The Prince's Cinderella

* * *

Think before you speak, Marie reminded herself as she sipped her coffee opposite Zander at the table. There was something so open and inviting about his face it made her want to tell him about all of the things she’d learned to keep private.

He was the kind of man girls dreamed of. Not Marie, because she’d learned the hard way long ago never to dream. But somebody else’s dream come true. A man with the power and know-how to bring ideas to life. To make yesterdays disappear and tomorrows look bright. In other words, he and those soulful almond-shaped eyes of his were dangerous. Because they could make a girl start to think about things that could never be.

“You’re an orphan and now you work for the Alliance for Parentless Children of France,” Zander said after putting the white porcelain coffee cup down onto its saucer. “You’re exactly the reason we need the gala to be a resounding success. So that we can continue to assist parentless children all the way into adulthood.”

She wasn’t sure that she liked being discussed as if she was a case study students were analyzing at university. Although she was quite an example of everything that was wrong in society for orphaned children. With wounds she hoped no one would ever uncover. She’d rather die with them as memories covered in cobwebs that she kept in a tattered box in a corner of a never-visited attic. Unwrapping them only in private.

“The agency helped me get a job so I could go to university and then placed me in a position afterward.”

“And event planning is where your passions lie?”

She wasn’t sure why he was asking so many questions. Was he trying to determine whether she’d be able to assist him with his gala? Was he just asking out of idle inquiry? Or another motive? Fighting the urge to confide in him, she steadied herself. It wasn’t often that anyone asked her about herself so she wasn’t too savvy at it.

“Yes, I do like helping to bring all the pieces of an event together. Being part of a collaborative effort. Working with a team.” Kind of like a family, she thought but didn’t say. Because it hurt too much. “But we mainly do educational seminars and retreats. Rolls and coffee, sack lunches, that type of thing.”

“Right.” Zander checked his phone and with, apparently, nothing urgent there he placed it screen down on the table. “Okay, then, the first thing we need to do is announce the theme to the invitees.”

Obviously, that was where his interest about her ended.

“We’ll do a follow-up invitation as if we planned it that way all along,” Marie offered.

“That’s good. Like it was a secret we decided not to reveal right away. I want to go with some kind of costume or masquerade ball. It’s classic. I think people enjoy disguising themselves with outfits and wigs so they can act with abandon. It’s an innocent enough way for the guests to have a decadent evening.”

“How do you have such insight into the psyche of the donors?” He surely seemed to know what he was doing.

“I’ve been going to charity events my entire life.”

“Were your parents big donors?”

“You could say that. They made a lot of appearances.”

“Oh, are they famous?”

“Something like that.” He flagged the waiter. “Another café au lait, please. You?” he asked her.

“Yes, that would be nice, thank you.”

Zander nodded at the waiter, who took his exit.

“A costume ball in and of itself isn’t enough. We need to tell them what they’re masquerading as.”

Marie racked her brain. She wanted to make suggestions that Zander would like. She was in uncharted waters here. He was talking about balls the likes of which she’d never seen before. But that didn’t matter—what did is that it would impress his guests.

“As I was saying earlier,” he continued, “there’s so much money in Cannes, especially this time of year. All of the Hollywood glitterati are here for the film festival and half of Europe is here to ogle them. Plus, the spring galas and balls are starting so everyone is expecting to part with their money. The APCF should be getting a bigger share of the bounty.”

Knowing she was just blocks away from the ultraluxury hotels on La Croisette, where many of the rich and infamous stayed, Marie couldn’t help but wonder about the lifestyles of the privileged class it seemed Zander was a part of.

What kind of care did these people take of their sons and daughters? Did they have happy homes, making sure their children felt loved and secure? Did they hug them close and protect them from harm? Or did they leave their care to others, without knowing if they were being treated right? Which type was Zander? How was he raised? Did he have children?

“Do you have children?” she couldn’t help asking even though he had been cryptic when she pried into what he did for a living.

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Only the important ones.”

That simply drew a chuckle from him, those dark-as-night eyes taking on a bit of glisten.

Which got her out of a tight spot. Because she wasn’t one to answer the big questions, so it wasn’t fair of her to ask them.

* * *

Marie’s heart thumped in double time to her steps on the way back to the office. Zander was simply the most stimulating company she’d ever been in! She’d never met anyone like him. He was so sure of himself and he had an unending stream of ideas to which he encouraged discussion. She actually felt a bit slow-witted around him, though she imagined it was his innate confidence that contributed to his panache.

Not to mention how stunning he was, with those piercing eyes that caught her every hesitation, every pause, every downward glance. He read right into her. He was going to be hard to hide from. And Marie had plenty to hide.

Once she settled in at the desk in her office, she speculated on how someone became a self-assured and successful person like Zander. With her parents long dead, and in working for the good of other orphans, Marie often found herself trying to analyze what kind of upbringing led to a fully functioning adult.

She knew that two people might have grown up with exactly the same opportunities yet one could become accomplished in both vocation and personal relationships. Whereas the other might succumb to crime, substance abuse, mental illness or some other type of marginalized existence. While upbringing was not a complete predictor of someone’s future, it was a start.

Did Zander have a supportive childhood with parents who sheltered him when needed and encouraged risk when that was what was called for? She couldn’t help but ponder about his background. Along with what it might be like to be held in his big, long arms, though she chastised herself for that inappropriate thought as soon as she had it. Yet she simply couldn’t stop imagining being enveloped by him, swept into his sureness, giving her a sense of belonging her rootless past had never allowed.

Marie shook her head. Dashing Zander was the event chair for this very fancy benefit she found herself a part of. There wasn’t to be anything personal between the two of them. Zander was a member of the upper class. Men like him didn’t give a second glance to girls like her, who’d had it rough and were just scraping by. Money attracted money, confidence married confidence and so on. Wasn’t that how it went? And what was she doing thinking about marrying anyway? Her love life thus far had just been links in a chain of the disappointment she had always known.

Starting with the top one, Marie moved the boxes that were on her desk and stacked them into a corner on the floor. She needed a workspace. Picking up the office phone with its many buttons, she called the front desk to find out what Felice’s phone extension was. And left a message that she was available for the end-of-the-day meeting they’d agreed upon.

Before they parted Zander had asked her if she could continue working tonight and said that he’d send his driver at seven. So she’d need to finish up with Felice at the office and then go to her room to change into something more appropriate for the evening. Zander hadn’t mentioned where his driver would be taking her.

After skimming through the files, Marie had a better sense of the agency’s events. Some of the paperwork was from a year ago, some from five. It was a daunting prospect to have to sort through it all. She’d get to it as she could, but Felice had stressed to her that the gala was the number one priority.

Marie bit her lip, thinking again that being forced to spend lots of her time with Zander on this gala was one heck of a high-quality problem to have. Although she needed to tamp down her attraction to him, and fast!

“How did the meeting go?” Felice entered her office and closed the door. Marie looked up from the notes she was reviewing.

“Well, I think. He wants to meet with me again tonight to go into more detail.”

“And you’re available I hope?”

Marie bit back a snicker. Why wouldn’t she be available? When she’d arrived this morning, she’d dropped off her suitcases and come straight to the office. And with no guarantees that she be promoted to the job permanently, she wouldn’t even be giving up her room in Toulouse just yet. In short, Marie Paquet’s life was in complete flux. Evening plans were the last thing on her mind.

“You’ll need to devote yourself to Zander for the time being,” Felice continued. The words devote yourself to Zander crawled down Marie’s back, making her twitch in her seat. Devotion wasn’t hard to imagine.

Perhaps there was already someone who had devoted herself to him. In fact, why on earth wouldn’t there be? A smart and sophisticated man like him would surely have devotees lined up around the block. For all she knew, he was married or spoken for. Who was the Iris he had been talking to on the phone earlier today?

Regardless, Marie’s task was to render this gala to everyone’s satisfaction. Not to pry into Zander’s relationship status.

“He talked to me about how extravagant he wants this to be. Something about being on par with the great balls of Venice. Do we have party vendors that can pull off something that ambitious?”

“This is Cannes,” Felice assured. “This town knows how to throw a party better than most of the world. Of course, we have event partners up to the task.”

Felice tapped into her phone. Once the ring began, she placed it on Marie’s desk and hit the speaker button.

“Chef Jean Luc Malmond.”

“Jean Luc, Felice here at the APCF.”

“Felice, my sweet.”

“We’ve had a bit of a staff shake-up here. And we’re not entirely clear what has been settled upon for the gala’s menu.”

“Let me pull up my notes.”

“And I have you on speakerphone with Marie Paquet, who will be our liaison for the event.”

“A pleasure to meet you.”

“You, too. On the phone, that is.”

“As you know we have Zander de Nellay as event chair,” Felice said to Jean Luc. “He wants to go lavish. I’m not sure Marie’s predecessor had a grasp on the scale of the event.”

“One thousand guests at the mansion,” Marie added. That headcount was far larger than anything she’d ever worked on before. She was excited by the challenge. Among other things.

“I see we talked about starting with waiters passing hors d’oeuvres on trays during the cocktail hour,” Jean Luc reported. “Then we seat the guests for a soup course. Followed by the entrée course with wine. Then a salad. Afterward, dessert buffets stationed at several locations in the ballroom. Continuous cocktail service in the great hall, ancillary salons and on the lawn.”

“Do you have that, Marie?” Felice asked her across the desk. “You can discuss this with Zander when you meet with him tonight. See if he likes that basic outline.”

“Got it.”

“Jean Luc, I’m going to have Marie call you to set up a meeting this week.”

“Yes, let’s finalize as soon as possible. With the social season upon us, I’m like a decapitated chicken.” Jean Luc let go of a laugh.

After they got off the phone, Felice helped Marie make a list of points to discuss with Zander when she saw him later.

Intrigue still nagged at Marie.

She sensed something a bit mysterious about Zander. For example, he never directly answered her innocent-enough query about what he did for work, saying only that he was affiliated with several charities.

“Felice, what does Zander do for a living?”

“Do?” Felice looked at her like she had just arrived from Mars. Marie wanted to impress the director by having all the information, but nothing in the notes said anything specifically about that. “You mean other than his royal duties?”

“Royal duties?” Marie’s shoulders arched back.

“Marie, His Highness Zander de Nellay is a prince. He’s the son of His Serene Highness Prince Hugh and Princess Claudine of Charlegin.”

Marie’s fists opened and closed. She’d just had lunch at an outdoor café with a prince? Obviously, a poor orphan from the meanest streets in North Marseilles had never met a member of royalty before.

She’d seen enough of the royals who were always on television and in magazines to know that they didn’t wear regalia and crowns every time they were seen in public. Still, there was nothing about Zander, nor had he said anything, to give her any indication that he was a prince.

A prince!

“Felice, I didn’t know. It wasn’t anywhere in Jic’s paperwork.” Although she remembered in a handwritten note Jic had doodled a crown above Zander’s name. Hardly a clear communiqué, but now it made sense.

“I assumed you knew, therefore it never occurred to me to mention it.”

She’d be working on this gala with a prince! Why hadn’t he told her who he was? It seemed like he went out of his way not to mention it.

When she saw him tonight, should she tell him that she’d only just found out? Or should she let it remain unspoken as if it was something she’d already known? Nothing in her previous reference taught her protocol for this sort of thing.

“His Highness Prince Zander de Nellay of Charlegin.” Marie said it out loud to try it on for size. He’d mentioned his homeland but not that his family were the rulers there!

“It’s a small principality reigned over by a prince rather than a king. Surely you heard the news a year ago when Zander’s sister, Elise, who was the crown princess, and her husband were killed in a plane crash?”

Once Felice began to explain, Marie vaguely remembered hearing about that tragedy on the news. At the time she hadn’t heard of Charlegin and had forgotten all about it. Royal comings and goings were of no interest to her. But she recalled the photo that had been shown on the news of Elise, a beautiful woman who, now that Marie thought about it, had those dark almond-shaped eyes the same as Zander.

“Is there a specific reason the prince is affiliated with the APCF and chairing our gala?”

“Alain really didn’t fill you in, did he? Princess Elise and her husband, Prince Valentin, had a baby girl. She was left an orphan. Zander has taken her in. Princess Abella de Nellay is the next heir to the Charlegin throne.”

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