Not Your Cinderella Read online

  Not Your Cinderella

  by Kate Johnson

  Not Your Cinderella

  Copyright: © 2018 Kate Johnson

  Cover by Kate Johnson

  ASIN: B0795BPRPP

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Table of Contents

  Not Your Cinderella

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  Also Available

  Excerpt from Not Your Prince Charming

  Excerpt from Max Seventeen

  About The Author

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Clickbait.com: Is Prince Jamie the world’s most eligible bachelor?

  Yes, and here’s why:

  His grandmother is the Queen of England, and his father, Prince Frederick, will be King some day.

  Jamie is a man who knows how to serve his country: as a captain in the royal regiment of the Coldstream Guards he served two tours in Afghanistan.

  The further away he gets from inheriting the throne, the more chilled out he is. Born fourth in line, after the birth of his niece and nephew he’s dropped to sixth, and does a lot of charity work.

  He’s super smart: he graduated UCL with a First Class Honours degree in Computer Science ten years ago, and now he’s been accepted in the PhD program at the world-famous Cambridge University.

  His hair. Come on, have you ever seen a man with hair that thick and wavy and totally run-your-hands-through-it-gorgeous? We want to know what products he uses!

  Next article: 23 ways you’re eating avocado wrong!

  “I dunno, you young people, always sexting and texting.”

  Clodagh looked up from her phone. One of the regulars stood at the bar, drink empty.

  “I wasn’t texting, and do you even know what sexting is?” She hurriedly shut down the animated gif of Prince Jamie’s hair blowing in the wind, and put her phone facedown behind the bar. “I was actually doing very important research. For… my… night school course.”

  His smile said he didn’t believe her for a second. “All right, love. Have it your way. Get yourself an education and a better job, don’t stay in this dive for the rest of your life. But while you are here,” he added, sliding his tankard onto the bar, and Clodagh rolled her eyes.

  “Another pint of Abbot?”

  “Please.”

  Jamie’s sister was shouting silently at him. She was angry; he could tell by the pink spots on her cheeks. Victoria hated those pink spots. Hated her complexion being anything other than peaches and cream. She took a make-up artist quite literally everywhere with her. Jamie hadn’t seen his own sister bare-faced since she was about fourteen.

  “James William Frederick Henry,” he made that bit out by lip reading, “will you…”

  The rest was lost over the noise of his headphones, but Jamie could more or less figure out the gist. Take off those bloody headphones before I…

  “…rip them off your bloody head!” she finished, as he paused his game and slipped the headphones down over his neck.

  “So sorry, Vicky. Didn’t hear you.”

  “Do not call me Vicky.” She smoothed down hair that didn’t need smoothing.

  “You used to prefer it.”

  “It’s common.” The greatest insult from Victoria. “Put down that…that bloody thing, will you?”

  Jamie looked at the controller in his hand. It was customised, given to him on a factory tour before they’d even gone on sale. “This bloody thing is a prototype and therefore wholly unique. I soldered a bit of circuitry on it, you know,” he added proudly.

  Victoria sighed as if he was the most tormenting creature in the universe. “Yes, we know. Most thrilling day of your life. It’s a bit of wire, Jamie. You’re sixth in line to the throne.”

  Yes, and I know which fascinates me more. Sighing, Jamie took his lovely noise-cancelling headphones off completely. Goodbye silence, my old friend. “Was there something you wanted, sister dearest, or do you just hate Lara Croft?”

  “You’re so lame. Vincent’s looking for you. Says it’s time to get ready.”

  Oh, bollocks. Jamie knew he ought to remember what he should be getting ready for, but he’d been so absorbed in the sidequest he’d been playing he’d forgotten the time. And now…oh yes. Bugger. Here was Vincent with the red tunic of the Coldstream, which paired with the blue riband of the Royal Victorian Order usually made him look like a macaw. Vincent’s assistant Graham was busy laying out the medals, badges and random bits of gold braiding so beloved of these occasions.

  “Her Highness requested it specially,” said Vincent before Jamie could speak.

  His gaze flew to his sister, who smoothed down her elegant and un-peacockish dress, which did not clash with her own blue riband, and said, “He means Isabella. She wants everyone in dress uniforms, especially the godparents,” she added pointedly, and Jamie tried to look like he totally remembered he was becoming a godparent for the fifteenth time today.

  “Nearly had to get Granny to invent something for Anthony until someone remembered he was in the TA for about five minutes.” She marched to the door. “Could be worse, remember Anthony wanted to be a Highlander,” was her parting shot.

  Great. Well, she was right, at least he wasn’t in tartan.

  “I’ll be infested with magpies,” he said, taking off his sweatshirt. His nice comfortable sweatshirt in its nice plain shade of blue with its nice picture of the Death Star on it.

  “No, sir, the falconers have been out,” said Vincent, who Jamie suspected as having had his sense of humour surgically removed some time ago.

  “Of course they have. All right.” Jamie stripped off his t-shirt and Vincent took it as if it was radioactive. Jamie gave him a bright grin, because annoying Vincent with his geek t-shirts was one of his favourite things. This one just said, ‘It’s not magic, it’s science!’ which was fairly tame compared with some of his collection.

  “Don’t lose that,” he warned as he kicked off his jeans. “Put it with the others.”

  “Sir, I have never lost your laundry,” Vincent said in wounded terms, handing Jamie his special seamless controlling underwear. No one wanted a visible reminder he was a human male under his impeccably tailored uniform trousers.

  Vincent and Graham gave every indication of not noticing their boss was naked, which always impressed the hell out of and annoyed Jamie in equal measure.

  “Yeah, but I can just im
agine how many of them will end up in ‘storage’,” he said darkly.

  “If this is the case, sir, you can only blame your new bedder,” said Vincent with distaste, handing Jamie his undershirt.

  “She’s not going to be doing my laundry,” said Jamie. “I’ve got a washing machine.”

  Vincent and Graham stared at him, more shocked than they had been when they discovered the tattoo Jamie had got in Afghanistan.

  “Whatever for, sir?” said Vincent, recovering first.

  For mixing cocktails, what do you think? “Well, because washing by hand is a bit of a faff,” he said instead.

  The two men gaped at him. Jamie smiled at them and held out his arms. “Now remind me,” he said. “Trousers go on over my head, right?”

  “Arms up,” said Clodagh, patiently holding out the little jumper.

  “No!”

  “Hollee. Put your arms up.”

  “No!” Hollee thrust her arms out instead.

  “Christ’s sake, it’s like dressing an octopus.”

  Hollee slapped her hand over her mouth. “Umm! Naughty word!”

  Clodagh took the opportunity to ram the jumper down over her niece’s head and reach through the sleeve for her hand.

  “Mummy! Auntie Sharday said a naughty word!”

  “Shar, don’t fucking swear,” said her sister, and turned back to her phone.

  The coffee shop was overcrowded with buggies and playing a different music from the mall outside. The clash was not helping Clodagh’s temper.

  “I’ll think about it if you stop calling me Sharday.”

  “It’s the name Mum gave you.”

  Clodagh opened her mouth to repeat the argument she’d been having for years, then held her tongue. What the hell was the point? She gave Hollee a grimace of a smile and yanked on her hand. Hollee screamed as if Clodagh had dislocated her shoulder.

  “Should’ve put your arms up then, shouldn’t you,” she said.

  Hollee started shrieking and slamming her hands on the table. Clodagh felt the eyes of everyone else in the overheated coffee shop turn on them.

  “Jesus, Shar, I just asked you to put her jumper on,” said Kylie, grabbing her bawling daughter, who kicked and flailed and knocked over her white mocha latte. “Why is that so difficult?”

  Because your child is the spawn of Satan, thought Clodagh, but she’d come to blows with her sister often enough over her choice of babydaddy. “When’s Mum getting here?”

  “Dunno. She had to go pick up Tyler, but you know that’s just because Whitney don’t wanna talk to that bitch teacher about his ADHD.”

  “Tyler has ADHD?” asked Clodagh.

  “Yeah, well she says he has but you know he’s just been a little shit since Jayden left. Fuck’s sake, Hollee, I am trying to Instagram. Shar, can you get me another coffee? And some stuff to wipe this up with? Cheers babe.”

  Clodagh, glad of the excuse to escape the screaming toddler her sister was ignoring, got up to queue at the counter and promptly got stuck there for twenty minutes when her mother whirled in with an indiscriminate number of her progeny. As Clodagh tried to collate a sensible order, which was impossible since at least two of the children refused to drink anything but Red Bull which the cafe thankfully didn’t sell, her mother started up the litany of complaints that never ceased.

  “…so I just turned around and said, well, it’s not my fault you can’t give a proper diagnosis, so she turned around and said, I don’t give the diagnosis, you have to get the Head Psycho to do it—”

  “Ed Psych,” murmured Clodagh, who had dealt with a few in her time.

  “Yeah, like Nevaeh saw that time, so I said so when are you going to do that and she just gave me this, like, smug look and turned around and said she didn’t ‘believe there was a case for referral’, so I just turned around and said—”

  “Don’t you get dizzy?” Clodagh said.

  “What?”

  “All that turning around.”

  Her mother stared at her blankly, then launched into, “No, only when I’ve got one of my headaches. Did I tell you about my headaches, babes? Like, oh my God. This new doctor, right, he doesn’t even speak English, I don’t think he understands what a migraine is. Like yesterday he just turned around and said…”

  Clodagh nodded and smiled, and thought about the library book on Mary Seacole she had sitting in her shoulderbag, and ordered another white chocolate bloody latte.

  “Here.” A glass of champagne appeared in Jamie’s line of vision. “You look as if you need this as much as I do.”

  He took it, not darting out of his hiding position behind a curve of the Grand Staircase. “How did you know I was here?”

  Olivia winked. Of course she knew, it was where he always hid. “How do you know I wasn’t just trolling for hiding bachelors?”

  “Because you’ve cast your eye over every bachelor in this place and rejected them all out of hand several times.”

  She shrugged. “Back atcha. Plus I saw Melissa Featherstonehaugh out there in a revolting little excuse for a hat, so I knew you’d be lurking somewhere.”

  She leaned against the balustrade, facing back into the Grand Hall, and Jamie laughed out loud when he saw the bottle of champagne she had hidden behind her back. “Be an angel and take that off me.”

  He did, but not before topping up his glass. If Melissa was out there, he’d damn well need it. They’d barely had any sort of fling at all, but the papers had caught a whiff of it and started planning the wedding, and poor Melissa had rather bought into it all.

  “I told you to break it off nicely with her,” Olivia warned.

  “I did! I was very nice. And gentle. And kind.” And all the things he always was when a girl started seeing crowns and sceptres. “And yes I did ask her not to go to the tabloids.”

  “Who did she send?” asked Olivia, because Melissa would never risk contacting them directly. Far better to send an intermediary with a ‘scoop’.

  “I dunno. She has quite the coven.”

  “Yes, you’ve slept with most of them. It really is a terrible habit, Jamie. Try shagging girls who won’t go to the tabloids.”

  “What, you mean imaginary ones?” Jamie drained his champagne and poured some more. “Besides, I’m on quite good terms with most of them.” He’d needed to be. Two of them were his fellow godparents to Isabella’s offspring. “Lucinda barely squeezed the baby before she passed her to me earlier.”

  “I see the vomit sponged off nicely,” Olivia said, and yawned discreetly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Vincent had a spare uniform upstairs.”

  This time Olivia laughed. “Ah, Vincent. Is it the Boy Scouts or the SAS who are always ready? I don’t suppose he’s got a pair of flat shoes, ladies’ six, has he? My feet are bloody killing me.”

  Jamie glanced down at her heels, which were towering, exquisite, and probably cost more than the GDP of a small country.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. Oll, why do you wear those things if they hurt so much?”

  “Same reason you wear a dress uniform that makes you look like a Christmas tree.”

  Jamie straightened his immaculate red tunic with its hastily replaced blue riband, and tried to ignore the lingering scent of baby vomit which Vincent assured him was hardly noticeable.

  “Believe me, I’d have been happier in a t-shirt.”

  Olivia groaned. “One of those stupid science ones.”

  “Excuse me, they’re very clever science ones.” He’d got a new one last week with the periodic table on it, which made him very happy even though he wasn’t much of a chemist. “You laughed at the Pluto one.”

  “Only because I didn’t understand it. Oh, Christ.” Olivia suddenly ducked behind the staircase with him. “Bunty Twistleton,” she added by way of explanation.

  “Ah.” A swift mental picture came to Jamie’s mind, of a red-faced young man with sweaty palms and a tendency to place them where they weren’t wanted. “Still got ov
er-friendly hands?”

  “Swear to God, one of these days I’m going to break his bloody arm. Oh God, he’s seen me.” She suddenly fixed her full attention on Jamie, which was terrifying since Olivia was one of the most intimidating people he’d ever met, and that included his grandmother. “Oh Jamie, darling, you say the naughtiest things,” she purred. “Tell me again.”

  Jamie leaned in and told her the naughtiest thing he knew. “Jailbreaking an iPhone isn’t that hard.”

  Olivia gasped in mock outrage and playfully batted his shoulder, as behind her the shape of Bunty Twistleton loomed. “Remember the first time we did it,” she said, and Jamie fought to keep a straight face.

  “Was it your first time?” he asked her. “Come on, be honest with me.”

  “Um, excuse me, Lady Olivia, er… oh, Your Royal Highness.”

  Bunty bowed, very correctly but very tiresomely. Olivia rolled her eyes at Jamie and draped her arm around his neck.

  “Not to be impolite, Bunty, but shove off, would you? Jamie and I were having a private moment.”

  Bunty turned even redder, mumbled an excuse and tripped away.

  “What a dull little bore,” Olivia said.

  “You’ve got to stop doing that,” said Jamie, because it was at least the fourth time this season she’d used him to get rid of an overzealous suitor.

  “And he has a tiny penis. Oh God no,” she added at Jamie’s appalled expression, “I didn’t. Serena told me. Well, she says she got it from Finty but who knows?”

  “Olivia.”

  “She was very flattering about you, by the way.”

  “Olivia.”

  She sighed gustily and used her arm around his shoulders to balance herself as she eased off her shoes. “All right, I’m sorry, but it works. Until that chap off Poldark agrees to marry me I’ve got far too many offers and men don’t take ‘I’m not interested’ for an answer. Such is misogyny, darling. The only time they back off is when you tell them you have a boyfriend.”