“You got it. Now let’s do the sugar.” Esme paused. “Are you allowed to have sugar?”
“Of course.”
Esme breathed a sigh of relief. They measured the tablespoons of sugar, the teaspoons of baking powder and soda. They nearly had all the ingredients measured and prepared.
“I’m having trouble with the flour,” said Esme tugging at the corners of the unopened bag. And of course, the bag exploded as she gave it another tug. The white powder spilled all over both Princess Penelope’s and Esme’s dresses. “Oh, no.”
But the princess only giggled. “Don’t worry. One of the maids will clean it up.”
“Oh no, missy. We made this mess. We need to clean it up.”
Princess Penelope stared at her with wide eyes. Obviously, Esme had messed up protocol again.
Esme tried the curtsey again. “We need to clean this up, your royal highness.”
The frown dissolved and another set of giggles erupted from the little girl. “I’ve never had to clean up my own mess. This will be another lesson. I’ll find the broom. I think I know where it’s kept.”
The little girl dashed around the corner, grinning from ear to ear. Esme was now the one left gaping. Normally, she had to invent a game to get her kindergartners to clean up. But the promise of a new skill was all it took for this little lady.
Esme turned back to the ingredients assembled. In the doorway, there stood a figure. She braced herself for another of Giles’s disapproving scowls that not only had she made a mess, but enlisted her royal highness’ help in cleaning it up.
But it wasn’t Giles standing and staring at her in the doorway.
“Hi, Leo.”
“What are you doing here?” he said, his hazel eyes huger than when he’d rescued her from a dry cleaning dragon.
“Princess Penelope invited me. She came to my class this afternoon.”
“You’re the kindergarten teacher?”
Esme nodded. “I was hoping to bump into you while I was here.”
“You were?”
“Hello, father.” Penelope came back around the corner with a broom and dust pan in her hands.
Esme’s eyes went between the dark-haired girl with the bright hazel eyes and her ... father.
Chapter Nine
This was not a fairytale, Leo told the synapses firing in his brain. It was a mess. It was a pretty mess because the fireworks that ignited as his neurotransmitters made a
nd received connections looked remarkably like the sparkles that would come out of a Disney character’s magic wand. They translated the scene before him of a messy cooking experiment into a Cinderella-themed spectacle.
Esme stood in the kitchen of his hotel suite. She wore a dress the color of a ripe apple. It hugged each and every one of her curves rousing Leo’s imagination further. The bodice pushed up her breasts which heaved as she laughed with Penelope.
Esme had been transformed from the attractive young woman in common working clothes that he’d encountered that afternoon, to a dazzling damsel in a regal gown who had snuck into the ball against her evil stepmother’s wishes. Even with the flour coating her gown, she was breathtaking. Leo’s palms itched to present her with a shoe that was just her size.
The way she looked at him, he could tell she would happily slip her bare foot into the slipper that was only meant for her. But looking down, he saw that her feet weren’t bare. She wore sensible shoes, and he didn’t have a pair that he could give her.
Finally, Leo’s gaze shifted down to his daughter. The grin on Penelope’s face took him aback. His daughter was always so serious, even as a baby. Her mother had been the same. So had Leo’s mother. He couldn’t remember any of the women in his life ever giggling.
Had Leo ever made Penelope giggle? He’d certainly made her smile. But had he ever made his little girl laugh uncontrollably such that her little shoulders shook with the effort. Penelope’s eyes lit up when she saw him, and then she announced who he truly was.
“Father?” Esme asked. “As in … the king?”
In an instant, her view of him changed. Her bright, welcoming eyes clouded with surprise, then dismay, then confusion. He would’ve given anything to go back to Regular Joe Leo in her eyes. But that man had been his own fairytale. King Leonidas lived in the real world high in the sky in castles and luxury hotel penthouses where girls next door had no access.