THE NEXT MORNING Hugo was eating his breakfast while reviewing the financial headlines when his phone started to ring. He checked the ID. Mickie. On a Sunday. This early?
His friend rarely saw 8:00 a.m. on a weekday, let alone on a Sunday.
What kind of mischief had his friend got into now?
He swiped the call to answer and prepared himself for the worst. Of course, there was nothing to say Mickie wasn’t on the other side of the globe in which case it would be late rather than early for him. And that probably made the potential trouble worse...
‘Hugo, my friend, you got something you want to tell me?’
‘I don’t know that I do, since you’re the one calling me?’
Mickie’s laugh rumbled down the phone. ‘So that’s how you’re going to play it?’
‘Play what?’ Hugo put down the toast he was about to bite into. ‘It’s too early for riddles, Mickie.’
‘Come on, don’t be coy! Fancy my surprise this morning when I wake up to see you plastered all over the celebrity gossip channels.’
‘The what?’
‘Funny, you sound about as shocked as I was.’
‘Is this some joke?’ Hugo pressed his forehead into his palm and took a breath. It really was too early for this.
‘Skylar, chuck us that remote...’ his friend said.
‘Skylar?’ Hugo repeated. ‘Who’s...?’
‘My date from last night. You didn’t think I was the one catching up with the celeb goss, did you?’
Hugo didn’t know what to think. Didn’t want to think for fear of what was happening outside his four walls if Mickie knew all about it and thought it was worthy of this kind of a call.
‘Thank you, darl.’
‘For what?’ Hugo said.
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
Clearly, but...
‘Get yourself onto Celeb 101, Hugo. Your mug’s right there, right now.’
‘Celeb 101?’
‘Use the TV guide...you’ll have it there somewhere. Right next to those 24-7 reality TV channels...’
Like Hugo would know where any of those were either...but on autopilot, he switched on the TV embedded in the wall above his sleek black countertop. Searched the guide with rising trepidation. Especially as his phone started to chime with another incoming call, then another. He eyed the screen. One was Eduardo, another was his PA.
This wasn’t good. His skin started to crawl, the hairs on his neck rising. There was only one reason he could have made that kind of news...one reason only...
‘You found it yet?’
Just. He clicked on the channel and the screen filled with a pimped-up news studio starring living, breathing Ken and Barbie lookalikes seated behind a desk. A fuchsia-pink ticker tape ran along the bottom spewing out ‘news’. And there, in the top right corner of the screen were photos. Photos of them. Cassie and Hugo. Him on her doorstep with the flowers. Her with her naked shoulder, all flushed and—for the love of...
‘In the two years since her separation from Prince Georges,’ the Barbie lookalike was saying, ‘speculation has mounted over the breakdown of what was once considered the marriage of the decade if not the century. A real life fairy tale has become a tale of tragedy. People were quick to blame it on the Playboy Prince, his reputation making him an easy target, but with stories surrounding the Princess, friends and ex-lovers selling stories to the tabloids, and now this latest scandal, it really does beg the question, do we truly know who this woman is? We were so quick to adore her, yet here she is jumping from the bed of one man to another, the seal on her divorce barely dry. And who is this man? Our very own Suzie is out in the field to tell us more...’
‘Got to hand it to you, man, I didn’t know you had it in you.’
He’d forgotten Mickie was on the line. He’d forgotten the world existed. He’d forgotten everything but the woman next door and the impact such a report was going to have on her.
Such a ridiculous report, but a report out in the world all the same. And one with a picture to back it up. A picture he might as well as have handed to the greedy mob pounding the pavement outside...
Taken inside his hotel, on his watch, on his floor.
‘Merde!’
Cassie hadn’t slept. Not properly. She kept tossing and turning, feeling the after-effects of Hugo’s presence well into the night. The apartment had never felt so vast and so empty...even with Louis’s abundance of ornamental delights.
She’d become accustomed to her own company long ago. Being in her own company amongst others most of all. Loneliness was something she’d learnt to live with rather than bemoan. And normally she would throw her restlessness into her designs or lose herself in the pages of a good book. Always something creative if she could choose.
But she’d been left with this frenetic energy that she just couldn’t shift, so here she was on the treadmill, trying her second run of the morning because all else had failed. She increased her speed because a jog wasn’t working. Turned the volume on her music up too.
A sprint to Taylor Swift full blast—this had to work, surely?
She snatched up her towel from the rail on the treadmill to swipe away the layer of perspiration already thick across her skin. Adjusted her earbuds. Slugged her water. And felt Swift’s lyrics to her core as she pounded the rolling road beneath her feet.
For years she’d worked hard to be the woman her family had wanted her to be, eager to please them, eager for a kind word too. Then it had been all about the Prince and his family. Trading one impossible mission for another.
She hadn’t stopped to think about her own happiness in any of it. She’d been too focused on their happiness equating to her own. Now she’d finally broken free. Finally realised the only person she could truly depend on for her own happiness was herself. And to achieve it, she needed to find herself. Who she was without the noise of the outside world and the constraints she’d lived her life bound by thus far. And she was getting there. Kind of.
So why did she feel all at sea again?
She had no clue and she wasn’t hopping off this treadmill until the noise in her brain resembled something more like the quiet she had found of late. The quiet of—
The ring of the apartment’s ancient doorbell broke through Swift’s triumphant chorus, and she checked the time. Frowned. It was still early. Not that the time made any difference to her surprise. She wasn’t expecting anyone.
Room service had already been and gone with her breakfast plates. That day’s housekeeping too. It came again, more insistent. She hadn’t imagined it.
She hit the pause button and grabbed her towel, headed to the door.
It couldn’t be Hugo. It had been a day. Twenty-four hours since their impromptu coffee date. Her eyes caught on the flowers he had brought her, the classic white bouquet blooming bright and beautiful in the hallway. He had no reason to call again so soon. Unless—she smiled helplessly into her towel—he too had found himself in some curious state of limbo since he’d vacated her orbit. How weird that would be.
Weird and kind of wonderful if she was being totally honest with herself.
Careful, Cassie, don’t be getting carried away.
Especially over a man like Hugo, who would be so easy to get carried away by...
She was supposed to be focusing on herself and what she wanted from life.
But what if that something was a six-foot-four hunk of male charm?
And that was precisely the kind of want that would land her in trouble. The kind of trouble her ex and the rest of the royal family would use to their advantage and she would do well to avoid. Though who was to say he was interested in her in the same way? She hardly had the best track record when it came to reading others. Case in point!
Love, affection, desire...what did she truly know of it? A bit fat zero.
Hugo had been kind and understanding, that was all, and now she was likely projecting her own feelings onto him. Just as she had done with Georges in those early days.
She caught her reflection in the free-standing gilt-edged mirror at the end of the hall and grimaced. Both at her thoughts and at her flushed state of disarray. Hardly presentable. Unless one was trying out for a sports advertisement, and even then she’d leave a lot to be desired. She lacked the glow of sun exposure for a start.
And here she was, debating her appearance like it was him on the other side of the door, projecting her hopes, when it was probably—
The doorbell rang again, and this time Hugo’s urgent cry came with it, ‘Cassie!’
Okay, so it was him, but his voice...
With a sharp frown, she swiftly unbolted the door and yanked it wide. ‘Hugo, what’s wrong?’
‘Cassie, Dieu merci!’
He grabbed her arms and she stiffened, heat surging to her already scorched core. Tiny, frenzied currents, the likes of which she’d never felt before and barely understood now, zipping through her and spreading fast.
She gawped up at him and he cursed, his hands falling away as he stepped back to give her space.
‘Désolé. I shouldn’t have.’
She closed her mouth, swallowed. What was going on within her? Desire? Is that what this was? The heat, the fire, the need...because Georges had never done this to her. Not with a simple grasp of his hands.
‘You are okay?’ His desperate gaze raked over her. ‘Aren’t you?’
Answer him...
She nodded, her unease building by the second. Because the words coming out of his mouth suggested something was wrong. Very wrong. And it was pressing back the heat his contact had stirred up, common sense overriding her body as she forced the words through her teeth, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You don’t know?’ He dragged a hand down his face. ‘You haven’t seen the news? How can you—can I come in?’
‘So many questions, Hugo.’ She gave a shaky laugh, clutched her towel beneath her chin as goose-bumps prickled across her skin. Aware more than ever that she was wearing nothing more than an exercise bra and cropped shorts.
‘And I’m not the only one with questions, believe me.’
A trickle ran down her spine, the chill on the rise as she dabbed at her cheeks, which felt fuzzy and faint. ‘You’re scaring me.’
‘I know and I’m sorry, Cassie. But it’s best we talk inside.’
She backed up, making enough space for him to enter as he swung the door closed on them both. Though she didn’t move from the vestibule. Her stomach rolling too much to put one foot in front of the other.
‘What is it?’ she said to his back as he made his way into the living area, scanning the room like one would for danger, checking every nook, every cranny.
‘Hugo?’
‘I thought you would have seen. I thought you weren’t answering because you had seen, and you were—I don’t know. Despairing. Panicking. Packing!’
He rubbed the back of his head, up and down, eyes chasing over the objects in the room, anywhere but her, and slowly she joined him.
‘How could you not have heard the commotion out there?’
He threw a hand towards the balcony and the muted sounds beyond. Granted, there was more noise coming from the street than usual. But she’d long ago stopped listening to what happened outside the four walls she was in. Beyond the conversation she was involved in too. The whispered words of judgement, the gossip, and the snide remarks.
‘Hugo,’ she said softly, wishing to steady him, because she sensed that whatever this was, it had more to do with her than it did him. And she was used to her own baggage, he didn’t need to carry it for her. ‘Whatever it is, I am sure it can’t be as bad as—’
‘Someone saw me come to your room yesterday morning,’ he said as he paced up and down. ‘They took a photograph and it’s everywhere. We’re everywhere.’
Cassie’s heart did a weird little dance, rising part-way up her throat. ‘What do you mean, we’re everywhere?’
Though she knew, of course she knew. She’d been the subject of enough tittle-tattle over the years to know exactly what he meant. But she was stalling. Biding her time while she processed it.
‘I’m sorry, Cassie.’
He stilled, his eyes finding hers. She saw the guilt weighing heavy in his crystal-clear blue eyes. Saw the guilt as she also imagined the glee in her ex-husband’s face.
‘The world thinks we’re together. That you and I—’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know how this could have happened, and had I known the trouble I would cause you by coming to your room with flowers and—and the kind of headlines it would stir up...’
Slowly she brought her hand back to her chest, steadied herself against the onslaught of what was to come—what was already happening out there. The Duponts wouldn’t hang around. They’d be straight on this salacious piece of ammo, using it to elevate Georges’s reputation and sully hers.
And all because she’d had the gall to get up and walk away.
‘I don’t understand how you didn’t know.’
Hugo snapped her back into the present, his face blazing with concern and obliterating Georges from her mind.
‘My phone is always on Do Not Disturb,’ she said, her voice devoid of emotion. Because this wasn’t Hugo’s fault. This wasn’t hers. And this would blow over. It was the nature of the beast. She just had to keep it in perspective. ‘I don’t watch live TV. I don’t listen to the radio. Only the people that I care about and want to hear from get through, the rest I mute.’
‘But out there, the noise...’ He gestured towards the balcony once more...at the commotion outside that suggested there were more vehicles. More press. More people. The hotel would be cursing her name. He would be cursing her name. ‘I’m sorry, I will sort myself somewhere else to stay as soon as possible. This is the last thing you and your guests need.’
‘Oh, no, you won’t. You’re fine to stay here.’
‘But Hugo...’
‘I mean it, Cassie. Louis gifted you his home, and I stand by that offer.’
The stubborn set to his jaw, the flash of steel in his blue eyes told her he meant it. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t need to apologise to me.’
‘Oh, I do. Because if they’re making something out of this, I’m sure you’re not coming off too lightly either. If not in today’s news reports, then tomorrow’s. Georges and his ego will see to it.’
‘I couldn’t care less about myself in all of this. It’s you I’m worried about. You must have a PR team, a spokesperson you can liaise with to issue a formal response?’
She gave a soft huff. ‘A PR team? Because they don’t cost the earth.’
‘Right. Of course you don’t. We can use mine.’
‘No, Hugo. There’s no point. They’ll print what they want to print. You deny it and they’ll think there’s more to it. And what are you going to say? Tell them the truth of how we met and tackle that tale, too? No. It will blow over. They’ll tire of it eventually.’
‘And in the meantime, what? You sit back and let them rip apart your character?’
He was so fierce. So ready to fight for her honour. And there was something magical and wonderful and surreal about it. No one had ever looked ready to do battle for her. Not ever.
‘Sticks and stones, Hugo.’
‘No, Cassie.’ He shook his head, legs wide, fists on hips. Fighting stance. ‘This happened on my watch, in my hotel. I besmirched your character and I need to fix it.’
‘This wasn’t your fault.’
He raised his hand. ‘It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t my intent. What’s done is done and I will not stand by and have them twist the person you are into someone you are not. You don’t deserve it.’
Her heart swooned. Positively swooned. ‘Then what do you suggest?’
‘For starters, I’ll be speaking to the head of security. It must have been one of the cleaners from the lift. You can’t access this floor without the right pass and there was only me, you, and the staff that morning.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to cause any more trouble, Hugo. My presence has already caused enough. All the extra security, the extra checks, the chaos outside the doors... I’m a headache for everyone concerned.’
‘But what they did was wrong—it needs to be investigated and the person responsible held accountable.’
‘I’d rather just let it blow over.’
‘That out there isn’t blowing over any time soon, and in the meantime, what? You’re going to hide away even more?’
‘If I have to.’
‘No, Cassie. You’ve lived your entire life on hold for others. It’s time you started living it for you, and you have the city of Paris on your doorstep to get outside and enjoy.’
She gave a shaky laugh. ‘No one could enjoy Paris hounded by that lot.’
‘I think it’s high time you tried another strategy.’
Her chin lifted, ears and heart pricking with something akin to hope. ‘Like what?’
‘I think you should give them more not less.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘They think you and I are together so let them think that. Let them think that rather than a fling, a brazen hop from one man’s bed to another, that this is more than that. Deeper than that. A romantic tryst in the world’s most romantic of cities. And while we give them more, I can give you what you deserve. I can give you Paris. I can show you the delights of the city, get you out of these four walls and out into the real world. Let me make up for my part in what has happened and give you something you’re long overdue in return.’
‘I told you...’ She gave a laugh that sounded as deranged as she suddenly felt, because his idea was making her feel all manner of things. Some crazy. Some fabulous. Some wonderfully thrilling. ‘It isn’t possible. I can’t step foot out of this building without a gaggle of reporters and photographers dogging my every step, without drawing the attention of every innocent passer-by too and causing chaos. It isn’t pleasant for anyone.’
‘And so you’ve hidden yourself away. But by hiding your face, you’ve made it a rarity. Don’t you see?’
‘What choice do I have?’
‘You can choose to give them more not less. And soon your face will be a novelty no more. And that rare photo opportunity will be as common as the next among a million of snaps. Granted, they won’t all be of your best side, but if you can learn to live with the odd stray bit of snot or lucky bird poo drop...?’
‘Hugo...’ She shook her head, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Because it was ridiculous—wasn’t it?
‘Think about it, Cassie. It’s all about supply and demand, give them more and they will demand less. And in the meantime, you get out of these four walls and live in the real world.’
‘And the stories they are spreading, what about those?’
‘By hiding away you’ve allowed the rumours to build, fed the gossip and the whispers, let them draw their own conclusions. Why not paint the tale you’d rather have spread? A love story, however short-lived, is far better than the harlot they seem determined to label you as.’
‘Not them,’ she said through her teeth.
‘What was that?’
‘I said, not them. Georges and his family. They’re the ones who want to paint me as such. I told you—it suits them to make me look bad. He needs a new wife and quickly, with his father...’
She bit her lip. She’d said too much. She may not have any affection for the Duponts, but there were things she was not permitted to divulge. The King’s health and her ex-husband’s imminent succession to the throne being two of them.
‘He will need to find someone to replace me as his wife. Someone willing to look past his behaviour and provide him with an heir too.’
Something she’d been unable to give him and something at the time she’d seen as another of her many failings. Now, of course, she saw it as a blessing, because to have a child caught up in all of this... She shivered and wrapped her arms around her middle, and Hugo’s eyes dipped, a crease forming between his brows as his hands flexed at his sides.
‘Do you want to change, and we can talk? I can wait here.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
He nodded, though his frown didn’t ease. ‘So, you think the Prince might have had a hand in this—this photograph?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. Perhaps.’
‘I assume he knows you’re staying here.’
‘There’s not a lot the Prince doesn’t know about me. He has his spies everywhere.’
‘Then he will also know this is nonsense.’
‘So long as it works in his favour, he doesn’t care about whether it is true or not.’
‘In which case, we’ll make it work in our favour too.’
‘I really don’t see how we can spin this into a positive for us.’
‘Everyone loves a good love story, Cassie.’ And then he grinned, and it lit her up from within. ‘You of all people should know this.’
And he was right.
Her marriage to the Playboy Prince had been one such adored tale once upon a time.
Which was why their breakup carried such media weight now.
Were ex-princesses permitted a second chance at love?
Even if the first had never been a love story at all...
‘But, Hugo, you have two global companies to run. You don’t have the time to spend ferrying me around Paris.’
‘I will make the time. I will give Eduardo the autonomy to run the company he has been running for long enough anyway. And I will take a long overdue holiday from the hotel group, let Zara, my number two step in. Besides, it will do wonders for business...just think of the headlines... Cassie Couture and Chevalier Clubs, a match made in heaven—you couldn’t write it better!’
She laughed wholeheartedly now. ‘Hugo! I’m not even out there as a designer yet.’
‘Not yet you’re not. But you will be if I have my way.’
She shook her head, her chill forgotten. In fact, she felt positively balmy. All thanks to him.
‘But I am serious, Cassie. Being seen on your arm can only do great things for Chevalier Clubs, so you have nothing to fear for me on a personal or professional level. And, dare I say it, we enjoy each other’s company, and it has been a long time since I have taken any kind of holiday, as my latest night-time misadventures prove, so I am long overdue a break too. You will be doing me a favour as much as I you.’
How could she turn down such an offer?
He was handing her the perfect solution to her current nightmare.
A chance to come out with her reputation intact, protect her dream, and get back out into the land of the living...but was it right to bury one falsehood with another?
And what choice do you have? The Prince threw you to the wolves the second you dared to leave. It’s time to push back. Play them at their own game.
‘What’s that look about?’
‘I’ve never been...bad before.’
He gave a low chuckle. ‘It’s not all that bad, Cassie. You’re divorced. Very much single. I’m single in case you need that clarified. There’s nothing wrong with us dating. Nothing to say we didn’t meet here in this very building—which we did by the way—then hit it off and chose to date. Like millions of people do every day.’
‘And you’re okay pretending be in a relationship with me?’
A curious spark came alive behind his eyes. ‘It would be an honour to escort you around Paris as your friend, and if the world wants to read more into that, then so be it. But if, on the other hand, you wanted to present us as more than that or even go as far as to make a formal statement about us dating, I will do that too. Your wish is my command.’
And now she laughed. Because this truly was crazy. And fun. And no matter what he said, it still felt bad. Very, very bad.
‘But if it makes you laugh like that...’ He took her hand in his and squeezed, the look in his eyes stealing her breath away. ‘I refuse to believe there can be any bad in it.’
And maybe Hugo was right.
One thing was for sure, it was time she got back out in the world. As her. The real her.
Not Cassandra, Princess of Sérignone.
But as Cassie. Fighting for the life she wanted.
Nobody else.
And with a little help from Hugo, her very hot, very capable next-door neighbour and new-found friend, that feat didn’t feel so impossible any more.