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Imogen knew that, despite this assertion, Rachel’s pregnancy had not been without complications. She had been going to the city to see a specialist, and the delivery was planned for a hospital there.
Imogen had actually asked the young woman to stop working, but Rachel had brushed off the suggestion with the claim that she was from sturdier stock than that. Imogen was fairly certain Rachel kept working because her young family needed the money, and so she had put her on light duty and told her absolutely no chemicals were to be used for cleaning.
Imogen moved away from Rachel and her thoughts returned to Gabi. Gabriella Ross ran the bookstore in Crystal Lake. They were lifelong friends. They had always been there for each other, but their friendship had deepened even more when Imogen’s sisters had accepted jobs overseas and her parents had moved to a warmer climate. When Gabriella’s aunt and uncle had passed away, they had become each other’s family. They knew each other’s secrets and heartbreaks and dreams in the way only closest friends do.
Until recently, that was. Imogen frowned as she went down the wide, curved staircase and headed down a back hallway to the kitchen. Gabi had seemed stressed and preoccupied lately. Normally, she would have been helping Imogen get ready for the arrival of a crown prince. Normally, her friend would have been over the moon with excitement.
Gabi was very bookish, and by now, usually Imogen could have counted on her to have researched all there was to know about the island kingdom of Casavalle. Gabi would have read that protocol book, beginning to end, in about an hour and provided Imogen with a short synopsis of its contents.
“Including what they like to eat,” Imogen said, swinging open the door to the huge, stainless steel, industrial fridge in the Lodge kitchen.
But instead of having her nose buried in a book, discerning everything there was to know about the royal family of Casavalle, Gabi had disappeared, with only the vaguest of explanations.
Gabriella did have a secret.
Secrecy between the two women was unsettling. It was Gabi who had helped Imogen through the end of her engagement, and it was Gabi who knew, to this day, that tears shone very close to that bright smile Imogen displayed when someone mentioned Kevin to her. Or when she glanced at the engagement picture of the two of them that she could not bring herself to delete as the screen saver on her cell phone.
She felt her heart squeeze, as it always did when she thought of him. He had wanted children so desperately. This was the other thing Gabi knew about her: that Imogen would never have babies.
She had suspected for a number of years, since a serious ski injury, that there might be problems. But after she and Kevin had been dating three years, he had taken her to her favorite Chinese food restaurant, and when she had broken open her fortune cookie, a small diamond ring had winked at her.
“I want you to be my wife. I want us to have babies together.”
Of course she had said yes. That picture on her cell phone had been taken by a thrilled waitress seconds after Imogen had put on the ring. But was it the fact that he had included the baby part in his proposal that had made her, finally, investigate further?
Imogen remembered the day she had told Kevin the results of her tests, the distress on his face. He had stammered that of course, it didn’t matter, but she had known it had. And she had been right: when she had set him free, he had lost no time in finding a new love. Though he and Imogen had been together for three years and had only just begun to discuss marriage, he had married someone else with appalling speed. They already had a baby on the way. And try as she might to be happy about it...
“Stop it!” Imogen ordered herself, when she felt her throat closing with emotion. She would not ponder endlessly the unfairness of life. She would not! She sorted through a few items in the fridge. They were not what they normally stocked. Instead, tiny individual Cornish game hens, strange sausages, unrecognizable vegetables, tropical fruits and exotic condiment bottles filled the shelves.
Thankfully, she did not have to figure out how to prepare anything. These exotic items had arrived at the request of a retired world-class chef who would be here tomorrow morning in advance of the arrival of Prince Antonio.
Imogen closed the fridge door and cocked her head. The sound of a helicopter—spotting for fires, conducting tourist trips and ferrying heli-skiers—was not uncommon in Crystal Lake. But it was more unusual at this quiet time of year.
She went to the kitchen door and opened it, craning her neck at the skies. Despite the bright sunshine of the day, the air was shockingly cold. She glanced toward Mount Crystal, and sure enough she could see a dark cloud coming to a slow boil over the peak. From long experience with changeable mountain climates, she knew what this meant.
Snow’s coming, she thought, just as a small helicopter broke the tree line and then hovered over the Lodge, trees swaying in its backwash, red and orange fall leaves scattering. It tilted, lifted gracefully over the roof, and then the noise intensified.
Imogen went out the back door and quickly followed a stone pathway that wound around the Lodge. She arrived at the front just in time to see the helicopter slowly lowering over the sweeping lawn. Her hair went every which way as the helicopter rocked its way slowly to the ground, until the struts were solidly situated. The noise was deafening for a moment.
It might have only been a two-seater, but the helicopter was silver and sleek, with a dark windshield. It was like something out of a James Bond movie. The roar suddenly went silent as the engines were cut and the rotors drifted to a halt. She saw a crown insignia, gold against silver on the tailpiece of the helicopter.
Her mouth fell open. They were not expecting their royal visitor until tomorrow! They were not expecting an arrival by helicopter.
And, most importantly, she had planned on giving that protocol book a thorough going-over tonight. Now what?
As she watched, the pilot got out and held the door. Though he wore no uniform, everything about him, from his bearing to his closely cropped hair, said he was military. He scanned the grounds to the edges of the trees with narrowed eyes. His gaze fell on her, and he squinted long and hard before letting his eyes move on, taking in the building, his watchful gaze resting on doors and windows.
The set of his shoulders relaxed slightly, and he stepped away from the door of the helicopter, holding it open.
Another man stepped out, and the man holding the door bowed slightly and said something to him. She couldn’t hear exactly what he said, but she was certain he called the other man Luca.
She might have contemplated the name a bit more—they were expecting a prince named Antonio, after all—but Imogen felt the breath sucked from her body and the autumn mountain glory all around her fade into oblivion.
The man who had been addressed as Luca was astounding. Neat, luxuriously thick hair, as dark as fresh-brewed coffee, touched his brow. His eyes were also the deep brown of coffee, his skin ever so faintly golden, the fullness of his bottom lip and the cleft in his chin absolutely sinful. He was perhaps an inch over six feet, his shoulders broad under a beautifully cut suit jacket. His legs were long under tapered pants pressed to knife-blade sharpness.
He exuded an air of power and self-containment, such as Imogen was not sure she had ever experienced before.
She was also struck by a sense of having seen him before, but of course, in today’s world, all royal family members were celebrities. That must be why she felt a tickle of recognition: she had probably seen his face on the front page of a gossip rag. It was, after all, exactly the kind of face that would entice people—especially female people—to buy a copy.
What now? Obviously, even though the temptation was great, she could not run back into the Lodge, as she had a desire to do. She was fairly certain, even without having read the protocol book, that she was probably expected to execute some kind of curtsy. She had planned to practice one. Really, she had!
In fact, she had pictured her and Gabriella, giggling insanely and curtsying to each other.
Apparently nothing about this particular visit was going to go according to plan.
Imogen ran a hand through her scattered hair and lifted her chin. She took a deep breath and stepped forward. No matter what the protocol book said, she wasn’t going to go up to the Prince in her work jeans and blue plaid flannel shirt and try to curtsy!
CHAPTER TWO (#u21350336-b1f1-5f68-8caa-4fe642c15046)
IMOGEN APPROACHED THE two men. Both swung around to look at her. Both were frowning. This was not the usual reaction of vacationers arriving to the pristine beauty of the mountainside lodge! A bit flustered, she managed to paste a smile on her face.
“Prince Luca?” she said. “I’m sorry, we were expecting Prince Antonio.”
Both men looked at her as if it wasn’t up to her to tell them who she was expecting.
“Welcome to the Crystal Lake Lodge,” she stammered, resisting an impulse to touch her hand to her forehead and bow away!
She extended her hand. Too late, she thought maybe she was not supposed to extend her hand. The soldier type looked at her, dismayed, and as if he might block her from touching the Prince with his own body.
But the Prince stopped him with a barely discernible motion of his head. He took her proffered hand.
His touch was warm and dry and exquisitely strong, subtly but unarguably sensual. His eyes, so dark and deliciously brown, met hers squarely.
Something about his eyes increased that thought that tickled the back of her brain: I know him.
But of course she did not know him. And for someone who had met dozens of celebrities, her next reaction was startling. Ridiculously, she felt like a starstruck teen who had gotten way too close to her rock idol. With all the grace she could muster, she extracted her hand from his grip before she fell under some kind of enchantment. She reminded herself, sternly, that enchantments were over for her.
As if a prince would ever look to a woman like her to be a partner in his enchantment, anyway. Life was not a fairy tale! Fairy tales ended with happily-ever-after. And beyond the final line of the story—beyond the “the end”—was the unwritten expectation of babies. She guessed this was probably even truer for royal families. Weren’t they highly focused on heirs? On the continuation of their line?
“Prince Luca,” she managed to say. “Or Prince Antonio?”
Neither men offered to clarify who he was, so regaining her composure as quickly as possible, she said, “I’m Imogen Albright. I’m the Lodge manager.”
“My pleasure, Miss Albright,” he said. “It is Miss?”
The words were said with the deep composure of a man who was very used to meeting people in a variety of circumstances.
There was no need to feel as if his voice—deep, faintly accented, husky—was a caress on the back of her neck.
“Yes, it is,” she said, blushing as though it were a failure of some sort. She turned quickly and offered her hand to the other man.
“Cristiano,” he said briefly, taking her hand and bowing slightly.
She didn’t feel any jolt of electricity from his hand!
For a moment there was silence, and she rushed to fill it. “Obviously, you wouldn’t have flown from Casavalle in it, so how does one customize a helicopter with an insignia in such a short time?”
The Prince lifted a shoulder, but Cristiano answered.
“It was on order, anyway, from a North American company. We asked the delivery date be pushed up and changed the city of delivery.”
It made her very aware of the kind of power and wealth the Prince casually wielded—no wish too great to be granted—and made her even more aware, suddenly, of her own appearance. She was in faded jeans, the lumberjack-style shirt she favored for days with no clients and sneakers with bright pink laces! She didn’t have on a speck of makeup and her hair not only wasn’t up, but now it was windblown to boot.
She had planned an outfit suited to greeting royalty: a pale blue suit with a tailored jacket and pencil-thin pants, paired with a white silk blouse. She had planned to have her hair up and her makeup done.
“It’s a magnificent place,” Prince Luca said, glancing at the Lodge.
The two-story building was timber framed and stone fronted, and had a beautifully complicated roofline that made it fit in perfectly with the landscape of towering peaks around it. It was magnificent, and coming from someone who was no doubt surrounded with magnificence all the time, it was indeed a compliment.
And yet, even as he said it, she sensed, not insincerity, but a fine tension in him, as if the Prince was preoccupied with matters of significance. Again, his reaction to his surroundings made it seem as if he were not here for a relaxing holiday in the mountains.
When his eyes left the Lodge and returned to her, she glimpsed something in them that took her aback. He didn’t just look preoccupied. There was a shadow of something there. Distress?
Which begged the question again: Why was the Prince here? To heal some wound? The thought made him seem all too human. Insanely, it made her want to step toward him, look into the astonishing familiarity of his brown eyes more deeply and assure him everything would be all right.
How silly would that be, especially from her, from someone who had ample evidence everything was not always all right?
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” Imogen said, avoiding a name altogether. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
“I believe a message was sent,” Cristiano said, a bit stiffly, as if she had insulted his competence, “to your cell phone.”
Since it felt as if her own competence might be in question, she felt compelled to defend herself. “Our satellite reception here is beyond spotty, so cell phone service can’t really be relied on here. It’s because of the forests and the mountains. I’m very clear about that when people book.” She realized she sounded as if she was justifying herself, so added, “I see it as part of our charm.”
The Prince tilted his head at her, considering this. “Is our early arrival a problem, then?”
“No, of course not.”
Yes, it was a problem! It was very nearly dinnertime and the chef had done all the meal planning, not Imogen. What was she going to offer them? A peanut butter sandwich? “It’s just, um, we aren’t quite ready,” Imogen said. “The chef won’t be arriving until morning. And the cleaning staff isn’t quite finished up.”
“I trust you’ll overcome these difficulties,” the Prince said.
His voice was so beautiful it sounded as if he had said something outrageously sexy instead of something extremely mundane.
Of course she would overcome these difficulties. Even though she wasn’t the greatest in the kitchen and cooking department, the Lodge was well stocked.
But before she could figure out the specifics of how she was going to overcome these difficulties, the crisp mountain air was split with a scream from inside the Lodge. It sounded as if someone was being murdered.
The scream snaked along Imogen’s spine. She turned to the Lodge, frozen with shock. Neither of the men experienced that same paralysis.
They both bolted toward the front door, and she snapped out of it and ran after them, even as she registered surprise that the bodyguard would be running, with his Prince, toward an unknown situation.
The men, with their long legs, quickly outstripped her. Though neither man had ever been in the Lodge before, they must have followed the sound of wailing, and when she found them, they were squeezed into an upstairs bathroom with Rachel.
“Cristiano?” the Prince asked.
The bodyguard, on the floor with Rachel, looked up. His expression was calm, but his voice when he spoke held urgency.
“She’s going to have the baby,” he said tersely. “And she’s going to have it soon.”
“But she’s not due for another two weeks,” Imogen stammered.
“Where’s the nearest hospital?” Prince Luca asked her.
“There’s a walk-in clinic in Crystal Lake, but they can handle only very minor emergencies. Rachel’s been going to a specialist in the city.”
“I have to have the baby at Saint Mary’s Hospital,” Rachel managed to sob. “They’re set up for it. They know—” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“How far to Saint Mary’s?” the Prince asked Imogen.
“It’s in the city. At least two hours,” Imogen said quietly. “If the roads are good.” She thought of that storm cloud boiling up over Crystal Mountain with a sinking heart.
“Take her by helicopter,” Prince Luca said to Cristiano. “Do it now.”
Cristiano gave him a questioning look, and Imogen understood immediately. He was torn. His first duty was to protect his Prince.
“Go now,” Prince Luca said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Yes, sir,” Cristiano said, and scooped up Rachel as if she was a mere child. With the Prince and Imogen on his heels, he raced outside. Imogen noticed the weather had already changed. The wind had picked up and the blue skies were being herded toward the horizon by a wall of ominous gray clouds.
Cristiano made his way to the helicopter with the sobbing woman in his arms. With surprising gentleness, he had Rachel situated in no time.
He turned, saluted the Prince. “I should be back within the hour, sir.”
“Miss Albright and I will try and stave off danger until your return,” the Prince said drily.
Cristiano turned and got into the pilot’s seat. The engines roared to life and the rotors began to move, slowly at first, and then so rapidly they were but a blur. In moments, the helicopter had lifted off the ground and was moving in the same direction as that quickly disappearing ridge of blue sky.
Imogen hugged herself against the sharpness of the wind. A single snowflake drifted down and she tilted her head to it. Knowing these mountains as she did, she was certain of one thing.
Unless he was prepared to fly through a full-blown mountain blizzard, Cristiano was not going to be back in an hour.
“I’m sorry your arrival was so eventful,” Imogen said, turning to the Prince. “I can’t thank you enough for offering your helicopter.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said.
“Do you think it was normal labor, or do you think something was wrong?” Imogen asked him.
“I’m afraid I don’t know.”
