For now, though, she opened the taps of the sink to bring the water to a tepid temperature. Needing a bar of soap, she turned to the generous basket of toiletries that had been provided. With three options to choose from, she brought each to her nose and decided on the invigorating lemon cucumber bar. She washed her face and hands and dried them on one of the thick towels.
If she wanted to wash her hair later, she noticed that there were swanky shampoos and hair conditioners in the basket. There were lotions. Toothbrushes. Toothpaste. Deodorant. Sunscreen. How nice.
And look at that!
The basket even contained a package of condoms. She lifted the small cardboard box, tastefully white with a gold seal. If the contents were to be required, one would only have to tear the seal to open it.
How very modern and thoughtful.
Condoms.
* * *
A thousand people had populated the mansion for the gala. From the suite on the second floor, Zander could no longer hear a sound below. The staff had done as much cleaning as they’d intended to for the night. Rented tables, chairs and dinnerware would all be picked up in the morning. He knew there were security people somewhere on the premises downstairs, but they were silent.
It was just him and Marie, munching cheese in the hush of this enormous property.
“Have you ever grown a real moustache?” Marie asked Zander as they lounged on the settee in the sitting room of the suite. The Charlie Chaplin version the makeup artist had adhered to his face remained. “What does it feel like?”
“I attempted to grow one at university. It was itchy at first,” Zander recalled. “It came in rather scruffy and prickly. Mother hated it. Girls I dated while I had it never said anything, so I don’t know what they thought. Because, of course, one doesn’t criticize a prince’s choice of facial hair.”
He knew he bit that out with some sarcasm. But it was absolutely true that he’d never been with a woman who had been honest with him about anything, let alone something as small a matter as his facial hair.
Except for Marie, resting beside him on the settee, never trying to be anything she wasn’t.
Her pretty and sore feet were curled up between them. It had been almost unbearably personal rubbing them in the dining room before they came upstairs. Though his thumbs so enjoyed working on all of the muscles in between the delicate bones.
Was massaging someone’s feet a gift of love to them? One he was unused to bestowing or receiving? In any case, having her silky legs on his lap had been unexpectedly arousing.
Zander’s mother, dressed as Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, complete with long cigarette holder, had cornered him at the gala to ask again about Marie. Apparently she still wasn’t convinced by the just coworkers label he had been insisting on.
“You know the press will rip her to shreds,” Claudine had told her son, buzzing into his ear as they watched Marie being dragged around the dance floor by a lead-footed Ben Hur.
“The press doesn’t know who she is, Mother.” He thought of the headline he’d caught in his news feed that questioned who the mystery woman was whom Prince Zander had been spotted with in Cannes. “Working for the APCF is hardly high profile.”
“They’ll find out, I promise you,” Claudine pressed.
Zander pushed those thoughts away. They weren’t together, despite his mother’s assumptions. Marie’s life was none of anyone’s business but hers. Besides, what could be in her past that was so newsworthy?
He reached to the corner of his mouth and began to peel away the fake moustache. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed. The spirit gum the makeup artist had used proved quite effective. He worked on it a smidgen at a time but without much success.
“This moustache was made to last. I can’t get it off.”
“Do you want help?” Marie asked.
“I think I might need some.”
She unfurled her curvaceous legs and turned to face him on the settee. Leaning in, she used a fingernail to pick at the outer edge.
His entire body immediately reacted to her closeness and her finger on his face. Desire coursed through him and his mind swirled with images.
Like how when he lifted her legs to his lap in order to massage her feet, he’d allowed himself a quick caress down the length of her smooth limbs.
And that now, the pad of one small fingertip on his face was bringing a gratification grossly out of proportion to the action she was performing. It didn’t matter, though. He wanted to enjoy every minute.
He shut his eyes, her face so near as she studied the task at hand. Was he imagining it or could he feel her gentle breath tickling his skin? In any case, it was delightful and made him not want the moment to end.
“You’re not kidding with this glue,” she sniggered.
“Do you have any suggestions?”
To his surprise, she brought her lips to his and kissed him. Not once. Not twice. And by the third time, he was intoxicated by her mouth and took her head in his hands to deepen the kiss.
“Very scratchy!” She pretended shock. He eased up, not wanting her to experience anything disagreeable. In fact, the thoughts he was having were designing ways to make her feel anything but unpleasant indeed. He could sense her smile against his face when she added, “But I didn’t say I wanted to stop.”
So with her encouragement he kissed her face, knowing that the coarse hairs of the moustache would create a sensation on her skin that she either loved or hated. The dulcet hum that escaped her throat gave him the answer he needed.
His mouth sought the curve of her jaw. He kissed its expanse upward to behind her earlobe. Another sigh of praise from her invigorated him further. Next, his mouth traced down the side of her neck. Once his lips found their way into the exquisite crook where neck met shoulder, he thought he might have reached heaven on earth. By then she had run her fingers through his hair, holding his head to her, wanting this as much as he did.
Breaking for a moment, he leaned back. Marie was still wearing the Marilyn Monroe wig that had been her costume. He wanted to feel her own soft hair so he easily slipped the wig off her head and tossed it to the nearby table. She reached up to remove the hairnet that had bound her own locks, and her brunette waves tumbled down around her face. “Back to me,” she said quietly.
“You are always you, Marie, that’s what I love about you.”
Once he’d uttered those words, he couldn’t take them back.
He rationalized that saying he loved something about her wasn’t the same as saying that he loved her.
Although he suspected that he might. In fact. Love her.
The swell in his heart whenever she was near could have been a clue. How much he’d looked forward to each and every one of their meetings as they’d worked on the gala. How many laughs they’d shared about everyday things like couples do. How beautiful she was with Abella, respecting that Zander took his responsibility toward his niece with the utmost seriousness. How she treated him as just a sincere man, not one with whom she had to wear kid gloves or be careful what she said.
Marie made him want it all, the real romance, the real family, the real union. She had defied and destroyed every barrier to love that Zander had been able to build.
After shaking out her natural hair, she amazed him when she leaned over and, with one ferocious tug, stripped the moustache off his face.
“Ouch!” He feigned injury but was actually relieved to be rid of it.
“There you are,” she sang, “the real Zander.”
He encircled her in his arms and kissed the top of her head.
She leaned her neck backward to meet his face and they began another set of kisses, each one more urgent than the one before, communicating their depth of hunger for each other.
She muttered against his lips, “Yes.”
Before long, Marilyn M
onroe’s dress and Charlie Chaplin’s clothes were flung across the suite. Where they stayed until morning light replaced the pitch-dark skies.
* * *
Marie’s eyelids didn’t want to pop up. She had the sense she’d been drifting in and out of sleep for quite a while. It was only when her brain focused on the sound of breathing coming from beside her body did her eyes spring open wide.
It hadn’t been a dream. Handsome, compassionate, spicy Prince Zander de Nellay of Charlegin was next to her in the suite’s luxurious king-size bed. Their bodies were touching. They were both naked. No Charlie Chaplin moustache. No Marilyn Monroe wig. No one here to call him Your Highness.
Gingerly, she rolled over onto her side so that she could watch him sleep without waking him. With the shards of morning sunshine peeking in, Zander’s skin and hair caught flecks of light in a way that made him appear almost holy, like a religious painting. Yet he wasn’t a distant idol to be worshipped from afar. No, this was a vigorous man made of flesh and blood.
It wasn’t hard to picture this scenario as a regular occurrence. Saying good-night to Zander as the last thing she did before going to sleep, and good-morning the first on awakening. Such ho-hum behavior between a couple, yet so meaningful.
She silently thanked him. For showing her a world she’d known nothing about. Not how to run a big gala or interact with a donor, although she’d surely be eternally grateful to him for teaching her those skills. What she was really thankful for was his kindness toward her. His belief in her abilities. His perception of her as beautiful and sexy and worthy. No one had ever made her feel that way. Inching out of the bed, still careful not to disturb his sleep, she tiptoed her way across the geometric-printed rug that covered the hardwood floors. Entering the bathroom, she fumbled for the light switch and pressed the door shut.
Evidence of what transpired last night was strewn on the countertop. That upmarket little white cardboard box of condoms that she had been so impressed with was crushed out of shape. The gold seal had been broken. The contents had been removed.
Did she look different in the bathroom mirror from how she had the night before? Disregarding the costume, of course, but traveling behind her eyes, inside her heart, into her very center, she perceived a shift.
Yes, she and Zander had made love. Which she’d done before, with a couple of other guys she’d dated. But it occurred to her now what the phrase make love really meant. And she realized it was something she hadn’t actually known.
Never had she been with a man who insisted that she enjoy as much pleasure as he did. Unlike those previous men, who treated her as if she were an inanimate object for their use, the lovemaking she shared with Zander was not a score sheet tracking who was doing the giving and who the taking. In fact, giving and taking had blended together to become one and the same.
Together, they’d learned each other’s bodies and responses, slowly and deliberately, bringing one another other up and then higher and higher and higher still until they folded into each other’s arms as one.
And now that he’d taught her what physical intimacy truly was, she’d never be able to settle for less.
Creeping back into the bedroom, she slipped on her dress and located her phone. A quick scan of messages showed there was one from Felice at the APCF. Figuring she’d better attend to that, she swiped to open it.
Didn’t want you to be caught unaware, thought you should see this.
And below those words was a link to a website called Royal Matchups.
Dread invaded every cell in Marie’s body as she tapped to the site.
The bold headline was enough to burn her stomach raw: His Hottie Highness Prince Zander’s Shady Lady.
All the available air left the room and Marie’s throat closed. With Zander still asleep, she gripped the wall with one hand as she read on.
We’ve been reporting about the mystery companion seen escorting Prince Zander de Nellay of Charlegin all over Cannes. Finally, we can confirm that the winsome mademoiselle is Marie Paquet, an employee of the Alliance for Parentless Children of France. She was assisting His Highness as he chaired the APCF’s annual gala, and it seems like this pair has fun-raising in addition to fund-raising on their minds.
It’s no coincidence that Marie works for the APCF as she herself was orphaned at age eleven. Readers following the news in roughneck North Marseilles might remember the double murder of a married couple there fourteen years ago. In fact, it was Marie’s parents, Tamma and Bruno.
The pair were known drug suppliers to the dealers rampant in the troubled section of the city. Addicts themselves, they were shot down on the street in a hailstorm of bullets in full daylight during a turf war, while prepubescent Marie was home alone in the couple’s disorderly apartment at the time.
Police found her three days later, unaware of what had happened but afraid to leave her room.
And it seems that wasn’t the end of the troubles for our poor Marie...
Her palm still flat against the bedroom wall, Marie gasped. Zander rustled on the bed but didn’t wake up.
So here it was. Everything she’d hoped she could keep private in her life so that she stood a chance of moving forward without being dragged down by circumstances she’d had no control over. What she’d omitted in telling Zander about herself, for fear he’d have nothing to do with her if he knew.
How naive she’d been! She’d never escape her yesterdays. They would taunt and haunt her for the rest of her life, as was their job. They would limit her options, decrease her opportunities, and could always be counted on to make her despair. Her past was an old nemesis that would shadow her until her dying day.
She read on.
The orphaned Marie, whom no other family member rushed to aid, was then set on a journey we wouldn’t wish for anyone. Taken into the foster care system, she was shuffled from one from household to the next.
We shudder to think what Marie might have encountered in the six different foster homes she was sent to.
How dare the owners of this superficial website, purely for the amusement of gossip hounds with nothing better to do, investigate her background because of her association with Zander for a philanthropic project! How would they have even gathered that biography of her? She supposed that because her parents were criminals who made headlines themselves, there was no shortage of public information.
After some labored breathing to try to calm herself and identify her feelings, anger turned to humiliation. As it had so many times before.
She continued reading.
It was only after young Marie was introduced to the APCF that her fortunes improved. The agency was able to help arrange a work-study program for her to attend university. When scrappy Marie wasn’t in classes, she dutifully chopped vegetables at the university’s dining hall. Cheers to the APCF for also positioning her in their Toulouse office after she graduated.
Heartthrob Prince Zander has been under the radar of late, curiously not dating any of the world-class beauties he’s been known to globetrot with, save for a few appearances with party girl Henriette Fontaine several months ago.
We know he’s busy caring for his baby niece after his sister’s tragic death, trading bubbly for baby bottles. But it looks as if he might have reemerged, and found himself a genuine Cinderella.
Cinderella? Marie choked at the comparison.
She looked over to stunning Zander asleep on the bed, his tall muscular body fully stretched out in comfort. Marie had no idea what Zander thought about her background, if he thought about it at all. Why would he? They worked together on a project for a few weeks. That was it.
Once he read this article, he’d be furious at her and at himself for letting her get so close to Abella. Protecting the crown princess was always foremost in his mind, and knowing that they had been followed and spied on would drive him mad with guilt and regret.
There was no other choice.
Knowing it would be for the last time, she padded over to the bed and leaned down to Zander. She gave one final kiss to that sensual mouth that had shared so much ecstasy with her. Every molecule in her lips buzzed from the contact. Half-awake, he elongated his arms and attempted to pull her to him in an embrace. Using all her strength, she backed away. She couldn’t handle lying with him again where, in his arms, she might believe the impossible was possible.
Marie hoped with all her heart that he would someday find a suitable woman. Who could be a proper princess whom Claudine and his subjects would accept, and who’d be a caring mother figure for Abella. If the press approved of her, too, that would make Zander’s life much easier.
She wanted the best for him. He deserved it.
Gathering up her shoes, Marie opened the bedroom door. In stepping through the threshold, she knew that she was saying goodbye to something she would never find again. Nothing would ever replicate the connection she and Zander had come to share. Nor would she want it to. It was once in a lifetime.
Goodbye, sweet Prince.
The click of the door as she shut it behind her was surely the saddest sound she’d ever heard.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN ZANDER WOKE UP, he instinctively reached across the bed to seek the softness. The pillow he caressed was supple enough, indeed, but it was not what he was searching for. Although awakening alone had become his norm, he didn’t need reminding that last night had been different. On so many levels.
The Prince's Cinderella Page 14