“Yes, they’re lovely,” she managed in a monotone voice. “It’s decadent to have three different flavors.”
The words came out of her mouth as if someone else was saying them. While he intended to keep discussing the dessert, he felt an almost undeniable impulse to reach over and take her face in his hands. To kiss her over and over until whatever weighed so heavily in those blue eyes could be cast aside while their lips said everything without talking.
Lately, he’d been giving thought to what was next in his life. What the permanence and obligation of raising Abella would bring him. How and where he wanted to spend his days.
Gazing at Marie’s sweet face and replaying the internal agony he’d perceived in her triggered protective feelings. He was starting to wonder if the devotion he had for Abella couldn’t also extend to a romantic love he might have room for someday.
He subtly pointed to a couple of older women at the fountains who were laughing and making a production of preparing their deserts. Skewers had been provided for guests to create spears of fruit chunks and small squares of cake that they then passed under the fountains to coat them in chocolate. The ladies were discovering that they could pass their creations under not one, not two, but all three flavors of the chocolate, creating a drippy mess that was probably delicious.
“That’s a kind of specialty food that guests tell friends about the next day,” Marie said.
“Exactly.”
Zander’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and while he generally made a rule of not taking calls while he was out with people, the vibrating sequence was specific to a text from Iris.
Abella is ill. I’ve given her medication and we’re sitting up for the time being.
“What’s wrong?” Marie snapped to attention having read the concern in Zander’s face.
“The baby is sick. Have we observed enough here for tonight?”
“From what’s written in the program, it looks like there will be more speeches coming.”
“I’d like to bow out early and get home.” Zander uttered a phrase he’d heard himself say a lot lately.
Nothing could have prepared him for the priority a child would take in his life. He knew that he’d climb mountains or swim oceans for Abella. Giving up the hobnobbing he’d spent much of his adult life doing was easy, and evenings like tonight had become the exception, not the norm.
“Are you going home now?” Marie’s eyes became very round as she asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said, opening and closing her fists.
“We are going now,” he clarified, grasping that she thought he was going to leave her at the party. Relief washed over her. He outstretched his hand for hers, not taking the pleasantness he felt when she did the same for granted. “Shall we?”
Exiting the party into the starry night, they watched as one of the most famous actors on earth, Ross Jarrell, made a late arrival to pandemonium from the fans who were still outside the hotel hoping for a celebrity sighting. With that much-talked-about it factor, confidence and sheen emanated from his every pore.
He wore his tux like it was a second skin, a shiny watch peeking out from his jacket sleeve. With a complexion no doubt polished to perfection by the world’s finest estheticians, if not plastic surgeons, and a hair color chosen to erase any unwanted years, his perfection made him look almost unreal. Admirers screamed his name, and he stopped to wave for them and for the media.
“Nobody does glamour like the Hollywood crowd, do they?” It was a rhetorical question requiring no answer as Zander’s driver appeared at the curb and ferried them away.
In his haste to get home, Zander realized he should have had his driver drop Marie off at her room. She was not in the fold of his life and didn’t need to be around Abella with her not feeling well. But Marie at his side had, strangely, become the norm and it didn’t occur to him.
When they arrived at Zander’s apartment, Abella was sleeping on Iris’s lap.
“She seems to be feeling better,” the nanny reported.
After tossing off his tuxedo jacket, he picked up the baby. “Thank you so much, Iris. My driver is downstairs waiting to take you home.”
With Abella in the crook of his left shoulder as had become a familiar position for both of them, he walked around the living room knowing she was always reassured by the bit of motion. Her breathing sounded a bit congested but she didn’t feel feverish, to his relief.
He looked over to his companion in her gorgeous gown. She was now having to move toys out of the way so she could sit down. “Marie, if you’d like, my driver can take you home, as well.” More relaxed to see that the baby probably had little more than a head cold, he added, “Or I’m going to sit up with Abella for a while, so if you’re not exhausted, we could get a little work done.”
As if he’d asked a question of international importance, he eagerly awaited her answer. Given his druthers, he most definitely hoped she’d stay rather than leave right away.
“Sure, I have an idea I want to talk to you about.”
Iris collected her things and headed to the door. “If there’s nothing else you need...”
“Marie, would you like to get out of that dress? Iris, do you have something comfortable she can borrow?”
“Second shelf in the hallway cabinet. Help yourself.”
“Thank you,” Marie said to the older woman.
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
After Iris stepped out, Zander reached under the sleeping baby to undo his tie.
“What was the idea you were talking about?”
“It was when we were leaving the Carlsmon and we saw Ross Jarrell arrive. I was thinking how much he looked like a movie star from another era.”
He heartily agreed, as Jarrell had captured Zander’s attention in that moment, too. Though he’d met Ross at other events, seeing him on the red carpet with the massive fanfare and the hundreds of camera flashes he generated was otherworldly, as if he was from another planet.
“So for our gala, what if the masquerade theme was Old Hollywood? The guests could dress up like Clark Gable and Judy Garland and so on.”
After he took in the idea, Zander nodded emphatically. “I love it! And with a lot of current Hollywood stars coming to the gala and here for the film festival, they’ll do it up big.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“We could screen some of the classic movies in areas of the party space, as decor.”
“You said you wanted to do a custom cocktail. Maybe that could relate to the theme?”
“Fantastic. I think you’ve solved how we’re going to create the most memorable event of the season. Let’s make some notes. Can I get you a brandy, or some tea?”
“Tea would be nice. You’ve got your hands full with the baby. I can get it for us if you’d like.”
Heartened by the coziness of her offer coupled with the unfamiliarity of a woman used to fetching her own drink, he lifted a free finger to point. “Help yourself to anything in the kitchen.”
Returning with a couple of mugs, she set them down on the coffee table. “I would love to get out of this dress and heels, so I’ll take Iris up on her offer if you’ll excuse me.”
While she was gone, Zander managed to toe one shoe off and then the other without disturbing the baby.
The sight of the two mugs, with the tea bags still seeping in the hot water, touched him with their domesticity.
His jaw twitched when Marie came back into the room. In yoga pants and a plain T-shirt, she was as pretty as she’d been in the lavish gown. Barefoot, she zhooshed her hair until it looked like the slightly messy style she usually wore.
“What are you staring at?”
He hadn’t realized that his gape was so blatant.
The sharp contrast to the gli
tz of the Carlsmon struck him like a lightning bolt. This was what life was. Yoga pants and tea bags and needy babies. It was what he was only first learning about, how to be a parent. Lessons that would take him a lifetime. Some that he would never learn.
He’d never before visualized the passage of years now running across his mind like a timeline. Abella gaining new skills as she prepares to start school. Then the schoolgirl years in the stiff uniforms. Which would be followed by the teenage years with battles for independence. She might be brought up as a royal and go to all the best schools but Zander was determined that she’d experience some of the same phases any other child would.
It occurred to him what it might be like to go through all of that with someone. A partner. To raise a child together. The right someone, of course, not some phony like Henriette or the women his mother fixed him up with.
Maybe to have children of his own someday. Effectively giving Abella a sibling or two.
With him and Elise raised by palace staff as their mother was too busy jet-setting around the world to be bothered, every day he understood more and more about why his sister was adamant that Zander be in charge of Abella were anything to happen to her and Valentin. To not let Claudine hold the reins.
Parenting was serious business. It had begun to worry Zander that although he might develop into a reasonably worthy father, Abella would need a mother figure in her life, as well. If not even more importantly than she’d need him.
He wondered about life in a typical family’s home. Laughter and tears, triumphs and defeats, shared together as a team. To be loved as a man, not a prince. With a woman who brings him a cup of tea, and just as often he brings one to her. Was that what he was coming to long for?
And why, of all people, was it Marie who lit that yearning in him?
It dawned on him that for all the years he’d spent globetrotting with his significance and position opening any door he wanted, he’d been doing his mother’s bidding. She wanted him married properly and orchestrated a lifestyle that would put him on that journey as soon as he reached adulthood.
Yet in all that time he’d never met anyone who touched him inside the way Marie did. With those opaque blue eyes of hers that seemed to go from compassionate to wounded to intelligent and then back again. What made her tick? Somehow, more than anything, he wanted to know.
To her question of why he was staring he offered only, “Sorry. Please make yourself at home.”
Which she did by sitting on one of the sofas and tucking her legs under her. Again, the informality of her position plucked at heartstrings he never knew he had. He sat down next to her, the baby stirring a little bit to sprawl herself farther across his chest.
“Babies are perfect, aren’t they?” Marie tilted her head to watch Abella’s face as she slept.
“They don’t know enough not to be.”
Was Marie aware of how perfect she was? Zander sensed she didn’t, that the hardships she’d known had damaged her self-esteem.
“I’m sure what’s going through Abella’s little brain is that she’s safe and cared for in your arms.”
“Do you think about having children?”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to do it. I didn’t have the best examples of motherhood in my life.” Funny enough, neither had Zander. “It looks like you’re doing a great job with Abella so far.”
Golden light shone through him at that.
“That’s the greatest compliment I could ever receive.”
“I respect how seriously you take your obligation toward her. Not every relative of an orphan does.”
“You’d said that no relatives took you in after your parents died. What did happen?”
“Honestly, right afterward I was in kind of a daze.”
“You were just eleven.”
“I was put in someone’s home temporarily. I think it was for about a week. They barely spoke to me. I was terrified. They didn’t really have room for me and I remember sleeping on sofa cushions on the floor without a blanket. It was very cold.”
Zander swallowed hard at that disturbing retelling.
Marie clenched and then released her fists.
He pointed to her hands. “I notice you often doing that.”
“Nervous habit I suppose.” She reached for her tea and wrapped both hands around the warm mug. Her eyes downcast.
He kissed the top of Abella’s head, the baby sound asleep in his arms. “Then you were placed in longer-term foster homes? Were you treated lovingly?”
Marie shook her head no without making eye contact. “In none of them.”
“And by your parents?” She signaled no again.
“Look at what you’ve done for yourself, Marie. After all of that, you made it through university and you have a career. You’re amazing.”
She smiled.
“Let me put Abella in her crib.”
When Zander returned, he sat down close to Marie. Her expressive blue eyes were clouded from the late hour and perhaps the conversation. The plump lips that no longer held the red lipstick of the evening looked clean and...
Kissable. Irresistibly kissable, he thought as he leaned toward her. And unlike the peck on the cheek or the arm around her shoulder that had come before, what happened next was not spontaneous. It was not accidental.
No, as Zander brought his mouth to Marie’s, the kiss he gave her had to have communicated that it was deliberate. The dominance with which he took her lips, kissing her once, then twice, then longer, bounded from inside him and wouldn’t be denied.
“Marie.” He suddenly pulled back. “I’m so sorry. The hour is late and...”
She looked to him with those big glassy eyes, half-shocked but clearly aroused, whispering, “Don’t stop.”
And he didn’t. What his heart and body told him superseded any mental wisdom. He could experience her only with all his senses.
The peeking of her collarbone above the neckline of the T-shirt. The fragrance of her warm slinky skin. The taste in her mouth, like the juiciest fruit of summer. The tiny sigh that escaped from her lips. The strands of shiny hair through his fingers as he pulled her in for more electrifying kisses that he’d remember for the rest of his life.
* * *
After the last good-night kiss at the door when his driver arrived, Zander had dropped down onto the sofa, where he lay for hours, drunk on Marie.
Sometime during the wee hours, he concluded that it would now be impossible to deny that things had changed between them. Tonight’s kisses were not at all like the physical contact they’d had before, which could maybe be construed as platonic affection. What was rocking through him was a truth that wouldn’t be fooled.
Yes, he’d have to tuck it right back inside. He wasn’t in a position to let anything develop between them. It was unfair to risk that she might feel otherwise. He really didn’t know how she’d regard tonight’s kisses. If she understood them as he had. An acknowledgment of their magnetism toward each other, but as an isolated incident. The last thing he’d want to do is hurt her.
The kisses had gone too far. A surge of carnal male desire combined with the camaraderie that had grown between them prompted him. The voluptuousness of her lips received many of his tender kisses. Which was then followed by a long one that was different, a penetrating kiss that lasted for five minutes and inhabited his entire body, making him lunge to her for more.
All told, Zander hadn’t been able to contain himself until he’d kissed Marie probably twenty times. And was barely able to maintain the gentlemanly decorum he’d prided himself on, and the paternal concerns that now informed every move he made. In fact, he’d come quite close to letting go of all restraint entirely, which was why he’d separated from her long enough to text for his driver.
With the hungry animal in him uncaged, he envisioned leading Marie into his opulent
bedroom and laying her down on the designer sheets and plush blankets afforded him. Where they’d then engage in passion taken to untold erotic heights. He wouldn’t rest until he’d slowly explored all of her creamy flesh and satisfied every single longing both he and she had. And let her know that she was valued and lovable and...well, magnificent.
Unbridled lovemaking most definitely could not be on the agenda with Marie.
But a man could dream, couldn’t he?
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HERE’S THE SET list from the band for the dancing portion of the evening,” Zander said over bites of the salads and sips of the lemonade he’d had delivered to Marie’s office.
The week had been a whirlwind. With the APCF gala quickly approaching, Marie and Zander had spent countless hours on every facet of the event. Having decided on Marie’s idea of an Old Hollywood theme, they looked to apply it to every component of the party. “I told them we wanted all classic songs from movies. There are so many greats here. Do you know this one? ‘Love Is a Many Splend—’?”
Marie finished her crunchy bite. Zander could have been reading from the telephone directory for the amount she was able to listen at the moment. Although she’d held herself professionally all morning, the discussion of dancing was impeding her ability to stay attentive.
All her mind could do was wander back to the night of the Carlsmon party. To Zander, resplendent in his slim-cut navy blue tuxedo. Which happened to complement her pewter-colored gown to a T.
With his big arm firmly around her waist, he’d held her close as they danced to modern ballads. In sync, like together they could dance away all the troubles in the world. Making Marie feel that, just for a moment, her past and his present didn’t matter an iota. That they looked like a couple in love, gliding and laughing as if they were totally alone rather than in a crowded ballroom filled with the wealthiest and most beautiful people on earth.
Remember, she told herself now in the confines of her spartan office, Zander was one of those people. She was not. Although she’d told him a bit about her traumatic adolescence, he didn’t know even the half of how different they were, and she hoped he never would.
The Prince's Cinderella Page 10