by Jessica Hart
But Philippe had always lived in a different stratosphere. How could he know that she had no interest in a luxury yacht or a designer wardrobe or hobnobbing with superstars, or whatever else he’d been doing with himself for the past five years? She wouldn’t mind eating in the Michelin starred restaurants, Caro allowed, but otherwise, no, she was happy with her lot—or she would be if George hadn’t dumped her for Melanie and the deli owner hadn’t gone bankrupt.
No, Philippe would never be able to understand that. So perhaps she shouldn’t be casual after all. She could sound preoccupied instead, a high-powered businesswoman, juggling million pound contracts and persistent lovers, with barely a second to deal with a playboy prince. I’m a bit busy at the moment, she could say. Could I call you back in five minutes?
Caro rather liked the idea of startling Philippe with her transformation from gawky fifteen-year-old to assured woman of the world, but abandoned it eventually. For one thing, Philippe would never remember Lotty’s friend, plump and plain in her one-piece black swimsuit, so the startle effect was likely to be limited. And, for another, she was content with her own life and didn’t need to pretend to be anything other than what she was, right?
Right.
So why did the thought of talking to him make her so jittery?
She wished he would ring and get it over with, but the phone remained obstinately silent. Caro kept checking it to see if the battery had run out, or the signal disappeared for some reason. When it did ring, she would leap out of her skin and fumble frantically with it in her hands before she could even check who was calling. Invariably it was Stella, calling to discover if Philippe had rung yet, and Caro got quite snappy with her.
Then she was even crosser with herself for being so twitchy. It was only Philippe, for heaven’s sake. Yes, he was a prince, but what had he ever done other than go to parties and look cool? She wasn’t impressed by him, Caro told herself, and was mortified whenever she caught herself inspecting her reflection or putting on lipstick, as if he would be able to see what she looked like when he called.
Or as if he would care.
In any case, all the jitteriness was quite wasted because Philippe didn’t ring at all. By Saturday night, Caro had decided that there must have been a mistake. Lotty had misunderstood, or, more likely, Philippe couldn’t be bothered to do what Lotty had asked him to do. Fine, thought Caro grouchily. See if she cared. Lotty would call when she could and in meantime she would get on with her life.
Or, rather, her lack of life.
A summer Saturday, and she had no money to go out and no one to go out with. Caro sighed. She couldn’t even have a glass of wine as she and Stella were both on a diet and had banned alcohol from the house. It was all right for Stella, who had gone to see a film, but Caro was badly in need of distraction.
For want of anything better to do, she opened up her laptop and logged on to right4u.com. Her carefully worded profile, together with the most flattering photo she could find—taken before George had dumped her and she was two sizes thinner—had gone live the day before. Perhaps someone had left her a message, she thought hopefully. Prince Philippe might not be prepared to get in touch, but Mr Right might have fallen madly in love with her picture and be out there, longing for her to reply.
Or not.
Caro had two messages. The first turned out to be from a fifty-six-year-old who claimed to be ‘young at heart’ and boasted of having his own teeth and hair although, after one look at his photo, Caro didn’t think either were much to be proud of.
Quickly, she moved onto the next message, which was from a man who hadn’t provided a picture but who had chosen Mr Sexy as his code name. Call her cynical, but she had a feeling that might be something of a misnomer. According to the website, the likelihood of a potential match between them was a mere seven per cent. I want you to be my soulmate, Mr Sexy had written. Ring me and let’s begin the rest of our lives right now.
Caro thought not.
Depressed, she got up and went into the kitchen. She was starving. That was the trouble with diets. You were bored and hungry the whole time. How was a girl supposed to move on with her life when she only had salad for lunch?
In no time at all she found the biscuits Stella had hidden in with the cake tins, and she was on her third and wondering whether she should hope Stella wouldn’t notice or eat them all and buy a new packet when the doorbell rang. Biscuit in hand, Caro looked at the clock on wall. Nearly eight o’clock. An odd time for someone to call, at least in Ellerby. Still, whoever it was, they surely had to be more interesting than trawling through her potential matches on right4u.com.
Stuffing the rest of the biscuit into her mouth, Caro opened the door.
There, on the doorstep, stood Prince Philippe Xavier Charles de Montvivennes, looking as darkly, dangerously handsome and as coolly arrogant as he had in the pages of Glitz and so bizarrely out of place in the quiet Ellerby backstreet that Caro choked, coughed and sprayed biscuit all over his immaculate dark blue shirt.
Philippe didn’t bat an eyelid. Perhaps his smile slipped a little, but he put it quickly back in place as he picked a crumb off his shirt. ‘Caroline Cartwright?’ With those dark good looks, he should have had an accent oozing Mediterranean warmth but, like Lotty, he had been sent to school in England and, when he opened that mouth, the voice that came out was instead cool and impeccably English. As cool as the strange silver eyes that were so disconcerting against the olive skin and black hair.
Still spluttering, Caro patted her throat and blinked at him through watering eyes. ‘I’m—’ It came out as a croak, and she coughed and tried again. ‘I’m Caro,’ she managed at last.
Dear God, thought Philippe, keeping his smile in place with an effort. Caro’s lovely, Lotty had said. She’ll be perfect.
What had Lotty been thinking? There was no way this Caro could carry off what they had in mind. He’d pictured someone coolly elegant, like Lotty, but there was nothing cool and certainly nothing elegant about this girl. Built on Junoesque lines, she’d opened the door like a slap in the face, and then spat biscuit all over him. He’d had an impression of lushness, of untidy warmth. Of dark blue eyes and fierce brows and a lot of messy brown hair falling out of its clips.
And of a perfectly appalling top made of purple cheesecloth. It might possibly have been fashionable forty years earlier, although it was hard to imagine anyone ever picking it up and thinking it would look nice on. Caro Cartwright must get dressed in the dark.
Philippe was tempted to turn on his heel and get Yan to drive him back to London, but Lotty’s face swam into his mind. She had looked so desperate that day she had come to see him. She hadn’t cried, but something about the set of her mouth, about the strained look around her eyes had touched the heart Philippe had spent years hardening.
Caro will help, I know she will, she had said. This is my only chance, Philippe. Please say you’ll do it.
So he’d promised, and now he couldn’t go back on his word.
Dammit.
Well, he was here, and now he’d better make the best of it. Philippe forced warmth into his smile, the one that more than one woman had told him was irresistible. ‘I’m Lotty’s cousin, Ph—’ he began, but Caro waved him to silence, still patting her throat.
‘I know who you are,’ she said squeakily, apparently resisting the smile without any trouble at all. ‘What are you doing here?’
Philippe was momentarily nonplussed, which annoyed him. He wasn’t used to being taken aback, and he certainly wasn’t used to having his presence questioned quite so abruptly. ‘Didn’t Lotty tell you?’
‘She said you would ring.’
That was definitely an accusing note in her voice. Philippe looked down his chiselled nose. ‘I thought it would be easier to explain face to face,’ he said haughtily.
Easier for him, maybe, thought Caro. He hadn’t been caught unawares with no make-up on and a mouthful of biscuit.
There was something surrea
l about seeing him standing there, framed against the austere terrace of houses across the road. Ellerby was a quiet northern town on the edge of the moors, while Philippe in his immaculately tailored trousers and the dark blue shirt open at the neck appeared to have stepped straight out of the pages of Glitz. He was tall and tanned with that indefinable aura of wealth and glamour, the assurance that took red carpets as its due.
A pampered playboy prince…Caro longed to dismiss him as no more than that, but there was nothing soft about the line of his mouth, or the hard angles of cheek and jaw. Nothing self-indulgent about the lean, hard-muscled body, nothing yielding in those unnervingly light eyes.
Still, no reason for her to go all breathless and silly.
‘You should have rung,’ she said severely. ‘I might have been going out.’
‘Are you going out?’ asked Philippe, and his expression as his gaze swept over her spoke louder than words. Who in God’s name, it seemed to say, would even consider going out in a purple cheesecloth shirt?
Caro lifted her chin. ‘As it happens, no.’
‘Then perhaps I could come in and tell you what Lotty wants,’ he said smoothly. ‘Unless you’d like to discuss it on the doorstep?’
Please say you’ll help. Caro bit her lip. She had forgotten Lotty for a moment there. ‘No, of course not.’
Behind Philippe, a sleek black limousine with tinted windows waited at the kerb, its engine idling. Tinted windows! Curtains would be twitching up and down the street.
No, this wasn’t a conversation she wanted to be having in full view of the neighbours. Caro stood back and held the door open, tacitly conceding defeat. ‘You’d better come in.’
The hallway was very narrow, and she sucked in her breath to make herself slimmer as Philippe stepped past her. Perhaps that explained why she suddenly felt dizzy and out of breath. It was as if a panther had strolled past her, all sleek, coiled power and dangerous grace. Had Philippe always been that big? That solid? That overwhelmingly male?
She gestured him into the sitting room. It was a mess in there, but that was too bad. If he didn’t have the courtesy to ring and let her know he was coming, he couldn’t expect the red carpet to be rolled out.
Philippe’s lips tightened with distaste as he glanced around the room. He couldn’t remember ever being anywhere quite so messy before. Tights hung over radiators and there were clothes and shoes and books and God only knew what else in heaps all over the carpet. A laptop stood open on the coffee table, which was equally cluttered with cosmetics, nail polishes, battery chargers, magazines and cups of half drunk coffee.
He should have known as soon as the car drew up outside that Caro wasn’t going to be one of Lotty’s usual friends, who were all sophisticated and accomplished and perfectly groomed. They lived on family estates or in spacious apartments in the centre of London or Paris or New York, not in poky provincial terraces like this one.
What, in God’s name, had Lotty been thinking?
‘Would you like some tea?’ Caro asked.
Tea? It was eight o’clock in the evening! Who in their right mind drank tea at this hour? Philippe stifled a sigh. He’d need more than tea to get himself through this mess he’d somehow got himself into.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got anything stronger?’
‘If I’d known you were coming I would have stocked up on the Krug,’ she said sharply. ‘As it is, you’ll have to make do with herbal tea.’
Philippe liked to think of himself as imperturbable, but he clearly wasn’t guarding his expression as well as he normally did, because amusement tugged at the corner of Caroline Cartwright’s generous mouth. ‘I can offer nettle, gingko, milk thistle…’
The dark blue eyes gleamed. She was making fun of him, Philippe realised.
‘Whatever you’re having,’ he said, irritated by the fact that he sounded stiff and pompous. He was never pompous. He was never stiff either. He was famous for being relaxed, in fact. There was just something about this girl that rubbed him up the wrong way. Philippe felt as if he’d strayed into a different world, where the usual rules didn’t apply. He should be at some bar drinking cocktails with a gorgeous woman who knew just how the game should be played, not feeling disgruntled in this tip of a house being offered tea—and herbal tea at that!—by a girl who thought he was amusing.
‘A mug of dandelion and horny goat weed tea coming up,’ she said. ‘Sit down, I’ll just be a minute.’
Philippe couldn’t wait.
With a sigh, he pushed aside the clutter on the sofa and sat down. He’d let Lotty talk him into this, and now he was going to have to go through with it. And it suited him, Philippe remembered. If Caroline Cartwright was half what Lotty said she was, she would be ideal.
She’s not pretty, exactly, Lotty had said. She’s more interesting than that.
Caro certainly wasn’t pretty, but she had a mobile face, with a long upper lip and expressive eyes as dark and blue as the ocean. Philippe could see that she might have the potential to be striking if she tidied herself up and put on some decent clothes. Not his type, of course—he liked his women slender and sophisticated, and Caro was neither—but that was all to the good. The whole point was for her to be someone he wouldn’t want to get involved with.
And vice versa, of course.
So he was feeling a little more optimistic when Caro came in bearing two mugs of what looked like hot ditchwater.
Philippe eyed his mug dubiously, took a cautious sip and only just refrained from spitting it out.
Caro laughed out loud at his expression. ‘Revolting, isn’t it?’
‘God, how do you drink that stuff?’ Philippe grimaced and pushed the mug away. Perhaps he made more of a deal about it than he would normally have done, but he needed the excuse to hide his reaction to her smile. It had caught him unawares, like a step missed in the dark. Her face had lit up, and he’d felt the same dip of the stomach, the same lurch of the heart.
And her laugh…that laugh! Deep and husky and totally unexpected, it was a tangible thing, a seductive caress, the kind that drained all the blood from your head and sent it straight to your groin while it tangled your breathing into knots.
‘It’s supposed to be good for you,’ Caro was saying, examining her own tea without enthusiasm. ‘I’m on a diet. No alcohol, no caffeine, no carbohydrates, no dairy products…basically, no anything that I like,’ she said glumly.
‘It doesn’t sound much fun.’ Philippe had managed to get his lungs working again, which was a relief. Her laugh had surprised him, that was all, he decided. A momentary aberration. But listen to him now, his voice as steady as a rock. Sort of.
‘It isn’t.’ Caro sighed and blew on her tea.
She had been glad to escape to the kitchen. Philippe’s presence seemed to have sucked all the air out of the house. How was it that she had never noticed before how suffocatingly small it was? There was a strange, squeezed feeling inside her, and she fumbled with the mugs, as clumsy and self-conscious as she had been at fifteen.
Philippe’s supercilious expression as he looked around the cosy sitting room had stung, Caro admitted, and she had enjoyed his expression when she had offered the tea. Well, they couldn’t all spend their lives drinking champagne, and it wouldn’t do him any harm to have tea instead for once.
Caro thought about him waiting in the sitting room, looking faintly disgusted and totally out of place. In wealth and looks and glamour, he was so out of her league it was ridiculous. But that was a good thing, she decided, squeezing the teabags with a spoon. It meant there was no point in trying to impress him, even if she had been so inclined. She could just be herself.
‘I’m reinventing myself,’ she told him now. ‘My fiancé left me for someone who’s younger and thinner and more fun, and then I lost my job,’ she said. ‘I had a few months moping around but now I’ve pulled myself together. At least I’m trying to. No more misery eating. I’m going to get fit, lose weight, change my life, meet a nice m
an, live happily ever after…you know, realistic, achievable goals like that.’
Philippe raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s a lot to expect from drinking tea.’
‘The tea’s a start. I mean, if I can’t stick with this, how am I supposed to stick with all the other life-changing stuff?’ Caro took a sip to prove her point, but even she couldn’t prevent an instinctive wrinkling of the nose. ‘But you didn’t come here to talk about my diet,’ she reminded him. ‘You’re here about Lotty.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘AH, YES,’ said Philippe. ‘Lotty.’
Caro put down her mug at his tone. ‘Is she OK? I had a very cryptic email from her. She said you would explain about some idea she’d had.’
‘She’s fine,’ he said, ‘and yes, I am supposed to be explaining, but it’s hard to know where to start. Presumably you know something of the situation in Montluce at the moment?’
‘Well, I know Lotty’s father died last year.’
The sudden death of Crown Prince Amaury had shocked everyone. He had been a gentle man, completely under the thumb of his formidable mother as far as Caro could tell, and Lotty was his only child. She had taken her dead mother’s place at his side as soon as she’d left finishing school, and had never put a foot wrong.
Lotty was the perfect princess, always smiling, always beautiful, endlessly shaking hands and sitting through interminable banquets and never, ever looking bored. There were no unguarded comments from Lotty for the press to seize upon, no photos posted on the internet. No wild parties, no unsuitable relationships, not so much as a whiff of scandal.
‘Since then,’ Philippe said carefully, ‘things have been…rather unsettled.’
‘Unsettled’ was a bit of an understatement, in Caro’s opinion. Montluce was one of the last absolute monarchies in Europe, and had been in the iron grip of the Montvivennes family since Charlemagne. Small as it was, the country was rigidly traditional, and the ruling family even more so. Lotty’s grandmother, known as the Dowager Blanche, was only the latest in line of those who made the British royal family’s attitude to protocol look slapdash.
