Page 6 of Fake Dating the Prince

“Antoine-Philippe,” she said to Flip—one of a few people from whom he didn’t mind the use of his full name—and he bent to perform the customary triple cheek kiss. “Qui m’as-tu amené?”

“Bernadette Villiers, please meet Brayden Wood,” Flip answered in English. “Brayden agreed last-minute to attend the Night of a Thousand Lights with me, and he tragically doesn’t have any formal wear in the country.”

“Hi,” Brayden said, pink-cheeked, as he extended his hand to Bernadette. She shook her head at him and kissed his cheeks: left, right, left. “I’m sorry I’m so hopeless. Flip says you might be able to help me?”

Bernadette took a step back and looked him over head to toe, holding his shoulders. Then she looked at Flip. “Are you allowed to bring a twink as your date?” she asked in French.

“I should probably mention he speaks perfect French,” Flip continued as though he hadn’t heard.

“And I’m too muscular to be a twink,” Brayden sighed, put-upon. “I used to rock the look, but then my metabolism slowed down and it was either stop eating everything or start going to the gym.” He looked at Flip and fluttered his eyelashes. “Are you allowed to bring a twunk?”

“I’m the crown prince. I can do whatever I like,” Flip said with forced loftiness. Brayden grinned at him, but Bernadette rolled her eyes. He should have known the two of them would get along.

Clucking, Bernadette plucked at Brayden’s coat. “Well, take this off and let’s get your measurements.”

Normally Bernadette took measurements in a private back room. But when she suggested that to Brayden, his face fell and he gestured toward the windows. “Look, I saw you lock the door when we came in. This place is definitely by appointment only, right? We could just close the blinds. This is the coolest store I’ve ever been in. I don’t want to miss a second.”

Flip suspected he simply wanted to parade around an opulent location in his underwear, but he could hardly say so in front of Bernadette, who didn’t offer any objections.

“The lighting is better out here anyway,” she said with a smile. “And if you stand on the podium there, it’ll save my back and my knees. I don’t like to complain, but getting up and down gets harder every day.”

Suddenly Flip worried he’d asked too much of her. “I’m sorry. I should have thought. You shouldn’t be working so hard in your con—”

The look Bernadette shot him shut his mouth. “Your Highness,” she said icily, “as you are well aware, I am pregnant, not ill, and perfectly capable of deciding whether I am fit to work.”

Well, at least there weren’t any cameras to document Flip’s mortification. “Of course. I didn’t mean—” Bollocks, how was he supposed to extricate his foot from his mouth when he’d shoved it in past his tonsils? He sighed. “I apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” Bernadette said primly as she relieved Brayden of his chunky green sweater. “In any case, as if I’d have let anyone else dress your date. There’s such a thing as professional pride.” She gazed up at Brayden, now clad only in his boxer briefs. That was unfortunate for Flip’s sanity, becausetwunkabout summed it up. Brayden had a youthful face and a sweet smile and thick, flirty eyelashes but the broad shoulders and defined muscular bulk of someone who wouldn’t be easy to throw around in bed unless he wanted to be.

And Flip needed to focus.

“Actually, while you’re here….”

He’d wondered how long it would be before she directed him to takehisclothes off. “The usual dressing room?”

“Please and thank you.”

He wasn’t sure whether he ought to thank her for the distraction or take 10 percent off her bill.

As he expected, the latter idea disappeared from his mind when he saw the jacket hanging on the rack.

Despite his high profile and busy schedule in Lyngria, until recently Flip had lived a fairly regimented life—set hours at the Toronto office, set meals delivered by his meal service, set reps in his home gym, set meditation hours. And Bernadette was easily the best tailor in the country, if not Europe. So he wasn’t surprised when the shirt and trousers fit perfectly or when he found the perfect set of cuff links—shaped like bellflowers—already waiting in the sleeves.

The waistcoat was deep blue silk, with lotus flowers embroidered one shade lighter—a subtle, intricate design Flip’s father would love. The cravat was made of the same material. He tied it automatically as he tried to tear his mind away from the barely clothed civilian in the next room.

Easier said than done.

Flip usually favored a traditional-style dinner jacket, but this time Bernadette had done something a little different—a matte jacket in the darkest blue, without lapels, almost Nehru style, with a polished-looking trim. Wearing it, he looked much like his father. The blue complemented his dark skin in a way he had often avoided in the past, tired of reading about his divided loyalties in the press, as though he was less Lyngria’s prince because his father was Indian, as though he couldn’t love two countries and cultures at one time.

The Flip in the mirror now seemed to prove he could.

He shot the cuffs enough to show off the national flower and stepped out of the dressing room just in time to hear Bernadette ask, “Left or right?”

Still on the podium in his underwear, Brayden seemed perplexed. “Um? I think that one might be lost in translation.”

Flip fought down a blush. Maybe he could escape back to the dressing room unnoticed?

But no, because Bernadette looked up just then from measuring Brayden’s inseam, looked right at Flip, and switched to English. “Left or right?” she repeated, winking at Flip. “You know, when you dress. Which way do you… tuck?”

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