Cinderella's Prince Under The Mistletoe

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.

The cancellation of his wedding to Princess Meribel meant the cementing of the relationship between Casavalle and Aguilarez was now, once again, in jeopardy.

There was a possibility that the throne—by law—would go to a person unprepared to take it. A person who had not spent their whole life knowing it was coming, every breath and every step leading to this one thing: taking the reins of his nation.

Luca’s thoughts drifted to Imogen again.

His brother, Antonio, was supposed to be here at Crystal Lake Lodge. But with the news this morning, Luca had felt a need to deal with these issues himself, as they would have more effect on his life than on anyone else’s. Besides, it had felt necessary to get away from Casavalle as the people discovered the wedding they had been joyously anticipating for months was now not to be.

The disappointment would be palpable. Every face he encountered would have a question on it. He would have to say it over and over again—irreconcilable differences—hiding the truth.

Luca had come here armed with a name. He had almost asked Imogen if it was familiar to her. She had said she knew everyone in this village. The village his father’s first wife, Sophia, had escaped to, hiding from the world after the disastrous end of her royal marriage. But in the end, Luca had not asked Imogen. He wanted to phrase any questions he asked very carefully. A kingdom relied on how these questions were answered. There would be time to get to the bottom of this.

And speaking of time, he looked at his watch and calculated.

He had obviously missed the dinner Imogen had said she would prepare. He glanced at his cell phone. It was 3:00 a.m. but he was wide-awake. Hello, jet lag. It would be breakfast time in Casavalle, and Luca was aware of hunger, and of the deep quiet around him.

Why hadn’t the sound of the helicopter returning woken him? It was unusual that Cristiano had not checked in with him on his return. Unless he had, and Luca, sleeping hard, had missed it?

Was there news of the woman? The baby?

Good baby news would be refreshing, Luca thought, not without a trace of bitterness. He was aware of feeling, as well as sour of mood, travel rumpled and gritty. He reached for the bedside light and snapped it on. Nothing happened. He let his eyes adjust to the murkiness and looked for the suitcase Cristiano would have dropped inside the door.

There was none.

He got up and searched the wall for the light switch. He found it and flipped it, but remained in darkness. Still, he made his way to the closet and the adjoining bathroom. No suitcase. And no lights, either. He went to the window, thinking, even in the darkness, he would be able to see the outline of the helicopter on the lawn.

Instead, what he saw was a world of white and black. Pitch-dark skies were overlaid with falling snowflakes so large they could have been feathers drifting to earth. Mounds of fresh snow were piled halfway up the windowpane, and beyond that, the landscape wore a downy, thick quilt of snow. No wonder the quiet had an unearthly quality to it, every sound muffled by the blanket that covered it.

Even though a mountain range separated Casavalle from Aguilarez, and even though he was, as he had told Imogen, accustomed to the unpredictable weather of such a landscape, he was not sure he had ever seen such a large amount of snowfall in such a short time. It seemed to him well over a foot of snow was piled against the panes of his window.

He had not heard the helicopter return because there had been no helicopter return.

He looked at his cell phone again. No messages. Not surprisingly, as it appeared there was no signal. Miss Albright had warned them the region did not lend itself to good cell phone service.

It was apparent there was no power, no doubt knocked out by the storm, but did that also mean there would be no phone landline, either? He recalled glancing at an old-fashioned phone when he’d entered this room. It was on the desk by the fireplace, and he fumbled his way through the darkness to it and lifted the receiver.

Nothing. He set the phone back down. Luca contemplated what he was feeling.

He was still single when he should have been married.

He was outside of the shadow of protection for perhaps the first time in his entire life.

His cell phone was not working, and his computer was not here.

The snow falling so thickly outside should intensify the feeling that he was a prisoner of the circumstances of the worst day of his life.

Instead, he felt something astonishingly different, so new to him that at first he did not know what it was.

But then he recognized it, and the irony of it. The snow trapping him, his marriage failing before it had begun, the lack of communication with the world, Cristiano being far away, a possible new contender for the throne, all felt as if they were conspiring to give him the one thing he had never known and never even dared to dream of.

Freedom.

He shook off the faintly heady feeling of elation. His father would not have approved of it. The current circumstances of his life required him to be more responsible, not less.

But still, for a little while, it seemed he had been granted this opportunity to experience freedom from his duties and his responsibilities whether he wanted that freedom or not.

He did not know how long the reprieve would last.

And he realized he had no idea what to do with this time he had been granted. Though the first order should be fairly simple. He needed to find something to eat.

He opened his bedroom door and was greeted with a wall of inky darkness. He became aware of a faint chill in the air. Obviously, the heating system was reliant on power. He fished his cell phone back out of his pocket and briefly turned on the flashlight, memorizing the features of the hallway before he turned it back off to conserve the battery. Feeling his way along the wall, and using his memory, he found the sweeping staircase and inched his way down it.

He didn’t use the flashlight on his phone again as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He saw an arched entry to a room just off the foyer at the base of the stairs. Dining hall?

He entered and paused, letting the room come into focus. Not a dining room, but some kind of office and sitting room combination. There was a large desk by the window, a couch and a fireplace, which it occurred to him they might need.

They.

He could well be stranded here with Miss Albright. He felt a purely masculine need to protect her and keep her safe against the storm, and he went over to investigate the fireplace. Of course, he was not usually the one lighting fires, but he would have to figure it out. Miss Albright protecting him and keeping him safe was embarrassingly out of the question.

He moved deeper into the room, and jostled up against the sofa. A small thump on the floor startled him.

A cell phone was on the floor, and the bump had made it click on, its light faintly illuminating the fact that Miss Albright was fast asleep on the sofa! The cell phone must have fallen from her relaxed hand.

He picked it up, and a photo filled the screen. The picture was of Miss Albright, laughing, her face radiant with joy, as she gazed up at the man she was pressed against. Her left hand was resting against his upper arm, and a ring twinkled on her engagement finger.