Page 23 of Fake Fiancée, Real Baby
He looked up distractedly. “Oh? And what do you think they’d say?” he asked.
Claire smiled. Her parents were down-to-earth types. They lived on an ordinary street, in an ordinary suburb of Detroit. Nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened to them. Her dad had been a car salesman — a successful businessman, and a lover of good food. Her mom had worked as an art restorer — a nod to her famous namesake, della Francesca. Claire had a brother — Mike — who’d followed their dad into the car trade and become a mechanic. It was just… ordinary.
“I don’t think they’ll believe it at first,” she said, imagining the conversation over the phone.
“You’ll tell them, though, won’t you?” the prince asked.
The jet had taken off, gaining height over the landscape below — the sea, the urban sprawl, the green hills and trees. Claire nodded.
“When I know more about… everything.”
She still had so many questions — so much could still go wrong. In a short while, they’d be landing in Flandenne, and she’d be the one in front of the lens. What would the press write about her? What would Adrien’s parents think of her?
“I promise, it’ll be all right. Nothing’s going to go wrong,” the prince said, and he leaned forward in his seat and took her hand in his, giving her a reassuring smile.
Claire nodded. She was nervous, even as she trusted in his promise. “You’ve got to remember, this is all new to me. I’ve only ever seen this world from outside. I don’t know what it’s like towalk down a red carpet and pose for the cameras. I wasn’t born into any of this.”
Squeezing her hand, he raised it to his lips, kissing the back of it, and raising his eyes to her gaze. “Just follow my lead. It’ll be mad for a few days. But it’ll all calm down soon enough. They’ll soon see there’s no scandal involved. Just two people who’ve fallen in love and are getting married,” he said. “The press love scandal. They feed off it. The ordinary doesn’t sell newspapers or get clickbait. If we’re ordinary, they’ll soon get bored.”
Claire could only hope that was true. But the matter of the king and queen was more complicated.
“What about your parents? What are we going to tell them?” she asked.
The prince sat back in his chair, pondering for a moment. Claire had only ever seen the king and queen of Flandenne in photographs. The prince’s father was older, and had married the prince’s mother when she was just twenty years old. Queen Helena had been a beauty in her day, and she still exuded the sort of glamor that graced the front pages of the world’s fashion magazines. Claire was nervous at the prospect of meeting her — of being judged by her.
“We’ll tell them we met on the yacht. There’s no shame in it. We’ll be honest… they might want to keep the details secret. You could be a restaurateur — an entrepreneur who’s about to open her own restaurant in Flandenne. It’s not a lie.”
“And when they start digging around in my past? What then? What if they discover I was just a cook on a yacht?” Claire replied.
She was already beginning to doubt herself — to doubt her ability to play the part she had to play, and that he was expecting of her. But the prince only smiled and shook his head.
“And if they do, why does it matter? There’s no shame in who you are. Calling yourself a cook on a yacht hardly does you justice. You’re a skilled chef, with drive and determination. You’re passionate about what you do. You’re an artist of food,” he said.
His words made Claire blush. No one had ever described her as an “artist of food” before. But it was a flattering description, and his words gave her confidence. Perhaps itwouldbe all right.
They’d barely been in the air for half an hour before they began their descent, and it wasn’t long before the prince pointed out the medieval roofs and spires of Flandenne.
“What a beautiful city,” Claire exclaimed, as they flew above the cathedral, with its famous three bell towers, set in the middle of a vast square, on the far side of which was the royal palace.
“You can see the gardens where I used to play as kid,” the prince said, pointing to an expanse of greenery in the center of the city, behind the palace walls.
They landed at a small airport a few miles beyond the city limits and were escorted from the jet to a waiting car — another Bentley, displaying the flag of Flandenne, and driven by a liveried chauffeur. They left the airport by a rear gate. There was no showing of passports or faff in baggage reclaim. Everything about their journey had been effortless, and driving towards the capital — Flandenne being both the name of the country and the capital — Claire reflected again on the extraordinary change of fortune the past week had brought her.
“It’s a beautiful country,” she said, looking out across the fields and woods as they drove along a main road towards the city.
“It’s very flat. I don’t think I’d ever seen a real hill until I was sent to school in England. But look, we’re coming to the old gates,” the prince said, pointing out of the window.
The road had split with a ring road traversing the city walls, where modern office blocks rose in the financial district. But passing below the medieval gate, Claire found herself transported into another world. The road had narrowed, and centuries-old buildings crowded round them. Claire was gazing into the windows of Flandenne’s famous chocolate stores, with their rows of delicious confectionary temptingly displayed.
“What a beautiful place,” she exclaimed.
“I can’t wait to show you it properly. Look at the puppets in the window there — that’s Monsieur Caraconne’s famous puppet workshop,” the prince said, pointing to a window where half a dozen puppets, dressed in elaborate costumes, were staged in what looked like a scene from a fairytale.
The car purred into the central square, where the bells of the cathedral were ringing out, as though to welcome the prince and his bride-to-be.
“I can’t believe I’m here,” Claire said, her heart skipping a beat as they turned into the palace gates, to be greeted by the smart salute of soldiers dressed in brightly colored uniforms.
“Believe it,” the prince said. “This is your home now.”
