Cinderella's Prince Under the Mistletoe Read online

  But not always a happy one.

  And yet, still, his heart ruled above his head. He turned to her.

  “Kiss me,” he whispered. And to himself he added, one last time.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IMOGEN TOLD HERSELF there was no refusing a royal command, but the truth was, ever since they had kissed this afternoon, every other thing had been overlaid with the awareness of Luca, and of his lips, and of the way tasting them had made her feel.

  That kiss had increased her awareness of him throughout the day until it was almost painful to be with him. She was intensely aware of the way he moved so gracefully, and of his easy strength, of the way he tossed back his head when he laughed and tilted it toward her when he listened to her. She was intensely aware of the rooster tail that insisted on springing up on the back of his head, inviting her fingers to press it down, and of the scent of him that made her want to bury her nose against his chest, more delicious than the scent of the Christmas tree that filled the room.

  But it wasn’t just his kiss that had increased her awareness, it was the fact that he had shared his confidences with her. Luca had trusted her.

  It had made her see that, despite appearances that he was the man who had everything, he was deeply vulnerable and had led a life of almost unfathomable loneliness. It made her aware that there was a depth in those deep brown eyes, a compassion born of his own unspoken—maybe his totally unacknowledged—suffering.

  So when he asked her to kiss him, she forgot his whispered, it’s so complicated.

  She forgot everything: who she had been before this moment and who she would be again after, who he had been before this moment and who he would be again after. She forgot her heartaches and her sorrows.

  They melted away, until all that was left was this moment.

  Luca leaning in to her, cupping the back of her head with his hand, drawing her to him, closer and closer. She closed her eyes and they connected. His lips were soft but firm; they tasted, incredibly, of wild strawberries, even though that had not ever been on their menu.

  They tasted of promises: of winter days chasing through the snow and spring afternoons lying down in meadows of wildflowers. They gave a promise of finding sunlight on gray days and warmth against the cold. They gave a promise of a future full of unexpected adventures, and that included the best adventure of all, which was coming to know another person, deeply and truly.

  No wonder when Luca claimed her lips, Imogen forgot his it’s so complicated, because nothing had ever felt less complicated. In fact, she was not sure she had ever felt anything that had been more simple, more primal, more preordained, more meant to be.

  The meeting of their lips, intensifying, breathed life back into her, as though for so long she had been going through the motions, sleepwalking. She tingled after being numb. She became supple after being wooden. Black and white became full glorious color. She was sharp instead of wrapped in cotton. The world was in focus, instead of being fuzzy.

  Something softened in her, and Luca sensed instantly she had invited the kiss to deepen yet again between them. He plundered her mouth, and when she was gasping with need and with delight, he shifted his attention to her neck, trailed kisses down it, nuzzled her ears, dropped his head to her neck, explored her ears with his lips, anointed her forehead and her nose with his mouth. With almost frantic need, she put her hands on both sides of his head and guided his mouth back to hers. He moaned and drew her yet closer, his hands tangling in her hair. There was a beautiful savagery between them now, a hunger, a fire.

  The background of all of this had been the whine of snowmobile engines, drawing ever closer. It was almost shocking when the engines stopped abruptly, plunging them into silence.

  The fury, the urgency, the desperation of the kiss between them intensified. Somewhere in her was the wild thought that this kiss had the power to stop time, that if they focused on nothing else, the moment would never end.

  “Your Royal Highness? Miss Albright?”

  Neither of them had heard the front door open, but now they sprang apart as they heard footfalls, coming fast down the hall.

  They stood, breathing hard, staring at each other. She had a sense of trying to memorize every single thing about this moment: the rapid rise of his chest, the look on his face, the faintly bruised look around his mouth.

  Luca put out his hand to her, trying to bridge the gap between them. If she took it, Imogen felt he would run out the back door, escape back to the world that was just them. She reached for it.

  “Sir?” The words echoed in the hallway outside the door. There would be no world of just them. No, his world called for him to come back. The gap between them could not be bridged, because it was time.

  And for them, time had just run out.

  Luca dropped his hand before her outreached fingers connected with his touch. She stared at his hand, where it had fallen to his side, and then pulled her own away and used it to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Cristiano burst into the room. His relief at seeing Luca was evident, but then his eyes swept the room, and Imogen felt something fragile and private was laid bare to him.

  Cristiano took in the leaning Christmas tree, the decorations, the sock on the coffee table, the little snowmen figures she had made, the way Luca and Imogen were dressed, as if they were in their pajamas.

  He looked confused. “Are you alone here? Just the two of you?”

  Luca nodded, curtly, his eyes never leaving her face. Begging her? Promising her?

  “It’s just...it looks as if there was a family here. The snowmen out front...” Cristiano’s voice drifted away. His eyes went from Luca to her and back again. She felt what had just transpired between them was an open book, puffy lips, mussed hair, heaving chests.

  A smooth mask fell over his face. “You’re all right, then, sir?”

  Luca nodded curtly.

  “Another snow machine is coming right behind me so that we can take both you and Miss Albright down to the village. There’s power there—I’ve booked rooms for our meeting. We have to make haste, sir. You are urgently needed in Casavalle. I was able to contact Miss Ross and we can meet her—”

  Imogen felt as if she was swimming up from the bottom of a pool. Cristiano’s words registered with her as if she was hearing them from under water.

  “Wait a minute,” Imogen said. “You’ve contacted who?”

  Cristiano went silent.

  Imogen turned her attention to Luca. “Who are you meeting with?”

  “Gabriella Ross,” Luca said quietly.

  “My Gabriella Ross?” Imogen said, hearing something dangerous in her tone.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” Luca said uneasily.

  “She’s my best friend.”

  Luca strode over to her and gazed down at her, his look stripping, all those promises gone from his eyes as if they had never been.

  And really, had they ever been?

  “Has she told you about her claim?” he asked, his voice a rasp.

  “What claim?” Imogen said, refusing to be intimidated by him, even though he had become a stern stranger before her very eyes.

  He searched her face, then turned back to Cristiano, dismissing her. Dismissing every single second they had spent together. He wasn’t trudging sadly toward his world, instead of the one they had shared; he was leaping toward it.

  “You have news from Casavalle?” Luca asked Cristiano.

  Cristiano shot her a look. Was she supposed to bow out so they could have this conversation in private? She wasn’t feeling accommodating!

  “You can speak in front of her. I trust her completely.”

  Imogen steeled herself against the compliment. Did he really? Then why was it he had never once mentioned what he was really in Crystal Lake for?

  “Unfortunately, t
here’s been a leak about Princess Meribel’s pregnancy,” Cristiano said, his tone low and uncomfortable. “I’m afraid the mood of the people is not forgiving.”

  “This is grave news, indeed,” Luca said, his brow furrowed with worry.

  Imogen thought, again, just as she had when he had first told her about Meribel, that he must care about her very much. Quite frankly, after what he had told her about the Princess’s plan to pass off a baby that was not his, Imogen was not at all sure Meribel deserved forgiveness.

  “Tensions are quite high,” Cristiano said. “Princess Meribel has gone into hiding.”

  The way he said this made it very clear Luca would be looked to for leadership in this difficult situation.

  Imogen watched Luca change as he donned the mantle of his responsibility. Even though he was still dressed in long johns, his authority became very apparent. He went from being an ordinary man to the leader of a people before her very eyes. That remoteness was in him, the unmistakable sense of absolute command.

  “Please tell me what Gabriella has to do with any of this?” Imogen demanded.

  Luca looked at her coolly, as if he had never kissed her at all, as if the barriers their different worlds erected between them had never been melted away by the heat of their passion.

  “I think that would be up to her to tell you,” he said.

  She felt rebuffed. She felt as if the man she had just kissed with her whole heart and soul, with all the passion she was capable of—the man she had played in the snow with and given the gift of Christmas to, the man who had trusted her with his deepest self—had become an untouchable, unknowable stranger before her very eyes.

  She felt as if she wanted to weep.

  But she heard the second snowmobile pulling into the yard.

  “Get ready,” Luca said to her. “We will leave immediately.”

  “I’m staying here,” she said proudly.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “I’ll appoint someone to keep things going until the power is restored.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Cristiano was staring at her with his mouth open. Obviously, he had never heard anyone argue with the Prince before.

  “You’re coming with us,” Luca said tersely. “I’m not leaving you here to deal with this by yourself.”

  “The power will be restored shortly.”

  “And then you can return here.”

  She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I am not your serf, Your Highness. You have absolutely no authority over me. I will do whatever I damn well please. I will not spend one more second with a man who deceived me.”

  Poor Cristiano actually moaned his distress at her tone.

  “I never deceived you.”

  “I mentioned my friend was Gabi. You never said a word about my friend being your mission, your reason for being here. You never confided in me why you were here at all!”

  “I didn’t make the association between Gabi and Gabriella. We would never use a diminutive in place of the name of someone who is—” he stopped himself, seemed to rethink what he was going to say. “Nicknames are not popular in Casavalle.”

  “But I just asked you, point blank, what was going on, and you still won’t tell me.”

  But the truth was she wasn’t really mad about Gabi, and that wasn’t where she felt deceived.

  She felt deceived because Prince Luca had just kissed her with what seemed to be his whole heart and soul, and yet he was going to rush back to Casavalle to protect the woman who had betrayed him. You wouldn’t do that unless you were nursing some pretty strong feelings.

  And maybe even worse, she felt as if she had deceived herself by allowing herself to entertain the notion, no matter how briefly, that she, a woman damaged by both heartbreak and her own infertility, could have a fairy-tale ending with a prince.

  “Gather up your things and go,” Imogen said peevishly. “A kingdom awaits you.”

  “You’re coming.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re being particularly obstinate. You’d think you could show a little appreciation for your rescue from this dire situation.”

  Rescued by a prince. Every girl’s dream. Or maybe just every stupidly naive girl’s dream!

  Imogen was insulted by his use of the term dire. In her mind, there had been nothing dire about being snowed in with him. Not. One. Thing.

  “Well, I don’t need rescuing. And this is not medieval times, where you can throw me over your shoulder and rescue me against my will.”

  His eyes smoldered with something that suggested he would like nothing better than to do just that.

  “You said to remind you not to displease me,” he told her.

  Already the loveliness of the afternoon of sitting together playing twenty questions was fading.

  “Go ahead,” she snapped. “Send me a white elephant.” Then she turned and left the room before he decided to act on it. What if—under his masterly need to control the situation—she melted instead of remaining defiant?

  A few minutes later, she heard both snowmobiles start up and she watched from a chilly upper bedroom as they pulled away, spraying snow behind them.

  Prince Luca’s entrance had been James Bond worthy, and so was his exit.

  She went back to the room they had shared. She had predicted power would be restored, but she was shocked when it picked that moment to flicker on. The overhead light seemed harsh and stripped the room completely of its charm.

  Everything looked cheap and tawdry, like a set for a low-budget TV production. The tree was leaning drunkenly against the strings that kept it from falling over. The candles were all burned down and sputtering in deep wax pools. The Christmas decorations made by her sisters seemed old and hokey, and she wanted to smash that little plaster cast handprint that he had declared was more precious than his Buschetta ornaments. The room, and everything in it, seemed to mock her.

  Angrily, she took down ornaments off the tree, ripped down garlands, blew out what remained of the candles. Christmas in October. It wasn’t magical at all. It was completely ridiculous.

  The last thing Imogen did was detach the tree from the wall. She was so mad that, even though it had taken two of them, struggling mightily, to get the tree into the Lodge, she was able to drag it out and throw it off the stairs with perfect ease.

  It was only when she got back inside to the now-naked room, that she realized something.

  When Luca had gathered his things with him, even though he had left with haste and urgency, he had taken the little snow family with him.

  “I wish he hadn’t,” she said out loud. “I would have burned them.”

  But somehow she knew, even though she was hurt, and even though she was angry, that was not true.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  LUCA TIGHTENED HIS tie and shrugged on the suit jacket. He adjusted the diamond cuff links and matching tiepin and finally slipped on highly polished custom-made shoes.

  He looked at himself in the mirror of the suite Cristiano had procured in a Crystal Lake hotel. The main street hostelry did not have the atmosphere of the Crystal Lake Lodge—not that Luca wanted to make comparisons, or look back at all. He needed to steel himself against what he felt when he thought of Imogen.

  Angry, when he thought of her defying him by refusing to be rescued.

  Hurt, when he thought of her accusing him of deception.

  And something, beyond the anger and hurt, that was the most dangerous thing of all.

  The reflection that gazed back at him was a man completely transformed from who he had been two hours ago. From his freshly shaved face to his crisply groomed hair, to the faintly aloof expression on his face, Luca looked every inch a prince.

  But he knew himself to be a different man than
he had been just a few days ago.

  He ordered himself to stop looking back; he quashed the sense of longing. He had urgent responsibilities to tend to, and he had been trained since childhood to put the needs of his kingdom above the longings of his own heart.

  Possibly to the point he did not even know what his heart was telling him!

  “Thank goodness,” he muttered to himself. He looked at his watch. In three minutes, his fate—the one he had moved toward his whole life—would be decided.

  Naturally, he hoped it was some kind of trick—a masterful deception that had fooled even his mother, Queen Maria.

  Luca recalled well her phone call saying she needed to see him. With the whole kingdom in a frenzied state of overdrive with both a royal wedding and Christmas on the horizon, he had been puzzled by the urgency in his mother’s voice during that call, and the distress on her face when he had entered her suite.

  Without preamble, she had asked him if he knew who Sophia Ross had been.

  At first the name had meant nothing. But then he remembered. “Wasn’t that the name of my father’s first wife?”

  Queen Maria nodded and passed him a letter.

  He scanned it quickly, and then, shocked, read it again. It was from a woman, Gabriella Ross, in some tiny hamlet in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, who claimed to have found a letter in the belongings of her deceased mother, Sophia Ross. The contents of the letter had led her to believe King Vincenzo—Luca’s father—might be her father.

  “How did this get through security to you?” he asked, sorry that the letter had not found its way directly to him.

  “It was marked personal and confidential to my attention.”

  Luca prevented himself from breathing an irritated sigh. Marking an envelope personal and confidential should be a way to gain it more attention in the screening process, not less. He was going to have to speak to Miles Montague, the palace secretary, about that.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said fiercely.

  “I didn’t at first either. But the tone of it is so innocent. As if she has no idea the repercussions of such a claim.”