy feeling in Caro’s belly intensified. Nerves, she decided at first, but when she looked out at the clouds and felt the plane soaring upwards and thought about the weeks ahead she finally recognised the feeling for what it was.

Excitement.

‘Oh, what a beautiful car!’ Caro gasped when she saw the Aston Martin waiting for them at the quiet airfield where they landed. Philippe watched her practically fall down the steps in her eagerness to get at it.

Unless it was her eagerness to get out of the plane, of course.

‘Oh, you beauty!’ she said, running a hand lovingly over the bonnet. ‘A DB9! I’ve never seen one before.’ She looked up at him, her eyes shining. ‘Is it yours?’

‘It is.’ She was so vivid standing there in the sunlight, her face alight with enthusiasm, that Philippe’s breath hitched in a new and disturbing way, and for a moment he couldn’t remember how to be.

‘This isn’t like you.’ Ah, yes, that was better. Cool, indifferent. That was him. ‘You know the car’s not second-hand, don’t you? And you can’t eat it? I wouldn’t have thought it was your kind of thing at all.’

‘I make an exception for cars.’ Caro let her hand smooth over the bodywork in a way that made Philippe’s throat dry ridiculously. He fought for a casual expression, but all he could think, bizarrely, was: lucky car.

‘Can I drive?’ she asked, with a speculative look from under her lashes, trying it on.

‘Absolutely not,’ he said firmly.

‘Oh, please! I’ll behave very, very nicely.’

‘No.’

‘You’re supposed to be in love with me,’ she pointed out as she straightened.

‘I’d have to be besotted before I let you drive my car,’ he said, and opened the passenger door for her. ‘Most girls would be happy to be driven.’

‘I’m not most girls,’ said Caro, but she got in anyway and he closed the door after her with a satisfying clunk.

‘You can say that again,’ said Philippe, walking round to get in behind the wheel. Now she was stroking the seat and the wooden trim, leaning forward to gaze at the dashboard, wriggling back into her seat with a sigh of pleasure. It was practically pornographic! Not enough oxygen was getting to his brain and he had to take a breath, horrified to find that the hands he laid on the steering wheel weren’t entirely steady.

The clear glass starter button glowed invitingly red, reminding him that he was in control. Philippe pressed it and the engine purred into life.

‘What about Yan and the luggage?’ Caro dragged her attention back from the car for a moment.

‘He’ll follow in the other car,’ said Philippe, nodding back to a black SUV with tinted windows.

‘Isn’t he supposed to be protecting you?’

‘He’ll be right behind.’ Philippe put the car into gear. ‘But for now it’s just you and me.’

‘Oh,’ was all Caro said, but a little thrill shivered through her all the same.

Just you and me.

It wouldn’t be just the two of them, of course. Lotty had told her about the palace servants, and there would always be Yan or a member of the public wanting their hand shaken. Just as well, Caro told herself firmly. It would be much easier to be friends when there were other people around.

‘Where did you learn about cars?’ Philippe asked as they turned onto the main road.

‘From my father.’ The road was clear ahead, and Philippe put his foot down. The car responded instantly, surging forward. Caro felt the pressure in the small of her back and settled into it with a shiver of pleasure. ‘He loved cars. He always had some banger up on the blocks and he’d spend hours tinkering with it. When I was little I’d squat beside him and be allowed to hand him a spanner or an oily rag. Even now the smell of oil makes me think of Dad.’

Caro smiled unevenly, remembering. ‘Driving an Aston Martin was his dream. He’d be so thrilled if he could see me now!’ She stroked the leather on either side of her thighs. ‘And envious!’

Distracted by the stroking, Philippe forced his attention back to the road. ‘It sounds like you had a good relationship with your father.’

‘I adored him.’ She touched the lapels of the jacket she wore. ‘This is Dad’s dinner jacket. He wore it for a school dance once, and no one recognised him. It was as if none of them had ever looked at him when he was wearing his handyman overalls, but put on a smart jacket and suddenly he was a real person, someone they could talk to because he was dressed like them.’

Caro fingered the sleeve where she’d rolled it up to show the scarlet lining. ‘I remember Dad saying that some people are like this jacket, conventional on the outside, but with a bright, beautiful lining like this. He said we shouldn’t judge what’s on the outside, it’s what’s inside that really matters. I think of him every time I put this jacket on,’ she said.

‘My father thinks the exact opposite,’ said Philippe. ‘For him, it’s all about appearances. No wonder I’m such a disappointment to him.’ He was careful to keep his tone light, but Caro looked at him, a crease between her brows.

‘He can’t be that disappointed if he trusts you to stand in for him while he’s sick.’

‘Only because it wouldn’t look right if he didn’t make his only surviving son regent in his absence, would it? What would people think?’

In spite of himself, Philippe could hear the bitterness threading his voice, and he summoned a smile instead. ‘Besides, it’s not a question of trust. It’s not as if they’re going to let me loose on government. My father thinks it’ll be good for me to experience meetings and red boxes and the whole dreary business of governing, but all that’s just for show too. There’s a council of ministers, but the Dowager Blanche will be keeping a firm hold of the reins. I’m trusted to shake hands and host a few banquets, but that’s about it.’

‘You could take more responsibility if you wanted, couldn’t you?’

‘They won’t let me.’ Caro could hear the frustration in his voice, and she felt for him. It couldn’t be easy knowing that any attempt to assert himself would be met by his father’s collapse. ‘And I daren’t risk insisting any more,’ Philippe said. ‘Not when he’s so sick, anyway. My father and I may not get on, but I don’t want him to die.’

‘Why doesn’t he trust you?’ Caro asked, swivelling in her seat so that she could look at him. ‘I know you were wild when you were younger, but that was years ago.’

‘It’s hard to change the way your family looks at you.’ Philippe glanced in the mirror and pulled out to overtake a lumbering truck in a flash. ‘Etienne was always the dutiful, responsible son, and I was difficult. That’s just the way it was.

‘Etienne was a golden boy—clever, hardworking, responsible, handsome, charming, kind. I could never live up to him, so I never tried. I was only ever “the spare” in my father’s eyes, anyway,’ he said. ‘I didn’t even have the good sense to look like him, the way Etienne did. Instead, I take after my mother. Every time my father looks at me, he’s reminded of the way she humiliated him. I sometimes wonder if he suspects I’m not even his son.’

Philippe hoped that he sounded detached and ironic, but suspected it didn’t fool Caro, who was watching him with those warm blue eyes. He could feel her gaze on his profile as surely as if she had reached out to lay her palm against his cheek.

‘I never heard anything about your mother,’ she said. ‘What did she do?’

‘Oh, the usual. She was far too young and frivolous to have been married to my father. It’s a miracle their marriage lasted as long as it did. She ran away from him eventually and went to live with an Italian racing driver.’

He thought he had the tone better there. Careless. Cynical. Just a touch of amusement.

‘Do you remember her?’

‘Not much,’ he said. ‘Her perfume when she came to kiss me goodnight. Her laughter. I was only four, and left with a nanny a lot of the time anyway, so I don’t suppose it made much difference to me really when she left. It was worse for Etienne. He was eleven, so he must have had more memories of her.’

Philippe paused. ‘He would have been devastated, but he used to come and play with me for hours so that I wouldn’t miss her. That was the kind of boy he was.’

‘I didn’t realise you were so close to him.’

Caro’s throat was aching for the little boy Philippe had been. Her father had been right. You could never tell what someone was like from the face they put on to the world. All she’d ever seen of Philippe had been the jacket of cool arrogance. It had never occurred to her to wonder whether he used it to deflect, to stop anyone realising that he had once been a small boy, abandoned by his mother and rejected by his father.

‘He was a great brother,’ said Philippe. ‘A great person. You can’t blame my father for being bitter that Etienne was the one who died, and that he was left with me. You can’t blame him for wishing that I’d been the one who died.’

‘That’s … that’s a terrible thing to say,’ said Caro, shocked.

‘It’s true.’ He glanced at her and then away. ‘It was my fault Etienne died.’

‘No.’ Caro put out an instinctive hand. ‘No, it was an accident. Lotty told me.’

‘Oh, yes, it was an accident, but if it hadn’t been for me, he’d never have been on the lake that day.’ The bleak set to Philippe’s mouth tore at her heart. ‘Lotty’s father was Crown Prince, and his brother still alive, with his two sons,’ he went on after a moment. ‘There was no reason to believe we’d ever inherit. My father had a vineyard, and Etienne was going up to look at the accounts or something equally tedious. He envied me, he said. To him it seemed that I was the one always having a good time. He said he wished he could do the same, but he was afraid that he didn’t have the courage.’

He overtook a car, and then another and another, the sleek power of the Aston Martin controlled utterly in his strong hands.

‘“Come water skiing with me”, I said,’ he remembered bitterly. ‘“For once in your life, do what you want to do instead of what our father wants you to do.” So he did, and he died.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Caro.

‘My father thinks it was.’

‘It wasn’t.’ Without thinking, she put her hand on his shoulder. Through the yellow polo shirt, she could feel his muscles corded with tension. ‘It was Etienne’s choice to go. You didn’t make him fall, and you didn’t kill him. It was an accident.’

‘That was what Lotty said. She was the only one who stood by me then,’ said Philippe. ‘If it had been up to my father, I wouldn’t even have been allowed to go to the funeral. “If it wasn’t for you, Etienne would still be alive,” he said. The Dowager Blanche persuaded him to let me go in the end, for appearance’s sake.’ His voice was laced with pain.

‘As soon as it was over, I left for South America. I didn’t care where I went, as long as it was a long way from Montluce, and my father felt exactly the same. If it hadn’t been for inheriting the throne, he’d have been happy never to see me again, I think, but when he became Crown Prince, he didn’t have much choice but to be in touch. He’ll never be able to forgive me, though, for the fact that Etienne didn’t have time to get married and secure the succession.

‘There’s a certain irony in that,’ Philippe said with a sidelong glance at Caro. ‘Etienne was gay. He was very, very discreet, and my father never found out.’

‘You didn’t tell him?’

‘How could I? It would have destroyed him all over again. All he’s got left is his image of Etienne as his perfect son. I’m not going to spoil that for him. It wouldn’t bring Etienne back and, anyway, he was perfect and, clearly, I’m not.’

‘But why don’t you tell him that you’ve changed?’

‘Who says that I have?’

‘The old Philippe wouldn’t have flown in emergency supplies,’ said Caro, and he lifted a shoulder.

‘It would take more than a few flights to change my father’s view of me,’ he said. ‘My father isn’t a bad man, and if it’s easier for him to keep thinking of me as difficult, why should I insist that he changes his mind? He’s had enough grief without me demanding his attention and approval. I’m not a child,’ said Philippe.

‘I think it’s unfair,’ said Caro stoutly. ‘I think if they’re going to make you regent, they should give you the responsibility to act too.’

‘Lots of people live with unfairness, Caro. I’ve seen people struggling to get by without food or shelter or a stable government. They haven’t got schools or hospitals. There’s no running water. That’s unfair,’ he said. ‘Compared to that, I think I can bear a few months of not being allowed to make decisions. I’ll use the time to familiarise myself with how the government works and then, when I’m in a position to make a difference, I will. Until then, I can live with a few pointless rituals.’

Caro was still looking dubious. ‘It’s not going to be much fun for you, is it?’

‘No,’ said Philippe, ‘but we’re not there yet.’ Leaning across, he turned up the volume on the sound system and slanted a smile at her. ‘We’ve got about an hour until we hit the border. Let’s make the most of being able to behave badly while we can, shall we?’

Caro never forgot that drive. The poplars on either side of the road barred the way with shadows, so that the sunlight flickered exhilaratingly as the car shot beneath them with a throaty roar, effortlessly gobbling up the miles and sliding around the bends as if it were part of the road.

The sky was a hot, high blue. Cocooned in comfort, enveloped in the smell of new leather and luxury, she leant back in her seat and smiled. The windscreen protected her from the worst of the wind, but a heady breeze stirred her hair and she could feel the sun striping her face while the insistent beat of the music pounded through her and made her feel wild and excited and alive.

She was preternaturally aware of Philippe driving, of the flex of his thigh when he pressed the clutch, the line of his jaw, the alertness of his eyes checking between the road and the mirror. He changed gear with an assurance that was almost erotic, and she had to force herself to look away.