Jessica Hart - Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

In bed?

Rafe dragged his mind away from the image with difficulty. He was more shaken than he wanted to admit by that brief glimpse of a different side to Miranda Fairchild. He wished he hadn’t seen that smile. He didn’t want her to be attractive and distracting. Although he hadn’t put it into words, he had decided that she would be ideal for this job precisely because he had thought she was neither. She was supposed to be intelligent and practical and unassuming, and nothing else. She wasn’t supposed to smile .

Not like that anyway.

‘Dreaming you’re back at the photocopier?’ he asked, keeping his voice determinedly light.

To his relief, Miranda laughed and opened her eyes. ‘No, I’m not missing that copier at all.’ Straightening, she looked around her. ‘It’s not a bad way to spend a Monday morning, I suppose! This reminds me of when my father used to drive me down to see my godmother in Dorset. He had an open-topped sports car, too.’

How long was it since she had thought about that? Miranda wondered a little guiltily. She ought to remember the good times with her father more often. Much better to remember him when he was the golden, carefree father she had idolised, than to think about the foolish vanity and obstinacy that had brought the entire family to ruin.

She pushed the dark thoughts determinedly aside. ‘It’s hard to believe I’m at work,’ she said brightly. ‘It feels like being on holiday!’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Rafe. ‘We used to drive this way when I was taken to stay with my grandparents at Knighton Park as a kid, so the route reminds me of holidays too.’

Miranda could imagine Rafe as a little boy, dark-eyed and mischievous. ‘Was it a family outing?’

‘Not really. I’m an only child, and my parents were glad not to have me underfoot in the school holidays. Sometimes my mother would drive me down, but more often the chauffeur would take me, sitting in solitary splendour in the back of the car.’

Rafe’s voice was light, but Miranda felt her heart twist. She would never have thought she would feel sorry for Rafe Knighton! Poor little boy.

‘It sounds a bit lonely.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mind as long as I got there. I liked staying with my grandparents. It was more fun at Knighton Park than London. There were lots of places to get lost or get into trouble, or both, and I always seemed to find some other kids to play with.’

He probably started charming at a very early age, Miranda thought. It would have been one way of making sure that he always had a companion.

‘What were your holidays like?’ he asked her. ‘I suppose you always had your sister to play with?’ She seemed so self-sufficient that she could have been an only child too, but he remembered meeting Octavia, with her beauty and her ready smiles. He had been surprised that two such different girls could be related.

Now…He glanced at Miranda and remembered how she had looked when she smiled. If Octavia had closed her eyes and smiled languorously, would he have been as struck? Rafe thought not.

‘Two sisters actually,’ Miranda was saying. ‘I’m the middle one.’

‘Ah, three sisters…like a fairy tale?’

‘Yes, but in the case of the Fairchilds, it’s two beautiful sisters and one ugly one. Belinda looks like Octavia,’ she added, just in case he hadn’t realised who the ugly one was.

‘You’re not ugly,’ said Rafe without thinking. ‘You just dress badly. Every time I’ve seen you, you’ve been wearing a dull little suit like that one.’

That wasn’t quite true, Miranda thought, and the memory of the cat suit sent faint colour creeping into her cheeks. Thank goodness he hadn’t recognised her! It would have been mortifying.

‘A suit’s practical if you’re working in an office,’ she pointed out.

‘There’s nothing wrong with a suit if it’s well cut, or if the colour is flattering, but you seem to go out of your way to pick bad designs and colours that do nothing at all for you,’ he said almost crossly.

‘You sound like my sisters!’

It was none of his business, Rafe knew, and probably deeply inappropriate to boot, but he had always had an eye for good design, and it bothered him that Miranda seemed to care so little about her appearance. It just seemed a waste .

‘You dress as if you don’t want anyone to notice you,’ he grumbled.

Miranda sighed a little. ‘That’s probably true. Everyone else in my family was so flamboyant, and so obsessed with what they looked like, that I suppose I got used to not competing. I knew I could never look like my sisters, so it seemed easier not to even try.’

It couldn’t be easy having one sister as spectacularly pretty as Octavia, let alone two, Rafe reflected. Still, it was a shame she didn’t make more of herself. With a little effort, she could be lovely. You had to look twice to notice the luminous skin, to realise that the cool, quiet features were full of character, to see the intelligence shining in those steady eyes that seemed to waver between brown and green.

And that wasn’t all. Rafe thought about the curl of her mouth as she smiled, about the way the ruthlessly confined hair gleamed with warmth in the sun.

‘Why don’t you let your hair down?’ he demanded abruptly.

‘You mean, why don’t I have some fun?’ said Miranda with an edge of bitterness. ‘My sisters say that, too.’

‘Actually, I meant literally,’ said Rafe, ‘but why not?’

‘Literally, because it’s more practical to have it tied back. Look what a mess it would be in now if it was hanging all over my face,’ she pointed out. ‘An open-topped sports car isn’t the place to start experimenting with a new style, is it?’

‘And not literally?’

She sighed. ‘The only thing my family knew how to do was have fun,’ she said. ‘Look where fun has got me!’

There was a story there, thought Rafe, with a sidelong glance at her unguarded expression, but perhaps now was not the time to probe.

‘Driving out of town on a sunny Monday morning?’ he suggested.

Miranda acknowledged the point with a tiny huff of laughter. ‘My Monday mornings aren’t usually like this!’

‘Mine either,’ he agreed, ‘so we might as well make the most of it. Let’s get out of London, and then find somewhere to have that coffee. If Ginny found out I’d made you do without, I’d never hear the end of it!’

They were going against the traffic, so once they hit the motorway they made rapid progress. Rafe was a good driver, fast but not reckless, and his reactions were very quick. Conversation was difficult with the top down, but the further London fell behind them, the more Miranda’s spirits rose.

It was a beautiful day, and she watched the countryside with pleasure as they sped by, but she was acutely conscious of Rafe beside her, long hands very steady on the steering wheel, dark hair ruffled by the wind, his thigh close enough to touch.

If things were different, she would be able to reach over and lay her hand on it, to feel how lean and warm and strong he was. If she were another girl, she would know how to touch him. If he were another man, he would smile and cover her hand possessively with his own.

If he were a man who loved her.

If he were a man she could love.

But he wasn’t. He was Rafe Knighton, and he was the last man on earth she wanted to touch.

So why was her hand prickling and tingling with the mere thought of resting on his thigh? Uneasily, Miranda folded it against the other on her lap to keep it in place, and stared out at the landscape, but, instead of fields, Rafe’s image danced maddeningly in front of her eyes, with that gleaming, heart-shaking smile and all the easy assurance of wealth and good looks.