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

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.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_d8f85400-cf5d-5a19-a2f9-0a09e2055523)

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 sterling, which was no help at all when you wanted to buy a few tomatoes.

Caro was in the middle of another pantomime to explain her predicament when the stallholder stopped laughing and stared over her shoulder. At the same time she became aware of a stir in the market behind her and she turned, curious to see what everyone was so interested in.

There, striding towards her between the stalls, was Philippe, and at the sight of him her heart slammed into her throat, blocking off her air and leaving her breathless and light-headed.

Philippe was smiling, but Caro could tell from the tightness of his jaw that he was furious. Behind those designer shades, the silver eyes would be icy. Yan was at his shoulder, expressionless as ever.

The market fell silent, watching Philippe. It was difficult to tell quite what the mood was. Wariness and surprise, Caro thought, as she disentangled her breathing and forced her heart back into place. She could relate to that. It was what she felt too. Not that she had any intention of letting Philippe know that.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said, determinedly casual. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘No, that’s my question,’ snapped Philippe, who was gripped with a quite irrational rage at finding Caro safe.

Lefebvre, the First Minister, had spent the morning droning on about the increased threat from environmental activists who were protesting about some pipeline, although why he was telling him Philippe couldn’t imagine. The Dowager Blanche had no doubt already decided what would be done.

He’d found his mind drifting to Caro. He’d been short with her that morning, but it wasn’t actually her fault that he hadn’t been able to sleep. Philippe couldn’t get the image of her in those shabby pyjamas out of his mind. He’d imagined unbuttoning the pyjama top very slowly, slipping his hands beneath it to smooth over silky skin. Imagined hooking his thumbs over the waistband to slide the bottoms down over the warm curve of her hips and down those legs she insisted on hiding away.

This was ridiculous, Philippe had told himself, shifting restlessly. He liked women in silk and sheer, slithery lingerie, nightclothes that were feminine and flirty and fun. He was in a bad way when he was getting turned on by a pair of frumpy pyjamas.

The fact that he needed that damned pillow stuffed between them had left Philippe feeling edgy and irritable and he’d woken in a thoroughly bad mood.

When Lefebvre had finally left, Philippe had gone back to apologise to Caro, only to find the apartments empty. Mademoiselle Cartwright had gone out, the dolt of a butler had informed him when Philippe had established that she wasn’t in the gardens either.

‘She said that she wanted to explore the city. Mademoiselle Cartwright was charming,’ he had added.

Mademoiselle Cartwright was a damned nuisance, Philippe had corrected him, Lefebvre’s warnings running cold through his veins. What if someone had seen Caro strolling out from the palace? She would be an easy target.

Yan had made him stop and work out where Caro was most likely to be. Anywhere there was food, Philippe realised, and they had headed straight for the market. It was that or trawling through every café and restaurant in town.

And now here she was, quite safe and obviously having a wonderful time, and Philippe was perversely furious, with her and with himself, for having, for those few minutes, been so ridiculously worried.

‘I thought I told you to stay in the palace grounds?’ he said, smiling through clenched teeth. Even though they were talking in English, he couldn’t have the row he really wanted in front of all these people, which made him even crosser.

Caro looked taken aback. ‘I thought you just meant if I was taking Apollo out.’

‘What do I care about the dog? It’s you I’m worried about! I told you that there’s been unrest recently. I told you that’s why Yan goes everywhere with me, but you, you toddle off on your own without a thought for security!’

‘You also told me the situation wasn’t likely to affect me.’ Caro actually had the nerve to roll her eyes at him. ‘So let me get this right … I’m not allowed to go to the kitchens, and I’m not allowed to go outside the palace either?’

‘Welcome to my world,’ gritted Philippe, still smiling ferociously. ‘Anyone could have got to you without protection.’

‘Oh, rubbish,’ said Caro. ‘Nobody’s the slightest bit interested in me. Or at least they weren’t until you appeared. If you hadn’t come rushing down here, nobody would have had a clue I had anything to do with you at all.’

This was so patently true that Philippe could only grind his teeth and glare at her.

‘Anyway, I’m glad you’ve come, actually,’ she went on breezily. ‘I wanted to buy some of this cheese, and I was trying to explain that I didn’t have any money.’ Completely ignoring Philippe, who was still trying to make her understand the reality of the security situation, she smiled at the stallholder and mimed trying the cheese. He nodded, delighted, and cut off a generous piece, which she handed to Philippe, who was trying to talk about security threats.

‘Now, try this,’ she said. ‘Tell me if that’s not the best cheese you’ve ever tasted!’

Philippe felt the flavour burst on his tongue and he was gripped by a strange heightened awareness, as if all his senses were on full alert. He could smell the bread on a nearby stall, hear the murmurs of the people watching. And then there was Caro, her face bright, head tilted slightly to one side, blue eyes fixed on his face to see what he thought of the cheese.

Cheese! That was all she cared about! She wasn’t knotted up about the night before. And he shouldn’t be either, Philippe reminded himself, irritated. How could he be knotted up about a woman who dressed the way Caro did?

Today’s outfit was evidently based on a Fifties theme. Some kind of red top and a turquoise circle skirt with appliquéd tropical fruits. Ye Gods! Only Caro could stand there covered in bananas and pineapples and look so right in them. She ought to look ridiculous, but actually she looked bright and vivid and fresh, and pretty in a quirky way that was just her own.

‘Well?’ she demanded.

Philippe swallowed the last of the cheese. If she could be relaxed, so could he.

‘Very good,’ he said, and repeated it in French for the stallholder, who puffed out his substantial chest and beamed.

‘Can we buy some? I haven’t got any cash.’

‘I haven’t either,’ he had to admit. They turned as one to look at Yan, who didn’t miss a beat, producing a wallet and handing it over to Philippe without expression while his eyes checked the crowd continuously.

‘Thanks,’ said Philippe as he flipped it open in search of cash. ‘I’ll sort it out with you later.’

Caro craned her neck to see inside the wallet. ‘Fantastic,’ she said. ‘How much have we got to spend?’

She was very close, close enough for her hair to tickle his chin, and Philippe could smell her shampoo, something fresh and tangy. Verbena, perhaps, or mint.