by Noelle Adams
Not fall in love.
I tried to be a practical person like Victoria—to not expect the world to transform to fit my particular daydreams.
I’d never been very practical though. I’d been quiet and dreamy, with a far richer internal life than anything that happened to me on the outside.
And I couldn’t help but wish a man would one day look at me the way Edward looked at Victoria and Jack looked at Amalie.
There had been no signs of it ever happening yet, but I still couldn’t help but want it desperately.
When I turned my head, Alex was watching me. I smiled at him, trying to relax the concern I could see in his eyes.
He smiled back, and for a moment I felt a clench of emotion in my chest.
Alex might not ever fall in love with me, but he cared about me and believed in me. After all, why else would he be planning on spending all this time to help me become attractive to men?
***
A couple of hours later, Alex and I were in Geneva.
We’d taken Alex’s car rather than go through all the trouble of using my family’s car and driver. I actually enjoyed going around in a normal, inexpensive car—without the spectacle and attention of arriving with diplomatic plates so that everyone would either know or wonder who we were.
Alex didn’t like all that either. I certainly knew that by now.
“You’re sure it wasn’t any trouble to take the time off today?” I asked as Alex drove around downtown streets, looking for a place to park.
“It wasn’t,” he replied with a frown.
“You don’t have to be grumpy about it.”
“You’ve already asked me twice.”
“I know, but you’ve got your work and graduate school, and I know you don’t have a lot of extra time for extraneous shopping trips.”
With a steely glare, he muttered, “I have time. Now stop asking.”
I gave a little sniff in response. “Fine.” Then I added, “Thank you.”
I could see a twitch of his lips that proved he had almost laughed. “You’re welcome.”
So I was feeling happy and excited again as he drove around a block once more, and I clapped my hands when a car pulled out of a spot right in front of the high-end department store we were aiming at.
Alex parked expertly and looked over at me as he put the car into park. “You ready?”
“Yes. Although my mother’s not going to be thrilled by my buying clothes off the rack, especially since I have plenty of clothes at home.”
“You have clothes that were picked out by your mother.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“They’re all intended to make you look a certain way.”
“I know she can be annoying, but she does have really good taste.”
“I know she does. But she wants you to look like your sisters.”
I sighed, recognizing that he was speaking the truth. “Naturally. Why wouldn’t she want that? They’re beautiful and elegant.”
“But you shouldn’t wear the same things they do. They don’t suit you.”
“I know they don’t. But nothing is going to make me look gorgeous, you know.”
“You are gorgeous—but all those stiff, elegant dresses don’t work on you at all. You need something more like you. And I don’t really care if your mother is appalled that it’s off the rack.”
I smiled at him, a little trembly. He was really taking this seriously, and maybe he was right. Maybe I would look better in different kinds of clothes.
I’d never once put on an evening gown I actually liked.
“Let’s go then,” he said with a determined nod.
“Let’s go.”
We walked into the department store and found our way to the evening wear department. I stared at the vast variety of colors, fabrics, and styles.
“What should I get?”
“I don’t know.”
I frowned at him. “What do you mean, you don’t know? This was your idea. You said I need to wear different kinds of clothes.”
“You do. But I’m not some sort of shopping or makeover expert. Did you think I was going to pick something out for you?”
“Yes.” My eyes were wide, having realized how silly it was to expect Alex—who’d never been remotely interested in shopping, fashion, or women’s apparel—to magically know what I should wear. “Of course I did! How am I supposed to know what looks good on me?”
“I don’t know. Your casual clothes always look good on you, so just pick out something you like and try it on.” He waved his hand vaguely around the beautiful clothes around us. “But nothing white or pale blue or pink and stiff like the dresses your mother always puts you in.”
I let out a breath as I realized he wasn’t going to give me any more direction than that. I slowly started to walk through the aisles. I couldn’t even begin to guess which of these dresses would look good on me.
I’d made it through the department, all the colors and styles blurring into one large question mark, when a female voice came from behind me. “Can I help you find something?”
“Oh,” I said, blinking as I turned to face the strange woman. As always, I had no idea what to say when confronted with a stranger, and I preferred to go through this shopping trip in privacy. “I don’t—”
“She needs something that looks good on her,” Alex put in, coming over to stand beside me.
I began to object since it made me uncomfortable to have someone else involved in trying to make me beautiful, but the store assistant was already eyeing me with practiced scrutiny.
“You need to wear warm colors with your coloring,” she murmured. “How sexy do you want it?”
“Oh,” I began, “not too—”
“Very sexy,” Alex interrupted.
I narrowed my eyes at him, but he didn’t look away. He was obviously going to be stubborn about this. “Fine,” I said after a moment, “but nothing tacky.”
“We don’t have anything tacky here,” the woman replied with a laugh. “Let me pick out a few gowns for you to try on.”
None of the dresses she picked out would have caught my eye at all. They weren’t colors anything like my mother would have chosen, the fabrics were clingy, and the styles were those I was afraid would make me look too skinny. But Alex insisted I try them all on, and so I took them into the dressing room.
The first one I tried on was bronze with a very low back. It looked good—really good—making me look sensual in a way I’d never seen myself before—but I couldn’t imagine showing so much skin in public, so I started to take it off.
Alex said from outside the door. “Let me see it.”
“I don’t like it,” I lied. I did like it. I just couldn’t possibly wear it.
“Let me see it anyway.”
Before I could reply, he started to open the door. I hadn’t locked it because I knew he was standing right outside and he wouldn’t let anyone in.
I hadn’t expected him to come in.
With a little squeal, I tried to hold the door closed.
He kept pushing.
“You can’t just come in like that!” I exclaimed.
“Then let me see the dress.” It was his stubborn tone. He wasn’t going to budge.
With a groan, I finally stepped away from the door and let him swing it open.
I stood with as much dignity as I could muster as he stared at me, his eyes running up and down my body.
He was silent for a really long time.
“I told you I didn’t like it,” I said at last, looking again in the mirror only to realize once more that the style made my slender figure look graceful and willowy rather than skinny, and the color brought out my fair skin and the red in my strawberry-blond hair.
“Why don’t you like it?” There was a strange thick sound to his voice.
“I… I don’t know. It’s just… a lot of skin.”
“It’s perfect,” he said after another moment. “You look…
great.”
I took a shaky breath at the words. He wouldn’t have said them if he hadn’t meant them. Alex wasn’t in the habit of telling me lies to make me feel better about myself.
Maybe I did look as good as I thought.
“But it’s… inappropriate, isn’t it?”
“Why? You’re twenty-one years old. Why shouldn’t you be sexy?”
“You think I look sexy?”
He made a weird strangled sound and then made an odd jerky move with his head, turning it away from how he’d been staring at me. “Yes.”
“Oh. All right.” I flushed hotly and kept looking at him, trying to figure out whether his expression meant what I thought it did.
Could he really think I looked that good?
He’d never thought I was sexy before.
The jittery excitement in my heart just wouldn’t be subdued, so I thought it wise to focus on more practical things. “I’ll get this one then.”
“Try on the other two.”
“I will.”
Alex didn’t move. He was looking at me in the mirror. I could tell.
Finally I added, “I’m not going to change out of this dress while you’re in here.”
“Oh. Right. Yes.” He finally turned away and went back outside the dressing room.
I stood there staring at the closed door for a long time until I could finally make myself move again.
***
All three of the dresses the saleswoman picked out for me looked great, and Alex insisted I buy all three. I had plenty of money saved up since I almost never spent anything that was given to me, so I could easily afford them.
And if I bought them with my own money, my mother could hardly object to my having them.
I still felt weird and jittery and excited and uncomfortable as we went to a café nearby for lunch. We took a table outside and ordered our food without talking very much.
“Which dress should I wear tonight?” I asked, breaking a long silence.
Alex glanced up, looking surprised. “The bronze one, I think.”
I nodded, reminding myself that this whole trip was in the service of making me attractive to someone other than Alex. “You think Stefan will like it?”
“He better.”
That odd gruff sound was in his voice again, the one that made me want to shiver. Trying to pull myself together and act normal, I said, “I’m not sure a dress is going to be enough.”
His brows drew together. “Enough to what?”
“To make a man interested in me. No one ever has been before.”
It was sadly true. The only guys who’d made time for me were those who were obviously only interested in the fact that I was a princess.
And Alex, of course.
“Yeah, I don’t understand that.”
I blinked. “You don’t understand what?”
“Why guys haven’t been interested in you. I guess it’s because you’re always hiding.”
“I’m not hiding! I go to dinners and parties all the time.”
“I know. I meant hiding who you really are. You don’t want to show your real self to other people, so they don’t get to see how amazing it is.”
As I processed the words, I gave him a sappy smile. “That’s sweet, but you don’t have to make things up to make me feel better.”
“I never do that. You know that. You are amazing. You’re beautiful and sweet and funny and smart and incredibly generous. You just don’t always let other people see all that, so they don’t know to appreciate it.”
I smiled at him, a little wobbly. “Thanks for saying that. I don’t feel that way most of the time.”
“I know you don’t. It’s because you’re always comparing yourself to your sisters, but they’re different people than you. There are a lot of women who are pretty and elegant and charming like them. There isn’t anyone else like you.”
His words overwhelmed me to such an extent that I reached over to touch his hand. He turned his hand so he could take mine in his, and he squeezed it warmly.
Reminding myself—for the thousandth time—that there wasn’t any use in hoping for anything but friendship between us, I made myself bring up a subject I actually didn’t like at all. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
He gave a strange little jerk as he stared at me. “What?”
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend? You’re so good at this kind of thing. You should really have a girlfriend.”
He gave a half shrug and glanced away. “I’m just too busy with everything else right now. I’ll get one eventually.”
Realizing I was still holding his hand, I gently pulled mine away and put it safely in my lap. “Well, you should get one. You’re too good a guy not to have one. After we fix me up, our next plan will be getting you a girlfriend.”
He gave a huff of wry amusement and shook his head. “If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Fine.” He took a long, slow sip of water and stared at a blank spot in the air as he murmured, “Although who’s going to want to hook up with a guy whose job is to run errands around the palace.”
I made a strangled sound. “Hey! Don’t talk like that! You’re a great catch, and every girl knows it. Anyway, you’re not going to have that job forever. I bet you’ll get that job you applied for in Provence.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to finish graduate school first. I won’t have my degree for another month. Then I have to get a job. Then…”
“Then what?”
He gave his head a little shake and said something I didn’t think was really what he’d been thinking. “Then I can worry about finding a girlfriend.”
I felt a little disappointed by his reply, but I couldn’t really think through why that was.
Three
That evening, I was staring at myself in the mirror, overwhelmed with an intense case of the nerves.
So I did what I normally did when I was upset about something. I texted Alex.
I’m all dressed.
Good. How do you look?
I don’t know. I think it’s too much.
It’s not too much.
How do you know?
I’m coming up to see.
I stared down at his last text message, torn between frustration and amusement. But before I could decide whether I should tell him not to bother, there was a loud knock on my bedroom door.
I opened it, letting Alex in.
He stared at me.
I fiddled with the bronze fabric of my gown and my loose hair. I felt barely clothed and undone, and it made me decidedly nervous.
“It’s good,” he said at last. “I told you it would be.”
I tugged on my neckline. “Are you sure it’s not inappropriate?”
“Of course not. Women show far more of their bodies than you all the time.” He reached over and adjusted the neckline so it was back where it was supposed to be. “You look gorgeous.”
“He probably won’t even notice me.”
“He will.” There was an edge to his tone that gave me a little shiver.
“How am I supposed to get his attention?”
“He’ll notice you as soon as you walk in the door.”
“But I want him to talk to me.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“Just make sure you smile at him.”
I frowned. “Why wouldn’t I smile?”
“Because you get nervous, and when you’re trying not to show it, you end up looking aloof. People don’t know you’re shy. They’ll end up thinking you’re a snob.”
“Like Edward,” I said, thinking about Victoria’s husband, who was like me in a lot of ways.
“Exactly. So just be sure to smile. Let him initiate the conversation, just be sure to smile at him.”
“All right.” I swallowed hard, wondering what Alex was thinking about all this, whether he thought it was normal to coach me on how to attract
a man this way. “I will try.”
He kept staring at me, his eyes running up and down the length of my body, and he didn’t speak for a minute.
“You’re sure I look all right?” I forced myself not to fiddle with my hair or dress again.
“You look gorgeous. Stop asking.”
I let out a long breath. “I wish you could be at the party.”
Alex slanted me an ironic look, making it clear that I should know better than to even suggest such a thing. “Your mother would have a fit if a servant decided to attend one of her parties.”
“You’re not a servant!”
He just raised his eyebrows.
“You’re not! And it’s not right that you can’t enjoy yourself too.”
He shook his head. “I enjoy myself in other ways.”
“Yes, I know. I’m just saying—”
“You think I’m really going through life with my nose pressed up against the glass, gazing enviously at a life I wish I could have?”
I gasped at the slightly bitter edge to his tone. “No! Of course not! I didn’t mean that.”
“I know who I am. I know my place in your world.”
My chest was actually aching now. I reached out to gently touch his shirt. “Alex, your place is as my friend. That’s the only thing that matters to me.”
He let out a strange breath. I could see it in his chest, hear the exhale, but I didn’t know exactly what it meant. “I know. I know I’m your friend.”
“That means a lot to me. I hope you know it.”
“I do know it. Our friendship means a lot to me too.”
He didn’t normally talk that way, and the admission touched me deeply. I reached over to give him a hug.
He hugged me back after a moment’s hesitation. The embrace was strong and warm and needy somehow. It felt like he was smelling my hair.
Then he released me, almost abruptly.
I gazed at him fondly, feeling both awkward and happy. Searching for something normal to say, I managed, “Anyway, I’m just saying, it would help to have you around for moral support.”
“I’ll have to offer moral support from another room.”
I smiled up at him. “All right. Thank you. It will help to know you’re there even if you’re in another room.”
“Pretty soon you’ll be so good at this you won’t need my support.”
