Cinderella's Prince Under The Mistletoe

“I may not have thought it through completely.”

“You think?” He set the lamp base carefully aside.

“On the other hand, I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve learned you have to deal with situations as they arise. You can’t just ignore them and hope they go away.”

“It was extraordinarily foolish,” he said stubbornly.

“You obviously have no idea what a bear can do to a kitchen in just a few minutes.”

“No. And even though Casavalle has missed the blessing of a bear population, I have some idea what it could do to a tiny person wielding a lamp as a weapon in the same amount of time.”

Did he feel protective of her? Something warm and lovely—suspiciously like weakness—unfolded within her. She saw the wisdom of fighting that particular weakness at all costs.

“Let’s make a deal,” she said, and heard a touch of snippiness in her tone. “I won’t tell you how to do your job, if you don’t tell me how to do mine.”

He was taken aback by that. Obviously, when he spoke, people generally deferred. Probably when he got that annoyed look on his face, they began scurrying to win back his favor. She just pushed her chin up a little higher.

The Prince shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels and regarded her with undisguised exasperation.

“Are you all right, then?” he asked, finally.

“Oh sure,” she said, but when she took a step back from him, she crunched down on the broken bulb, and let out a little shriek of pain.

To her shock, with no hesitation at all, Prince Luca scooped her up in his arms. Imogen was awed by the strength of him, by the hardness of his chest, by the beat of their hearts so close together. His scent intensified around her, and it was headier than wine: clean, pure, masculine.

The weakness was back, and worse than ever!

“There’s more broken shards over here,” he said, in way of explanation, “and it’s possibly slippery, as well. I dropped the soup bowl.”

“That’s the sound that made me think there was a bear in here.”

“Ah. Well, let me just find a safe place for you.”

As if there could be a safer place than nestled here next to his heart! An illusion—the way she was reacting to his closeness, being nestled next to his heart was not safe at all, but dangerous.

He kicked out a kitchen chair and set her in it. He slipped a cell phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight, then knelt at her feet.

“You should try and save the battery,” she suggested weakly.

He ignored her, a man not accustomed to people giving him directions. “Which foot?”

“Left.”

Given the stern look of fierce concentration on his handsome face as he knelt over her foot, he peeled back her sock with exquisite gentleness. He cupped her naked heel in the palm of his hand and lifted her foot. Her heart was thudding more crazily now than when she had thought there was a bear in her kitchen!

“Miss Albright—”

“Imogen, please.” Given the thudding of her heart and the melting of her bones, that invitation to more familiarity between them was just plain dumb.

“Imogen.” His voice was a soft caress, and his tone was one that might be used to reassure a frightened child. Perhaps he could feel the too-hard beating of her heart and had mistaken it for pain and fear instead of acute awareness of him?

“There seems to be a bit of blood here.” He leaned in closer, so close that his breath tickled her toes and made her feel slightly faint. “And just a tiny bit of glass. I think I can remove it with tweezers, if you can point me in the direction of some. A first aid kit, perhaps?”

“On the wall over there.” Her voice, in her own ears, sounded faintly breathless, as croaky as a frog singing a night song.

He set her foot down carefully, stood and crossed the room. She took this brief respite from his touch to try and marshal herself, to slow down the beat of her heart.

She told herself it was a reaction to the circumstances, to the adrenaline rush of waking to a crash in the night and preparing to do battle with the unknown, and not a reaction to his rather unnervingly masculine touch and presence.

But as soon as he returned with the first aid kit and knelt at her feet again, she knew it had nothing to do with the circumstances. Even in the dark, his hair was shiny. There was a little rooster tail sticking up from where he had slept on it. She had to fight the urge to smooth it back down.

A nervous giggle escaped her as he picked up her foot again, his hand warm, strong, unconsciously sensual.

“Am I tickling?” His voice—deep, and with that faintly exotic accent—was as unconsciously sensual as his touch.

Her giggle deepened, and he smiled quizzically.

Oh, that smile! Though somehow it seemed familiar, she realized it was the first time she had seen it. It changed his entire countenance from faintly stern and unquestionably remote. His smile made him even more handsome. He appeared dangerously approachable, and as if he was quite capable of enchanting people with hidden boyish charm.

“No,” she managed to gasp out, “not tickling. It’s just this situation strikes me as being preposterous. I have a prince at my feet? Somehow when I got up this morning, I could not have predicted this event in my day.”

“Yesterday morning,” he corrected her, absently. “It’s already a brand-new day.”

She contemplated that. It was, indeed, a new day, ripe with potential, full of surprises. When was the last time she had allowed herself to be delighted by the unexpected? A long, long time ago. Since her breakup with Kevin, she realized now, she had tried desperately to keep tight control on everything in her world.

“It’s true,” he continued, and she detected an unexpected edge of harshness to his voice, “that sometimes we cannot predict the surprises our days will hold.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

Tentatively, she said, “You said that as if you’ve had an unpleasant surprise recently.” She realized she was being much too forward and was glad for the darkness in the room that hid her sudden blush of insecurity. “Your Highness.”

He looked at her. “Shall we just be Luca and Imogen for a little while?”

His invitation to familiarity was quite a bit more stunning than hers had been. It was as stunning as finding a prince at her feet, giving tender loving care to her very minor wounds.

Maybe she was dreaming! If she was dreaming, would she give in to the temptation to reach out and touch the dark silk of his hair? Her fingertips tingled with wanting.

She tucked her hands under her thighs.

“Luca,” she said experimentally, and then, “Ouch!”

“It’s a bit of disinfectant. It’ll just sting for a second.”

Had he done that on purpose? To distract her from the question she had asked about his recent unpleasant surprise?

He finished with her foot, cleaning and bandaging it with exquisite sensitivity. Imogen had to steel herself over and over again from gasping, not with pain, but delight.