Cinderella's Wedding Wish

Miranda wasn’t sure about that, but it was too late to back out now. Nobody ever noticed her, anyhow, so why should tonight be any different?

The mask made her feel a little more confident, but she was still very conscious of the stares that seemed to follow her as she threaded her way through the crowd with a tray, and she was dismayed to spot Octavia on the far side of the room. Looking as beautiful as ever, her little sister was flirting with a soap star who was rumoured to be about to hit the big time, and leave his second wife in the process.

Miranda found it hard to shake the habit of worrying about Octavia, but she was fairly sure that her sister would just be amusing herself. For a girl who looked the way she did, Octavia was surprisingly hard-headed when it came to men. Still, she had better avoid that side of the room, Miranda decided. She wouldn’t put it past Octavia to recognise her, mask or no mask, and she and Belinda complained enough about her evening job as it was.

‘It’s so shaming,’ they grumbled. ‘What if anyone recognises you as our sister?’ Personally, Miranda felt it was more shaming to sponge off friends the way Octavia did, or depend financially on your in-laws as Belinda clearly had to do, but she had given up arguing with her sisters years ago.

Wheeling round, she headed the other way, and wound her way through the crowd, tray balanced aloft and tail draped over one arm to stop herself tripping over it. Champagne was circulating freely and the party soon warmed up, the chatter getting louder, the laughter more raucous.

Miranda’s feet were aching as she refilled the tray with exquisite little mushroom vol-au-vents and smoked salmon and scrambled egg canapés and headed back into the party once more.

There was Octavia again, sparkling up at a portly businessman. Miranda veered away and headed instead towards a group standing at the edge of the room. An incredibly slender girl wearing a dramatic dress that had probably cost as much as Miranda would earn in a year was looking bored, and as she got closer Miranda could guess why. The men with her had all obviously imbibed freely and were laughing uproariously at each other’s jokes.

Miranda wondered why the girl bothered to stay since she was so clearly unamused. She was standing close to a tall man with his back to Miranda, a possessive hand on his arm. Perhaps she would rather be bored than give up her position at his side?

He must be quite something, thought Miranda cynically. A girl like that wouldn’t bother unless he was very rich, very famous or very gorgeous, and she was clearly ready to defend her territory against the likes of Octavia. Needless to say, she didn’t even notice Miranda, proffering her tray, but her companion turned to look at her, and Miranda stopped dead, her heart lurching into her throat and wiping the smile from her face.

Now she could see why the girl was prepared to endure tedious jokes rather than abandon him—he was indeed very rich, very famous and very gorgeous, loath as Miranda was to admit it.

Rafe Knighton, in fact.

CHAPTER TWO

RAFE was looking straight at Miranda and the directness of his gaze made her burningly aware once more of her revealing costume. For one wild moment she was tempted to turn tail and run.

Then she told herself not to be so silly. Even if Rafe were to remember her from earlier that day, which was frankly pretty unlikely, there was no way he could recognise the sexily clad ‘cat’ as the colourless temp at the photocopier.

She forced a smile and held out the tray instead. ‘Would you like anything?’

The girl flicked a dismissive glance over her and looked away, not even bothering with a refusal, but the other men leered openly.

‘I know what I’d like,’ said one to a burst of laughter, ‘and it’s not on the tray!’

‘Here, pussy, pussy,’ called another in a high, stupid voice. ‘I’d like a stroke.’

Rafe was not enjoying himself. Why did he bother to come to these events? He had hoped to meet a rather more serious crowd at a book launch, but he should have known better. This party was even sillier than usual, and whose tasteless idea had it been to dress the waitresses as cats? They were all obviously hating it.

It was depressing to realise that someone had thought he would belong at a party like this. Had he really used to feel part of this life? Rafe was beginning to despair of ever persuading anyone that he had changed and was no longer the spoiled trust-fund baby that temp this morning had so obviously thought he was. No one was interested in what he had been doing for the past four years. No one was interested in what he was doing now. They all just assumed that he was playing at running the Knighton Group, and that the real decisions were being made by the board of directors.

About to feel sorry for himself, Rafe looked at the waitress, her smile rigidly in place. Poor girl. There were worse fates than inheriting a blue chip company, after all. He could be the one wearing the stupid costume and trying to earn a living while everyone else drank champagne and made lewd suggestions at his expense.

‘I’ll have one, thanks,’ he said, interrupting the increasingly risqué comments in an attempt to distract his companions, and she stepped forward gratefully with the tray.

As she did so the man standing next to her decided to put his words into action and patted her bottom, and Rafe saw her jerk unthinkingly away from his touch. He didn’t blame her for that at all, but the sudden movement tilted the tray, sending a selection of canapés shooting forward to land in a smear of pastry, egg and mushroom sauce all down the front of his jacket.

There was a moment of appalled silence.

Kyra was the first to speak. ‘You stupid girl!’ she snapped. ‘His jacket’s ruined.’

‘It wasn’t her fault,’ said Rafe sharply. He looked at the waitress, who was staring, aghast, at his jacket. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. Crouching down, she began hastily gathering the mess onto her tray while Kyra rolled her eyes and looked pointedly away, and the men shifted quickly into a new grouping, turning their backs on the whole sorry mess.

Rafe bent to help her. ‘It’s not you that should be sorry,’ he pointed out. ‘You shouldn’t have to put up with hassle like that.’

‘These outfits are asking for trouble,’ she said philosophically. ‘I shouldn’t have jumped like that, but he took me by surprise. I’m not used to anyone noticing me.’

She sounded quite sincere, Rafe realised to his surprise. He would have imagined that a girl with that figure would be fighting men off all the time. True, he couldn’t see much of her face, but she had beautiful skin, and, although what little he could see of her expression was rather ironic, those legs were spectacular. He was having trouble keeping his eyes off them, in fact, even if it did make him feel a creep, and not much better than the guy who had groped her.

‘Thank you for your help,’ she said briskly as she straightened. ‘And thank you for not making a fuss. My friend is responsible for the catering, and this is her first big job. I don’t want to cause any trouble for her.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Rafe said, picking a piece of scrambled egg off his tie, and wondering why she suddenly seemed oddly familiar.

‘Here,’ she said helpfully, shifting the tray onto the crook of her arm so she could pick up the fluffy tail and use the end to brush the last of the crumbs from his front.

‘At least this stupid tail is useful for something,’ she said.

There it was again, that peculiar conviction that he had met her before somewhere. Rafe frowned slightly. Surely he wouldn’t have forgotten those legs?

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, misinterpreting his frown. ‘There are still some marks on your suit. I should pay your dry-cleaning bill.’

‘Forget it,’ said Rafe easily. He was naturally neat, and there had been a time when he would have been bothered by a less than immaculate appearance, but the last four years had taught him that there were more important things than the odd stain. He certainly wasn’t going to accept what he suspected were the hard-won wages of a cocktail waitress. It hadn’t even been her fault.

‘It was high time this suit was cleaned anyway,’ he went on, when she hesitated. ‘You’ve done me a favour, really. Now I’ll have to do something about it.’

Behind her mask, Miranda regarded him in some puzzlement. Could it be that appearances were deceptive, after all? He had that glossy, well groomed look that was usually accompanied by an obsession with appearance, and she had expected him to make a huge fuss about the mess she had made of his jacket. Instead of which, he had been really very nice about it all. Few of the other guests at this party would have bothered to help out a frazzled waitress, that was for sure.

Miranda almost wished that he hadn’t. It was never comfortable having one’s preconceptions challenged, and she didn’t really want to think that there might be more to Rafe Knighton than met the eye.

The girl beside him hadn’t even made a token effort to help, but now that the mess was cleared up she was homing back in on Rafe. Miranda was amused to see the way she stepped slightly between them, turning her back to edge Miranda away. Not that she needed to worry, Miranda thought. She had absolutely no interest in the Rafe Knightons of this world. She knew only too well what it was like to live with a playboy.

You’d have thought that growing up with a father like theirs would have put her sisters off the idea of marrying anyone like him, but apparently not. Miranda couldn’t understand why Belinda had been so determined to marry a title, while Octavia, more practical, had set her sights on a wealthy husband. Their own parents had had the society wedding of the year in their day, and look how badly that marriage had turned out!

As if her thoughts had conjured her sister up, Miranda caught sight of Octavia somewhere behind Rafe’s shoulder. She was casually scanning the crowd, but as Miranda watched the beautiful green eyes widened as they fell upon Rafe’s profile.

Time to beat a retreat, Miranda decided. If she knew her sister, Octavia would be over here any moment now to introduce herself, and she didn’t want to be here when she did. Not that she cared about embarrassing Octavia, but it would be awkward if her sister somehow revealed her identity to Rafe. She would just as soon not be exposed to her boss while she was wearing a skintight cat suit.

‘I’d better go and get rid of this mess,’ she said to Rafe, backing away to his girlfriend’s evident relief. ‘Sorry again about your jacket.’

Rafe watched her slip away through the crowd. She had a very straight back, and he was conscious of the same odd feeling of knowing her somehow. His brows drew together in an effort to focus his memory. Where could he possibly have seen her before?

Beside him, he was vaguely aware of Kyra stiffening. ‘I’m bored with this party,’ she said abruptly, taking his arm with a proprietorial air. ‘Let’s go.’

Rafe hesitated. Kyra had attached herself to him early in the evening and he had been wondering how to shake her off without hurting her feelings. He had no intention of spending the rest of the night with her, but nor did he want to stay at this stupid party just to make a point. They could leave together and then go their separate ways, he decided.

As they turned to go he literally bumped into an enchantingly pretty girl, but Kyra towed him onwards before they had chance to do more than exchange apologetic smiles. Rafe glanced back over his shoulder with a faint frown as he left. There had been something elusively familiar about her too.

The thought made him pause at the door and look around to see if he could spot the waitress again, but there were too many people.