HUGO KNEW PARIS like the back of his hand. He’d grown up in the city. Lived and worked in the good and the bad. Spent time as a driver and on the doors of its clubs until his father had deemed him good enough for the family firm. And then, of course, he’d been launched on the path that had led to his independence.
But he’d never seen it like this...like he did through Cassie’s eyes.
And for the next two weeks, while balancing his return to work with his mission to show Cassie off to the world and vice versa, he lost himself in her pleasure, her joy as he took her to his favourite spots, some well-known, some less so.
‘I can’t believe I’m eating ice cream outdoors when it’s almost November.’
Her green eyes sparkled up at him as she touched a finger to the corner of her mouth—always smiling—and scooped away some imaginary stray dribble of the sweet delight he had coaxed her into buying.
If he was honest, he couldn’t believe he was doing it either. On a Monday too, when he should be at work, but he’d taken one look at the blue sky that morning, the amber leaves on the trees lining the Champs-Élysées creating a stunning walkway all the way down to the River Seine, and he’d known where he’d rather be.
And who he’d rather be with.
And he hadn’t questioned it. He’d just gone and got her.
Which in itself was a bad sign to add to the ever-growing list of bad signs...
‘I can’t believe you’ve never had one of Pierre’s ice creams before.’
‘If someone had told me croissant infused ice cream existed down the road, I think I would’ve sneaked out of my room sooner.’
He had to force his jaw to relax. The memory of her hiding away still too recent to ignore. The gossip headlines that morning, or rather a flippant one-liner from the palace spin doctors, even more so. Not that he was about to ruin the moment by giving it any airtime now.
‘It’s pretty good, isn’t it?’ He filled his mouth with the creamy goodness and focused on the tasty delight instead.
‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured, her pleasure obvious as she licked at her own, her eyes rolling back. The red of her jacket working with the flush in her cheeks and the gloss to her lips as she swept up the remnants with her tongue...
Don’t look at her tongue.
‘And the nutty chocolate sauce,’ she was saying, ‘it really takes it to another level, don’t you—’
‘Princess! Hugo!’
Her eyes widened as he stiffened.
‘Give us a smile!’
The shout came from across the street, and like an echo more shouts followed in quick succession. Other voices, different people.
‘Sourire à la caméra!’
It was inevitable. There wasn’t an outing where they flew under the radar for its entirety, but his plan was working. The interruptions were less frequent. Less intense. Less intrusive. And less insulting with it, too.
Or was that just wishful thinking on his part?
He searched her face, looking for any sign that the unbridled joy of seconds before was dimming. ‘What do you say?’
‘Do I have food on my face?’
He cupped her cheek, swiped his thumb along her lower lip, felt her subtle tremor beneath his touch—or was that purely within him? The act driven by the thrill of it, rather than to remove any trace of chocolate or cream.
It was the kind of act they’d been indulging in, playing up to the cameras, fulfilling the role of the loved-up couple with ease. Driving the Prince crazy, if the reports were to be believed, and sweeping the public up in their love story. Winning them over to Cassie’s side. As it should be.
The only problem was training his body to calm down, reminding it that this wasn’t the real deal—because A, he wasn’t in love. And B, he never would be.
Which meant this—the sexual attraction—it needed to be caged.
‘All gone.’
He wondered if she noticed the husky edge to his voice. Noticed it and knew its cause, like he did. That this pretence, the desire, was no act at all.
But her grin widened, and she leapt up, her eyes flashing with mischief as she caught the tip of his thumb in her mouth. Mon Dieu. Never mind the cameras going wild, his entire body surged—heart, mind, and soul—urging him to tug her body to his and kiss her deeply. An act they hadn’t been so bold as to share, and it was that deep-rooted desire that had him slipping his arm around her waist and urging her into walking instead.
Because if they were moving, they couldn’t be doing all the other things his brain was fervently entertaining...
‘You okay?’ She leaned into him as she asked, her body readily moulding into his as they fell into an easy step together.
‘Better than okay. It’s a glorious day. Even the river looks more blue than brown today...which feels like something of a miracle.’
‘Everything looks and feels a little better when the sun comes out to play.’
He glanced down at her, his brow creasing. ‘And are you needing the sun today, Cassie?’ Because the wistful note in her voice told him that she did.
Had she seen the same headlines, was she too pondering what her no-good ex would say next. Did he raise it, or did he let it go?
‘Are you enjoying your bit of rough, Princess?’
The voice came out of the trees up ahead, but no one stepped forward and he nodded to his team to check it out as he slowed their pace.
‘Do you want to comment on the suggestion that Prince Georges was always a little too refined for you, Princess?’
Hugo saw red. His emotions a sprint ahead of where they should ever be, and not in defence of himself. He couldn’t care what the guy said about him. He was lowering Cassie to Hugo’s level. And hell, he could say what he liked about Hugo but Cassie...
She tugged on his arm. Her steady hand holding him back when he would have launched forward as the smug-faced journo peered out from between the trees.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Cassie stepped forward, her hand still on Hugo’s arm urging him to hold his ground. Was his skittish kitten finding her claws?
His team in the wings looked to him and he silently gestured for them to hold their position. They were close enough to move if she needed them, but she wanted to handle this, and he wanted to give her that opportunity.
The man came out of the trees. Dark, shaggy hair. Leathers. A motorbike just behind for a quick exit should he need it. Phone ready to snap a pic. ‘I said...’
‘Oh, I heard you.’ She gave her classic coy smile, a lick of her ice cream as she eyed him up and down. ‘I just needed a better visual to do this...’
And then she stuck her cone, ice cream and all, right on the end of his nose.
So swift the man had no time to dodge it.
So surprising all the man could do was gawp back at her like some frozen human snowman.
‘What can I say? Georges was probably right. I always did have a more playful side to me, and now I’m all about having fun with my man. Life is for living, after all. Don’t you agree, Hugo?’
She turned and beamed at him.
‘I think I need to go and buy you another ice cream, mon petit chaton.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Did you just call me...?’
‘My little kitten, oui.’
She hooked her arm back in his. ‘Care to explain?’
‘Later.’
She gave him a sparkling smile before turning to throw over her shoulder, ‘Oh, and, Mr Reporter Sir, I hate having to waste anything, so please be a good soul and lick as much of that up as you can. It truly is delicious.’
And then she practically skipped Hugo back to Pierre’s.
‘Are you going to explain the kitten reference?’ she asked as he handed her a replacement ice cream.
He chuckled. ‘To be clear, to call one mon petit chaton is a common endearment in France so you shouldn’t take offence.’
‘I wasn’t.’
He cleared his throat as he thought back to that first morning in Louis’s apartment, when he hadn’t known who she was...
‘And...?’
‘It was something that sprang to mind when I saw you standing in the middle of Louis’s apartment that first morning.’
‘The morning of the photograph?’
He nodded. The story that had triggered all the rest. ‘You were wearing that oversized cream sweater, grey leggings, soft and muted against the garish backdrop. Sweet, but skittish too. Wary of me, I guess. Why I was there? Could I be trusted?’
‘I suppose I was.’
‘And all around you was this chaos and colour and it made me think of a kitten being set down in a noisy neon nightclub. And then you talked about how you were hiding out, and it reinforced that view.’ He swept her hair behind her ear, scanned her face as he saw how far she had come to be the woman before him now. ‘Mon petit chaton, hiding from the world, but not any more. My little kitten has found her claws.’
‘Hugo...’ She wet her lips, her eyes glistening up at him. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Well don’t cry.’
‘I’m not. I think that’s possibly one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.’
‘And yet, you’re crying.’
She shook her head, blinked the tears away. ‘I’m not. I’m—I am angry though.’
‘I told you, it’s a compliment.’
‘Not at you! At the reporter for insinuating what he did.’
‘Which bit?’
‘That you were unrefined.’
‘You took that from what he said?’
‘Well, the suggestion was there.’
He gave a low chuckle. ‘I really couldn’t care less what he said about me.’
‘Tomorrow’s headlines might make you think otherwise.’
‘Something tells me that reporter got what was coming to him, I think the reports will swing very much in your favour.’
‘You reckon?’
He grinned, his admiration for her swelling out of his control as he caught another stray hair before it found its way into her mouth with her ice cream. ‘Hell yeah, you were incredible.’
She stepped closer, so close her chest brushed his front. ‘You truly think so?’
He hooked his hands into the rear pockets of her jeans. She felt good. So very good.
‘Cassie, I have seen some fierce take-downs in my career, but that is up there with one of my all-time favourites.’
She laughed, though it sounded strained to his ears, strained with the same kind of heat that was working its way through him. ‘Now I know you’re exaggerating.’
‘I swear on my mother’s life. Just remind me never to get on your bad side. Like I said, mon petit chaton has found her claws.’
She placed said claw over his shoulder. ‘I still can’t believe that’s how you saw me—see me, even.’ She bared her teeth and gave a playful little ‘raa’ that made him laugh...made him feel more than just the flutter of amusement too. ‘But have no fear, I don’t plan on wasting Pierre’s amazing ice cream a second time around, even if it’s on your delightful nose... I will share it though.’
Then she licked her ice cream right beneath his nose before lifting it over his shoulder and kissing him. Whether it was for the benefit of more hovering reporters or for her or for him, he had no clue. And he had no good sense left to question it, or prevent it, because he was lost to it. The touch of her lips against his, the taste of the ice cream and her, a delight like no other. And it was heaven and hell in one.
Heaven because it was sheer bliss, and hell because it wasn’t enough. And he wasn’t sure it could ever be enough. And he shouldn’t be doing it. Taking what she was offering, but he was.
Whether it was fake or not. He was rolling with it. Rolling with it and revelling in it. His hands forking into her hair, deep and hungry. The growl low in his throat, fierce and unrestrained. Because he was finally giving it free rein, the desire that he’d been suppressing for so long. It was vibrating through him. Taking over every part of him, until he realised it wasn’t just within him, it was against him, in his pocket between them—his phone!
Bzzzz...bzzzz...bzzzz...
He squeezed his eyes closed, swore he heard her whimper, felt her claws along with the drip of her ice cream down his neck.
Bzzzz...bzzzz...bzzzz...
He cursed and she fell back with what sounded like a sob come laugh. ‘Maybe you should get it.’
She pressed her fingers to her lips, her other hand outstretched with the dripping ice cream as she kept her gaze low. Mon Dieu, she looked thoroughly kissed. Hair mussed, lips swollen, cheeks pink. He wanted to toss the ice cream, drag her back to the apartment, forget the world and why this wasn’t real. Why this couldn’t be real.
He tugged the phone from his pocket as it cut off, cursing the unknown caller for the unwelcome interruption.
Unwelcome? You should be grateful for the reality check!
He raked an unsteady hand over his hair. Took a breath. And another as he stared at the screen and anchored himself in the present. Who she was. What this was. Why he couldn’t pick up where they’d left off.
‘Do you need to call them back?’ she asked, and he could hear the hesitation in her voice, the uncertainty that their kiss had put there. That he had put there. Though she had kissed him, that much was certain. But he hadn’t had to kiss her back.
‘Unknown number. I’m sure they’ll leave a message if it’s important.’
She nodded but they remained at some weird kind of impasse. Neither knowing how to press Play again...how to resume...not back in each other’s arms though, that was for sure.
Maybe he needed to get back into a steady routine. There was something to be said for the reassuring monotony of the daily grind. Less emotion, less hormonal churn, and more making money and decisions with clear thought and logic.
None of which he had when she was around, not any more. And that was a problem. A big Sara-style problem.
Bigger even. Because he was supposed to be older, wiser, and better than the mistakes of old. His phone gave the solitary buzz of an answerphone message, and like a lifeline now he pulled it out. Nodded to one of his team to step in.
‘I’ll just check what this is,’ he said to Cassie.
‘Sure.’
He walked a few strides away and dialled his answerphone, surprised when his father’s gruff voice came down the line.
‘Call me back, Hugo.’
Ice ran down his spine. Was it Mum? Was she sick? Had something happened?
He immediately dialled the number and his father picked up in one.
A stream of Polish flew at him, so rapid even Hugo struggled to piece it together, but he’d caught enough. Princess. Cassandra. Sara. Imbecyl—much like the French imbécile. So much for his parents being blissfully unaware in digi-detox land.
‘Father, stop.’
‘Don’t you tell me to stop. I knew we shouldn’t have left. I knew I couldn’t trust you to manage things with me so far away.’
Hugo’s chest grew tight with every word. ‘It is not what you think.’
‘How? How can it not be how I think? When your mother learns of this—’
‘She doesn’t know?’
That was something at least...
‘No. Thanks to this ridiculous place she’s in cloud cuckoo land.’
‘Which is where you should be—not the cuckoo—’ Hugo broke off with a curse. This was coming out all wrong. Why did his father always get to him like this?
‘Did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out?’
‘And how did you? You’re not supposed to have any contact with the outside world.’
‘I abide by my own rules, son. You of all people should know that.’
Hugo raked a hand over his hair, gripped the back of his neck. He’d suspected as much. Hell, even Cassie had warned him his father might do as much. But again, he’d been too distracted by the same to do something about it before now.
‘Eduardo says you have a team on her 24-7.’
He huffed. ‘Eduardo needs to remember who he works for now.’
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘I’m not. My CEO should be more concerned with running the company than telling tales to my father, who should no longer be getting involved.’
‘When those tales pertain to mistakes my son is making in his personal life which could affect his work life, it’s my business to know. I thought you’d learnt your lesson with that disastrous affair. Sara and your silly infatuation almost got you both killed. Or has time made you forget?’
‘No, Father. And I don’t need the reminder now. This is not the same.’
‘Then you best enlighten me because from where I’m sitting, it is precisely the same. She is a client and you are—’
‘That is not how this is.’
‘In what way is it any different?’
Hugo blew out a breath. ‘Because we are friends and what you’re seeing is all for show, Father. I’m helping her out of a difficult situation.’ And then he added because he couldn’t help himself. ‘But even if we were in a relationship, this is nothing like what happened with Sara. I run the company now. I’m not in the field. I’m not running the protection detail. I’m being protected right alongside her. And I trust my team. Just as you trusted them. And now, I need you to trust me.’
The line fell silent. Nothing but the sounds of Paris on Hugo’s side of the world and the early-morning wildlife in the Caribbean.
‘Please, Father, I promise you, I have it all under control.’
Only you don’t...
‘For the first time in your life, can you just trust me?’
His father grunted. And then he was gone. And Hugo had no idea whether that was a yes or a no. Much like his entire life.
But he knew one thing for sure, he needed to get it under control. His feelings for Cassie and the entire situation and prove to his father once again that he had this.
And prove it to himself while he was at it.
‘Everything okay?’
Because Cassie knew it wasn’t.
The moment they had kissed, her world had tilted and failed to right itself again.
Cassie now knew how it felt to be wanted by Hugo. Not the kind of want that was make-believe. Projected or otherwise. The kind that she could confuse because he had been so kind and understanding towards her. Because he cared for her.
No. He’d wanted her. She’d seen it in his eyes when he’d called her his mon petit chaton. She’d heard it in his growl as he’d kissed her. Felt it in his hands as he’d forked them through her hair. Felt it in his body as he’d pressed against her. And she’d wanted him too.
But she’d also sensed the fight in him. The way he’d pulled away and withdrawn.
The phone call gifting him a get out that she had permitted him to take.
And now the wall was well and truly up and he wasn’t meeting her eye.
‘Hugo?’
‘Oui.’ He pocketed his phone, then his hands. ‘But something’s come up and I need to get back and pack. I have to fly out to New York for a few days.’
‘Oh.’
And she really didn’t like the way her heart sank at the thought.
‘I have some business to take care of out there.’
Of course he did, he had a life with responsibilities. Just because he’d chosen to spend most of his free time with her of late didn’t change that. But now it felt like he was running. From the kiss. From her.
‘When will you be back?’
‘I’m not sure. Friday maybe? It depends how it goes.’
She nodded. Tugged the collar of her jacket high around her neck, wishing they hadn’t bought the replacement ice cream as her stomach threatened to throw it back up. ‘I’ll miss you.’
And why on earth had she said that?
His eyes caught on hers. For the briefest second their gazes locked, and then he turned away but took her hand as though softening the move. Gave her fingers a squeeze. ‘I’m sure your designs will benefit from the extra attention you’ll be able to give them without me around to distract you.’
She interlocked her fingers in his. Cherished the connection as she focused on the conversation rather than the weird dance of her heart that was telling her plenty if she dared to listen.
‘You’re right. If Louis is to unveil them on the catwalk next February, I need to have them ready soon.’
‘Still not up for going it alone then?’
She laughed. ‘Not yet I’m not. Our little love story may have worked wonders, but I don’t think it’s worked that kind of magic yet.’
‘Our love story has nothing to do with it, Cassie. I’m talking about you and your designs. I’ve seen them, remember—they’re incredible and the world will think so too.’
‘And as you so rightly pointed out, you know nothing of fashion so...’
‘But Louis does, and he wants them so...’
She gave a small smile as she considered what he was saying...while also acknowledging that he was probably saying it to distract her from whatever else was going on inside his head, and between them too.
Was she reading too much into it? She’d kissed him...had he just been going along with it for her sake, for the cameras, for the role?
Or had she gone too far? Crossed a line in kissing him so brazenly? Maybe she should just ask him outright? Or maybe she was overthinking the whole lot, and it really was work taking him away and she was just being paranoid?
Because the real problem came down to what was going on within her. Her own feelings that she was struggling to contain.
So maybe his work emergency was actually a blessing in disguise.
Some space after all the time they’d spent together. A chance to be herself, the new and energised and fierce her. On her own two feet. Alone. And she’d be perfectly fine and perfectly happy without him.
Because she didn’t need Hugo. She wasn’t in love with Hugo.
She cared for him. He was a wonderful human being who’d given her so much joy. Saved her from herself and her self-imposed little prison.
She was indebted to him—that was all.
Nothing more.
Absolutely not.
And she’d prove it.