Ordinary Girl in a Tiara

by Jessica Hart

  ‘I don’t want to hurry you, but they’ll be out soon,’ said Philippe and his voice reverberated through her hands.

  ‘Right,’ she said again, and swallowed. Passionate, exciting…she could do it.

  Forcing her eyes up from his collar, she let them drift up the strong column of his throat. She could see the faint prickle of stubble and, without giving herself time to think, she touched her lips to the pulse beating there.

  Philippe inhaled slowly. His hands hung loosely by his sides, but she felt the tension in his body, and she smiled. Maybe he wasn’t quite as cool as he made out.

  Her heart was thudding painfully, bang, bang, bang against her ribs. She kissed the pulse again, then drifted soft kisses up to his jaw. It felt deliciously rough beneath her lips and she slid her hands to his shoulders.

  ‘I think you’d better get on with it,’ said Philippe, but a smile rippled through the words.

  ‘Stop talking,’ she mumbled, making her way along his chin. ‘You’re putting me off.’

  ‘I’m just saying. George will be out any second.’

  Caro pulled away, exasperated. ‘I can’t do it if you’re going to do a running commentary!’

  ‘Then make me stop talking,’ he challenged her.

  ‘Fine.’ Defiantly, she stepped back up to him and put her hands on his shoulders once more. Then she leant into him, angling her face up and pressing her mouth against his. His lips were warm and firm and relaxed and curved into the faintest of smiles.

  Was he laughing at her? Caro kissed him again, nibbling little kisses at the edge of his mouth where his smile dented, teasing his lips open so that their tongues could twine together, and it felt so warm, so right, that she forgot everything else. She forgot George and Melanie. She forgot the plan. She forgot about just being friends. There was only the taste of him and the feel of him and the astonishing sweetness spilling through her.

  Then Philippe’s arms closed round her at last and he pulled her hard against him, and the sweetness was swept away by a surge of heat. It was wild and dark and fierce, a current that swirled around them, sucking them down, pulling them off their feet. Caro was lost, tumbling in the frantic wash of desire. She linked her arms around his neck to anchor herself, murmuring low in her throat, something inarticulate that might have been protest, or might have been longing.

  Somehow Philippe had found the clip in her hair and pulled it free. It fell, unnoticed, to the ground while he slid his fingers through the silky mass, twisting, twining, holding her head still so that he could kiss her back, and he was good, oh, he was good…Caro thrilled at the sureness of his lips, the hard insistence of his hands that slid down her spine to cup her bottom and lift her against him.

  She could feel his arousal, and she pulled her mouth from his so that she could gasp for breath.

  ‘Philippe…’

  She wasn’t even sure what she meant to say, but Philippe, who was kissing her throat and making her shiver with delight at the heat and the hunger of it, stilled as if she had whacked him across the head.

  Caro felt him draw a ragged breath, then another. ‘Good God,’ he said, sounding shaken, and let her go. ‘Maybe that’s enough practice for now.’

  Practice? Desperately, Caro tried to bring her scattered senses back under control. She needed a decompression chamber, somewhere to learn to breathe again, a staging post between heady pleasure and the slap of reality where there was no touch, no taste, no feel, no giddy swing of the senses but only the chill of standing alone on a summer’s night remembering that none of it had been real.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MONTLUCE was such a tiny country that it didn’t even have its own airport, so they were to fly to France and drive the rest of the way. In Caro’s experience, flying meant a lot of queuing, a lot of delays, a lot of shuffling onto a crowded plane and shifting impatiently for the inevitable passenger who blocked the aisle for long minutes while he fussed about stashing away his duty-free in the overhead lockers.

  Flying with Philippe was very different. The limousine he’d sent to pick her up in Ellerby that morning bypassed the terminal and deposited her right by the plane on the tarmac. Her bags were whisked away while Caro climbed out and stood looking dubiously up at the private jet. It looked very small. The wind was whipping tendrils of hair around her face and plastering them against her lips as fast as she could pull them free.

  She was very nervous.

  And cross with herself for feeling that way. Everything was going ahead exactly as they’d planned. Lotty was ecstatically grateful and would be gone before Caro and Philippe arrived. Once in Montluce, there would just be the two of them.

  Which would be fine, Caro told herself. They had agreed to be friends, hadn’t they? If it hadn’t been for that stupid kiss…

  But she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that. It had been a mistake, they’d agreed afterwards. Both of them had been carried away by the pretence, but pretence was all it had been. It wasn’t as if it had been a real kiss.

  The trouble was that it had felt real. The firm curve of his mouth, his breath against her skin, the insistence of the sure hands cupping her buttocks and pulling her into him…oh, yes, it had felt real, all right. She could still feel the glittery rush, the heat. Philippe had been so hard, so surprisingly solid, so male. Every time Caro thought about him, her muscles would clench and a disturbing sensation, half shiver, half shudder, would snake its way down her spine.

  Not that she would make the mistake of believing it had meant anything to Philippe. Just because she could admit he was attractive didn’t mean that she was going to lose her mind. Caro might be many things, but she wasn’t a fool.

  After announcing their relationship to a relieved Lotty and a furious Dowager Blanche, Philippe had escorted his equally disappointed father to Paris to start his treatment, but for the last three or four days he’d been in London. Caro knew this because she’d seen his picture in Glitz. He’d been snapped coming out of a nightclub with Francesca Allen. Usually referred to as ‘Britain’s favourite actress’, Francesca was famously beautiful, famously intelligent, famously nice—and famously married. The tabloids were having a field day speculating about what they were doing together.

  It was a stupid thing to have done, given everything Philippe had had to say about convincing the Dowager Blanche that he was serious about her, Caro thought, and told herself that was the only reason she was feeling monumentally miffed. She wasn’t silly enough to be jealous. I’m more than capable of keeping my hands to myself, Philippe had said, and Caro had no problem believing him, kiss or no kiss. A man like Philippe, used to hanging around with beautiful women the likes of Francesca Allen, was hardly likely to be tempted by an ordinary, overweight, eccentrically dressed Caroline Cartwright, was he?

  No, being friends was the only way to get through the next few weeks. As a friend, she wouldn’t have to worry about what she looked like, and there would be no need to feel twitchy about other, far more beautiful, women prowling around him. She could relax and enjoy herself with a friend.

  Caro had barely reminded herself of that when Philippe appeared, ducking out of the cabin, long and lean and tautly muscled in a pale yellow polo shirt and chinos, and the breath whooshed out of her. He looked the same, and yet different, more immediate somehow: the cool mouth, the winged brows, the crisp line of his jaw, the startling contrast between the icy eyes and the darkness of his hair.

  It must be something to do with the brightness of the light, the freshness of the breeze. Why else would the sight of him sharpen her senses and make her feel as if every cell in her body was alert and tingling?

  At the top of the steps, Philippe looked down at Caro and was startled by how pleased he was to see her.

  Of course, it would have been horribly awkward if she’d changed her mind, Philippe told himself. His announcement that he was bringing a girlfriend no one had ever heard of back to Montluce hadn’t gone down well, to say the least, and he’d
been subjected to endless harangues on the subject from his great-aunt, while his father had retreated into bitter disappointment as usual. Only Lotty, hugging him with a speaking look of gratitude, had stopped him from telling them what they could all do with their duty and responsibility and booking himself on the first plane back to Buenos Aires.

  Philippe had been glad to escape to London and enjoy his last few days of freedom for a while. He’d met up with friends, played polo at the Guards Club, been to parties and dinners and renewed his acquaintance with the beautiful Francesca Allen. He wasn’t looking forward to the next six months, and couldn’t decide whether this mad pretence with Caro Cartwright was going to make things better or worse. She was so different from the other women he knew. Not beautiful, not glamorous. Just ordinary. And yet Philippe had been surprised at how vividly he remembered her.

  How vividly he remembered that kiss.

  He’d been prepared for awkwardness, not for sweetness. Not for softness a man could lose himself in if he wasn’t careful.

  The memory made Philippe uncomfortable. He didn’t do losing himself. But he’d been taken unawares by the way the dress slipped over her skin. The heat shooting through him had sucked the air from his brain, and the message to step back and keep his cool hadn’t reached his hands.

  Or his mouth.

  Or the rest of him.

  Philippe didn’t understand it. Caro Cartwright ought to be the last woman to have that kind of effect on him. She wasn’t even pretty, and as for her clothes…! Today she wore jeans and boots, with a plain white T-shirt, which wouldn’t have looked too bad if she hadn’t spoiled it by wearing an oversize man’s dinner jacket over the top, its sleeves rolled up to show a brilliant scarlet lining. At least she was tall enough to carry it off with a certain panache, he allowed grudgingly.

  No, Caro wasn’t his type at all.

  And yet there she stood, blue eyes wary and all that hair blowing around her face, and his heart unmistakably lifted.

  Odd.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, pushing the discomfited feeling aside. It was too late to change his mind now. He went down the steps to greet her. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind.’

  ‘I did think about it,’ Caro confessed. ‘But then I heard from mutual friends that George is worried I might be going off the rails. He’s obviously found out who you were, and he thinks you’ve got a bad reputation,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Now he’s afraid that I’m going to do something stupid and get hurt—and, as we all know, he’s the only one allowed to hurt me! So I thought I’d come after all, and send lots of messages home to make sure he knows what a glamorous time I’m having while Melanie is going to the supermarket and making George his tea the way he likes it. Then we’ll see who’s having the most fun, fun, fun!’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Philippe. ‘In that case, you’d better come aboard.’

  Caro was deeply impressed by the inside of the plane, which was fitted out with six plush leather seats, wall-to-wall carpeting and a lot of polished wood. Yan was already there, sitting in the cockpit.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Philippe said. ‘Now you’re here, we’re ready to go.’

  Caro looked around. ‘Where’s the pilot?’

  ‘You’re looking at him.’

  ‘You’re not a pilot!’

  ‘I’m not? Then we’re going to be in trouble because there’s no one else to fly the plane.’

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Caro uneasily as she sat down in the seat nearest the front. ‘Are you sure you know how to fly?’

  Philippe settled himself in the cockpit and began flicking switches. ‘Sure. I did a five-minute course a few years ago.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, of course not really!’ he said, exasperated. ‘You don’t think they let you in the air unless you’re properly qualified, do you?’

  ‘They might if you can stick Prince in front of your name,’ said Caro with a dark look, although she was reassured to see Yan beside him. Surely he wouldn’t let Philippe fly unless he knew what he was doing? ‘The rules don’t usually apply to people like you.’

  ‘Well, in this case they do,’ said Philippe. ‘I’ve got a licence, I assure you. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past few years?’

  ‘I don’t know. Playing polo?’

  ‘Pah! Who wants to get on a horse when you can fly a plane?’

  ‘What, you mean you just get in your plane and fly around in the sky?’ It seemed a bit pointless to Caro.

  ‘No, I fly to places,’ he said, his hands busy checking dials and switches. Caro just hoped he knew what he was doing.

  ‘What places?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘I go wherever a plane is needed. I’ve got a friend who organises logistics for a number of aid organisations. They might need a development worker transported in a remote village, or tents dropped after an earthquake…if you haven’t got the time or the money to get through the bureaucratic red tape, I’m your man.’

  Philippe glanced over his shoulder at Caro. ‘It gives me something to do when I’m bored,’ he said, as if he feared he might have given too much of himself away. ‘And it’s more fun than polo! Now, fasten your seat belt while we finish the pre-flight check here.’

  He turned back to the controls. ‘Er, what’s this red button again?’ he pretended to ask Yan. ‘Oh, right, the eject seat. Oops, better avoid that one! So the start button must be…oh, yes, I remember now. All right in the back there?’ he called over his shoulder to Caro.

  ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ she said in a monotone. ‘That’s a fake laugh, by the way!’

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘I hardly ever crash. Besides, I thought you’d decided to have fun, fun, fun, and what could be more fun than flying around in a private jet?’

  ‘It won’t be much fun when the plane crashes,’ she grumbled.

  The plane didn’t crash, of course, but it felt as if something even more disastrous was happening inside her as she watched Philippe push the throttle remorselessly forwards. His long hands were absolutely steady as they shot along the runway, and Caro’s stomach dropped away as the plane lifted into the air.

  She was more impressed than she wanted to admit. Why had she assumed that he had been living an idle trust fund existence? She should have realised that a man like Philippe would be bored with nothing to do but party all day. There was that reckless edge to him that she had noticed even as a boy. It was all too easy to imagine him flying planes into war zones, dodging bullets or volcanic ash or pot-holed runways. He would thrive on the danger.

  Philippe had been very quick to dismiss what he did, Caro had noticed. Something to do when I’m bored, he had said. There must be plenty of other jaded rich people out there, but how many of them would risk their lives for others the way he did? Philippe could get his thrills racing cars or helicopter skiing or doing any of the other extreme sports that catered to the very rich and very bored, but instead he flew his plane where it was needed. No doubt he did enjoy it, but Caro thought it was more than possible that he would go anyway.

  She liked that about him, and she liked the fact that he clearly didn’t publicise what he was doing. He wasn’t like so many other celebrities, using charity work to raise their own profiles. Caro wondered if even Lotty knew.

  From where she sat, she could see the hard edge of Philippe’s jaw, the flash of his smile as he turned to speak to Yan beside him. Caro could see one powerfully muscled arm. Her eyes drifted from the dark, flat hairs on his forearm to the broad, strong wrist, and on to the firm fingers holding the joystick, and a disquieting ache stirred low in her belly.

  She made herself look away, out of the window. The seat was pressing into the small of her back as they climbed up through great blowsy drifts of clouds, up into the blue. There was no going back to real life now. Instead, she would spend the next two months as Philippe’s girlfriend. Caro’s eyes slid back to his profile, etched now against the bright sky. She could see the creases
at the edge of his eye, the corner of his mouth, and remembering how warm and sure it had felt against her own made her stomach tilt anew.

  Two months beside him. Two months trying not to notice the cool set of his mouth or remember the feel of his hands.

  The squirmy feeling in Caro’s belly intensified. Nerves, she decided at first, but when she looked out at the clouds and felt the plane soaring upwards and thought about the weeks ahead she finally recognised the feeling for what it was.

  Excitement.

  ‘Oh, what a beautiful car!’ Caro gasped when she saw the Aston Martin waiting for them at the quiet airfield where they landed. Philippe watched her practically fall down the steps in her eagerness to get at it.

  Unless it was her eagerness to get out of the plane, of course.

  ‘Oh, you beauty!’ she said, running a hand lovingly over the bonnet. ‘A DB9! I’ve never seen one before.’ She looked up at him, her eyes shining. ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘It is.’ She was so vivid standing there in the sunlight, her face alight with enthusiasm, that Philippe’s breath hitched in a new and disturbing way, and for a moment he couldn’t remember how to be.

  ‘This isn’t like you.’ Ah, yes, that was better. Cool, indifferent. That was him. ‘You know the car’s not second-hand, don’t you? And you can’t eat it? I wouldn’t have thought it was your kind of thing at all.’

  ‘I make an exception for cars.’ Caro let her hand smooth over the bodywork in a way that made Philippe’s throat dry ridiculously. He fought for a casual expression, but all he could think, bizarrely, was: lucky car.

  ‘Can I drive?’ she asked, with a speculative look from under her lashes, trying it on.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Oh, please! I’ll behave very, very nicely.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be in love with me,’ she pointed out as she straightened.