Little Lady Agency and The Prince (12 page)

Nicolas scowled. ‘I’m not the one pretending to be someone’s girlfriend.’

‘I’m not the one pretending to be a teenage sex pest,’ I retorted. ‘Tell me, what
is
it you do for a living? Because if you’re a
prince
by profession, surely it would make sense to get the castle that goes with it. A prince without a castle is . . . what?’

‘Still a prince,’ he insisted sulkily.

‘Still a prince,’ I repeated. ‘But more of a . . .
prince in name only
. The
artist formerly known as Prince
, say, rather than Prince William.’

We glared at each other until Nicky suddenly smiled. It was a fake smile, but it was so sunny and gorgeous that for a moment I was utterly wrong-footed.

‘Whatever,’ he said, checking his phone for messages. ‘We can play it a couple of ways. I can make your life so miserable that you’ll give up within a fortnight.’

‘That would never happen,’ I said stoutly. ‘I have professional standards.’

‘Whatever. Sure you don’t want to try?’ Nicolas flicked a dark eyebrow at me. ‘Could be fun?’

‘I’d hate to stand between
my
grandmother and the home she loved,’ I said meaningfully. ‘For the sake of a few months’ good behaviour.’

‘Oh, Melissa,’ he said, putting his hands flat on the table and leaning forward. ‘Can you
really
be as wholesome as you seem?’

‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ I snapped. Then added, after a pause, ‘I mean, I’m sure, deep down, you’re a perfectly . . .’ I ran out of words, and looked up to meet his eyes with the most innocent expression I could summon up.

‘A perfectly . . . ?’ prompted Nicky, gazing up at me from between his thick eyelashes.

I swallowed, and refused to meet his eyes. This was obviously how he gazed women into bed. It was a sticky moment.

‘A perfectly decent man. No matter how keen you are to pretend otherwise. And your plan B was?’

He sighed, as if disappointed I hadn’t said more. ‘Plan B was to go along with it. But you must know that I’m doing it for the sake of my allowance. And I don’t want you pretending to be my girlfriend. There are too many girls out there who already think they are. I don’t have time to put them all straight.’ He smirked.

‘Nicolas, I have no intention of doing that,’ I said. ‘My fiancé would never allow it, for one thing. And for another—’

I stopped myself just in time.

‘Do go on,’ said Nicolas smoothly.

Again our gazes met over the table, and I felt a dim and distant lust memory stirring. If my ex, Orlando, had been taller, smoother, richer and altogether more golden god-ish, he might have got within smarming distance of Prince Nicolas of Hollenberg.

‘You’re really not my type,’ I lied.

He put a hand to his forehead. ‘I’m crushed,’ he said dramatically.

‘Good.’ I tried to bury my nose in my water glass, but I couldn’t help a smile sneaking onto my lips. Maybe he had a tiny sense of humour.

Nicolas caught me smiling, and grinned back. When he wasn’t trying so hard, he could be quite cute, in a boyish way. Or maybe he just thought he had me safely under his spell.

‘You do realise, don’t you, that you’re on a wild goose chase?’ he said.

‘In what way?’

‘Grandfather thinks you’re going to turn me into a throwback prince, teach me some proper behaviour.’

‘Yes. And?’

Nicky leaned across the table and murmured confidentially, ‘Melissa, I spend more time hanging out with princes than you do, and I can assure you that this is how princes behave. Boujis. Klosters. Mustique. Believe me, I am absolutely hitting the mark.’

I leaned forward too, close enough for him to think I was about to kiss him. I wasn’t, of course. ‘But modern princes don’t get fairy-tale castles, Nicky. They go on
Celebrity Big Brother
and make fools of themselves. So if you want the castle and the cash, you’d better start listening to this expert on throwback manners. OK?’

‘Mmm,’ he said, apparently distracted by the brooch pinning my dress together. ‘Is this real?’ He poked at it.

‘No, it’s paste,’ I said, leaning back to put myself out of harm’s way.

‘I wasn’t talking about the brooch. Anyway.’ He winked and swilled back the rest of his wine. ‘Got a party waiting for me. Can I get you a lift anywhere?’

‘No, thanks,’ I said.

‘Be like that.’ He leaned over and kissed me on both cheeks, resting a hand on my waist as he did so. ‘Ooh. Big pants under here? Appearances, eh?’ Then he gave me a cheeky wink and was gone while I was still grappling for the right thing to say.

If I’m being honest, I was a bit dizzy.

It was only when I stood up to leave myself, felt a sudden draught around the thighs, and discovered the eyes of the whole restaurant on me and those very same wildly unflattering big pants, that I realised Nicky had not only unfastened the safety brooch at my cleavage, he’d undone my wrap-dress with a practised, undetectable hand.

Right, I thought grimly, pulling my dress together as best I could. Clearly, the Melissa approach wasn’t enough. From now on, Nicolas would be dealing with Honey.

6

When I climbed the stairs to our flat, alternately seething about Nicky’s appalling attitude and cringing at my pant humiliation, I found Nelson still up, going over some figures at the kitchen table. He was surrounded by paper and cold cups of coffee, one hand pushed into his blond hair, the other hand twirling a Biro round his fingers like a mini baton.

I didn’t feel too sorry for him. Untangling complicated accounts was pretty much Nelson’s favourite thing, after writing angry letters to the
Guardian
about the growing misuse of apostrophes in signage, and reminding me to pay the Congestion Charge. Despite this, he was also handy with a screwdriver and could do the aforementioned foot massages, so I forgave him his amateur sainthood. He didn’t take himself that seriously.

Nelson’s ability to do hard sums combined with his inherent soft-touchness meant that he was always being taken advantage of by hopeless causes. At the moment, for instance, he was helping out with a sailing charity based round the corner in Victoria. The idea was to take inner-city kids with ‘issues’, put them to sea in an old tea clipper, and make them splice the mainbrace and keel haul and that sort of thing, until they discovered self-worth and gave up shoplifting. Nelson had spent the previous summer captaining the ship like a sea-faring Bono, and now the ladies-who-lunch running the charity had made him a board member, partly so they could have their figures straightened out free, and partly, I reckon, so they could admire Nelson’s lovely English ruggedness and fantasise about him hoisting sails and hitching sheets, or whatever he did in his spare time with Not-very-jolly Roger.

‘If this is a hint about the rent, I’ll give you a cheque tomorrow,’ I said, and put the kettle on to make a pot of tea.

‘It’s not,’ he said absently, jabbing at his calculator. ‘Monday will do. I don’t suppose you want to go to a charity ball, do you? And know roughly three hundred and thirty-nine other people who might?’

‘Of course I’ll go!’ I said at once. ‘How much are the tickets?’

‘A hundred and fifty quid each? I know, I know,’ he added, as I spluttered something about budgeting. ‘But Araminta’s commissioned a three-ton ice sculpture of HMS
Victory
and says it’s impossible to compromise on the catering since it’s Faye’s god-daughter’s company . . .’ Nelson sucked in his breath through his teeth, then looked up at me with a wry grin. ‘How was your prince?’

‘Which one?’ I pulled a pretend starry-eyed face. ‘Oh, don’t groan like that. Who knows when I’ll get to say that again in my life?’

‘The one you’re meant to be turning into Prince Charming.’

‘Nicolas? Oh, he was even slimier than I expected,’ I said, looking to see if the biscuit barrel had magically replenished itself. Happily, it had.

‘Ah. Where does he fit on the Orlando von Borsch scale?’

I nibbled a home-made shortbread biscuit. ‘He’s way off that scale. Way off. He makes Orlando look like Roger Trumpet. I mean,’ I corrected myself in light of recent transformations, ‘the
old
Roger.’

‘That bad, eh?’

‘Worse than you could imagine,’ I said. ‘But the grandfather’s a complete sweetie. He even noticed my new shoes. The ones
you
said made me look like Minnie Mouse. And he has the most gorgeous old-fashioned way of talking to you – I mean, I can quite see the older-man charm thing now . . .’

Nelson fixed me with his Paddington Bear Hard Stare. ‘You’re not seriously going to take this on, are you?’

I hesitated over a second biscuit. ‘I don’t know. I’d like to be able to help Granny out. And I can see how it could be quite interesting in some respects, because frankly someone needs to tell him you just can’t talk to women like that these days, and then there’s the whole castle business . . .’

He widened his eyes as if I’d temporarily taken leave of my senses.

‘Oh, listen, it makes no odds whether I would or wouldn’t, since Jonathan will never agree to it,’ I said, pouring hot water into the teapot, feeling some relief that this thorny decision was effectively out of my hands. ‘So at least I can give Granny a cast-iron reason that she can hardly argue about.’

‘Are you sure you want to go down that road?’ Nelson went back to his maths with apparent unconcern, but the even way he said it immediately alerted me to a hidden spike of sensibleness.

‘And what do you mean by that?’

He looked up. ‘Just that it’s not like you to let other people make decisions for you. Especially not control freaks like Mr Riley.’

‘Jonathan and I are going to get married,’ I reminded him. ‘And he’s not a control freak. It’s a decision for
us
.’ I stuffed another biscuit in my mouth and checked my watch. ‘Is it too late to ring him, do you think? I need to ask what the weather’s like so I know what to pack. We’re doing the Tuileries and some light shopping this weekend, and I need to take his secretary out for coffee to win her over to liking me.’

‘Ah, sorry,’ said Nelson, picking a Post-it note off the floor. ‘I meant to say – Remington called while you were out and said . . .’ he scrutinised his writing, ‘the weather’s lousy, there’s a party neither of you will want to go to, and he knows you’re probably dying to see your new nephew, so he doesn’t mind spending the weekend at your parents’. He’ll meet you at Waterloo at five on Friday and then something about a five-star hotel I didn’t write down.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said, pouring him a mug of tea. ‘Very amusing. What did he really say?’

‘That’s what he really said. Is he on some kind of medication?’

‘He’s really making an effort with my family,’ I informed Nelson. ‘He spent nearly an hour with my father last weekend. I even heard Daddy laughing at one point. Jonathan’s a
lovely
man,’ I said, pleased to shove Nicolas’s smug suntanned face out of my head, and replace it with Jonathan’s all-American good looks.

Nelson squinted up at me. ‘Or a very clever one.’

‘Both,’ I said happily. ‘He’s getting married to me.’

Even after a full working week, an hour’s delay in the Tunnel, and a horrible on-board meal, Jonathan still looked immaculate as he got off the Eurostar on Friday evening. His cashmere overcoat hung perfectly over his left arm, his jaw was very lightly stubbled – even the doors slid open for him, rather than stick, as they had done every time I’d tried to make the same graceful arrival at the Gare du Nord, leaving me stabbing at the buttons while ignoring the sea of tetchy French businessmen behind.

I also loved the way his face lit up when he saw me on the platform, as it did now. Jonathan’s natural resting expression was rather stern, which had been a bit off-putting at first. It was only as I’d got to know him better that I realised it hid quite a shy man beneath. And now I saw the frown swept away by a broad smile that made his grey eyes shine with delight.

‘Hey!’ he said, putting his BlackBerry away, and scooping me into his arms for a tight hug.

We didn’t do kissing on railway platforms. Neither of us was into big public displays and, besides, I was quite happy to keep Jonathan’s romantic abilities to myself, thank you very much.

‘I have a lovely French evening planned for you,’ I told him, as we made our way to the car park. ‘To make up for being here and not in Paris. We’re going to go for a drink at the French House in Soho, then I’ve booked a table for dinner at L’Escargot.’

‘
Parfait, chérie
,’ said Jonathan, then he rattled off a load of French I didn’t understand, but it sounded fabulous.

I must confess, I spent the first part of the evening just staring happily at Jonathan, holding his hand and listening to his accounts of the new properties he’d taken on in Paris. I loved hearing him talk. He had an incredibly sexy accent, and he’d been doing extra refresher French lessons, so his French was impressively good too. There’s really nothing sexier than listening to a man speak a foreign language, don’t you think?

‘So, what have you been up to?’ asked Jonathan, as the waiter took our pudding plates away. He stretched his hand over the table and entwined my fingers in his. ‘I’m sorry I’ve missed your calls. Solange puts my personal messages on different colour Post-it notes – there are always too many blue ones I haven’t been able to take.’

‘I’m on the blue Post-its?’ I said, just to check.

He nodded.

‘Oh, well, in a way it’s nicer to be able to tell you my news in person,’ I replied. My brain was already racing, searching for the right way to broach the whole Prince Nicky topic. It was rather a big idea to present, and I needed to get the whole thing described and dismissed quickly, before it triggered Jonathan’s gentle nagging about my taking on dreadful clients, and how much better my time and expertise could be spent.

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Jonathan. ‘I’m all ears.’

‘Well,’ I began, ‘Granny’s asked a favour of me . . .’

‘Has she?’ said Jonathan cheerfully, signalling for coffee. ‘She’s a national treasure, your grandmother. My mother keeps asking me how she should address her at the wedding. Whether she should curtsey or not. Can you drop her a line and let her know?’ He winked. ‘I think she’d like it if everyone else had to curtsey except her. Can you fix that? She loves all that English aristo stuff.’