The Bachelor's Cinderella: The Frenchman's Plain-Jane Project

“I never had that kind of total confidence in myself. Well, other than my brains. I knew I had those, but this…my…person…”

His eyes opened wide. “You should have confidence here, too. Look at you, Meg,” he said, turning her so that they both faced the mirror. “Look at your cheekbones.” Standing behind her, he raised his arms, framing her body so that his fingertips skimmed her skin.

Her heart nearly flipped over. “I—I have that scar,” she reminded him.

“Yes, and I explained how adorable and sexy that was.”

“I think you’re blind.”

“I have twenty-twenty vision.”

If she hadn’t been so overwhelmed by his nearness, she might have laughed at how seriously he had taken her comment. As it was, she could barely breathe.

“Think of you in this dress,” he said. “With your hair up like this.” He reached down and gently lifted her long hair, so that her neck was exposed.

And then he simply stared.

“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?” She tried to twist.

“You have a beautiful neck. Has anyone ever told you that?”

And then the sheer incongruity of the situation hit Meg. The nervous laughter bubbled up out of her.

“I said something funny?” he asked.

“You said something wonderful. Not true, but wonderful. I definitely have to start hanging around with a whole lot more Frenchmen. Are they all like you?”

She looked in the mirror, and saw that his eyes were dark and not at all happy. “A few compliments. True compliments,” he insisted. “And you want to start meeting all the men in Paris. And…how am I?”

Meg frowned, confused.

“You asked if they were all like me. What did you mean?”

“Only that you were full of pretty talk.”

“Pretty talk?”

“You know, that thing about my neck. As if my neck is any different from any other woman’s neck.”

“You,” he said. “Need more than just business lessons. You need to be introduced to the right kind of men. Obviously someone was negligent in your upbringing if no one has told you these things.”

She shook her head, sadly. “My parents were…not nice parents, but they weren’t the only ones. Fat little girls with scars on their faces do not get compliments on anything other than their brains. And even then, pretty girls with brains still win.”

“Well, this time you’ll be the one to win. And you are pretty,” he told her, clearly more than a bit angry.

“Please send all these things here,” Etienne told the saleswoman as he gave her his credit card and a slip of paper with Meg’s address on it. “And she’ll need underthings. Lots of them. Silky, pretty stuff. Meg…”

But Meg was suddenly blushing horribly and by now even she knew that she was blushing for real. “You’re not buying me lingerie,” she said. “I’m not that kind of woman.”

“What kind is that? Do you mean you don’t wear underwear, Meg?”

Meg heard the woman make a choking sound and she wasn’t sure if the lady was trying to hold back a laugh or just as startled as Meg was.

Meg looked at Etienne and there was no question that he was laughing. He was trying to cow her into buying something she truly didn’t need.

“Sometimes I don’t,” she said, blustering in and lifting her chin defiantly even though it was a lie. She didn’t care. All this talk of how pretty she was…How could she have forgotten her rotten luck with men? Alan had told her all kinds of lies and she had believed them. They hadn’t been nearly as preposterous as the things Etienne had been saying.

But she took one look at Etienne and knew that she had stepped over a line. His eyes were dark and heated, and the look on his face was…territorial, sensual, utterly male.

There was no way she knew anything at all about handling that kind of reaction. She’d never elicited that kind of reaction from any man. She was definitely in over her head.

“But I’ll probably need some things for the times I do wear underwear,” she said quickly. “I’ll tell you my size,” she told the woman, scrambling for a scrap of paper. She was so not going to say her bra size out loud. Especially not in Etienne’s presence.

She handed the woman the paper and began a march toward the door. Every step she took was agony. She felt as if the eyes of the world were on her, and that she was alone. It was a feeling she knew all too well.

But within seconds Etienne was beside her. He took her arm and curled his hand around hers. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“I embarrassed you.”

And she realized something. “You weren’t laughing at me, were you?”

“I was teasing you. Because we’re…Because I like you. That’s a very different thing from laughing at someone.”

Warmth stole through Meg. He was right, so right, but she had never had that. That closeness. At least not with a man.

“That was pretty clever and amusing,” she conceded. “At least after I get over my initial surprise. Did you see that poor woman’s face? We must have shocked her.”

“She thinks we’re sleeping together,” he said. “Or at least she did until you told me that you don’t wear underwear. A man who was sleeping with a woman would know that.”

Her delight in their closeness dimmed a bit. She and Etienne would be friends but despite the way he affected her, they could and would never be more.

Still, she’d known that from the start. She had no right at all to complain. As it was, his comment reminded her of why they had been arguing. “Etienne, why do I need special underwear? No one but me will ever see it.”

“A shame,” he said, “if that’s true. But, even so, you need to feel beautiful all the way to your skin. In fact, Meg, I’ve learned a few things about you today. Your instruction has to be far more thorough than I had originally planned. We’re not only going to resurrect Fieldman’s Furnishings in the next two months, but by the time you and I are through, you’re going to know that you’re an attractive woman right down to the cellular level. Men will fall at your feet. Women will admire and envy you.”

She laughed at his ridiculously optimistic comments, but later when he was seeing her off at her door, Meg had to face reality. Etienne had come into her life like a shooting star. He was all fire and enthusiasm and confidence, but she wasn’t that way.

Picking up Lightning, who uncharacteristically allowed herself the indignity, Meg looked up at Etienne. “Do you always have this much passion about everything?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…me. I know I asked for help, and I know I need to look right if I’m supposed to be a spokesperson, but you’ve jumped in and taken me on as a kind of project, one where you’re determined to get the blue ribbon by turning me into the best jam at the county fair. You’re so sure, so enthusiastic, so determined. Don’t you ever doubt? Or question?”

He reached out one hand, and Lightning coyly batted his finger with her paw. “I question many things,” he said solemnly. “More than you’ll ever know. I make lots of mistakes and I hate that. I’ve done things I regret and even things I can’t live with. I question myself every day about those things and I always will, but I don’t question truth when it stares me in the face, Meg. You are an amazing, striking woman.”

“And you know this how?”