Michelle Celmer - Christmas with the Prince - Christmas with the Prince

Way to go, Liv. Open mouth, insert foot.

“Aaron, what I said just then, about not having parents—”

“Forget it,” he said with a shrug.

In other words, drop it.

The lack of sleep, especially after that relaxing massage, was obviously taking its toll on her. She was saying stupid and inappropriate things to a man she knew practically nothing about. A virtual stranger.

A stranger who had the authority to fire her on a whim if it suited him.

“You should get some rest,” he said.

He was right. She was long overdue for a power nap. “Now, if I can just find my way back to my room,” she joked.

“Didn’t Derek bring you a map?”

She looked down at her desk, papers strewn everywhere. “It’s here. Somewhere.”

He smiled and gestured to the door. “Come on, I’ll walk you up.”

“Thank you.” She slipped her laptop in her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, grabbing the plate of uneaten food on her way out.

Even though he was silent, the tension between them seemed to ease as she followed the prince out of the lab and up the stairs. She left the plate in the kitchen and received a distinct look of disapproval from the butler.

“Sorry,” she said lamely, and he answered with a stiff nod. That on top of what she’d said to the prince filled her with a nagging sense of guilt as they walked up to her room. She was obviously way out of her league here. This was going to take a lot of getting used to.

When they reached her door, she turned to him and said, “Thanks for walking me up.”

He smiled. “My pleasure. Get some rest.”

He started to turn away.

“Aaron, wait!”

He stopped and turned back to her.

“Before you go, I wanted to apologize.”

His brow furrowed. “For what?”

“What I said in the lab.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t. It was really…thoughtless. And I’m sorry if I made you feel bad.”

“Liv, don’t worry about it.”

“I mean, I basically suggested you would be better off without parents, which, considering your father’s health, was totally insensitive of me. My verbal filter must be on the fritz.”

He leaned casually against the doorjamb, a look of amused curiosity on his face. “Verbal filter?”

“Yeah. People’s thoughts go through, and the really dumb and inappropriate stuff gets tossed out before they can become words. Lack of sleep must have mine working at minimum capacity. I know it’s a pretty lame excuse. But I’m really, really sorry. I’m just an employee. I have no right asking you personal questions or talking about your family, anyway.”

For several long, excruciating seconds he just looked at her, and she began to worry that maybe he really was thinking about firing her. Then he asked, “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

Huh?

She insulted him, and he invited her to share dinner with him? She might have thought he was extending a formal invitation just to be polite, but he looked sincere. Like he really wanted to have dinner with her.

“Um, sure,” she said, more than a touch puzzled.

“Seven sharp.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll warn you that Geoffrey loathes tardiness.”

“I’ll be on time,” she assured him.

He flashed her one last smile, then walked away.

She stepped into her room and shut the door, still not exactly sure what just happened, but way too tired to try to sort it out. She would think about it later, after she’d had some sleep.

As inviting as the bed looked, the draw of a steaming shower was too appealing to resist. The sensation of the hot water jetting against her skin was almost as enjoyable as Aaron’s neck massage had been. After her shower she curled up under the covers, planning to sleep an hour or two before heading back down to the lab.

She let her tired, burning eyes drift shut, and when she opened them again to check the clock on the bedside table, it was six forty-five.

Liv had been so wracked with guilt when Aaron walked her to her room this morning, she hadn’t been paying attention to how they got there. And of course her handy map was in the lab, buried under her research. Which was why, four minutes before she was supposed to be in the dinning room, she was frantically wandering the halls, looking for a familiar landmark. The castle was just so big and quiet. If only she would run into someone who could help. She was going to be late, and she had the feeling she was already in hot water with Geoffrey the butler.

She rounded a corner and ran—literally—into someone.

Plowed into was more like it. But this time it wasn’t a petite maid. This time it was a hulk of man, built like a tank, who stood at least a foot taller than her own five-foot-ten-inch frame. If he hadn’t caught her by the arms, the force of the collision probably would have knocked her on her butt.

He righted and swiftly released her.

“Sorry,” she apologized, wondering how many more royal employees she would collide with while she was here. “It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Miss Montgomery, I presume?” he said in a slightly annoyed tone, looking, of all places, at her chest. Then she looked down and realized she’d forgotten to pin on her ID badge. She pulled it from the outer pocket of her backpack and handed it to him. “Yeah, sorry.”

His badge identified him as Flynn, and she couldn’t help thinking that he looked more like a Bruno or a Bruiser.

He looked at the photo on her badge, then back at her, one brow raised slightly higher than the other. He didn’t say, You don’t look like a scientist, but she could tell he was thinking it.

He handed it back to her. “You should wear this at all times.”

“I know. I forgot.” She hooked it on her sweater, managing not to skewer her skin as she had yesterday. “Maybe you can help me. I’m trying to get to the dining room,” she told him. “I’ve lost my way.”

“Would you like me to show you the way?”

She sighed with relief. “That would be wonderful. I’m about three minutes from being late for dinner, and I’m already in the doghouse with Geoffrey.”

“We can’t have that,” he said, gesturing in the direction she’d just come from. “This way, miss.”

This time she paid attention as he led her downstairs to the dining room and she was pretty sure that she would be able to find her way back to her room. But she would keep the map with her at all times, just in case.

Prince Aaron was sitting in the dining room waiting for her, nursing a drink, when they walked in.

“I found her, Your Highness,” Flynn told him.

“Thank you, Flynn,” the prince said.

He nodded and left, and Liv realized it was no accident that she’d encountered him in the hallway.

“How did you know I would get lost?” she asked him.

He grinned. “Call it a hunch.”

He rose from his chair and pulled out the adjacent chair for her, and as she sat, his fingers brushed the backs of her shoulders. Was he doing it on purpose? And if so, why did he feel the need to touch her all the time? Did he get some morbid kick out of making her nervous?

The only other time she’d had an experience with a touchy-feely person was back in graduate school. Professor Green had had a serious case of inappropriately wandering hands that, on a scale of one to ten, had an ick factor of fifteen. All of his female students fell victim to his occasional groping.

But unlike her professor, when Aaron touched her, she liked the way it felt. The shiver of awareness and swift zing of sexual attraction. She just wished she knew what it meant.

He eased her chair in and sat back down, lounging casually, drink in hand. “Would you like a drink? A glass of wine?”