Natalie thought of the way Mr. Casilieris had bitten her head off earlier, and her realization that if she didn’t escape him now she never would. And how this stranger with her face seemed, oddly enough, to understand.
“I was thinking of quitting, to be honest,” she whispered. Making it real. “Today.”
“I can’t quit, I’m afraid,” the impossibly glamorous princess said then, her green eyes alight with something a little more frank than plain mischief. “But I have a better idea. Let’s switch places. For a month, say. Six weeks at the most. Just for a little break.”
“That’s crazy,” Natalie said.
“Insane,” Valentina agreed. “But you might find royal protocol exciting! And I’ve always wanted to do the things everyone else in the world does. Like go to a real job.”
“People can’t switch places.” Natalie was frowning. “And certainly not with a princess.”
“You could think about whether or not you really want to quit,” Valentina pointed out. “It would be a lovely holiday for you. Where will Achilles Casilieris be in six weeks’ time?”
“He’s never gone from London for too long,” Natalie heard herself say, as if she was considering it.
Valentina smiled. “Then in six weeks we’ll meet in London. We’ll text in the meantime with all the necessary details about our lives, and on the appointed day we’ll just meet up and switch back and no one will ever be the wiser. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” Her gaze met Natalie’s with something like compassion. “And I hope you won’t mind my saying this, but you do look as if you could use a little fun.”
“It would never work.” Natalie realized after she spoke that she still hadn’t said no. “No one will ever believe I’m you.”
Valentina waved a hand between them. “How would anyone know the difference? I can barely tell myself.”
“People will take one look at me and know I’m not you,” Natalie insisted, as if that was the key issue here. “You look like a princess.”
If Valentina noticed the derisive spin she put on that last word out of habit, she appeared to ignore it.
“You too can look like a princess. This princess, anyway. You already do.”
“There’s a lifetime to back it up. You’re elegant. Poised. You’ve had years of training, presumably. How to be a diplomat. How to be polite in every possible situation. Which fork to use at dinner, for God’s sake.”
“Achilles Casilieris is one of the wealthiest men alive. He dines with as many kings as I do. I suspect that as his personal assistant, Natalie, you have, too. And have likely learned how to navigate the cutlery.”
“No one will believe it,” Natalie whispered, but there was no heat in it.
Because maybe she was the one who couldn’t believe it. And maybe, if she was entirely honest, there was a part of her that wanted this. The princess life and everything that went with it. The kind of ease she’d never known—and a castle besides. And only for a little while. Six short weeks. Scarcely more than a daydream.
Surely even Natalie deserved a daydream. Just this once.
Valentina’s smile widened as if she could scent capitulation in the air. She tugged off the enormous, eye-gouging ring on her left hand and placed it down on the counter between them. It made an audible clink against the marble surface.
“Try it on. I dare you. It’s an heirloom from Prince Rodolfo’s extensive treasury of such items, dating back to the dawn of time, more or less.” She inclined her head in that regal way of hers. “If it doesn’t fit we’ll never speak of switching places again.”
And Natalie felt possessed by a force she didn’t understand. She knew better. Of course she did. This was a ridiculous game and it could only make this bizarre situation worse, and she was certainly no Cinderella. She knew that much for sure.
But she slipped the ring onto her finger anyway, and it fit perfectly, gleaming on her finger like every dream she’d ever had as a little girl. Not that she could live a magical life, filled with talismans that shone the way this ring did, because that was the sort of impracticality her mother had abhorred. But that she could have a home the way everyone else did. That she could belong to a man, to a country, to the sweep of a long history, the way this ring hugged her finger. As if it was meant to be.
The ring had nothing to do with her. She knew that. But it felt like a promise, even so.
And it all seemed to snowball from there. They each kicked off their shoes and stood barefoot on the surprisingly plush carpet. Then Valentina shimmied out of her sleek, deceptively simple sheath dress with the unselfconsciousness of a woman used to being dressed by attendants. She lifted her brows with all the imperiousness of her station, and Natalie found herself retreating into the stall with the dress—since she was not, in fact, used to being tended to by packs of fawning courtiers and therefore all but naked with an audience. She climbed out of her own clothes, handing her pencil skirt, blouse and wrap sweater out to Valentina through the crack she left open in the door. Then she tugged the princess’s dress on, expecting it to snag or pull against her obviously peasant body.
But like the ring, the dress fit as if it had been tailored to her body. As if it was hers.
She walked out slowly, blinking when she saw...herself waiting for her. The very same view she’d seen in the mirror this morning when she’d dressed in the room Mr. Casilieris kept for her in the basement of his London town house because her own small flat was too far away to be to-ing and fro-ing at odd hours, according to him, and it was easier to acquiesce than fight. Not that it had kept him from firing away at her. But she shoved that aside because Valentina was laughing at the sight of Natalie in obvious astonishment, as if she was having the same literal out-of-body experience.
Natalie walked back to the counter and climbed into the princess’s absurd shoes, very carefully. Her knees protested beneath her as she tried to stand tall in them and she had to reach out to grip the marble counter.
“Put your weight on your heels,” Valentina advised. She was already wearing Natalie’s wedges, because apparently even their feet were the same, and of course she had no trouble standing in them as if she’d picked them out herself. “Everyone always wants to lean forward and tiptoe in heels like that, and nothing looks worse. Lean back and you own the shoe, not the other way around.” She eyed Natalie. “Will your glasses give me a headache, do you suppose?”
Natalie pulled them from her face and handed them over. “They’re clear glass. I was getting a little too much attention from some of the men Mr. Casilieris works with, and it annoyed him. I didn’t want to lose my job, so I started wearing my hair up and these glasses. It worked like a charm.”
“I refuse to believe men are so idiotic.”
Natalie grinned as Valentina took the glasses and slid them onto her nose. “The men we’re talking about weren’t exactly paying me attention because they found me enthralling. It was a diversionary tactic during negotiations and yes, you’d be surprised how many men fail to see a woman who looks smart.”
She tugged her hair tie from her ponytail and shook out her hair, then handed the elastic to Valentina. The princess swept her hair back and into the same ponytail Natalie had been sporting only seconds before.
And it was like magic.
Ordinary Natalie Monette, renowned for her fierce work ethic, attention to detail and her total lack of anything resembling a personal life—which was how she’d become the executive assistant to one of the world’s