Christmas with a Prince

by Noelle Adams

  He didn’t live in Minneapolis, as far as I knew. He lived somewhere in Europe.

  He liked me well enough, and he was clearly amusing himself while he was here. But there was very little chance that he was serious about me—at least serious enough to keep pursuing me after his week volunteering was over.

  I’d told myself all this over and over again, so many times that when I arrived at the community center at nine thirty the following day, I was almost convinced of it.

  The kiss had been good. And casual.

  And not a sign that my life was going to change.

  For a normal girl my age, a kiss wouldn’t be earth-shattering. It wouldn’t be a symbol of something serious or dramatic or terrifying.

  It would just be a kiss.

  So it could be just a kiss for me too.

  I wasn’t different from everyone else.

  As I headed for Marcus’s office, I felt mostly in control of myself.

  Marcus was at his desk, and he gave me a friendly greeting.

  Then, while I was searching my bag for the budget file I needed to return, he said, “Oh, hey, did Henry tell you yet?”

  “Tell me what?” I straightened up, feeling a sudden wave of nerves.

  “He’s going to be volunteering here for longer than this week.”

  “What?”

  “He’s staying longer than originally planned. A couple more weeks. Until we break for Christmas.”

  I stared at Marcus, trying to process this piece of information.

  I’d thought the one week with Henry was all I was going to have. I’d spent the past twenty-four hours reminding myself of that fact.

  But now I would have two weeks more.

  Four

  AFTER I HAD THE STILTED conversation with Marcus about Henry staying on for most of the month, I discovered that my phone must have slid out of my bag in the car since it was no longer there.

  I could hardly go three hours without looking at my phone, so I went back outside, walking around the corner of the building toward the parking lot in the back.

  Before I turned the last corner, I heard a familiar voice.

  “I don’t care if she’s getting impatient. I told her I would do this my way.”

  It was Henry’s voice. I’d recognize it anywhere, although I’d never heard it with that particular edge, as if he were frustrated or bad-tempered about the conversation.

  Curious, I slowed down so I could hear the response.

  A female voice I didn’t recognize said, “She wants you back.”

  “She’ll have to wait a few more weeks.”

  I felt a kernel of worry at the words. Even out of context, they didn’t sound good.

  Who was she?

  And why did she want Henry back?

  Did another woman have a claim on him while he was here kissing me?

  I’d almost reached the corner, and my choices were to shamelessly eavesdrop or to keep walking and show myself.

  I wasn’t going to eavesdrop on purpose like that, no matter how much I wanted to hear the rest of the conversation.

  As I rounded the corner, Henry was saying, “Now would you both leave please, before she—”

  He cut off his words abruptly as he saw me appear,

  He was standing on the sidewalk leading from the parking lot and talking to two people, a dark-haired man wearing jeans and a wool sports coat—very handsome in a big, laid-back way—and a slim, pretty woman.

  I stopped, as anyone would when confronted with three people blocking the sidewalk.

  My eyes focused on Henry’s face, and I saw something that looked like discomfort flickering across his expression before he smiled at me.

  “Hi,” I said, glancing over at the other two. “Sorry to... to interrupt.”

  “You didn’t interrupt. They just dropped me off. They’re leaving.”

  “Oh.” I waited a moment to see if Henry would introduce me, and he didn’t. “I just left my phone in my car and so had to come back out to get it.” After a moment’s hesitation, I made my decision. “I’m April.”

  The pretty woman looked around my age. She had brown hair with lovely highlights and wore a very expensive leather jacket that I could see was Italian. She smiled at me, and I knew the smile was genuine. “Amalie,” she said. “And this is my husband, Jack.”

  I liked the looks of Jack immediately and even more so when he gave me a slow smile. He had a five-o’clock shadow already even though I was willing to bet he’d shaved that morning.

  “Hi,” he said. “You probably won’t remember, but I’ve actually met you before—at a party.”

  “You have?” A sudden chill froze me for a minute as I searched my memory for a party where I might have met him. I didn’t recognize him at all, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t run into him. A good number of the parties in my past were nothing but a blur now.

  But still... I thought I would have remembered a good-looking guy like Jack. Plus he looked at least ten years older than me, and I almost always partied with people around my own age.

  “Yeah,” Jack said, glancing over at Henry, who was frowning at him for some reason. “You were like twelve, I think. You went to a Christmas party with your dad, and I was there.”

  “Oh,” I said, relaxing at this piece of information. “I’m surprised you even remember, if it was that long ago. You’re a friend of Henry’s?”

  “Yeah. Well, actually I’m—”

  “Actually”—Henry interrupted—“April and I need to get inside. Thanks for the ride.”

  “Sure,” Jack said, glancing over to meet Amalie’s eyes. They both looked like they wanted to laugh about something—Henry, I assumed. “See you later.”

  Amalie smiled at me again. “It was nice to meet you.”

  “You too.” Now that I was looking at her, something about her face seemed familiar. “We haven’t met before, have we?”

  “No. I don’t believe we have.”

  I blinked, realizing that she had an accent too—the same accent that Henry had. But before I could ask about it, Jack and Amalie were walking toward a dark SUV.

  I turned toward Henry with a frown. “Why didn’t you want me to talk to them?”

  “It’s not that,” he said, looking relaxed and casual again, that discomfort I’d seen a glimpse of before completely vanishing.

  “Then what was it?”

  “They can be... they can be annoying sometimes.”

  “Really? They both seemed really nice.” I glanced over, and Jack was backing the SUV out of a parking place. When he saw me looking, he tapped on his horn a couple of times and waved.

  I waved back, and I couldn’t mistake the teasing, knowing smile Amalie was giving Henry.

  I suddenly understood it.

  “They are nice,” Henry said, waving at the SUV as it pulled out onto the street.

  “You were afraid they were going to embarrass you,” I said, relieved now that I understood his mood.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Yes, you were.” I chuckled a little and took a step closer to him. “You were afraid they’d say something to me or about me that would embarrass you.”

  Henry gave me a crooked smile. “I didn’t know what they’d say, if you want to know the truth.”

  “They’re your friends though?”

  He paused for a moment before he answered, “Amalie is my sister.”

  “She is? Why didn’t you tell me? She doesn’t look much like you.” I was still thinking about where I might have seen her before. “Would she have been around the university campus for any reason?”

  “Yes. She’s working on a master’s degree in art history. You think you’ve seen her there?”

  The recognition now clicked in my mind. “I must have. She looks really familiar, and the art building isn’t far from mine. I’m sure I’ve seen her around. How long has she been here?”

  “A while. She moved here for college and stayed for graduate school. She and Jack
live here now. That’s why I’m here, actually. I’ve been visiting them.”

  I tried to add this information to the other pieces I knew about him, but I still couldn’t get a full picture. “If you’re visiting, then why are you volunteering here?”

  It still bothered me that he’d used some sort of influence to force his way into my literacy program. I’d assumed he’d had to, but now that I knew him better, he didn’t seem the type to have broken the law or otherwise misbehaved in such a way that would require community service.

  He cleared his throat. “I... I’m used to doing things. I didn’t want to hang around my sister’s apartment all day doing nothing. And I like to give back around the holidays in some way. Jack knows a couple of members of the board, so he made some calls and helped me put this together.

  “Oh.” It sounded mostly reasonable, although I still felt like he was leaving some things out. “So you...” I dropped my eyes, suddenly scared to hear the answer to the question I couldn’t quite ask.

  “So I what?” Henry murmured, lifting my chin with his hand so he could meet my eyes.

  “So you weren’t required to do community service?” I managed to ask. “Because you did something involving... substance abuse... or something like that.”

  “No,” he said quickly. “No, not at all. Is that what you thought?”

  I nodded, swallowing hard, relieved and scared at exactly the same time. “Something Marcus had said made me... made me think that.”

  “No. It’s not that at all.” He was searching my face almost frantically. “Is that why you were so suspicious of me at first?”

  I nodded. “I shouldn’t have judged. I mean, I’m the last person in the world who has any reason to judge. But I have to be really careful about who I hang out with.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about me in that regard.” He’d lifted his hand to my face the way he had yesterday just before he kissed me. “To tell you the truth, my history has been rather boring and vanilla.”

  “I like vanilla,” I said in almost a whisper.

  “I’m glad to hear that’s so.” As he spoke in a thick murmur, he was leaning down toward me. His lips found mine, pressing a soft kiss on them. Then his tongue slid out and traced the line between my lips lightly.

  Shivers ran up and down my spine, and then he gave my lower lip a delicious little tug before he pulled away.

  My hands were trembling as I gazed up at him.

  He was smiling.

  I suddenly remembered where I was. “It’s after nine thirty,” I said. “I need to get back inside.”

  “Yes.” He put his hand on my back as I hurried to my car to finally find my phone.

  It was exactly where I’d suspected—under the passenger seat.

  As we were walking inside, I asked, “Who wants you back?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You were saying something when I came out—to Jack and Amalie. And Amalie said that she wants you back.”

  “Oh.”

  I slanted a look up at him and saw that he had that same look of discomfort.

  He didn’t want me to be asking about this.

  “Do you have a girlfriend at home or something?”

  “No!” Henry said quickly, looking surprised and disturbed by the question. “Of course not. You think I’d be kissing you if I had a girlfriend?”

  “Some guys would.”

  “I’m not one of those guys.”

  “Okay.”

  Henry let out a long breath and then admitted, “My mother wants me back.”

  I made a little sound that was half surprise and half amusement. “Your mother?”

  “I have an interesting family.”

  “I guess so.” I was feeling better, so I was smiling again. In fact, I couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “You’ll have to tell me about them someday.”

  “Someday I will.”

  AT TWELVE THIRTY, AFTER the kids left, I found Henry waiting for me.

  “Are you going to a meeting today?” he asked.

  I was actually torn about that. I was feeling better—less shaky today—but the fact that I was torn made me worried, so I finally nodded my head. “There’s one that starts at one on Saturdays at the church.

  “I’ll wait for you,” Henry said with a smile.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  He walked me to the church and then headed for the café as I went inside.

  It was colder today, and I wondered if he would sit outside today like he had before.

  When the meeting was over and I came out, he was on the patio, sitting in the same table.

  “Aren’t you cold?” I said when I reached him.

  He smiled and put down his book. “I’m used to the cold.” He stood up. “Are you hungry? We could get something for lunch.”

  “Oh.”

  I’m not sure why I was surprised, but I was.

  I wanted to hang out with him. He was obviously waiting here during my meeting so that we could hang out afterward.

  But a meal felt like a date rather than just hanging out.

  I’d been on dates during the past few years. A lot of them with guys my dad had fixed me up with. But none of those guys I’d been excited about.

  I hadn’t been out on a date with a man I really liked for three years.

  “If you don’t want to have lunch,” Henry said quickly, evidently reading something in my face, “we can just have hot chocolate again.”

  “No, no,” I replied, embarrassed by my reaction. “Lunch is okay. I just...” I cleared my throat, deciding it was better to be honest so there was no confusion or awkwardness later. “But I... I have to be careful. About a lot of things.”

  “I wasn’t going to order wine or—”

  “No, no,” I said again, almost groaning as my cheeks reddened. Why was this so difficult for me? It was just lunch with a guy. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant I have to... I have to take things slow.”

  Enlightenment was dawning on Henry’s face as he realized what I was stumbling around trying to say. “I see,” he murmured, reaching up to stroke my cheek with his thumb. “I was just thinking about lunch. Nothing else.”

  “You weren’t thinking of...”

  “Well, if I’m honest, I have to admit that I’ve thought about more.” His voice was very husky now. It sounded exactly like sex, and my body was reacting accordingly. “But I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Okay.” I swallowed hard and tried to sound natural, casual. “Just lunch then.”

  “Just lunch.”

  WE HAD A LONG LUNCH on Saturday—during which I somehow told him all about myself, even things I never told anyone else. He asked if I wanted to get together the following day, but I still had killer papers to finish, and I had to get a lot of progress done during the weekend or they simply wouldn’t get done.

  So we said goodbye, and I didn’t see him again until Monday.

  But we had dinner after working in the center on Monday. And then on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday. Thursday was the last evening I had before the two papers were due, so I couldn’t afford to take the time to hang out with him then.

  I spent an all-nighter finishing the papers and was able to turn them in first thing on Friday morning, which meant my first semester in graduate school was finally over.

  Unless I’d unexpectedly bombed the papers, I’d even done pretty well.

  Henry and I met for lunch at a restaurant near the community center that was known for their soup in bread bowls. I was tired but happy, and Henry even seemed to be listening with interest as I told him how my papers had turned out.

  I couldn’t imagine he was very interested in the subject, but it seemed pretty clear he was interested in me. Not just getting me in bed. But me.

  “Did you go to college?” I asked after a pause in our conversation. I’d ordered chicken-and-rice soup in a bread bowl, and it was delicious and comforting,
and I was thinking a nap might be nice, if I didn’t have the literacy program after this.

  Henry looked surprised as he put down his glass of water. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “Where?”

  “Oxford.”

  “Really? Wow. What did you study?’

  “Politics.”

  I was hit with the sudden realization that I knew very little about him. He spent most of his time asking about me and revealed very little about himself. “What kind of job are you going to get? Or do you already have one?”

  “I’m... I’m between jobs now.”

  I looked at him steadily, very clearly seeing reluctant hesitance in his face. I gave him a chance to add more to what he’d told me. When he didn’t, I asked slowly, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He slumped—both his body and his expression—as if he’d resigned himself to admitting what he hadn’t wanted to admit. “I work for... with my family. It’s... it’s complicated.”

  “Complicated how?”

  “In every possible way.”

  “I understand complicated. You know I do. So why don’t you want to tell me about it?”

  I watched a struggle happen in his expression. I wasn’t sure which options he was torn between, but I could see him pulled in two different directions.

  Finally one of them came out on top. He gave me one of his adorable, charming smiles. “I’m trying to impress you here. I didn’t want you to think I was a lazy, privileged ass who lived off his family.”

  His words told me something about him—about who he was—but it was also a distraction, a misdirection, a way of avoiding telling me the real thing.

  I gave him a little smile that wasn’t very happy. “I live off my father. You know I do.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why is it different?”

  “It is.”

  I sighed and shook my head. Then I glanced at my phone, saw the time, and said, “I’ve got to get over to the center. I’ve got some paperwork to do before the kids come.”

  “Surely.” He reached into his backpack for his billfold.

  I was tempted to smile at the surely, but I didn’t.

  I felt heavy. Kind of depressed.