Andrea Bolter - The Prince's Cinderella

“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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