Jessica Hart: Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

A book in the In Her Shoes series, 2009

Dear Reader,

The year 2009 marks a personal milestone for me-it’s twenty years since my first book was accepted-but it’s a much more exciting one for Harlequin, which is marking its sixtieth anniversary this year. The mind boggles at how many romances Harlequin has published since 1949, and at how many women around the world have read them and enjoyed them over the past sixty years! I feel very lucky-and very proud-to be part of such a great tradition of romance writing.

In the twenty years I’ve been writing, my stories have inevitably changed to reflect changes in my own life-but at the same time I think they have stayed exactly the same. Story details may change in tune with the times, but at its heart, every Harlequin romance is about the power of love to transform the hero and the heroine, enabling them to overcome the obstacles between them, to sort out all their misunderstandings and to find lasting happiness together. That was true for Abby, the heroine of my first book twenty years ago, just as it is for Miranda, the heroine of Cinderella’s Wedding Wish, in 2009, although otherwise their stories are quite different.

I’m thrilled that Miranda and Rafe’s story is being published in Harlequin’s special year, and hope you’ll join me in celebrating sixty years of happy endings like theirs. Here’s to Harlequin, to romance and to many more years of the books we love to read…and to write!

Jessica

‘OH, FORheaven’s sake!’ Miranda yanked impatiently at the front of the photocopier and banged it open so that she could peer inside. ‘ Now what?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve cleared the jam, I’ve refilled all the paper trays…I can’t believe you really need toner too! You’re just being difficult.’

Exasperated, she shoved her hand into the machine to release the catch for the toner cartridge, only to catch her finger on a protruding piece of machinery. Jerking back with a yelp, she let out an involuntary exclamation. Miranda didn’t normally swear but it would have taken a saint not to lose it after the morning she had had with this machine.

She glared at the photocopier. ‘Right, that’s it ! I’ve had enough of you now!’

Shaking her stinging finger and too frustrated to think what else to do, Miranda aimed a childish kick at the photocopier with another muttered exclamation.

‘Language, language!’ A tutting sound from behind her made Miranda’s head snap round.

A man was lounging in the doorway of the copying room, grinning at her. And not just any man. He was impossibly handsome, with dark hair, glinting navy blue eyes, the kind of features a male model would kill for and a smile perfectly designed to set most female hearts a-flutter.

Not Miranda’s though. Her heart didn’t do fluttering. Maybe it skipped, just a little, at the sight of him, but that was just surprise.

That was what she told herself anyway.

She had never met him before, but she knew exactly who he was, of course. There was no mistaking him. Rafe Knighton, darling of the gossip columnists, and the new Chairman and Chief Executive of the Knighton Group, which technically made him her boss.

And the last person she would have expected to encounter in the copying room, exuding assurance and glamour. The tall, dark and handsome cliché might have been invented for Rafe Knighton, she thought, determinedly unimpressed. He was immaculately dressed in a beautifully cut suit that fitted perfectly across his broad shoulders. His shirt was a luxuriously plain white, his tie discreet, classy, and knotted with just the right combination of ease and elegance. Miranda would have liked to dismiss him as effeminate, but at close quarters it was all too obvious that there was nothing effete about Rafe Knighton. He was all too solidly male.

Briefly, she wondered what he was doing slumming it on the communications floor. Perhaps he strolled down every few days to thrill the staff with his presence, and amused himself by seeing how long it took the females to swoon at his feet.

If he was waiting for her to do the same, he was in for a long wait, boss or no boss.

On the other hand, being caught swearing and kicking the office equipment probably wasn’t the best way to endear herself to the management, Miranda reflected. A swoon might be a better option. It was that, or brazen it out.

Before she had a chance to decide, Rafe Knighton had straightened from the doorway and was strolling into the room as if he owned it.

Which he did, of course.

‘I’ve a good mind to report you to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Photocopiers!’ he said, wagging a chastising finger at her. ‘That poor machine shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of language, when it can’t answer back.’

The deadpan delivery was contradicted by the dancing humour in his eyes and ripple of amusement in his voice. The man practically oozed charm, Miranda thought, annoyed that she still had to brace herself to resist it.

As if she didn’t have enough to annoy her at the moment.

It was too late to swoon, anyway.

‘The photocopier started it,’ she said coldly.

Rafe’s eyes gleamed as he studied her. He was still getting used to the idea that Knighton’s wealth and prestige was his responsibility now, and the realisation could be oppressive at times. Whenever he started feeling that the walls were closing in on him, he took a walk. He told everyone that he wanted to familiarise himself with the company, which was true, but Rafe knew that these tours of the building were more about his own restlessness and inability to decide whether he had done the right thing in coming back.

Knighton’s was an institution, with a fiercely loyal and dedicated staff, and Rafe sometimes felt that everyone belonged here except him-and now this girl, turning the air in the copying room blue. Her involuntary exclamation had been so unexpected that he had stopped as he walked past the door, captivated by the slight girl in a neat, dull suit swearing at the photocopier.

Entertained by the contrast, Rafe had been unable to resist finding out more.

He hadn’t seen her before. At least, he didn’t think so. The most memorable thing about her seemed to be the plain brown hair pulled tightly back from her face in a very unflattering style. Rafe’s first impression had been one of primness, contrasting sharply with the words coming out of her mouth, but as she stood there and looked back at him with eyes that were clear and green and very direct she suddenly didn’t seem so nondescript any more, and his interest sharpened.

‘We haven’t met, have we?’

‘No,’ she said curtly. ‘I’m just a temp.’

‘Well, welcome.’ Apparently oblivious to her lack of enthusiasm, he smiled and held out his hand. ‘I’m Rafe Knighton.’

As if she wasn’t supposed to know!

Miranda might have little interest in celebrities, but even she knew about Rafe Knighton. He had been the ultimate playboy until four or five years ago when he had disappeared from London, presumably to drift around some other playground of the rich and famous, and there had been almost feverish excitement in the gossip pages when he had returned a couple of months earlier to take up the reins of the Knighton Group.

His father had famously keeled over with a heart attack in the middle of negotiating a mega-million dollar deal in New York and since then the business pages had been full of speculation about Rafe’s ability to step into his father’s spectacularly successful shoes.