Page 29 of A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street
‘I’d love to.’ It makes me laugh. And blush, a little bit.
He holds his hand out and as soon as I touch him, his fingers fold around mine and he lifts my hand to his mouth until he can press a kiss to the back of it, and then tips an imaginary hat in my direction.
He might not be a literal prince, but he definitely was in some previous lifetime. Modern-day men just don’t act like this.
I can’t help the disappointment as his fingers let mine go. There’s something about him that makes everything feel right with the world when my hand is in his.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening. I don’t know anyone around here so it’s nice to have a… friend?’ He says it questioningly, as though he’s double-checking it’s all right to call me that.
I nod, and that’s it, really, isn’t it? We’re friends, nothing more. I am so far removed from the woman he met on Sunday night that he can’t even comprehend we might be the same person, and I’m both annoyed and fully aware of how disappointed he’ll be if he finds out. I don’t want him to find out. He doesn’t even live here. He’s going back to the opposite end of the country within a matter of weeks. The rejection when he finds out isn’t worth it. It’s better for him to leave with the memory of one wonderful night and for me to keep the memory of meeting a real-life Prince Charming at a real-life castle, and not to mess it all up with boring veryunmagical reality.
8
‘What’s happened to my window?’ Ebony wails when she arrives the next morning. ‘What on earth isthat? Who gave you permission to make that?’
I’m instantly defensive. ‘Since when do I need permis—’
Scarlett jumps in before either of us says something we regret, and explains everything about Prince Charming and the missing Cinderella.
‘Oh, not more fairy tales. How many times do I have to tell you both to get your heads out of the clouds? This nonsense has no place in our shop. If you want fairy stories, go to the bookshop across the street. Losing a shoe at midnight is the behaviour of a drunkard, not a princess.’ Ebony turns to me. ‘This is that childish idealism again, just like your mother, always humming lullabies and dreaming of far-off castles and dashing knights. Life is not a fairy tale. In reality, you work hard all your life, your husband leaves you, then your sister dies and you end up as a single mother looking after her child as well as your own, not that I ever begrudged that, Sadie, but I wouldn’t have minded some handsome prince riding up to rescue me from the doldrums, but things like that don’t happen in real life. It really is beyond time for you to grow up. Now, take that out of the window and let’s get something high-brow back on display.’
‘No.’
‘No?’ She raises a plucked-to-perfection eyebrow.
‘No.’ I didn’t think that one little word could ever feel so good to say. It’s something I’ve almost never said to Ebony before, but I really believe in this. There’s no way I’m telling her it’s part of a plan to prove myself to her, but someonehasto step in before she runs my beloved shop completely into the ground, and it’s about time that person was me. ‘We’re helping Witt to find his mystery princess. And that dress deserves to be on display. It’s already attracting more customers. We had loads more people in yesterday.’ I don’t add the fact that none of them bought anything because there’s nothing for the ordinary, everyday persontobuy. Assuming ordinary people aren’t after tentacle-themed catsuits that leavenothingto the imagination, anyway.
‘People are already engaging with this story.’ Scarlett gets her phone out and shows it to Ebony. ‘Over two thousand people have looked at the website, and the dress photo has been “pinned” seventy-five times. I made a short video that’s been watched a few hundred times between all platforms. And it all only started less than forty-eight hours ago.’
Ebony nods approvingly. ‘Oh, well, in that case, let’s hope the missing woman stays missing for quite some time, we could do with numbers like that seeing our work.’ She goes and gets another dress from a rail – a skin-coloured latex thing that’s dripping in beads to make it look like the wearer is wearingonlybeads. ‘Could we not say the missing woman was wearing this one instead?’
‘No!’ Scarlett and I say in unison.
‘We need to mix things up,’ Scarlett continues. ‘Displaying dresses like this will appeal to more people. Normal people like Sadie, who want to believe they’ll still get to be a Disney princess one day.’
‘We don’t want women like you.’ Ebony frowns at me. ‘We want people who can afford to pay top dollar and tell their extremely important and rich friends about us. No offence, of course.’
I almost laugh. I don’t think Ebony’s ever uttered a sentence thathasn’tcaused offence. ‘This is exactly our problem. You want to attract celebrities, but the people wedon’tattract are the ones walking past every day. People look, but they see our price tags, or enquire about custom-made dresses and faint at the estimated costs.’
‘We’ve been through this. It’s about the exposure and the prestige of—’
The doorbell tinkling interrupts her and Ebony makes a noise of frustration. ‘Oh, what now?’
Witt pops his head in. ‘Is this a bad time?’
‘Who’re you?’ she barks at him and I can see he’s taken aback as I introduce them.
‘Oh, so you’re our prince, are you?’ She walks in a circle around him, as though she’s examining him, and then turns to me. ‘Do something about that grey streak and he might be okay.’
‘Ebony!’ I say in horror.
‘How old are you?’ she demands.
‘Thirty-nine.’ Poor Witt definitely wasn’t expecting this today.
She gives his arm a patronising pat. ‘Spot of hair dye and you won’t look a day over forty. It’ll be our little secret.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I mouth to him.
