by Cara Colter
But this was part of Luca’s legacy from Imogen: sometimes the heart had to speak, and never mind the pomp and circumstance that could cloak real feelings and keep issues from being resolved satisfactorily.
“This is what I propose.”
And he told them the plan.
When he was finished, the brothers looked relieved, and Queen Adriana’s eyes, weighted with worry, were sparkling with tears.
Only the King seemed doubtful. “My daughter has brought shame on our family, neglected her royal obligations and broken a promise. I’m not sure your proposal addresses the severity of her transgressions against you, her family and her kingdom.”
“Again, Your Majesty, I respectfully disagree.”
“What would you propose?” Queen Adriana asked her husband quietly. “I’m afraid the days when you could lock an errant daughter in a tower or ship her off to the convent are well over.”
King Jorge mulled that over.
“All right, we will do it your way,” the King conceded, and then, lest the concession be seen as weakness, he scowled and added, “In the spirit of Christmas, nothing else.”
“Of course, sir,” Luca said evenly. King Jorge reminded him of his own father: old-school rulers, being dragged kicking and screaming into a more tolerant modern age.
The formality of the meeting dissolved, and he found himself surrounded by Meribel’s brothers, clapping him enthusiastically on the shoulder. Prince Cesar wrapped his arms around Luca and lifted him off his feet.
“We will always be brothers!” he declared.
“I need to see her before I put the plan in place. I need to see Meribel.”
“Of course,” Cesar said. “I will take you.”
King Jorge glared at him. “You know where she is, then?”
“I’m going to hazard a guess,” Cesar said, meeting his father’s gaze levelly.
“The world is going to hell in a handbasket,” Jorge muttered. “There is no respect for authority anymore.” His wife patted his arm sympathetically.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PRINCESS MERIBEL SCRAMBLED to her feet when her brother Prince Cesar and Prince Luca came through the door of the hotel suite she was in.
“How did you get in here?”
Her brother wagged the key at her. “Have you ever seen two more recognizable mugs than these?” He pointed to himself then Luca. “The innkeeper practically begged us to take the key.”
“How did you know where I was?” the Princess demanded.
“Do you really think I wouldn’t know where you were?” Cesar said. “I tracked you down the day you moved in here and put protection around the neighborhood and undercover throughout the hotel.”
“I can look after myself,” she said, proudly. And then more softly, “Dana can look after me.”
“Ah, the mystery man is named,” her brother said. “Where is he?”
“You mean you don’t know?” she said. “You seem to know everything else.”
Luca could see this was going to quickly deteriorate into a squabble between the brother and sister, so he stepped in.
“It’s good to see you, Meribel,” he said.
She rounded on him. “I am terribly sorry I did what I did to you,” she said, her voice trembling, “but I won’t go with you.”
“Yes, I’ve been reminded fairly recently this is not medieval times,” Luca said, and could hear the wryness in his own voice.
“I don’t think it’s Luca you have to worry about,” Cesar chimed in. “It’s Father.”
“I suppose Father thinks I should be locked in a tower for the rest of my days.”
“He does indeed,” Cesar said. He wandered over to a fruit basket and chose an apple and bit into it. “Fortunately for you, Luca has come up with another solution.”
Luca had told Cesar all the details of his solution on the way here, and Cesar had approved heartily.
“We’re not here to make you do anything against your will,” Luca assured her. She looked relieved, but wary.
“A solution?” she asked, and faint hope overlaid her wariness.
Luca took her in, this woman he had known since childhood, and saw how truly beautiful she was. Meribel was tiny, and yet delectably curved. Her long, dark hair was piled on top of her head in an elegant twist. Her lovely brown eyes were expertly made-up.
Even in these circumstances, holed up in a hotel room, hiding from the world, she was dressed quite formally, in a skirt and matching jacket, “correct” royal attire for daytime. Rings—minus the engagement ring he had given her—sparkled from every finger, and a diamond pendant hung around her neck.
Like him, Princess Meribel could not easily let go of the notion that you were always on show, always judged—someone was always watching. That made him feel sorry for her.
Other than that feeling, he was aware he felt nothing but relief that he would not have to spend the rest of his days waking up to her. He realized that a marriage to Meribel would have been his “tower,” his prison.
“Are you well?” he asked her, crossing the room to her and taking both her hands.
She looked up at him, and her defensive expression crumpled and she began to weep.
He pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her.
“It’s the pregnancy,” she said. “I’ve never been so emotional.”
“Just like me,” he said, “you’ve shut down your emotions, almost until it was too late.”
She pulled back from him, but did not let go of his hands as she scanned his face. “Is there something different about you?”
“Perhaps I combed my hair differently this morning,” Luca said, tired of women suddenly reading him as though he were an open book.
“No,” she said tentatively. “It’s not that.”
“Do you love him?” he asked. “This Dana that you mentioned?”
“It’s that,” she said with a small smile. “That’s what is different. I can’t even picture you asking me that question a month ago. And the answer is yes, I love him so much.”
“And he, you?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“I’m glad.”
“There’s that difference again! But how can you be glad? I’ve wrecked everything. I left you in a humiliating position. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I’ve done a terrible thing to you.”
“Shh, now—all this emotion isn’t good for the baby, even if it is what’s causing all that emotion.”
“I tried to make it right. When I could see people were going to blame you, I leaked the news of the pregnancy.”
“That was very brave.”
“Partly,” she admitted. “Partly it was selfish. I didn’t want my baby to be born in a web of deceit. I didn’t want that baby, someday a teenager, or a young adult, finding old press clippings and thinking I was ashamed of her or him, or that I had tried to hide her or him from the world. People would have eventually found out. I didn’t want to feel as if I was harboring a secret.”
“That was brave, too,” Luca told her.
“Oh, Luca, if I was truly brave, I would have told you all this a long time ago, and not waited until the eve of the wedding to spring it on you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“But I do. I want to own my part of things.”
“Your part?” she whispered.
“I’ve been insensitive. Had I paid any attention to you at all, I would have known something was wrong. If I had known you, I would have known immediately when your attention turned to someone else.
“Instead, I allowed all this to happen. I relegated you to roles—my fiancée and my future wife—and then really ceased to see you as a person, appreciate you for who you were and are. We met our formal obligat
ions. We attended functions together. We held hands on cue. We satisfied the hunger of both our kingdoms for a romance, but when I think about the emptiness of it, I’m appalled with myself.
“I don’t even know what your favorite movie is. I don’t know what music you listen to when you are by yourself. I don’t know if you’d prefer a dog, a cat or a parrot for a pet. I don’t know how you feel about babies. I’ve never gone for a walk with you in the snow, or sat with you in front of a fire. For that, I am here to ask your forgiveness.”
“You are asking my forgiveness?” Meribel stammered.
“I am.”
She mulled that over. She took in his face. A smile began to break out on her mouth. “I forgive you, then.”
“Thank you. I did not just come to ask your forgiveness.”
“What else, then?”
“I came to thank you,” he said quietly. “You’ve given me the most incredible gift.”
She pulled away from him and looked up, her eyes filled with doubt and hope. He took her chin in his hand and scanned her eyes.
“You have shown me what it means to be brave,” he told her softly. “You have shown me the lengths one should be willing to go to, to welcome love into their lives.”
“Th-then you forgive me, as well?” Meribel asked, fresh tears sliding down her face.
“Not at all,” he said. “For me to do that, there would have to be an assumption there is something to forgive.”
She had to stand on tiptoe to kiss both his cheeks. “You will always be a prince to me, not just because you were born to the title, but because you have grown into the honor.”
“Thank you.”
“Whoever she is,” she whispered, “she is a very lucky woman.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Luca said, and heard the stiffness in his voice.
She scanned his face, and she was not put off and she was not fooled. Princess Meribel laughed, and it was a lovely sound. She said, “Yes, you do.”
The frankness of her gaze captured him. The truth of her words wrapped around him.
Yes, he did.
And suddenly nothing in the world seemed as important as what he had experienced whilst snowed in at the Crystal Lake Lodge.
Nothing. Not his obligations, not his kingdom, not all the treasures in the palace vault. With that acknowledgment, something in the heart of Prince Luca flew free and unfettered, like a bird that had been caged, flying toward the sun.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IMOGEN FELT EXTRAORDINARILY CROSS. And tired. It had been one of those days! It had begun this morning when she had opened her computer screen to see every single booking had been canceled.
Then, she’d had a call from her boss, demanding a lunch meeting in the city, which was two hours away. The drive there had given her far too much time to think. Her concern should have been getting fired—what had happened to those bookings?
Instead she had grouchily contemplated abject loneliness. Even though they had spoken several times in the few days since Gabriella had departed for Casavalle, Imogen missed her friend acutely.
There was something in Gabriella’s voice that she envied. Excitement.
Imogen considered that. Gabriella, who could be counted on to be quiet and calm in any situation, was brimming with excitement and enthusiasm that spilled over into her voice. And her emails. Imogen had never seen this side of her friend before.
Apparently Book Club could not hold a candle to a real-life adventure.
Her thoughts drifted to her own real-life adventure, a helicopter settling on the front lawn while storm clouds brewed over the peaks of the nearby mountains—the day her life had been made new again.
Of course, like a constant hum beneath the surface, she was so aware that she missed someone else, too. Someone she had no right to miss.
On the drive home from her meeting with her boss, her job totally intact, Imogen realized the strangest thing.
Surely she hadn’t wanted to get fired?
The Crystal Lake Lodge had been her home her entire life. She had never really been anywhere else; she had never really done anything else.
But the excitement Imogen was hearing in Gabriella’s voice was making her wonder if she had not played it too safe her entire life, not just sticking with what was secure and familiar, but trying to re-create the life she had grown up with.
It was as if she had had blinders on, had not been able to see that life held options beyond the Crystal Lake Lodge.
Of course, the Lodge no longer seemed the sanctuary it once had seemed. There seemed to be laughter-filled ghosts there. Out on the front lawn where they had chased each other; in her office where she had introduced Prince Luca to the simple joy of a toasted hot dog. She had refused to put a fire in the hearth since he had left.
If she had gotten fired, she thought, maybe it would have been a good thing. Just as moving on from Kevin was proving to be a good thing.
Those few days with the Prince had shown her there was something else, not as safe, and not as comfortable, and yet a life without it seemed as if it would be empty.
Maybe it would be a good thing, an exciting thing, if her life was made new again.
But would she ever find what she had found with Luca again? Could any other person, or any other experience, ever fill her the way that one had? Would she ever again feel as if every single moment was shivering with life?
But obviously, there was no sense mooning over a prince—a man so far out of her reach he might as well have been on the moon.
But was there a chance that she could find what she had experienced with him with someone else?
Doubtful, a little voice inside her whispered. That was one in a billion. He is one in a billion.
Just a little while ago, she might have been nursing a heartbreak over Kevin, but her life had felt ordered and there had been safety in the predictability of it. And yet, somehow, she wouldn’t trade those days with the Prince to go back to that. She felt oddly uncertain if that’s what she wanted at all anymore. And that was what was making her feel cranky! That and a four-hour round trip for nothing! To hear about her boss’s grandchildren and their trip to Denmark! Not a single mention of Imogen’s job being in jeopardy even after she had confessed she thought she had botched the bookings for this week.
It was full dark by the time she turned into the Lodge driveway. Partway up, she met a catering van coming down. Despite her waving her hand to get him to stop so she could find out what business he’d had at the Lodge, the van roared by her. In a few minutes that vehicle was followed by another utility vehicle, which also did not stop when she waved. The driver waved cheerily back at her, but kept going.
She tried to think if she had booked repairs, but nothing came to mind. Still, it felt like just more evidence of how distracted she had become, her tidy little world unraveling out of her control.
More grumpy than ever, Imogen came over the ridge and arrived at the final curve in the long driveway that led to the Lodge. She went around it and slammed on the brakes.
“What?” she said out loud. She actually blinked to see if the vision went away. She had heard of people pinching themselves to see if they were dreaming, and she considered doing that. If there were any wrong driveways to take, she would have thought she’d taken one, but there was only one road that led to the Lodge.
And she was on it.
But the Lodge had never looked like this.
The Crystal Lake Lodge was absolutely glowing. Every inch of it—rooflines and corners, windowsills and porches—was all outlined with white fairy lights.
Her heart hammering in her throat, not able to take her eyes off her glowing home, Imogen inched up the driveway.
There were no cars in the parking lot, but against a dark sky, she could see smoke chugging out the chimney. She turned off her c
ar and stepped out of it. The smell of wood smoke was tangy in the air.
Though she usually went in the side door, she went around to the front. The porch and front entryway were festooned in garlands.
There was a wreath on the door, a word peeking out from under the fresh, fragrant boughs. Believe.
It was an invitation to believe in something—dreams, miracles, fairy tales—and if she hadn’t before, she certainly did now. Trembling with shock, with excitement, with anticipation and with hope, Imogen opened the front door.
The entryway had been transformed. Pine garlands wove their way up the staircase, but Imogen took it all in with barely a pause. She raced down the hallway, paused outside her closed office door and then threw it open.
The room was lit by the fire that burned merrily in the hearth, and by candles that burned softly. A huge tree, completely decorated, winking with a thousand brightly colored lights filled one entire corner of the room. Christmas music filled the room.
But she didn’t care about any of that. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she saw him, standing there, in the shadows on one side of the hearth, looking across the room at her.
“Luca.”
Her lips whispered his name, but her heart cried it.
“Imogen.” He pushed out of the shadow, came and stood in the middle of the room. She had seen him dressed as a prince, and she had seen him in long johns. She liked this look: jeans and a sweater with a shirt under it. It made him look ordinary, even as her heart sang there was nothing ordinary about him.
“I—I—I don’t understand. What are you doing here?”
She had been frozen in her place; now she moved toward him, helpless, steel to a magnet. She came and stood before him and gazed up into the now so familiar lines of his so handsome face.
“Let me take your jacket.”
Helplessly, she let him assist her out of it. Thank goodness, she had dressed nicely and put on a lick of makeup for her lunch engagement with her boss. Still, if she had known she was going to see him again, she might have made more effort to look, well, sexy.
