Jessica Hart - Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

He was babbling, Rafe realised, and he made himself stop. His fingers tightened around hers. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that you need Knighton’s more than you think you do, Rafe. Your father entrusted the company to you, and you need to fulfil that trust.’

‘But then I’d have to be in London, and you would hate that. You need to be here, at Whitestones.’

‘I need you more,’ said Miranda, and reached for him as the tears spilled over at last. ‘If London is where you are, that’s where I need to be too.’

‘Miranda…’ Rafe held her away from him just long enough to look down into her face and see the love in her eyes before he pulled her into his arms for a long, sweet, almost desperate kiss.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked raggedly when they broke for breath. He rested his cheek against her shining hair and held her tightly. ‘It’s not just about you. You’ve got the dog to think of now, remember.’

Miranda laughed shakily. ‘There are parks in London,’ she reminded him, ‘and we can come down here at weekends, can’t we?’

‘We can.’ Rafe pulled back to take her face between his hands and fix her with serious eyes. ‘But maybe we need to think about this. I can’t ask you to come back when you hate it so much.’

‘Well, maybe I don’t hate London quite as much as I thought I did,’ Miranda confessed. ‘I’ve been down here for nearly a month, and, to be honest, I’m dying for a cappuccino!’

Rafe laughed and wrapped his arms around her once more. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Miranda,’ he told her with a sigh.

‘I’ve missed you too,’ she said, nestling closer, still hardly able to believe that he was there. ‘I’ve been so lonely without you.’

‘I’m so sorry for all those terrible things I said to you,’ said Rafe. ‘I didn’t mean any of them. I was just feeling desperate. I wanted you so much, but I knew I couldn’t give you the fairy tale you wanted. I still can’t,’ he said seriously, tipping back her head to look down into her face. ‘It won’t be perfect all the time, but I love you and I need you and I think that as long as we’re together, we can get through anything.’

Miranda smiled through her tears. ‘That is the fairy tale, Rafe,’ she said, and she kissed him again.

Much later, they lay on the rough grass together as the puppy clambered over them, licking their chins and chewing their fingers with sharp little teeth.

‘Ouch,’ said Miranda, laughing, and tugged gently at his ears. ‘I had thought I might go back to work, but I can see you might turn into a full-time occupation!’ she told the dog.

Rafe lay with his hands behind his head, watching the clouds drifting across the sky. He had discarded his jacket and his shirt was unbuttoned at the neck. ‘It’s hard to think about work when you’re down here,’ he said. ‘Have you missed it?’

‘Sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘I quite like being in an office with lots going on. And, of course, you never know who you’re going to meet when you’re at the photocopier!’

He laughed and pulled her down beside him. ‘I’m very glad that agency sent you to Knighton’s. I might never have met you otherwise.’

‘I suppose it wasn’t too bad as assignments go.’

‘Do you fancy another one?’

Miranda tucked herself into his side and rested her cheek on his chest with a contented sigh. ‘That depends what kind of assignment you’re talking about.’

‘I’m in need of a wife,’ said Rafe in a mock businesslike tone. ‘It’s a permanent position, and you’d have to be prepared to be adored for ever. There are one or two conditions attached, of course.’

‘What sort of conditions?’

‘You’d have to adore me back,’ he told her. ‘Oh, and you’d need to wear this every day.’ Digging into his shirt pocket, he produced the diamond ring that Miranda had last seen as it plopped into his pasta.

Taking it from him, Miranda turned the ring between her fingers so the diamonds flashed in the sunlight. ‘Hmm…sounds quite an interesting job,’ she pretended to muse. ‘What’s the deal?’

‘Well, there would be a few details to sort out, but before we go into that I’d need to know if you were available and willing in principle to take the position.’

Miranda smiled as she remembered the last time Rafe had used those words. Then he had been asking her to pretend to love him. Now it was wonderfully, gloriously for real.

‘I’m available,’ she assured him, slipping the ring back on her finger where it belonged and raising herself on one arm so that she could bend to kiss him softly. ‘And very, very willing!’

It was a perfect day for a wedding. The bride looked like a fairy tale princess, in a stunning ivory silk creation, swathed in antique lace. A gossamer-fine veil streamed from the tiara she wore in her beautiful hair, and she carried a bouquet of exquisite, creamy yellow roses. Glowing with happiness, she laughed up at her groom, who wore a faintly stunned look, as he if couldn’t quite believe she was really his, and his expression when she kissed him made more than one of the guests wipe a surreptitious tear away.

‘You look beautiful,’ Rafe told Miranda.

‘It must be because I’m so happy.’ She leant against him with a smile. ‘I feel as if my heart is going to burst with it. It was a beautiful wedding, wasn’t it?’

‘Perfect,’ said Rafe, ‘for Octavia and Simon. Not for us.’

‘No,’ she agreed, her smile widening. ‘Not for us. Today is everything Octavia has ever dreamed of, and I’m so happy for her, but our wedding isn’t going to be like this, is it?’

‘Ours will be perfect for us,’ Rafe promised. ‘It’ll be everything you dreamed about that day at Whitestones when we walked on the beach together for the first time.’

‘Miranda!’

Octavia’s voice interrupted them and Miranda turned to see Octavia on the steps, the voluminous skirt of her dress caught up in one hand. Smiling at her sister, she tossed the bouquet straight towards her.

The roses came sailing through the air straight towards her, but Miranda wasn’t ready. Caught unawares, she dithered and stretched out her hands too late. ‘Oh, no!’ she cried, hating the thought of the beautiful roses crashing to the floor.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Grinning with affectionate exasperation, Rafe shot out an arm and caught the bouquet just in time. Bowing in acknowledgement of the rousing cheers, he presented them to Miranda with a flourish. ‘I believe these were meant for you,’ he said. ‘You must be getting married next!’

A-brim with happiness, Miranda laughed and took the roses with a kiss.

The dress, an exquisite confection of silk and chiffon, was hanging behind a door, floating ethereally whenever the air so much as stirred. A bouquet of meadow flowers would be delivered in the morning. The champagne was already on ice. That was the extent of the preparations for their perfect wedding. Elvira was determined to throw a spectacular party at Knighton Park to celebrate afterwards, but for Miranda and Rafe their wedding day was for them alone.

‘Only two weeks,’ Rafe murmured in her ear. ‘Then it’ll be just you and me-and the dog, I suppose. We’ll be sitting on the beach with that champagne, just like you dreamed, and we’ll be married at last. We’ll listen to the sea and, when the champagne is finished, we’ll go back to Whitestones to make love all night-and then we’ll wake up in the morning, knowing that we’ve got the rest of our lives to spend together.’

Miranda sighed happily and kissed him again. ‘I can’t wait,’ she said.