A Princess for Christmas

by Shirley Jump

  Perhaps this was the key to getting Jake to see how important leaving Harborside alone was to her. If she could equate her town to this place, then maybe he’d understand her fierce love for the town—just as it was—and give up this crazy idea of turning it into a tourist circus. Into the nightmare she had seen in New York.

  They went up the first flight of stairs, then turned, headed down the hall and stopped before a small door. Once inside, Jake flicked on a light switch, then started up another, more narrow flight of stairs. Wood creaked beneath Mariabella’s feet, and a slight smell of must and age whispered against her nostrils. She blinked, adjusting her eyes to the dimmer light, provided by a single bulb, then saw where they were.

  The attic.

  Piles of boxes and sheet-covered furniture pieces filled the space. Cobwebs draped from the corners, and every step they took kicked up a flurry of dust.

  “This is your favorite room?”

  “Not yet.” He waved her forward, and she followed, picking her way across the room, dodging crates and stacked chairs, nearly sideswiping a pile of paintings draped with a tarp. A second bare lightbulb sent a harsh stream of light into the room, illuminating a door at the far end of the attic. Jake paused a second, then opened the door, revealing a small, plain room with a twin bed and simple maple dresser. Few decorations accented the space, just a blue braided oval rug, and a pair of white lace curtains hanging like limp soldiers on either side of the lone window.

  “You stayed here?” she said. “Why? There are so many rooms downstairs.”

  “I stayed up here because of that.” He pointed out the window, a long, rectangular window that lay so low, one could lie in the bed and stare out at the view all night—a view of the woods, and then, past the forest, the small town nestled at the bottom of the hill. From this distance, the houses and cars seemed to be miniatures, almost doll-sized.

  If she hadn’t known better, she’d swear she was home in Uccelli. Mariabella moved closer, and rested a knee on the bed. She peered outside, and saw the village below the castle, the people and their homes spread out in a tempting circle around her, a world she could see, but never touch.

  The world she longed to be a part of, and couldn’t, because of her name. Her station. Her destiny.

  She thought of the little boy Jake had once been, who had lain in this bed, and looked out over this view. “You told me you grew up in an apartment in New York,” she said.

  “I did. A world so different from this one.” His voice had softened, dipping into the ranges of memory, of opening a window now to his soul. “But I would come here on vacation once a year with my parents. My father thought I was crazy for wanting this room, but…when I saw this view, and it was just so different from what I had at home, I insisted on staying up here. For a little boy, I guess it was one of those imagination things. Stay up here and dream all day, know what I mean?”

  Mariabella nodded, then reached out and touched the pane of glass. “I understand you so much more now.”

  “You do?”

  “We are the same, you and me. At least in what we saw when we looked out the window.” She traced the outline of the town below. “From my room, I could see the village below, and at night, when the lights were on, it was like stars had been sprinkled on all the houses. I used to lay there and watch the cars moving, the people walking, then later, after they had all gone inside, I could see them living their lives. Reading by the fire, tucking their kids in at night, laughing with their friends. Just being…normal.” She drew in a breath, and looked away from the town. Soon, too soon, she would go back to being the woman in the castle, watching everyone else living the life she wanted for herself. A life she’d only been able to taste, like an appetizer. “It all seemed so…magical from where I was.”

  Jake had moved to sit behind her on the bed, exchanging warmth. Connection. “Exactly.”

  Her mind wandered, past the houses below, past the inn, to Uccelli, to the little girl she’d once been, the little girl looking out the window at an impossible dream. “And when the sun came up—”

  “It was as if it was coming up just for you. When you’re up high like this, the sun seems to be yours alone.”

  “Yes, it does,” she whispered. “It is like you’re in your own world. Away from everything that happens below you.”

  Jake Lattimore understood, she realized, because he had been here, up in this tiny room, just as she had been in her room, at the top of the castle. She could have had any of dozens of bedrooms in the castle, but like Jake, she had chosen the smallest one at the highest point, seeking—

  Seeking separation? Seeking distance? Or seeking the best view of the world out there?

  “You wanted the same thing, did you not?” She turned around and found herself in his arms. She didn’t move back, didn’t move away. “The room at the top, so that—”

  “I could see what I was missing,” he finished.

  She swallowed, her gaze connecting with his, wishing, oh, wishing, she had found someone who knew what she had gone through, someone who understood. “And what were you missing?”

  His hand came up to cup her jaw. “Freedom.”

  She closed her eyes. “Yes.” The word escaped her on a breath.

  “A different life than mine.”

  “Yes.”

  And then, his lips were whispering across hers, the heat of his breath caressing her skin. She sank into his arms, and forgot why she shouldn’t kiss him—

  And just did.

  But Jake didn’t just kiss her, he awoke a season of feelings in her body, one move at a time. First, with his fingers, dancing along the edge of her jaw, then with his lips, teasing at the edge of hers. She had lived for too long in a winter of nothing, and now she felt as if her body was blooming with emotions, desires, a passion that she had denied, put aside for duty. For her country.

  And yet, Mariabella knew, as wonderful as this was, it had to end. Because it couldn’t be, even temporarily. Better to deny herself than have this wonderful thing for a little while, then have it ripped away in two months. She drew back, breaking the contact with Jake, and got to her feet. “That…that should not have happened.”

  “Because we’re at odds over a piece of real estate?”

  “That, and because we are from two different worlds.”

  “It didn’t sound so different a minute ago.”

  She headed for the door, a knife running through her as she remembered she had no right to dream of that life at the bottom of the hill. “We are oceans apart. Further than you will ever know.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE board had sent out a spy.

  Carl Winters leaned against the limo, waiting in the cold. His breath escaped him in a cloud, competing with the smoke coming from the cigar in his hands. A scowl scrunched up his face, darkening his small eyes beneath the black bowler-style hat on his bald head.

  “I don’t need a keeper.” Jake reached past Carl for the door handle.

  Carl shifted and blocked Jake’s hand. “Seems you do. The board wants action on this deal, and so far, we’ve got nothing.”

  “It’s Christmas, Carl. People don’t make major life decisions four days before Christmas.”

  “It’s your job to make sure they do.” He took a step forward. “Your father ran this company into the ground with crazy decisions. That’s why we were brought in, to show him how a truly successful corporation is run. He hasn’t, however, always listened to our advice, and Lattimore has paid for his…idiocy. We’re counting on you to be smarter.”

  To toe the line, was the unspoken sentence.

  “I’m working on it.” Jake closed the gap between them, his height giving him a good six-inch advantage over Carl. “Like I told you, I don’t need a keeper. I can handle this on my own.”

  Except, he hadn’t done so well with that yesterday, had he? For a moment there, he’d forgotten business. Actually had the crazy idea of considering the inn, of all properties. What in
sane sentimental notion had pushed him into driving up there, he didn’t know, but he should never have shown it to Mariabella. She needed to understand the more commercially viable property was the one in NewYork, not a loss leader like the inn.

  Given a little more time to make his case, surely he’d show her the downside of those quaint B&Bs she loved, and the benefits of a bustling all-in-one hotel.

  Without the distractions of kisses. Definitely no more of those.

  “We’re just making sure you stick to the plan,” Carl said.

  As if Jake had any intentions of doing otherwise. He resisted the urge to slam a fist into Carl. “You should remember who is CEO,” Jake said, advancing a little on Carl, asserting his authority with his words and height. “I make the plans, and the decisions. I’m the one ultimately in charge of this deal, not you.”

  “Then stop with the field trips.” Carl spun away from Jake, and headed for his car, parked a couple spaces away.

  How did the board know where Jake had gone today? No one knew, except Mariabella, Will and his father. He’d told no one else. Jake trusted Will implicitly. Mariabella—

  He saw no reason for her to involve the board. That would only go against her goals, rather than work with them.

  The only one who could have said anything was Lawrence Lattimore. But why? He was the one who wanted his son to take over as CEO. Unless…

  Lawrence doubted Jake’s capabilities, too. And had sent out Carl as an insurance policy.

  Jake shrugged it off. Until the company was back on solid ground, he’d be proving himself to all the naysayers who thought he’d earned his position through birthright, instead of hard work.

  Jake got inside the car, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “There’s one guy who’s off my Christmas list.”

  Will laughed. “I saw him coming. Had to resist the urge to push on the gas pedal.”

  Jake leaned against the seat and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe I shouldn’t work in the family company.”

  Will stared at him. “You didn’t just say that.”

  “I did. I’ve been thinking it a lot longer.” The empty chasm that had nagged at him for years yawned even wider. Lattimore Properties demanded a type of sacrifice, a compromising of his own ideas and dreams that Jake had accepted when he’d donned the mantle of CEO.

  Except, Jake had been wondering lately if he could still make that compromise. Yesterday had only renewed those doubts. Crazy thoughts, yet they kept returning, like boomerangs.

  He thought back to the sleigh ride with Mariabella, then the room at the top of the inn. To the blissful happiness he’d seen on her face—and felt in his own chest.

  That was the kind of experience he wanted to build. The trouble? Those types of properties didn’t make millions. His father and the board would never support such an endeavor. Still…

  The empty hole in Jake demanded he fill it with something other than another cookie-cutter hotel. Except cookie cutters sold and sold big.

  “Wow. I had no idea,” Will said. “I mean, you practically grew up in the company offices.”

  “Yeah, well, thinking about quitting isn’t exactly something I’d bring up at family dinners or at a board meeting.”

  “Or with your best friend?”

  Jake shrugged. “I shouldn’t even consider it, that’s why I never said anything. My dad is depending on me. Has been for years. I’m his retirement plan.” If Jake bucked the company plan, and built a hotel that didn’t fit the company model, his father’s future would suffer, too.

  “Jake, the great savior of the company.” Will watched him, as if trying to gauge his reaction to the words. Will knew Jake better than anyone, knew the expectations that had been heaped on the younger Lattimore for years. “And you have different ideas for your future?”

  Jake looked out the window, at the long wooden boardwalk lined with shops. “A full sidewalk of possibilities for the future of Lattimore Properties, if he did what he was expected to do. “No,” Jake said, pulling on the handle and exiting the limo. “I don’t.”

  Carmen had left for lunch, and the gallery had quieted down. The new show would debut tomorrow, the day before Christmas Eve, giving last-minute shoppers both an event to attend and a little something different to buy. All the preparations were done, and Mariabella had turned her attention to her Harborside activities.

  She had finished buying the groceries for the annual Christmas Eve dinner she threw for a dozen or so townspeople, and begun the list for the New Year’s Eve party at the town hall. She flipped to a clean page in her planner and started working on the wish list for the community center she hoped to have built—or at least started—before she left in February.

  So many things to accomplish, and so little time to do them. She’d find a way, though. She’d find a way.

  The bell over the door jingled, and Mariabella looked up, expecting a customer. Finding instead Jake Lattimore. Her heart skipped a beat, and her pulse began to race.

  She clutched her planner tighter, and refused to let the attraction show on her face.

  Ever since that moment in the attic, when he’d kissed her and knocked her completely off-kilter, she’d been unable to concentrate whenever Jake came close. Heck, when she went to sleep last night, she’d dreamed of him, of the laughter they’d shared on the sleigh ride, but most of all, of that kiss. When she woke up this morning, she’d thought of him. She’d found herself sketching a man with blue eyes in the corner of her planner today.

  Insane. She had to shake off these thoughts.

  Except a very big part of her didn’t want to. That part wanted everything—to find a way to combine duty with the ordinary life she craved like air to breathe.

  Jake crossed the room, pausing before the portrait of the mysterious woman. He studied it for a long moment before speaking. “How did you know you wanted to open this gallery?”

  The question hit her out of left field. “How did I know? I…I have always loved art. That is what I went to college to study. It is all I have ever known.”

  More or less. If she left off all that information about the real-life lessons in becoming a queen.

  “Yes, but, why a gallery? Why not an art supply store? Or a museum?”

  She laughed. “Well a museum is a lot more expensive to own, to stock. To maintain. And, I have been in museums. They are beautiful but not…”

  “Not what you wanted.” He turned toward her. “Because you had a different vision in mind for your future?”

  She thought of the future. There would be no gallery in the days ahead.

  Truth be told, she should sell Harborside Art Gallery to Jake Lattimore. In a couple of months, she would be leaving for Uccelli, and taking her place beside her father, before finally ascending to the throne.

  “No, for my present,” she said. Because that was all she had in Harborside.

  A slight smile curved up the side of his face, then just as quickly disappeared. “For the present. Of course.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him she’d given up the fight, she’d sell the shop, then stopped. No. She’d keep the gallery. Let Carmen run it. She didn’t care about making a profit. She simply wanted to know that even if she was on the other side of the world, these days she’d enjoyed wouldn’t disappear. It would be like one of those dioramas, something she could peek into with a letter or a phone call, and be transported back to the days when she’d been—

  Ordinary.

  Jake wandered the room, his gaze roaming over the various pieces of art. He paused by the portrait of the mysterious woman, studying her for a long time, as if he saw the same puzzle in that painting as Mariabella had. “Is this gallery what makes you happy?”

  “It…” She paused. “Yes.”

  He glanced at her. “Why the hesitation?”

  “My life is complicated.”

  He crossed to the window, taking in the view of the ocean. “Complicated. Living here.”

  She laughe
d. “Life can be complicated living anywhere.”

  “True.” He spun away from the view and back toward her. The gap between them closed so fast, Mariabella didn’t have time to steel herself for his presence, to throw up those defenses she’d worked so hard to convince herself she had in abundance.

  “And I have complicated it even more for you,” he said.

  “Yes. You have.”

  “Then the best thing to do is to get rid of me.”

  Her pulse raced, her breath hurried in and out of her chest. She inhaled the woodsy scent of his cologne, and with it, the memory of being in his arms. “It would seem so.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “This, Miss Romano, is the way to do that.”

  She stared at him. All this time, she’d thought maybe Jake had come in here to talk about yesterday, about their kiss, about what they had shared on that drive. To tell her that in that room in the inn, he had heard her and now understood her need to preserve Harborside just as it was, because he’d once had the same dreams as her.

  Instead, he’d wanted only one thing.

  Her gallery.

  She swatted the papers away. “I will not sign. Stop asking me.”

  “Your life is complicated, you told me so yourself. This will make it easier.”

  “What do you know about making my life easier?” She crossed to the desk and flipped open her planner. She dipped her head to study the list of things to do before New Year’s Eve. How could she have fallen for that act back at the inn? The romantic sleigh ride? The sweet words?

  And that kiss most of all?

  Clearly it had all been an attempt to soften her up.

  She could read this man like a tabloid. Every time she thought he might be trying to build something on a personal level, might actually be getting to know her—really know Mariabella, the person—Jake Lattimore circled back to what he really wanted. Real estate.