Snowbound with the Prince, page 9
Under Kelly’s horrified eyes, she stuffed it back in the envelope and passed it to her.
“Give this to the man who is waiting.”
The great prince couldn’t even come himself? Obviously, he had used his resources, and very rapidly, too, to sort out where she worked at the resort.
No. Their worlds were too far apart. If this was that important to him, he could have come himself. He had lied to her already. She had made love to an imposter.
Not that she had to explain her refusal to herself or to anyone else. No, according to a self-help book she was reading, was a complete sentence.
“But—” Kelly said. Her voice drifted away when she saw the look on Erin’s face. She turned, reluctantly, and left the office, shutting the door quietly behind her.
* * *
Valentino put his phone down and went to the window. From his penthouse suite, he looked out over the Touch-the-Clouds resort. The quaint mountain village was snow-covered, bustling with the after-storm activity of colorful parka-clad skiers. The mountain cradled the resort in its bowl.
And tucked away in those mountains, a secret place, where it felt as if he had left his heart. He had just spoken to Angelica.
She had cried with relief when he’d told her he was not going to ask her to marry him. She had been so grateful but worried, too, knowing the brunt of the breakup would be borne by him.
He sighed and rolled his shoulders. He had told her, truthfully, that he was grateful, and prepared to pay the price. Whatever it might be.
There was no mistaking the sense of freedom. Of shaking off the harness he had worn since the day he was born. He was scheduled to leave tomorrow, and he felt he had to get home as soon as possible. The whole betrothal celebration must be canceled before any more work went into the preparations. Even at this point, it would probably be akin to trying to stop a runaway train. But it had to be done.
Valentino returned his attention to the card his guard had returned to him while he was on the phone.
He took a deep breath and slipped it out of the unsealed envelope.
He stared at it, incredulous.
Erin, in thick, black felt marker, had scrawled NO across the surface in two-inch-high letters, adding two exclamation points just to make sure he got it.
The feeling of incredulity died. He was not sure why he was smiling. He should be insulted. But just like that bag of garbage she had handed him, he didn’t feel insulted.
Intrigued. A tiny bit tickled. Now that she knew who he was, she was not treating him any differently than she would any other guy who had hurt her feelings.
He thought of them in her bed together and admitted to himself that it went a little further than hurt feelings.
Where was it going, then? An apology and a goodbye on good terms?
But why? He was free of the matrimonial expectations that had been placed on him. Why couldn’t he—they—see where it all could go?
The truth was, it had been many years since anyone had said no to him. Still, he’d obviously gotten it wrong. You didn’t, apparently, beg for forgiveness by way of royal summons.
He had so much to learn.
And he realized he was hoping Erin would be his teacher. But first he had to get her to see him again!
* * *
Erin looked at the clock. Time to go home. But why go home? All she would do was think about things she could not change. The only thing that mattered to her—Harvey—was here with her. She could stay in the office, order supper and keep working.
She could be having dinner with a prince. But, no, she’d be sharing a ham sandwich from the staff cafeteria with Harvey...
A knock came on the door. Kelly, no doubt, to remind her it was quitting time. But Kelly came in, slid the door shut and leaned on it. Was she trembling?
“Kelly?”
Kelly opened her eyes. They were wide with shock. “He’s out there.”
“Who is out there?” Erin asked, trying to keep her voice calm. Of course, she already knew what kind of man would elicit this kind of reaction. Of course, in his world, he would not take no for an answer. Why hadn’t she anticipated this and gone into hiding?
“The Prince of—” Kelly glanced at the card she held in shaking hands “—Lorenzo del Toro. I’ve seen him in magazines. But nothing could prepare me for him in real life.” She sighed with so much feeling that Erin feared she might faint.
But then she pulled herself together. “You know him.” This was said with faint accusation, as if Erin had willingly withheld a secret—that Kelly’s survival depended upon—from her.
“Casually,” Erin said then felt her cheeks burn. She knew full well why she had not gone into hiding. Because part of her—even with all the evidence that such things were naïve and foolish—hoped.
“He’s asked me to announce him,” Kelly said and giggled. “I feel as if I should have a trumpet. Toot-doodle-loo! Announcing—”
“Just let him in,” Erin interrupted her.
Kelly opened the door wide and called, “You’ve been announced,” then dissolved into girlish giggles as Valentino brushed by her, giving her an indulgent look.
Erin folded her arms over her chest and did not stand.
Kelly looked from one to the other and, sensing the tension in the room, scuttled out. Valentino closed the door behind her.
“What do you want?”
“I wanted to tell you I’m nearly completely recovered from my injury. See?” He held up a finger. Her first-aid attempts had been replaced with a very neat and tidy—not to mention, small—bandage.
He seemed—adorably—like he didn’t quite know what to do now that he found himself there. For a man who commanded a nation, and stood so strongly in himself, it was seductively charming that he was off balance, unsure.
She had to fight an urge to get up and go look at his finger. To take it, and maybe to touch it with her lips... Erin shook off those thoughts, absolutely appalled with herself. She glared at him.
He cleared his throat, dropped his hand into his pocket.
“I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. Since you won’t have dinner with me, I have brought the message to you. I should have told you who I was. I never meant for you to be shocked like that.”
The very sound of his voice—deep, tender, genuine—weakened her. As did his eyes on her face.
Pleading.
A prince was pleading with her, Erin O’Rourke, for understanding. She felt a lump in her throat. He elicited so much feeling from her. It was dangerous. It was a feebleness.
“All right,” she managed to say. “Apology accepted. Your conscience can be clear. You can go now.”
A touch of a smile tickled the line of his lips. She ordered herself not to look at that bottom one.
“Is something funny?” she asked.
“It’s just no one talks to me like that.” He made no move to go. “Please, come have dinner with me tonight. It’s my last day here. I fly out tomorrow. I have urgent matters to deal with.”
“I get it,” she said. “Princely duties call you. This will shock you, but I have a life and obligations, too. I can’t just drop everything because you have summoned me.”
This was so patently untrue that if she was Pinocchio her nose would grow about six feet right now.
“You have a previous engagement,” Valentino said. He looked so crestfallen, she felt that dangerous softness for him inside her intensify. If she was not careful, she would be like Kelly, nearly fainting from his nearness.
“But it’s been nice meeting you,” she said coolly.
“Erin,” Valentino said, his voice hoarse, “I just, for once in my life, wanted to be a man like any other. I wanted to be liked for myself and myself alone.
“Whether you forgive me or not, that is the gift you have given me.”
She digested that. She felt her position compromised. She hadn’t thought of it from his perspective. She hadn’t thought how hard it would be to never be sure if someone liked you for you or because you were a member of a royal family.
She had not thought how someone, who had never had it, might long for normal.
“All right,” she said, “I accept your apology. And I forgive you. Now, you can go.”
He still didn’t move. His look of relief was so genuine. “Would you have dinner with me tonight? Please. Perhaps your other engagement can wait, since I’m leaving first thing in the morning? I feel there are things we need to discuss.”
“What kind of things?”
“The future.”
One thing being an only child of warring parents had taught her was that hope—especially hope that love could win—was the most dangerous thing.
Love?
The intensity of what they had experienced wasn’t love. It was a survivor’s euphoria of some sort. The isolation, the storm, had led to impulse. A sense of embracing the moment. Infatuation. Passion.
She was going to say no to his dinner invitation. She really was. It would take all of her strength, every single bit of it, and still, the rational part of her knew there was only one answer.
There was no future for an ordinary, common Canadian girl with a prince.
But just as she was forming the word—how could a one-syllable word prove so difficult to get out—Harvey roused himself, stretched and came out from under her desk. He peered around the corner in the direction of Valentino.
The cat was mostly deaf. He was partly blind. He was antisocial.
And yet, somehow—perhaps by that thing called instinct that was so well-honed in the animal kingdom—he knew exactly who was there.
He shot across her office floor with more speed than Erin had seen in him in years. He wound himself around Valentino’s legs, “talking” loudly.
Valentino laughed and picked up the cat. He lifted Harvey over his head and then brought him down to his face and planted a kiss on the tip of the cat’s nose. He then hugged him into his chest and held him there.
It was the way somebody might handle a baby. She didn’t want to think about Valentino with babies.
Babies. That’s what she had wanted with Paul. In fact, she had wanted it so badly, it had taken away her discernment, her ability to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. And, of course, there was the fact Valentino was a prince. There would never be any babies with him.
And yet, seeing him with the cat, there it was nonetheless. A longing so powerful it nearly took her breath away.
“Are you going to come for dinner with me tonight, my old warrior?” he asked. He looked to Erin for the answer.
Baby thoughts should have put her defenses up higher. Instead, whatever was left of them crumbled. “Okay,” she said, “we’ll come.”
The fact she was having unexpected longings for babies should provide ample protection against temptation to have another tumble with him. Having a baby was a serious enough business without adding the complication of a prince!
Besides, he was probably surrounded by a veritable army of people at all times. No wonder he had enjoyed his time on the mountain. It seemed to Erin that would be a perfectly awful way to live.
An hour later, standing in front of her mirror in her own apartment, she knew she had been put under a spell and that it was wearing off. Because, really? The dress she had on was terrible. Never mind that she had loved it when she had bought it to attend an awards dinner her father was being honored at. It was the fanciest thing she owned—jade green that matched her eyes, off-the-shoulder, short and sassy. Now, it felt as if she was trying too hard. Way too hard.
She had been in the presidential suite, which the prince and his entourage were inhabiting, only once. The resort had reserved it for a retirement party for the CEO of the company. The suite took up the entire top floor of the Northern Lights Hotel and was posh in a way she hadn’t even known existed.
Of course, you wore your best dress for that. To have dinner with a prince.
But then she recalled what he’d said about the gift she had given him of feeling normal.
Gratefully, with a sense of relief, Erin slid off the dress that suddenly made her feel like a child pretending to be a grown-up and threw on a pair of casual stretch jeans and a button-down shirt. She put on a hint of makeup and tucked her hair up into a messy bun.
Then she remembered his fingers taking the pins from that bun—it seemed like a lifetime ago—and the veritable avalanche that had unleashed. She took her hair back down and, before she could overthink it too much, tousled it with her fingers. She pulled on her jacket, picked up Harvey and zipped him inside, and headed out into the Touch-the-Clouds complex.
It was a beautiful star-studded evening and she was aware of it as if the night was alive around her.
But that wasn’t quite it.
It wasn’t the night that was alive. She was alive—tingling with a kind of nervous anticipation—in a way she had not been in a long, long time. If ever.
When she knocked on the door of his suite, she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Staff? What did she say? I’m here to see the prince. I’m here to play Cinderella to his Prince Charming.
But Valentino opened the door himself, welcomed her by kissing her, with some formality, on each cheek. The cat popped his head out and Valentino took him from her jacket, good-naturedly kissed both his cheeks, too—just to let her know she wasn’t getting special treatment?—and then set him on the floor.
Harvey, blind as he was, ambled across the space and found the most expensive-looking, silk-covered chair in the opulent main living area that was right off the front door. He gathered himself and leaped with surprising prowess into it then curled into a contented ball.
“Apparently he considers himself suited to such a palatial lifestyle,” Erin said. The suite was as she remembered; a gorgeous space where you were afraid to touch things. Evidently, Harvey did not share her intimidation.
“May I take your coat?”
She shrugged out of it and was instantly aware that Valentino did not normally take coats, because he stood there not quite knowing what to do with it.
She gently retrieved it from him, opened the coat cupboard and hung it.
“You look lovely,” Valentino said.
It made her glad she had not worn the dress. He, too, was dressed casually in pressed jeans and a V-necked sweater over a collared shirt. He looked very much the ordinary guy—except for those luxurious dark curls and a handsomeness that would never allow him to be ordinary!
“Humph,” she said, regarding him thoughtfully. “I thought, now that your secret is out, you might have had a prince outfit on.”
He glanced down at himself. “What, exactly, would you imagine a prince outfit to be?”
“At the very least, a hat with a shiny brim, like army officers wear. I would think some medals. One of those wide ribbon things across your chest.”
He was smiling. She enjoyed making him smile.
“You don’t know any more about princes than I know about igloos.”
“Or delivering babies,” she reminded him. She snapped her fingers. “You should at least have a sword!”
He laughed, as she had hoped he would, and that tension she’d been holding since she had said yes to this invitation dissolved a little bit. This was her Valentino. The one she had chased through a snow-covered meadow.
Shared a bed with.
Not that she wanted to go there. But how was it not going to go there? The tension returned and intensified yet more as he led her through to the dining room. Like the main living area, this room was traditional and opulent. The long, polished, walnut table was set for two with beautiful china, both settings at one end. One at the head and one beside it. Valentino surprised her by holding out the head chair to her. Surely, that was his place at the table?
He took the other chair and reached for the bottle of wine that was sitting in a silver bucket.
“Note, it has already had the cork removed,” he said with a grin. “And as an extra precaution, I’m decanting it. According to the sommelier, that lets any sediment drift to the bottom.”
The grin, so familiar, tried to ease something in her, but the fact he had a sommelier at his disposal worked against that ease. Now that she was thinking about it, she could hear noises in the kitchen, which, if she recalled from the other time she had been here, was behind that swinging door. Delicious smells were wafting out of it. Unless she missed her guess, someone was preparing dinner for them.
Well, what had she thought? That he was going to order a pizza?
“I considered impressing you by uncorking it with a sword—”
Valentino, that man whom—in a complete break from her normal buttoned-down personality—Erin had loved shamelessly and spontaneously, was really a prince. And that prince wanted to impress her?
What strange fairy-tale world was this that she found herself in?
CHAPTER TEN
VALENTINO GRINNED AT Erin. It made him, dangerously, her Valentino and not a world figure of considerable fame and fortune.
“As I said, I considered uncorking the wine with a sword, but I couldn’t find one on such short notice. Someone neglected to pack my ceremonial one.”
That, all kidding aside, meant two things: someone packed for him and he actually had a ceremonial sword.
“All things considered, that is probably a good thing,” she said solemnly and lifted the glass he had poured for her. “I propose a toast.”
He lifted his glass.
To surprises, she thought. But out loud she said, “To keeping all your digits.”
He wiggled his newly bandaged finger at her. And just like that, the laughter bubbled up between them as effervescent as the wine. Her discomfort eased, but then came back as the swinging door to the kitchen opened and a white-uniformed staff member came through. A royal crest had been tastefully embroidered in gold thread on the breast of his uniform. He was bearing platters of food.
