The Anti-Cinderella

by Tawdra Kandle

  “Huh.” He lifted one shoulder, giving up. “You have a little more time, or you heading out now? I was thinking of measuring the trees on the control plot, and I could use a hand.”

  “Sure. I have a few minutes.” I trudged behind Ed and tried to push from my mind the sheer terror I was feeling over the prospect of having dinner alone with Nicky.

  THE CHARLES INN WAS NOT a fancy hotel by most of the world’s standards, but in Bangor, Maine, it was considered pretty dang ritzy. That was an actual phrase I’d heard one of my professors use about the Inn, and it made me smile as I walked through the low-ceilinged lobby with its overstuffed leather chairs and genteel worn tables. No chandeliers or glitz here. It was classic New England understated elegance.

  There were a few small groups in the lobby bar, but otherwise, everything was quiet, which didn’t surprise me for a midweek night. I noticed a couple of men sitting in chairs near the elevator, and by the way their eyes tracked me, I assumed they were part of Nicky’s security detail. I had vague memories of the men and women Nicky had called his ‘police people’ when we were kids in Florida. They’d never been intrusive, but I’d often been aware of their presence. I could remember Honey and Handsome talking about them, too, with Nicky’s grandmother.

  Now, the two men gave no indication of surprise as I pushed the button and waited for the elevator doors to open. No one asked me where I was going, and I wondered if Nicky had let them know to expect me.

  I stepped into the car and stood stiffly as it rose with a groan, stopping finally on the eighth floor. I didn’t know what the other levels were like, but here, there were not many doors. It wasn’t hard to find 870. As I raised my hand to knock, the knob turned, and the door swung wide.

  “Hi, Ky.”

  Nicky was in jeans again, but these were different. The denim was so faded as to be nearly white, and I could tell it was soft as butter. The pants were slung low on his narrow hips, and the gray T-shirt he wore with them hugged his torso like a besotted lover. The arms that were revealed by the short sleeves on that tee were muscled and tanned. My fingers rose to my chin, just to make sure I wasn’t drooling.

  “Come in. Dinner hasn’t been brought up yet, but it should be here shortly.” He laid one hand on my back, between my shoulder blades, guiding me through the doorway and shutting the large oak door behind us. Glancing down, I saw that his feet were bare, which was strangely yet completely erotic.

  The suite wasn’t any fancier than the rest of the hotel. The room we were in was small, with a love seat and an armchair around a coffee table. Just beyond the connecting door, a huge four poster bed dominated the main space. I spied a suitcase on one of those wooden folding racks and a pair of shoes beneath it.

  The whole scene was somehow strangely normal. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t this.

  “I wasn’t sure exactly what to order for you.” Nicky was standing back, his eyes steady on me, watching me take it all in. “I tried to remember what you liked to eat when we were kids, and all I came up with were pizza and hamburgers. We used to eat them just about every day for lunch, do you remember?”

  “Of course I do.” I braced my hands on the back of the armchair. “They’re still my favorite foods. Those, and the hot dogs we roasted over the open fire in your grandmother’s garden.”

  “I’d forgotten those. You ate yours slathered in mustard.” He wrinkled his nose.

  “Mmmmm. That’s how it’s best. I still eat it that way.”

  Nicky chuckled. “Unfortunately, those were not on the menu here. I decided to go with the filet, since that was the most highly recommended. I hope that was all right.”

  “I love steak.” I didn’t know what else to say. Being tongue tied wasn’t usually one of my problems, but then again, I also didn’t spend much time with men who happened to be princes.

  “You’re nervous.” He frowned. “Kyra, why are you nervous?”

  My response was a knee-jerk reaction. “I’m not nervous.”

  “Oh, okay.” He shoved his hands into his back pockets. “Then there’s another reason your fingers are digging into the imitation leather of that chair.”

  I eased my grip. “Is it really imitation leather? Huh. And here I thought royalty commanded the real stuff.”

  Nicky shrugged. “I actually have no idea. Maybe it is real.” He hesitated. “Is that what’s spooking you, Ky? The whole . . . royal thing? I joked about it before, this morning at your gardens, but is that really bothering you?”

  I tried to laugh it off, but even to my own ears, I sounded phony. “Should it? I mean, is there some kind of protocol I’m not observing? Something I should be doing? I saw two guys downstairs, and they didn’t quite fit in. I assume they’re your bodyguards. Or whatever you call them. And when I saw them, I wondered if I was expected to . . . I don’t know. Bow to you? Call you sir? Like, would they notice if I did the wrong thing?”

  “Kyra, no.” Nicky stepped closer to me and took both of my hands in his. “First of all, the protocol shit is more hype than it is reality. Aside from the Queen, the rest of us don’t expect it. We don’t need it. None of my friends call me sir—they’d laugh themselves sick if I told them I wanted that. No one bows. Well, except at very formal events, like state dinners or that kind of thing. Second, you’re American, which means none of it would apply to you anyway. You fought a war a couple of centuries ago to earn the right to ignore it.”

  I nodded. “Okay, then. So no bowing or curtsying or anything like that, right? And it’s all right if I call you Nicholas?”

  “No.” Releasing one of my hands, he tilted up my chin with his fingers. “I’d rather have you call me Nicky. It reminds me of everything that is real and solid when you do.”

  I stared into those warm blue eyes, and for the twinkling of a second, I saw something that made my heart pound hard. But before I could act on it, before I could move closer to him as my body was eager to do, there was a knock at the door behind me.

  “Room service!”

  The spell broken, Nicky dropped his hands and exhaled. “Dinner is served, I guess.” He moved around me to open the door, and I stepped back to get out of the way as the attendant wheeled in the cart. I noticed that one of the men from the lobby stood next to the door, watchful as the teenaged girl navigated the table. His eyes flickered up to meet mine briefly, but there was no expression there. I could’ve been a sofa or a painting on the wall for all of the interest he demonstrated.

  Nicky chatted with the girl while she uncovered plates and laid out the food. She kept glancing at him, and there was no doubt in my mind that she knew exactly who he was. Still, she kept her voice casual and her words light. I was envious of her ability to pretend she wasn’t making small talk with a prince.

  She cast me a long, appraising look, her eyes wandering down over the plain black long-sleeved shirt I was wearing with my jeans. Apparently, she didn’t find me worthy of curiosity because she turned her attention back to Nicky.

  “Is there anything else I can get you?” She smiled at him, and I could see that although she was hiding it pretty well, she was still dazzled. It wasn’t surprising; how often did any celebrity, let alone a member of the royal family, come around Bangor?

  “No, thanks. I think we’re all set.” When she didn’t leave, he cleared his throat, adding, “Ah, Matthew will take care of you. Thanks again.”

  The guard held out his hand. “Right this way, miss.”

  “Oh.” Frowning, she allowed herself to be led into the corridor, while the security guard—Matthew, I guessed—shut the door behind them.

  “Well, that was slick.” I smirked at Nicky. “I take it you don’t handle tips and gratuities?”

  He rolled his eyes, and his cheeks went slightly red. “Sometimes I do—I mean, I do carry money. But when I’m on official trips, I don’t. This one is sort of a little of each. I’m making connections for both of the organizations I represent, and I’m also going to represent
the Queen at a few luncheons in Canada next week. So—yeah, Matthew handles tipping.” He reached down to fiddle with the linen napkin on the table.

  “Does that embarrass you?” I cocked my head. “Having someone else take care of things like that? Being who you are?”

  “It doesn’t usually.” He shook his head. “I’m generally very comfortable in my own skin, Ky. I am who I am—for better or for worse. I don’t ask for special treatment. I can usually get around without anyone taking too much notice of me. But if who I am—who my family is—freaks you out, then—yeah, I guess it does embarrass me, a little. Or at least it makes me uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not freaked out.” I stared down at the set table between us. “I guess . . . I’m not sure why I’m here or why you wanted me to come. If it’s because you want to talk about farming and food and sustainability, then I’m fine. I can do that all day long. Or if it’s that you want to be nice to me because we were friends when we were kids—okay. It’s not necessary, but okay.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “I thought I was clear this morning. Yes, I want to talk about food and farming. But I also want to get to know you again—partly because we were friends before, but I think I’d want to know you now even if I hadn’t then. I like you, Kyra. I always have. But now there’s something about you that makes me want to know more.”

  I couldn’t decide if that response should calm me or make me even more jittery. He hadn’t offered a real answer, but I decided that I wasn’t going to get any more out of him just now. “Well, our food’s getting cold. Let’s eat, and you can pick my brain about sustainable farming. I’ll promise not to be nervous, and you can relax about being royal. We’ll just enjoy ourselves.” I dragged the armchair around to face the table.

  Nicky’s smile stretched across his face, and he came over to help me with my chair. “I can live with that.”

  “. . . so I’ve been working with business owners and members of our government to change the laws, so that there are incentives for restaurants and groceries to donate their usable, safe leftovers to those who need it. It’s reprehensible to me how much food is wasted while people go hungry.”

  “Absolutely.” I nudged aside my empty plate and leaned forward. “That food ends up in landfills, where it’s not doing anyone any good. One of my projects in college—when I was an undergrad—was trying to show how to get rid of leftovers in the most planet-friendly way. First, they should go to humans in need—then, if that’s not desirable, to animals, and then to compost. The last place food should go is to the dump. Did you know it takes twenty-five years for a head of iceburg lettuce to decompose?”

  Nicky’s eyes went wide. “There it sits, instead of feeding a hungry child.”

  “Exactly.” I paused. “Except I’m not sure iceburg lettuce is what I’d feed a hungry child, but you know what I mean.”

  Nicky laughed. “I hated salad when I was a kid, so I totally understand what you’re saying. We’re learning, too, that teaching people how to eat better and providing them with the food necessary for that change makes a huge difference. We tend to give cheap food to those living in poverty, and that only compounds health problems and sets them up for trouble further down the road.”

  “Do you have community garden space available? I’ve read that giving people ownership over their food choices by letting them grow vegetables has been hugely successful.”

  “We’ve got some, and we’re working on acquiring more.” Nicky nodded. “But all of this is on a small scale so far. That’s fine, but eventually, I’d like to see larger farms that can sustain more hungry mouths. That’s where your natural farming comes in—along with the idea of reclaiming desertified land. If we could accomplish that, we could take on world hunger—not just what’s happening in Britain.”

  “This is why I get excited about what I’m learning.” I sat back in my chair, kicked off my shoes and curled my legs under me. “It could make a real difference in the world.”

  “Exactly.” Nicky grinned at me, and suddenly, we were there—in a moment of complete serendipity and agreement, existing on the same level and speaking the same language. The pull I felt toward him—it was too strong to be simple attraction—was enough to make me go soft and gooey in all the right places. His dark blond hair fell over his forehead, and he brushed it away from his eyes. The flex of his arms as he did it made me want to lick the ridges and kiss every valley. I could almost sense the warmth of his breath over my neck, feel the strength of his hands as they traveled down my body . . .

  “Want some dessert?” Nicky rose to his feet, spoiling my perfectly good daydream. “I didn’t order anything, but I always keep chocolate on hand when I travel, so I have a few bars in my bag.”

  “As long as we’re solving the world’s problems, chocolate can only help.” I stretched out my legs to stand, too.

  “Could you roll the table to the hallway while I get it? The hotel staff will be by to pick it up shortly.”

  “Sure.” I replaced the covers on the empty plates—the food had been delicious—and lowered the sides before I opened the door to guide the cart out of the room.

  “Thanks.” Nicky dropped onto the loveseat and patted the cushion next to him. “Have a seat, and I’ll share my stash with you.”

  Giggling, I sat down, too, making sure to keep a safe distance from him. I didn’t trust my traitorous lips not to kiss a path up his neck to his mouth without my consent—or his.

  “Do you remember when we used to make s’mores with Handsome?” I accepted a square of dark chocolate and popped it into my mouth.

  “I do. You used to steal my chocolate even then.” He pretended to glower at me.

  “I don’t remember that.” I totally did, but no way was I copping to that. “I was just thinking about how precise you were—with building the graham crackers, the marshmallow and the melted chocolate. It had to be in the exact right order, or you’d get all upset.”

  “I like things the way they’re meant to be.” He reached over and tapped me on the tip of my nose. “You used to end up covered in chocolate, as I recall.”

  “Because I hate marshmallows, and so I’d hold onto the chocolate squares until everyone was eating their s’mores, and it would melt in my hands.”

  “You were adorable, though.” He bit into the bar.

  “Adorable was so not what I was going for in those days. I was hoping for sophisticated and mature.” I finished the bar Nicky had given me.

  “That would’ve been tough to pull off with the chocolate moustache you wore.”

  “Thanks.” I sighed. “We had fun back then, didn’t we?”

  “We did.” Nicky settled back into the corner of the loveseat. “I used to look forward to those three weeks all year long.”

  “Me, too.” I traced the seam of my cushion with the tip of one finger. “Until the year you didn’t come. I didn’t know you weren’t going to be there until the end of the summer. I didn’t ask anyone, but I heard Honey and your grandmother talking. That was how I found out.”

  “Yeah.” His head dropped onto the back of the sofa. “That year . . . it was insane. Alex was still getting over Grayson dying. She’d been here with Gram, and then at the start of that summer, she decided to come home. I’d had my first year at Eton. I was young and stupid, and I told my father I wanted to travel. He let me go to Australia for two months . . . but the cost was that I had to give up my weeks with Gram.”

  “I heard that you’d traveled.” I turned to my side and curled up my legs again, folding my arm and laying my head on it as I gazed at Nicky. “I knew why you didn’t come that summer. But I didn’t realize you’d never come again.”

  “Neither did I.” He pressed his lips together. “I planned to come the next year, but . . . you know, things went on. It changed. I fell out of that rhythm of life, you know? I wasn’t living on the routine my parents had set up for us years before. I was doing my own thing. By the time I settled down a little more,
the chance to go back had passed me by.” A shadow of pain crossed his face.

  “I’m sorry about your grandmother.” I reached over and laid my hand on his knee. “I still miss her. You know, Honey and I had just seen her the weekend before she passed. I was in college, and we’d surprised her, Honey and me. We went to tea at her favorite spot. We talked and laughed and visited . . . she told me old stories. When I left, she kissed my cheek and told me that she loved me. I told her that I was lucky to know her. That I was glad I’d spent my summers with her as a second grandmother. Two days later, Honey called and told me the news.”

  “She was . . . magnificent, wasn’t she?” Nicky smiled, but there was an underlying sadness. “The last few years, I didn’t see her as much as I should have. We always think we have all the time in the world, don’t we? But we don’t.”

  “It’s true.”

  We were both silent for a few moments, lost in our memories of the past and of a woman with laughing gray eyes and an undying sense of mischief.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come back after that summer, Ky.” My hand was still on Nicky’s knee, and he covered it with his own. “I’m sorry I didn’t write to you or try to keep in touch. I wanted to.” He paused. “The truth is that I’d spent the entire three weeks of that last summer we were together trying to work up the courage to kiss you. I was furious with myself that it took me until the last night. I kept thinking of what could have been, if I hadn’t been such a slacker.”

  I laughed softly. “We had a good time, regardless. When I think back on those summers, all I remember are the good times. We didn’t have any worries or cares, did we? Just the beach and ocean and food and games—and sandcastles.” I narrowed my eyes.

  “We did. And maybe if I’d kissed you earlier, it would have ruined our fun for that year. I don’t know. Still, I had every intention of writing you letters once I got home. I had them all planned out, these romantic pages, saying everything I hadn’t had the guts to tell you in person. But then I got back home . . .”