A Princess for Christmas

Her role as future queen.

Mariabella sighed. As much as she missed her parents and her homeland, she couldn’t go back. Returning came at too steep a price.

Freedom.

Carmen came bursting through the door. Mariabella slipped her phone into her purse and with that movement, brought her mind back into work mode. She would dwell on the events across the world when she was alone.

“You will never believe what just happened when I was in Savannah’s shop.” Carmen slammed her hand on the counter in emphasis.

“An incredibly rude man offered to buy her place, yes?”

Carmen’s jaw dropped. “How’d you know?”

“He was here, a few minutes ago. And wanted my gallery, too.”

“The gallery, too?”

Mariabella nodded. “He wants the whole block. For some kind of ‘investment.’” She put air quotes and a hint of sarcasm around the last word.

“In Harborside.” Carmen said it as a statement, not a question. “That same cute guy we saw earlier.”

Mariabella nodded again. “He is not so cute close-up, you know. Not when he is trying to turn our town into some kind of circus for tourists.”

“Savannah tried to ask him questions, to find out what his plans are, but he didn’t tell her more than boo.” Carmen moved to the back of the counter and stuffed her purse underneath. “He’s a big mystery man. I still think he’s kind of cute, even if his plans might be diabolical. Or, maybe perfectly harmless. We’d have to find out more to know for sure.”

“Well, cuteness will not win me over. Or convince me to sell.”

Carmen shot her a grin. “You’d be surprised, Mariabella. Stronger women than you have been done in by blue eyes and a nice smile.”

Mariabella glanced out the window again at the town she had come to love, to think of as her home. “Not me. And if this man thinks I will fall apart that easily, he can think again.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then returned her attention to the catalog. “Because he has no idea who he is dealing with.”

Truly, he had no idea. And neither did anyone in this town.

When the door of the limo shut, the sights and sounds of Harborside dropped away, leaving Jake alone with his thoughts.

Never a place he wanted to be.

He pulled out his PDA and started reading e-mails, at the same time powering up his laptop and scrolling through the reports he’d downloaded earlier about the town. The back of his limo had been his mobile office for as long as he could remember. The automobile had a satellite connection, to give him a link to the Web whenever he needed it, and a small desk installed between the seats for his laptop. Some days, it seemed as if he spent more time in this car than he did at home. If one could call his apartment in New York a home at all.

The passenger’s side door opened and another man slid in. “Do you ever stop?”

Jake didn’t look up. “I thought you went to lunch.”

“I did. I’m done. Unlike you, I took a break from my job. I even made some friends.”

Jake stopped working to stare at William Mason, his best friend and chauffeur, who had loosened his tie, and looked as relaxed as an out-of-town uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. Today, Will was sporting a red tie featuring reindeer leaping across the front, a glaring contrast to the white dress shirt with green pinstripes.

No one would call Will conventional. More than once, people had asked Jake why he didn’t insist his chauffeur wear a more traditional dark suit and muted tie. Jake told them that if he wanted a conventional chauffeur, he would have hired one out of the phone book.

With Will, he’d gotten something no one else would have brought to the job—

Honesty. Loyalty. Friendship.

Three things Jake didn’t seem to have in abundance, not in the vicious world of Lattimore Properties.

Will grinned at Jake, waiting for an answer. His sandy brown hair had been mussed by the wind, his cheeks reddened. He looked like he’d had…fun.

“How could you make friends?” Jake asked. “We’ve been in this town less than an hour.”

“It doesn’t take days to say, ‘Hey, I’m Will, who are you?’”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.” He shrugged. “Well, maybe something close to that. It would do you good to do the same.”

Jake snorted. He could just see himself going into the local diner and introducing himself to a perfect stranger. Will had the affable personality to pull that off. He always had. Jake…well, Jake didn’t. “Why would I? I’m here to complete a business deal, not win a popularity contest.”

Will leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Have you ever found it odd that your best friend is a chauffeur? That you spend the last few days before Christmas working obsessively, instead of cuddling by a fire with some hot woman? Which is where I would be, I might add, at home, with my wife, if you weren’t keeping me on the road, working more than Santa does. My wife, by the way, has learned to curse your name in three different languages because of the hours I work.”

“I pay you well enough.”

“Sometimes it’s about time, not money, Jake.” Will put his hands up before Jake could voice another objection. “I’m just saying, you might want to try the whole staying-home-with-a-girlfriend thing sometime.”

“One—” Jake put out a finger “—my best friend is my chauffeur because you have been my best friend since we were kids, and I wanted to hire someone I trusted to drive me around. Especially since I’m going to spend half the day with you. Two—” he put out another finger “—I don’t need more friends—”

“One friend is just so many you thought you might lose count after that?”

“And three—” Jake went on, putting out a third finger “—I’m not at home in front of a fire with a hot woman because I’m not dating anyone.”

“Exactly the problem. You’re going to be thirty this year, Jake. Don’t you ever wonder what life would be like if you had one?”

“Had one what?”

“A life. Outside of that.” Will waved at the PDA and laptop. “Inanimate objects aren’t the most affectionate beings on the planet, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Jake scowled and ignored Will. He’d had what Will was talking about once before—had even expected by this age to be going home to a wife, just as his best friend did at the end of the day.

But fate had another future in mind. And Jake wasn’t about to risk that kind of pain again. Once was enough.

“All I’m saying,” Will persisted, “is that it’s Christmas and it might be nice if you gave yourself a present this year.”

“No one buys themselves gifts on Christmas. Or at least they’re not supposed to.”

“I meant a present. A life outside of work. Someone to wake up to.” Will leaned forward and waited until Jake’s gaze met his. “You had that once. And it sure would be nice to see you that happy again. Real nice.” Will got out of the car and shut the door.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jake muttered to the closed door. “That kind of happiness doesn’t happen twice.” And he went back to where he found peace.

In those inanimate objects that didn’t leave him. And didn’t die.