Cara Colter - Cinderella's Prince Under The Mistletoe

“I am from the mountains, too,” he said. “Casavalle is in a sheltered valley, but there is quite a formidable range of mountains behind it that acts as a border to the neighboring kingdom, Aguilarez. This actually reminds me of my home. I understand this unpredictable weather.”

But if he was from a mountainous region, and if this reminded him of home, why come? Why not choose something less familiar for a getaway?

None of your business , she reminded herself firmly. Her business was to make sure he was comfortable and cared for, for the duration of his stay.

“I’ll have dinner ready in about an hour, Prince Luca. Would you prefer I bring it to you, or will you come down?”

“I’ll come down, thank you, Miss Albright.”

She noticed the Prince looked exhausted. Almost before she had the door closed, he had thrown himself on the bed, and his hand moved to his tie, wrenching it loose from his throat. He looked up at the ceiling, his expression deeply troubled.

She shut the door quickly and made her way down the stairs. She stopped at her office and used the landline to call Rachel’s husband, Tom. There was no answer, and so she left a message for him to contact her as soon as possible. And then she tried Gabriella’s number.

That same cheerful message she’d been getting for three days came on.

“You’ve reached Gabi. I must be hiking mountain trails. You know the drill. After the beep.”

The beep came, and Imogen said, “I certainly hope you are not hiking the mountain trails right now, Gabriella Ross! There’s a terrible storm hitting. Please let me know you are all right as soon as you can.”

But of course, Gabi would be all right. She had, just as Imogen had, grown up in these mountains. She knew what to do in every situation. Tourists might sometimes be caught unaware by the fickle nature of mountain weather, but locals rarely were. Imogen suspected her urgent request for Gabi to call her had an underlying motive that served her.

She was here alone with a prince, a blizzard was setting in and she needed Gabi’s help! Plus, she needed to know what the heck was going on with Gabi. What better circumstance than riding out a blizzard together to inspire confidences?

She sighed and went to the window. Night was falling, and between the growing darkness and the thick snow, she could no longer see the tree line at the edge of the lawns.

With worry for both Rachel and Gabi nipping at her mind like a small, yappy dog nipping at her heels, she went to the kitchen and once again investigated the contents of the fridge.

She sighed at all the unfamiliar items, then grabbed a package of mushrooms, some cheese and a few other ingredients. Despite her distress over Rachel’s departure and the brewing storm, she had a job to do, and she would do it.

PRINCE LUCA VALENTI woke to pitch-blackness. He almost wished for the disorientation that came with waking in a different time zone, in a strange bed, but no, he was not so lucky.

He knew exactly where he was and what day it was. He was at the Crystal Lake Lodge in the Rocky Mountains of Canada.

And it was the worst day of his life.

Oddly, since it was the worst day of his life, his thoughts did not go immediately to the sudden onslaught of difficulties he was experiencing.

Instead, for some reason he thought of her , Imogen Albright. It wasn’t that the wind had tangled her hair, or that she had looked adorable and completely unprofessional in her plaid shirt and faded jeans and those sneakers with the neon pink laces, that made him think of her. It wasn’t that she hadn’t addressed him correctly, or that she had offered her hand first. It wasn’t even the look of distress on her face when they had found the maid in such anguish on the bathroom floor.

No, it wasn’t those things that made her, Imogen Albright, his first waking thought.

And it was not really that the fragrance in this room was like her—fresh and light and deliciously clean—and that it had surrounded him while he slept and greeted him when he opened his eyes.

It wasn’t any of that.

No, it was the way her eyes had met his and held for that endless moment after he had told her the Lodge was a magnificent building.

When he had glanced back at her, she had been looking at him, those huge blue eyes, an astonishing shade of sapphire, with a look in them that had been deep and unsettling.

He had felt—illogically, he was sure—as if she knew , not just how troubled he was, but something of him.

It was as if Miss Albright had easily cast aside all his defenses and seen straight to his soul. For a moment, it had almost looked as if she might step toward him, touch him again—and not his hand this time, either.

Had he actually taken a step away from her? In his mind, he had, if not with his body. It had seemed to him, in that brief encounter, Imogen Albright had seen all too clearly the things he most needed to keep secret.

That this was the worst day of his life.

And there had been something in her eyes that had made him want to lean toward her instead of stepping away.

Something that had suggested she, too, knew of bad days and plans gone awry. That she, somehow, had the power to bring calm to the sea of life that was suddenly stormy. In the endless blue sky of her eyes, in that brief moment, he had glimpsed a resting place.

Still, wasn’t awry an understatement? His life—strategically planned from birth to death—was veering seriously off the path.

At this very moment, Luca was supposed to be a newly married man, not alone in a bed in some tiny mountain village in Canada, but in the sumptuous honeymoon suite that had been prepared within the Casavalle palace for him and his new bride, Princess Meribel.

Meribel was of the neighboring kingdom of Aguilarez, and years of tension between the two kingdoms were supposed to have been put to rest today with the exchange of nuptials between them. Instead, here they were in chaos. In an attempt to minimize the mess, he had issued a statement this morning.

Irreconcilable differences.

Not the truth, but the truth might have plunged both kingdoms into the thing Luca was most interested in avoiding: scandal.

Meribel’s tearful announcement to Luca the night before the wedding had come on the heels of other disturbing news.

His father’s first marriage—the one that had ended in the kind of scandal that the Kingdom of Casavalle now avoided at all costs—might have produced a child. A child who would now be an adult. An older sibling to Luca.

Which would mean the role Luca had prepared for his whole life was in jeopardy. The eldest child of the late King Vincenzo would head the monarchy of Casavalle. Was it possible that was not him? It made the ground, which had always felt so solid under his feet, feel as if it was rocking precariously, the shudders that warned of an impending earthquake.

Luca was a man accustomed to control, raised to shoulder the responsibility to his kingdom first, above any personal interests. And yet this whole cursed year had been a horrible series of events that were entirely—maddeningly—out of his control.

Maybe today was, in fact, not the worst day of his life. Wasn’t the worst day of his life that day four months ago when his father, King Vincenzo, had died? With so many things unspoken between them, with Luca needing the gift he would now never receive?

His father’s approval.

On the other hand, if one was inclined to look for blessings in terrible situations—which Luca admittedly was not—perhaps it was a good thing his father had died before everything in their carefully controlled world had begun to shift sideways.