‘Mum was well wound-up when she came home last night, and not about the delayed flight.’ Scarlett’s rearranging shoes on the display stands in the shop. ‘What on earth did you say to her?’
‘I didn’t say anything – she didn’t let me. I tried to make it clear that I want to take over The Cinderella Shop, but as usual, she wouldn’t hear it. I was trying to take the proverbial bull by its perfectly coiffed and manicured-to-perfection horns.’ I give Scarlett a quick rundown of what happened with Ebony last night.
‘You actually confronted her? Outright?’ Scarlett shakes her head when I nod. ‘How much “Dutch courage” had you indulged in at that ball?’
‘It’s not that unusual for me to stand up for myself, is it?’ To be fair, it probably is. Confrontation isn’t my strong suit. I’d rather keep the peace and tiptoe around without upsetting anyone. I didn’t want to upset my aunt last night. I just wanted her to see me the way Prince Charming saw me without even seeing me. Last night made me feel brave, like I deserve better than this and I didn’t need a mask to go out and get it, but this morning… all I can think of is that Ebony is right. What do I know about running a business? What do I know about marketing schemes and getting clients? I could learn, I suppose. Get myself on a business management course or something, but The Cinderella Shop is dying so fast that it’s probably too late. And would showing Ebony some certificate at the end of a run of evening classes really prove anything?
‘Sadie!’ Scarlett snaps her fingers in front of me. ‘I said, I didn’t come in early this morning to hear about your row with my mum. The only thing I want to hear about is the ball last night. Was it the most magical night of your life?’
‘Something like that,’ I mutter. The confrontation has overshadowed it all somehow. While lying in bed and reliving the magic of the evening, I tried to keep my mind on the nice parts of last night, like Prince Charming and who he is in real life and what might happen if I see him again, but every time I got too lost in the daydream, it was disrupted by thoughts of Ebony’s sharp words that left me wondering how I can ever prove myself to her.
‘Sadie Winters, if you don’t give me something right this instant…’ Scarlett gives me such a threatening look that I laugh.
‘Okay, okay. It was actually a bit rubbish at first, so I went exploring the castle and I ran into this guy…’
I don’t realise I’m smiling until Scarlett gasps. ‘Oh my God, I knew Prince Charming was going to be there.’
‘No, no, nothing like that.’ I try to rearrange my face into a frown, but the thought of the mystery man puts a smile there without my permission. ‘He was a bit frosty at first, but we…’
‘Oooooh!’ She’s waggling her eyebrows and waiting for more, but I don’t want to tell her about the kiss. It felt private, not a moment to be gossiped over the next day. Besides, if she knew, she’d never understand why I left at midnight. Before I can think of a way to finish the sentence, much like last night, I’m cut off by the clocktower at the castle chiming for 9 a.m., except this time, I’m grateful for its interruption.
‘It was a great night.’ I go across the shop floor to unlock the door. ‘I’m glad I went.’
‘If you think you’re going to get away with such a vague description, you can think again. You’d only say something so indifferent if you were hiding something outstanding. I want deeeeeetails!’
Scarlett knows me too well. She’s never going to let me hear the end of this if I don’t share something… I turn the key in the door and pull it open, and at exactly the same moment, a man appears outside and raises his hand to knock and his fist nearly collides with my face. I shriek in surprise and the man makes a noise of shock and takes a quick step backwards, and I’m unsure which one of us got the biggest fright.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he stutters, a look of horror crossing his face.
My heart is hammering from the unexpected encounter and it takes a few moments to get my breathing back under control as the adrenaline dissipates. ‘Morning, can I help you?’
The man opens his mouth to speak but no words come out. Instead of whatever he was going to say, he shakes his head. ‘No. I’m wasting your time.’
He turns and walks away, but before he gets very far, he turns again and goes to come back, but then he abandons that move too and turns to walk away again, and he ends up sort of pacing back and forth a little way up the street. There’s something about his stance that seems oddly familiar. He’s wearing glasses and there’s a leather satchel hanging from his shoulder that bangs against his hip with every movement.
Scarlett meets my eyes with a raised eyebrow. ‘Is there anything more frustrating than someone going to say something and then stopping and not telling you what it was?’
We both shuffle nearer the door so we can see the man. The hairs on the back of my neck have stood up and there’s something about him that makes me want to keep watching.
‘What’s he doing?’ Scarlett asks.
‘Having a conversation with himself, I think.’ The man is still pacing back and forth, his face moving as though he’s trying to talk himself into something.
‘Well, we’re used to that. You do that all the time.’
I do talk to myself a lot. When there’s no one else to talk to, you have no choice but to make a decent conversation partner for yourself, right?
The man must reach a decision because he turns once more and comes back towards the shop with renewed purpose, and Scarlett dives behind the counter so it doesn’t look obvious we were watching him.
I pull the door open again as he approaches. ‘Good morning.’
‘Hello.’ He stops at the step and holds a hand out to shake mine.
Not many customers greet a shopkeeper this way. I lift my hand and long fingers curl loosely around mine, and that feeling tingles at the back of my neck again. I’ve held this hand before.
‘I have an unusual problem.’
‘Unusual problems are our speciality.’ I sound smoother than I feel as I stand aside to let him through.
There really is something unnervingly familiar about him. I try to study him from behind as he goes to the counter, but it was dark last night, and I didn’t spend much time looking at the back of Prince Charming’s head…
But the height’s right. And there’s a streak of grey at the temple of his otherwise dark hair. He said he wore glasses and this man is wearing glasses. He also has unusually long arms. And his voice… His voice sounds odd this morning. Shaky and laboured, as though he’s nervous, but there’s the same deep timbre that sounds like the voice I’ve been replaying in my head since last night.
It couldn’t be… could it?
‘Hello, what can we do for you?’ Scarlett says in her usual bubbly way.
He ums and ahs for a minute, and glances towards the door as though he’s considering making a run for it. ‘Were either of you at the ball last night?’
‘No!’ I yelp so abruptly that I’m fairly sure a slate tile just fell off the roof in fright, and rush around him to get behind the counter before Scarlett says something she shouldn’t.
‘Ah, right. Well, I was, and there was this girl… A remarkable girl. We had the most perfect night.’ He’s obviously flustered. He keeps wiping his palms on his trousers like they might be sweating, he’s barely lifted his gaze from the floor, and I’m hardly paying attention to what he’s saying because I’m trying to scrutinise his face for signs I remember.
I’d remember his eyes, if he looked up. I’d remember his smile, if he smiled. I’d remember his voice, but he sounds as though he’s fighting to get every word out and nothing like the relaxed ease of last night. I focus on his hands. His hands and his height are two things that stood out, and… they’re both a perfect match.
‘And then she ran away.’
What does it feel like to hyperventilate? How can he have found me already? Did he somehow manage to follow me through the forest after all?
‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ he says quickly, and then reconsiders. ‘At least, I don’t think I did. At the stroke of midnight, she said she had to go.’
‘Was her carriage about to turn back into a pumpkin?’ Scarlett laughs, not taking this seriously.
‘As she was running away, she lost her shoe.’ His hand plunges into his satchel and returns with a midnight-blue satin and lace wedge heel.
My shoe. My other shoe, the partner of the one I hid in my bedside drawer last night. It never occurred to me that he would pick it up. I have got to be the world’s biggest idiot. Of course he picked it up. That’s what princes do with glass slippers left on palace stairs – they always pick them up!
He’s here! This incredible guy has somehow garnered enough info from my shoe to track me down. Maybe he has a pet Bloodhound he didn’t mention. Sniffer dogs on standby? The fear of Ebony finding out about my lie last night is obliterated by the sheer joy that he’s found me. That he cared enough to come looking. It really was as special to him as it was to me.
Excitement is fluttering in my belly as I wait for him to turn to me. Hand over the shoe. Ask why I left so hastily.
He doesn’t.
‘It comes from your shop.’ He points out the ‘Cinderella Shop’ label sewn inside. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘Do you want to try it on the foot of every fair maiden in all the land?’ Scarlett’s mocking him.
‘No, I hoped you might remember who you sold it to.’
‘Sold it to?’ I splutter, and he looks at me blankly. Wait… what?
He hasn’t tracked me down. He isn’t here because he’s found me. And he hasn’t realised that I am me.
‘I don’t know how else to find her.’ He’s looking directly at me and I’m looking directly at him, except I know and he… doesn’t. ‘This shoe is the only clue I’ve got. She never told me her name or anything about her.’
Scarlett, who’s been stifling giggles all along, suddenly sobers up. ‘Oh, are you actually for real? Seriously?’
‘Yes. I thought this was the ideal place to come with this Cinderella-esque situation.’ His light eyes focus on Scarlett, who is bouncy and confident and always sparks up conversations with ease, whereas I’m more of a background person, but for once, I wish I wasn’t invisible to him.
There isn’t even a flicker of recognition. Absolutely nothing. Something seemed familiar about him from the moment I shook his hand, but I’m clearly not that memorable, am I?
‘I don’t know what you expect us to be able to tell from a shoe,’ I say coldly, but instead of backing me up, Scarlett holds her hand out for it, and he hands it over and adjusts his glasses.
I should say something. I obviously didn’t mean that much to him if he doesn’t even recognise me this morning, glasses or no glasses. All right, he said everything was fuzzy without them, and my hair was straightened and much longer than it looks now, and the blonde clip-in hair pieces made my colour look much brighter than usual, but is that all he can recognise me by? I’m wearing combat trousers and a black T-shirt with a cream holey-knit crochet tunic over the top, which is about the furthest thing you can get from a ballgown, but I have eyes, a voice, a general presence… don’t I?
Of all the ways I imagined what it would be like when I met him again, him not recognising me was not one of the options I considered. There were visions of our eyes meeting across a crowded street. Of him somehow finding out who I was and riding up to the shop door on a white stallion and whisking me away. Of some heroic gesture in which I fell into his arms and our eyes widened amid cries of ‘It’s you! You’re the one I’ve been looking for!’ Our eyes meeting across the width of the counter and him not even realising… Yeah, that didn’t play out in my fantasies.
‘I’m Witt, by the way.’
‘Wit?’ Scarlett asks uninterestedly, not looking up from the shoe.
‘Hewitt Kingscote, but I go by Witt. Two T’s. Less pretentious – Hewitt makes me sound like a great-great-grandfather from the 1700s. Or a packet of chewy sweets that were popular in the nineties.’
I had no intention of cracking my face at anything he’s got to say but a laugh bursts out and catches me by surprise. It’s the self-deprecating kind of thing he said last night. The laugh makes him look up at me and I look away quickly.
Witt. I spent a not-small proportion of last night imagining what his name might be, and I can honestly say that wasn’t one of the options I came up with. But I like it, somehow. He’s the kind of man who should have a name you don’t hear every day.
‘I’m staying at the castle. I work for the estate agency managing the sale. I’m here to do house clearance and oversee the final handover.’
An estate agent. Not a long-lost prince from a far-off land then. For God’s sake, Sadie, of course he’s not. That explains so much. How he knew where everything was. How it seemed as though he was remembering but he’d never been there before – he’d obviously studied the blueprints or other estate-agenty paperwork and was remembering from that. It all makes so much sense now.
Even being a middleman in his job. What is an estate agent if not a middleman between a person and a property? Someone who fades into the background, forgotten once the desired property is purchased. Everything makes sense now.
Apart from the fact he’s looking right at me and he doesn’t recognise me. Am I wrong for expecting better than that? Do I really look that different without my hair and make-up done?
‘Well, it’s a shoe.’ Scarlett concludes her in-depth examination and puts the shoe down on the counter.
‘Can you remember who bought it? And her dress… She wore a stunning dress. It must’ve come from here too.’ He gestures around to the clothing rails and mannequins displayed throughout the store. ‘It was one of a kind. Totally unique. I thought you might remember the buyer.’
‘Sadie’s the seamstress, talk to her.’
‘It was magnificent.’ He turns to me, his voice slow and stiff, as if he’s choosing every word carefully. ‘Like a mix of day and night. Like the sky had fallen down and settled itself on her dress. A huge skirt, but lightweight and soft. A real princess dress. There can only be one like it in the world.’
‘Maybe it didn’t come from here. People can buy dresses and shoes in different places.’ I sound unintentionally snappy, but I’m struggling to hide my annoyance. My charming prince seemed so different to all other men, but in the cold light of day, he doesn’t even remember me.
‘Sade, we only sell shoes to clients, you know that.’ Scarlett sounds confused and then turns back to him. ‘Our shoes are all custom orders. We get them made by a shoemaker in the Netherlands to match our dresses.’
The mystery man’s face lights up. ‘So it must have come from here then? You must remember it.’
‘I make dresses every day and sell them to hundreds of people.’ All right, bit of an exaggeration there. ‘I can’t remember every single one of them.’
‘It was blue. No, not just blue. It was every blue. No one could ever forget it.’
Funny, that. The dress is unforgettable, but the person inside it clearly didn’t make that much of an impact.
He’s wearing dark grey trousers and a white shirt that’s got a stiff collar and looks too smart to wear without a tie. His shirt sleeves are rolled up and buttoned at his elbows, and he fiddles with one of the cuffs. ‘Maybe you have till receipts or order forms?’
‘We don’t keep information like that on file, and even if we did, it would be confidential.’
‘Hold that thought!’ Scarlett rushes out the back, and I know exactly what she’s going to return with.
‘Scarlett!’ I hiss.
He looks at me. Witt. Witt, I tell myself. He has a name now.
‘You think badly of me. You think I did something wrong that made her leave?’ That stuttery uncertainty is back in his voice. He seems to be questioning himself again, and guilt creeps up on me for running away last night. In that moment, I was only thinking about myself, about getting back here before Ebony. I never even considered that it would affect him too. It must’ve made him feel unwanted and left him wondering what he’d done wrong. Maybe he thought it hadn’t mattered as much to me as it had to him. I hadn’t even considered that my actions would leave him in a tailspin too.
‘There was a kiss, but it was mutual,’ he continues. ‘I’m not the kind of person to push myself on someone. But maybe I shouldn’t have kissed her. Maybe that was why she ran away.’
‘Or maybe you shouldn’t be so self-absorbed and realise that not everything’s about you and maybe she had other things to deal with.’ I hate myself, especially when he takes a step back in surprise at my outburst. Why can’t I just be nice to him? Even civil would do at this point. My own guilt over running away is coupled with my annoyance that even face to face, he doesn’t know me, but he doesn’t deserve that. ‘Sorry, I—’
Scarlett comes back clutching our orders folder to her chest. She heaves it onto the counter and opens it. ‘This is where we keep a record of every dress made. Sadie’s sketches, measurements, client information, prices, and occasions. Why don’t you look through it and see if you recognise the dress?’
His long fingers start turning the pages of the huge file with care.
‘You can’t show him that. It’s private.’
‘Oh, nonsense,’ Scarlett says. ‘Who’s going to know? We can’t stand in the way of true love.’
‘Love?’ Witt makes a scoffing noise without looking up from the pages he’s looking at. ‘It’s nothing to do with love. She knew things about the castle. Things that I don’t know. I’d like to find her again to hear more about it.’
That’s it? That’s why he’s come looking for me? Nothing to do with the magical evening we spent together or the best kiss of my life? He just wants info about the castle? Oh, this day just gets better.
‘I tried to follow her but she disappeared into the woods. She knew her way and I didn’t.’
‘Not from around here?’ Scarlett asks as he continues leafing through the pages.
‘No, I’m from Scotland. Just here for a couple of weeks to clear the castle of anything valuable before the sale.’
Scotland? He did say he was only here on business, but by heck, Scotland may as well be the fourth moon of Jupiter. He doesn’t have the accent though. He sounds exactly like he did last night: English and well-spoken, a deep voice that’s slow and considered, but gets stuttery when he’s nervous.
Scarlett sighs wistfully. ‘That ball must’ve been magical. Sadie was just telling me about— ow!’ She glares at me when I stamp on her foot.
‘You don’t recognise any of these, I’m sure,’ I say when he looks up at Scarlett’s noise of pain. I am, obviously, sure that he doesn’t.
He shakes his head forlornly, and Scarlett takes pity on him. She explains our guarantee about finding love in one of our dresses and that buyers can return a dress if they don’t find that special someone while wearing it. ‘We have rails of returned dresses out the back – that might be worth a look.’
The returned dresses! Oh, the holiest of hecks, I never took my dress back upstairs last night. It’s still there, on the rail where I shoved it before Ebony arrived. I’d intended to take it back up to my flat when the coast was clear, but I never thought of it again. Oh God, he cannot see that collection of returns. I jump in quickly. ‘It was only last night. I don’t think she’d have returned it yet. There’s no point in looking.’
‘There’s always a point when it comes to love.’ Scarlett beckons him through to the back room. ‘Come on, this way.’
‘Not love,’ he reiterates. ‘I don’t believe in any such thing.’
‘No, don’t. I…’ I blank on any other possible excuse, and it’s too late. He’s already ducking through the door behind Scarlett.
I clonk my head down onto the counter. Just tell him. It’ll be awkward and embarrassing, but he’ll soon realise that I am not the fairy-tale princess I was last night, and we’ll laugh and put it down to the headiness of the evening, and he’ll politely backpedal on everything he’s just said and go back to Scotland as if none of it ever happened. Maybe they won’t even find the dress. He’s clearly not the best at recognising things, and without his glasses on last night, maybe the dress looked fuzzy enough to be unrec—
‘Sade! Where did this dress come from?’ Scarlett calls from the back room.
Monkey bollocks. They’ve found it.
‘It was, er, outside when I came in this morning,’ I call back. ‘Another return, no doubt.’
Witt emerges from the back room cradling my dress in his arms like the person in it has died. He looks devastated. ‘That’s it then, isn’t it? If she’s returned the dress, last night couldn’t have meant anything to her.’
‘Didn’t mean much to you either, eh?’ I mutter under my breath.
‘Or, as per my mum’s ridiculous guarantee, she could just have been trying to swindle a free dress for the evening. You’d be surprised at how many people treat us as a rental service.’ Scarlett follows him out into the shop, but he looks genuinely distraught, and I wonder if maybe it did mean something to him after all, and no matter how annoyed I am by his lack of recognition this morning, he seemed like a genuinely lovely guy last night, and I don’t want him to think he did anything wrong. This has already gone too far.
‘Look, there’s something I need to tell you. It was me…’ I take a deep breath and look up into his eyes, and it’s as though he’s looking straight through me. There’s still no recognition whatsoever. It hasn’t even crossed his mind that someone so scruffy and tomboyish could be the Cinderella princess from last night. I’m just a worker, a middleman – someone who people look at but never really see. Last night, it was easy to believe in fairy tales and forget the truth that every adult knows – they don’t happen in real life, and it would be better to spare us both the embarrassment and move on. Let last night be exactly what it was – a fantasy. A magical night that’s best becoming nothing more than a lovely memory. This will get even more messy if he knows who he really danced with. ‘…who made the dress,’ I finish quickly. ‘And I can’t say I remember who it was for. Sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter now. For her to return it… It can’t mean anything good.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t want to be found,’ I suggest.
‘Maybe she doesn’t. But she framed the castle in a way that I hadn’t thought of – a way that potential buyers would appreciate. She—’
I must let out a growl because he cuts off the sentence and looks over at me. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘So you want us to tell you who this woman is so she can help you sell the castle and, what, get a few brownie points from your boss? Get a higher offer from the supermarket?’
‘Well, not just that. I’d like to go for a coffee or something. I’d like to talk to her again. I liked talking to her, and believe me, I don’t like talking to many people.’
‘No bloody wonder,’ I mutter. ‘Newsflash, Witt, no one on Ever After Street wants the castle sold, so you’ve come to the wrong place, mate. There’s the exit.’ I throw my hand out towards the door, narrowly avoiding hitting Scarlett, who’s staring at me with her mouth agape.
Witt has the decency to look taken aback. ‘I’m sorry, that came out way too harsh. It wasn’t just that. I’d like to see her again. There was something about her. Her soul, her spirit, or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t attracted to her physically.’
Oh, thanks. I roll my eyes.
‘That came out wrong. I mean, I was, very much so, but it was so much more than that. She made me see things in a way I hadn’t before. I felt different when I was with her and I liked being different for a while.’
Now, that I understand. That vulnerability he had towards the end of the evening has crept back into his demeanour. He was reserved at first last night, he didn’t loosen up immediately, and I can see hints of that deeper layer again today, and I’m overjoyed that whatever it was I felt yesterday, he really did feel something too, but none of it changes the fact that he doesn’t know me today. ‘You haven’t got a clue what she looked like. All you remember about her is a thing.’ I wave towards the dress in his arms. ‘You wouldn’t recognise her if she was standing right in front of you.’
He looks down at the dress and then up at me. ‘Of course I would. We may have been wearing masks, but every moment of last night is imprinted in my mind. Believe me, I would know her the second I saw her.’
I almost laugh. It’s too absurd to be real. Him saying such lovely things is negated by the fact he is literally standing right in front of me.
Scarlett’s still quizzing him for more details about last night to see if there are any clues to the mystery woman’s identity, but an idea has started forming in my head. A horrible, terrible, brilliant idea.
He’s the estate agent in charge of the sale, and he wants to use me for… the spin I could put on the castle or whatever he just implied. He’s the one man who might have some power over who buys the castle. He might be able to stop it being a supermarket. He might be able to find a better buyer, someone who’d keep it as it is, or even better, restore it to its former glory. And he wants to use me to help with that. Well, why shouldn’t I use him too? Why shouldn’t we use him… to prove to Ebony that my dresses can bring in customers?
‘Put the dress in the window,’ I blurt out.
Scarlett stops talking and both of them turn to look at me, but the idea is snowballing in my head. I thought last night was the start of a great romance, but clearly not so great that he remembers me the next morning. And he doesn’t even live in England or believe in love. What kind of relationship could I ever have with a guy like that? If last night meant so little to him, maybe we can both get something out of it without either of us ever having to confront each other. ‘Think about it – you’re the Cinderella Prince searching for Princess Charming – it’s like the roles have reversed. And we could find her for you.’
He raises an eyebrow.
‘This is a real-life fairy tale happening on a fairy-tale street,’ I carry on as the idea grows. ‘A real Cinderella story happening in The Cinderella Shop. It’s like fate. It cannot be ignored. We have to get the word out – let her know that you’re looking for her.’
‘Okay?’ He sounds hesitant and unsure.
‘We’ll put that dress in the window and display the shoe, and put up signs saying we’re looking for the woman who has the other shoe. We’ll post about it online and tell everyone we know. If she’s local, word will soon reach her that you’re searching for her. We’ll share this story far and wide. It’s a modern-day love story. People need to believe in this sort of thing. Proof that fairy tales still exist in this miserable world. It’s a story to bring hope to all ages. Everyone will get behind this – someone is bound to know who the missing Cinderella is.’
‘I really didn’t want to get everyone involved.’
‘Oh my God, Sadie, that’s genius!’ Scarlett ignores him. ‘It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. People will love it.’
Witt looks out of his depth, as though he’s being swept along by an unseen current, but this is the perfect idea. I’ve always wanted the dresses I make in my spare time to have a place in the window display, but Ebony would never allow it, yet with this literal Cinderella story behind it, she can’t refuse. It will get people talking. People will want to know who the mystery Cinderella is. Ebony told me to do something spectacular on the marketing front. To do something that draws attention to our shop and brings in customers. What better way to prove that I can manage this business on my own than by creating a fairy-tale buzz around all things Cinderella?
And my dress, my special dress that was made on one special endless night and worn for one special midnight kiss will be front and centre of it all. Customers will finally get to see one of my dresses, the dresses I’d make if I had any say in how The Cinderella Shop was run, and my aunt won’t be able to do anything but accept it. ‘We were – literally – made for this job. Where better to look for a missing Cinderella than The Cinderella Shop?’
‘And that stunning dress will be in our window.’ Scarlett picks up on my bubbling excitement and seems to realise how important this could be for us. ‘Permission to use everything you’ve just told us?’
‘Um…’
‘Can we have a photo?’
‘Um…’
‘Here, hold this.’ She shoves the shoe at him and before he’s even taken it, she’s got her phone out and snapped a few pictures of him while he stands there, looking bewildered. ‘Oh my God, there’s so far we can go with this. We can do a website. We can print out some posters. Flyers! Flyers, everywhere!’
‘This really wasn’t what I intended.’ He sounds like he’s struggling to get a sentence out. ‘I’m not much of a front-and-centre person and she said she wasn’t either.’
‘Well, it’s a good job you came here then because we are the front-and-centre people you both need.’ Scarlett has zero time for his hesitation. ‘Do you actually want to find her?’
‘Yes, of course, but—’
‘Brilliant. Come back tomorrow and we’ll have everything set up.’ She takes the dress out of his arms and lays it on the counter. ‘I’ll get my boyfriend to do a website, and we’ll get a contact form thingy sorted so potential Cinders can send in their info, and we’ll have this displayed in the window and get the word spread around Ever After Street.’
Websites? Contact forms? Potential Cinders-es? Alarm bells start ringing. I didn’t mean we’d actually look for anyone, just that it would be a great bit of publicity for us and an excuse to display a dress that might attract some customers, unlike Ebony’s usual creations.
He looks over at me again, but Scarlett is a force of nature when she’s got a bee in her bonnet about something, and she’s herding him out the door as though she can’t wait to get started on this.
‘Thank you for all your help,’ he calls politely through the door she’s just closed behind him, and it makes me smile again. Those manners. That charm. He might not really be a prince, but he certainly acts like one. Sometimes. Not when he’s failing to recognise me and the only ‘something in the air’ he felt last night was what my words about the castle could do for him.
‘Oh my goodness, if that isn’t the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.’ Scarlett turns back to me, but my eyes are on him, watching through the window as he walks away. ‘I’m going to write up everything he just said for the website. Even the most jaded of cynics can’t deny the romance of that.’
‘Didn’t sound like it had much to do with romance to me. Just business. Just another guy with an ulterior motive. And what about the girl? What if she doesn’t want to be found?’
‘Did you see him? He’s a Prince Charming from head to toe. Tall, dark and handsome. The posh accent. And that name! Hewitt Kingscote sounds like it should have ‘sir’ or ‘lord’ in front of it. And he’s staying in an actual castle. Who wouldn’t want to be found by a guy like that?’
‘It might not be that simple. What if she ran away for a reason?’ I rub my fingers over the blue bodice of the dress. I knew it was a special dress, but I never thought it would lead to anything like this.
‘No one would run away from him for any reason. This is the best idea you’ve ever had. My mum challenged you to do something fantastic on a business and marketing front, and the very next day, an actual Cinderella story falls into your lap. That incredible dress will be in the window for all the world to see – and this is the kind of feel-good story that social media loves, so all the world will see it. We can do so much with this. We’ll get everyone on Ever After Street involved. It’ll be the biggest publicity hit The Cinderella Shop has ever had, and no one’s had to fly to Finland or make tentacle-laden catsuits to achieve it. The only thing we have to hope for is that the missing Cinderella doesn’t come forward for a while otherwise it’ll be over too soon.’
‘Hah.’ I snort at the irony. ‘Not much chance of that happening.’
‘What’s got into you today, Sade? This is a brilliant opportunity to get everyone talking about us. It’s probably our only chance to save The Cinderella Shop. It could bring in so many new customers, and yet, you couldn’t have been any ruder to our princely friend if you’d tried.’
‘He’s just not who I thought he was.’ I’m distracted, looking through the window at the empty street, half-wishing he’d reappear and half-wishing he’d never come again. ‘I thought last night meant something, but he just wants, what, someone local to write appealing copy to attract potential buyers? He probably gets a cash bonus if he offloads the castle quickly.’
‘All right, what am I missing here? Have you met him before or…’ Her face shifts as she starts putting two and two together.
I wasn’t going to tell her, but I’ve already said too much and if I don’t say something now, she’s going to have figured it out for herself in about thirty seconds. I take a deep breath. ‘There’s absolutely no chance of the missing Cinderella coming forward… because she’s standing right in front of you.’
* * *
‘What? What? And may I respectfully add a “the hell” onto the end of that what?’ Scarlett is pacing the floor so hard that I’m surprised she hasn’t worn a hole through the wood flooring. ‘The guy you “ran into” at the ball, the one you were just about to start telling me all about… was that guy? And the woman who ran away from him… was you?’
‘Yes.’ I cringe.
‘Why would you— oh God, did he do something to make you run away?’ She stops pacing and looks worried.
‘No! Heck, no, he was the most perfect gentleman in the universe. There couldn’t be a more considerate and respectful—’
‘Then why the flipping heck would you run away from him?’
‘It was midnight!’
‘A time that means nothing when you’ve met Prince Charming! Unless you’re literally Cinderella and your carriage is about to turn back into a pumpkin! Were there lizards? Mice?’
‘I wasn’t supposed to go to that ball. I was just going to have a look around the castle and be home ages before your mum got here, but then I met him. Time ceased to exist. And then the clock struck midnight and time came thundering back into existence with blinding breath-taking reality.’
‘Who cares about my mum when that is on offer?’
‘I do! I need her to trust me to take over The Cinderella Shop! If she knows I went to the ball, she’ll never forgive me. She’ll never deem me ready to take over. I’ve worked here for most of my life. I wasn’t about to throw all that away for some guy I’d just met. I didn’t have time to think it through, I just had to get back.’
‘So much so that you couldn’t have yelled a quick “I’m Sadie from The Cinderella Shop, come find me” instead of dropping your shoe?’
‘I didn’t plan to drop the shoe. I didn’t want him to find me. I mean, I did, but not in this way. I thought I’d run into him again when the time was right. Not this sodding morning.’
She pushes a hand through her choppy blonde hair. ‘Why didn’t you say something just now?’
‘Seriously?’ I raise an eyebrow. ‘He didn’t even recognise me.’
‘Oh, come on, Sade, cut the man some slack. Even I wouldn’t have recognised you last night. The whole point of the fairy godcousin makeover was so no one would recognise you. You can’t blame him for that. All right, you’re a bit hurt, but you have to tell him… Oh, wait. No, for God’s sake, don’t tell him! We need the publicity from this. The last thing you should do is tell him. Our shop needs a missing Cinderella to find!’
‘I don’t want to tell him. I’m not the person he met last night. She was a perfect version of me that doesn’t exist. A pretty, well made-up, flawlessly styled, nicely dressed, elegant fairy-tale princess. That isn’t me. It’s 9 a.m. and I’ve already got bits of cotton in my frizzy hair. And he didn’t have his glasses on at the ball. He said everything was fuzzy. He’ll see me as I am and recoil in horror. I’m never going to live up to his idea of the “missing Cinderella”. It’s better to stay as one magical night that will never be anything else.’
‘Sade…’ She’s going to tell me off for being self-deprecating, but she knows I won’t listen so she lets out a huff and rolls her eyes instead. ‘How karmic that you going to a ball that was thrown solely to accomplish the sale of the castle could be the one thing that gives us a leg to stand on. If anyone could have any influence over who buys the castle, it’s the estate agent managing the sale – Prince Charming himself.’
‘He wasn’t that charming. He was, last night, but it seems like he turned back into a pumpkin at midnight too.’
‘Sadie, he’s so charming! All right, he seemed a bit shy and nervous, a bit difficult to talk to. I don’t think even he knew what he wanted to say, but he can’t have been that bad last night because you kissed him! You kissed a man on a first date!’
‘It wasn’t a—’
‘You dated that Danny for three months and never got as far as kissing him!’
‘That Danny had a tongue like a lizard! He’d stick it out and wriggle it around occasionally, like he was hoping some random girl might fall and spear herself on it. And I didn’t date him – I went out to lunch with him a few times because your mum wanted to be part of his mum’s “elite social circle” and it took me a while to stand up for myself and tell her we had nothing in common and I was sick of him always “forgetting” his wallet so I had to pay.’
She shakes her head. ‘To get a kiss from you on the first date, Prince Charming has to be some sort of phenomenon previously unstudied by humankind and—’
‘And like with all other men I’ve dated, they want something from me,’ I cut her off. ‘I thought he’d be different, but no. He doesn’t even believe in love. Why did he come down here looking for me? Not because he felt anything or because last night meant something to him, but because he liked what I said about the castle and thought I might help it sell. Just business, nothing more.’
‘Well, he can unwittingly help us out too. He wants something from you – your stories about the castle, and we want something from him – his missing Cinderella story. Look at this dress.’ Her fingers brush over the crystals covering the skirt. ‘This is a shining example of what The Cinderella Shop is meant to be. You made it because you know people can find love while wearing one of our dresses – exactly like your mum did, once upon a time. And maybe, just maybe, you’ve found something special while wearing one of our dresses too.’
‘What felt special last night feels like a special kick in the teeth this morning.’
‘Oh come on, that was about way more than how you spoke about the castle, even if he hasn’t admitted it to himself yet. No one would bother hunting down the owner of a shoe just for that. He felt something, Sade, just like you did, even if you’re trying not to admit it. Now come on, we’ve got a lot of setting up to do and a window display to clear. As my mum would say – this is going to be a turning point for us!’
I’ve heard that phrase many times before and it usually gives me an ominous feeling, but this time, something’s sparkling in the air and hope stirs in me for the first time in months. Maybe this is why I was meant to meet Witt last night – because it really, really could turn things around for us.