true, she thought, the smile fading. But not from ‘prguru’, aka Mr Public Relations, the man famous for selling grubby secrets to grubby newspapers and gossip mags. It didn’t matter to him if you were a model in rehab, a politician having an affair with his PA or the victim of some terrible tragedy. He’d sell your story for hard cash and turn you into a celebrity overnight.
Nor any of the other public relations types lining up to jump in and feed off her story. As if she’d trust anyone in the PR business ever again.
She wasn’t sure how long the phone would function—Rupert would surely pull the plug the minute he thought of it—so she quickly thumbed in a message to her followers while she had the chance.
And maybe she should update her diary, too. Just in case anything happened to her. Something else her hairdresser had clued her up on. That she could set up a private web document, record her thoughts on her phone and then send it to be stored on her own private Internet space.
‘Think of it as your pension, princess,’ he’d said.
She’d thought him cynical, but she had started keeping a diary, mostly because there were some things she hadn’t been able to confide to anyone else.
Diary update: Day hit the skids after the photoshoot when I realised I’d forgotten the wedding file and went to the office to borrow R’s copy. His dragon of a personal assistant had gone with him to the Lucy B press launch and her assistant is on holiday so there was a temp holding the fort or I would never have been handed the key to his private filing cabinet.
I had my hand on the wedding file when I spotted the one next to it. The one labelled ‘The Cinderella Project’.
Well, of course I opened it. Wouldn’t you?
Now meeting with wedding planner off. Celebration off. Dinner at Ritz most definitely off. As for wedding…Off, off, off.
Time to Tweet the good news.
Thanks for concern, tweeps. Fairy tale fractured—kissed prince, got frog. HEA cancelled. End of story.
#Cinderella
LucyB, [+] Wed 1 Dec 16:41
The phone belted out the ghastly ringtone again just as she clicked ‘send’ and made her jump nearly out of her skin. It was a sharp reminder of the need to keep her head down and she switched it to silent, unable to cut herself off entirely.
There had to be someone she could ring. Someone she could trust. But not from here.
This was no haven.
She had to move before someone spotted her, but first she had to do something to change her appearance.
She’d felt so utterly Christmassy when she’d set off in her bright red coat that morning. Utterly full of the joys of a season that had never before felt so exciting, so full of promise.
Now she felt as conspicuous as Santa in a snowdrift.
She would have liked to abandon it. Abandon everything. Strip off, change back into who she was. Her real self, not this manufactured ‘princess’.
Easier said than done.
This morning she’d had everything a woman could possibly want. This afternoon she had nothing in the world except what she stood up in and it was going to be freezing tonight.
But she could manage without the coat for now and, easing it off in the cramped space, she folded it inside out so that only the black lining showed. Better, although she could have done with a hat to cover her head.
She didn’t even have a scarf. Why would she? Until half an hour ago she was being chauffeured everywhere, an umbrella held over her head at the slightest suggestion of anything damp descending from the sky whenever she stepped onto a pavement. Cosseted. Precious.
Very precious. A lot of time and money had been invested in her. And Rupert—not the fantasy figure of her dreams, but the real one—would expect, demand a profit for all that effort, cost.
Legs still a little shaky, she shouldered her bag, tucked her coat over her arm and, still clutching her phone in her hand, peered cautiously around the display.
No sign of any big scary men, or journalists, hunting her down, just shoppers preoccupied with what to wear at a Christmas party or buying gifts for their loved ones. Taking a deep breath and doing her best to look as if it was the most normal thing in the world, she eased herself back into the flow.
It took all her nerve to take one ladylike step after the other, matching her pace to those around her and trying to look as if walking barefoot through the poshest store in London in December was absolutely normal, when what she really wanted to do was take off, race up the stairs two at a time and get out of sight.
She kept her eyes straight ahead instead of looking about her to check for anything suspicious, doing absolutely nothing that might draw attention to herself.
Nat called down to his head of security to brief him on the fact that they might have a ‘situation’; something to keep an eye on. That done, he continued his afternoon walk through the store, conscientiously looking in on each department before heading for the stairs to the next floor.
Even at the height of the Christmas buying frenzy the H&H reputation for perfection had to be maintained. He might not want to be here, but no one would ever be able to accuse him of letting standards slip and he was alert for anything that jarred on the eye, anything out of place.
Why, for instance, had the woman ahead of him taken off her coat? Was the store too warm? It was essential that shoppers had both hands free, but it was a delicate balancing act keeping the store comfortable for both staff and customers who were dressed for outdoors.
Not that he was complaining about the view.
She had pale blonde hair cut in soft, corn silk layers that seemed to float around her head, stirring a thousand memories. Despite the fact that they were in the middle of the busiest shopping season of the year, he wanted to slow the world down, call out her name so that she’d turn to him with an unguarded smile…
He slammed the door on the thought but, even while his brain was urging him to pass her, move on, the rest of him refused to listen, hanging back so that he could hold on to the illusion for a moment longer.
Foolish.
She was nothing like the fragile woman whose memory she’d evoked. On the contrary, the black cashmere sweaterdress she was wearing clung enticingly to a figure that curved rather more than was fashionable. No snow queen, this. Inches shorter, she was an altogether earthier armful. Not the kind of woman you worshipped from afar, but the kind built for long, dark winter nights in front of an open fire.
Then, as his gaze followed the pleasing curve of her hip to the hem of her short skirt and he found himself enjoying the fact that her legs lived up to the rest of the package, he realised that she wasn’t wearing any shoes.
She might have taken them off for a moment’s relief. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen a woman walking barefoot through the store carrying shoes that were pinching after a hard day’s shopping. But she wasn’t
