by Shirley Jump
Her father waved a hand in dismissal. “Childish notions. Come to your senses, Mariabella. There is a car waiting. We’ll send for your things.”
Had he heard nothing she’d said in that phone call? Why was she even surprised? Her father hadn’t heard a word she’d said in twenty-five years. Why would he start now? “Why won’t you listen to me, Papa? I won’t go. I have found a life here. A life that means something.”
“Your life as queen will mean more.”
She sighed. “Yes, maybe it would. But what kind of queen would I be, if my heart forever lay elsewhere?”
Her father shook his head and muttered under his breath.
“Papa.” Mariabella reached for her father’s arm, trying for once to reach him as her father, not as the king. Not caring about decorum, about him being the monarch. They were on American soil now, and if she had learned one thing in all the months she had spent here, it was that relationships were built on connections—physical and emotional—and when she held herself back from those connections, she lost out on everything that mattered.
Except, with Jake Lattimore, she had connected, and lost anyway. Maybe she should have taken a page from her father’s book and maintained her emotional distance.
But no. That coldness had hurt her too much over the years. Better to love and hurt than to go on living with this empty hole, waiting for love to fill it.
“Papa,” she said again.
His gaze met hers, but he didn’t say anything.
“Haven’t you ever wanted anything other than to be king?”
Surprise lit his light green eyes. “I’ve…I’ve never thought about it.”
Bianca gave her husband a knowing stare. “Franco.”
“That was a long time ago,” he said to his wife.
“Tell your daughter the truth.”
He shifted his weight, looking so much like an ordinary man in that moment, that Mariabella wanted to reach out and hug him. But one did not do that to the king of Uccelli, so she refrained. Time ticked by, her father delaying and looking like he’d rather be sitting through a ten-hour speech than answering the question. Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke. “Once—for a moment only—I thought I could be a musician.”
He could have hit her with a trombone and she would have been less surprised. “A musician? You don’t even play an instrument.”
“I did. When I was younger. And I had time. Now my days are filled with the monarchy. With more important duties.”
Mariabella looked at her mother, who nodded and smiled, then back at her father. “What…what did you play?”
He shifted his weight again. “The drums. I fancied myself in a band some day.”
“You. In a band?”
He waved off the thought. “It was a crazy idea I had for maybe five minutes, then I remembered my duty to the crown. Or, rather, my father reminded me of my duty.” He gave her a pointed look. “As should you.”
Her mother’s gaze connected with hers, soft wisdom in her deep green eyes, shaded by long hair the same color as her daughter’s. “Show him, cara. Show him what you dream.”
“Bianca, talk sense into our daughter. Don’t encourage her to—”
“Franco, you promised to listen and not to talk so much.” Bianca put a hand on her hip. “You are too much a king and too little a father. See her as your daughter for once, and not as the future queen.” She gave her husband a little push, and he stumbled a few steps forward into Mariabella’s living room.
Mariabella’s guests let out a surprised “ooh.”
Annoyance filled the king’s features. “Bianca, do you forget who I am?”
“No, I do not,” she said. “You are Mariabella’s father and my husband before you are anything else. Now take off your crown and act like it.”
From across the room, a second collective gasp escaped the group. They might not have understood the language, but they definitely caught the translation of the tension. When Mariabella glanced over, all three heads of her guests swiveled away, and they got busy eating.
Bianca nodded toward her husband. “Do it, Franco. Or you will be flying home alone.”
“Bianca, this is insanity.” He pursed his lips again, then relented. “All right.”
Her mother walked away, and crossed to the kitchen table, slipping into the seat vacated by Mariabella. She said hello to Cletus, Zeke and Louisa, then buttered a roll, and started talking to them about their plans for Christmas, as if they had been her neighbors forever. Once the other three got over their initial shock, the conversation flowed as easily as a river.
Mariabella waved her father over to the sofa, the two of them taking seats on opposite ends. The fire crackled happily, the scent of the wood accented by a cinnamon apple candle burning on the end table. “I’m not changing my mind, Papa. I can’t be queen. I’m sorry.”
Even though it would be easy to run back to Uccelli. To hide from the media onslaught. To flee from what had happened with Jake. To bury herself in the monarchy, and let that take over her broken heart. After all, she had nothing tying her to this town anymore. She’d sold her gallery, given up her livelihood. If she stayed in Harborside, she’d only watch it become a nightmarish version of the town she loved.
Going back to Uccelli, though, would force her back into the same cage she had fled. No matter what heartbreak this town held, it still offered something she would never find wearing the crown.
Freedom.
Her father draped his hands over his knees and let out a sigh. “I am disappointed, but I understand,” he said quietly. “My illness made me think about all the years I have spent as the monarch. They were hard years. But years I wouldn’t trade, you know that, don’t you?”
“You have been a good king, Papa. Everything I learned from you, I used to help this town grow and prosper. Leadership, diplomacy, organization. It’s worked here, and been…fun.” She smiled. “I just don’t want to do the same thing from the confines of a kingdom.”
The wood popped and sizzled in the fire. The elf and Santa clock on the mantel ticked the time away. In the background, the stereo played soft, instrumental versions of Christmas songs. “You have to love the job and the monarchy, to do it right.” The king gazed at his daughter for a long time. “You do know what you are giving up?”
She nodded.
He raised his gaze to the ceiling, as if looking for answers from the heavens. Then he paused, and rose. “This is yours?”
Her father’s attention had lighted on the painting of the two pelicans. After Jake had left the other day, Mariabella had framed and hung the piece. For too long, she had, as Jake had said, held back from displaying her art—her soul. She had left the rest of the pieces at the framer’s, intending to have them readied for a show in January. Except now she no longer owned the gallery, and the building would undoubtedly be demolished by then.
No matter. She’d exhibit either way. Mariabella Santaro was tired of hiding. From her name, from her art. “Yes, it is.”
“I had no idea.” Her father moved closer, reaching up a hand to trace the outline of the three-dimensional birds. “You have a good eye. An even better hand.”
In all the years she had been painting, and going to college pursuing her art degree, her father had expressed nothing but disdain for her passion. He’d seen it as a waste of her time, a distraction from her destiny on the throne. Maybe today, with the revelation of his own dreams, he’d begun to understand her better. “Thank you, Papa.”
“This…this is what you want to do?”
“That, and continue my work helping this town. I’ve made a difference here. A small one, but still, a difference.” Yet, if Harborside changed as it would under the Lattimore property, would she stay here? Or move to a place like Harborside used to be?
Her father turned and smiled at her. A genuine smile, one that came from his heart. “I have heard about your work. Your committees, your dances and events. All from your mother, who keeps me appr
ised.”
“Mama tells you what I do?”
He nodded. “I am proud, Mariabella. I don’t think I have told you.” Her father considered her for a long time, his gaze at first harsh and judgmental, all king. Then his eyes softened, and she saw another man take over, one she had glimpsed so rarely over the years she’d wondered if he really existed. A smile inched across his face, as if carving new territory. “So, you have a little of me in you after all?”
She returned his smile, and reached out a hand toward her father. He took hers, and their touch formed a bridge, a tentative one. “Yes, I think I do.”
She saw what she thought might be tears in his eyes, but maybe was just a trick of the dancing firelight. “Then stay,” he said. “Have the life I never did.”
“You can still have that life, Papa.”
“Ah, I am an old man, and the kingdom requires a king to be a certain kind of person.”
“Says who? If there is one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that life is in the living of your days, not in the dreaming about living them. A king can play the drums if he wants to,” Mariabella said. “After all, he’s the king. He makes all the rules.”
Her father laughed, and in that sound, Mariabella heard the beginnings of a new relationship between the two of them. She caught her mother’s eye. Bianca smiled, and gave her daughter a small nod. They weren’t kings or queens or princesses at that moment, merely a family that was beginning to work out its kinks.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“GIVE me your tie.”
Will put the limo in Park, and turned around in the driver’s seat. “My tie?”
“I would have bought my own, but I’ve been a little busy. I’ll give it back, I promise. Better yet, I’ll buy you two dozen for Christmas.”
Will shook his head, laughing, then undid his tie and tossed it over the seat. “You really want to wear dancing Santas?”
Jake glanced at Mariabella’s cottage. The earlier snowstorm had kissed the entire house with a coating of white. Her Christmas lights twinkled like tiny sprites in the drifts piled on the shrubbery. Smoke curled from the chimney, scenting the air with the perfume of home. Of everything he’d ever wanted. “Yeah. I do.”
“Good luck,” Will said. “I’ll pull the car over there to wait.”
Jake shook his head. “No. Go home, Will. I’ll see you on January fourth.”
Will gaped at his boss. “January fourth? That’s…that’s almost two weeks off.”
“With pay. Go to Jamaica or something with your wife, stay in the best Lattimore property we have. Don’t call me, don’t send a postcard, just enjoy yourself.”
“What about you?”
Jake opened the limo door and stepped into the cold. “I’ve got a Christmas miracle to pull off.”
He drew his coat tighter, then took a deep breath and strode up the walkway to Mariabella’s door. He rang the bell, she opened the door—and nearly slammed it again in his face. “I do not have anything to say to you.”
Jake put a hand on the oak frame. “I just want to talk to you for five minutes, Mariabella.”
“Why? So you can tell me why you betrayed me? I saw the article.” She started to shut the door, but he stopped it with his foot. “Just leave, Jake.”
“Not until you hear me out.” His gaze met hers. The fire in her green eyes sparked, then ebbed.
A bit.
Maybe there was still hope. God, he prayed there was.
Mariabella let out a gust. “Fine. Five minutes.” She opened the door and let him in. Cletus, Zeke and Louisa sat at the kitchen table like a posse, shooting him death glares. Even George the dachshund let out a little growl from under the table. Two other people Jake didn’t recognize sat on the sofa by the fireplace, sipping coffee.
She saw him glance at the strangers, and with clear reluctance, introduced him. “Jake Lattimore, these are my parents, Bianca and Franco Santaro.”
The king and queen of Uccelli? Here in Harborside?
The king had the regal appearance of a man who had ruled for a long time. He sat stiffly, his white hair and defined features making him look imposing, strong. The queen, on the other hand, had more of Mariabella’s features, and a softness to her green eyes that seemed to welcome Jake.
Jake crossed to them, and put out his hand, then gave a slight bow. “It’s an honor to meet you, Your Majesties.”
The queen looked from her daughter then to Jake. “Ah, this is the one for you, is it not, Mariabella?”
The king shot Jake a protective father glare.
“No.” Mariabella scowled. “He is no one.” She tugged Jake away from the living room and into a small bedroom off to the right. Dead silence fell over the living room. Mariabella shut the door, blocking any attempts at eavesdropping.
Mariabella flicked on the light switch, and illuminated a wide picture window that faced the ocean, then an easel in the center of the room, and a stack of empty canvases along the wall. A half-finished painting of an eagle sat on the easel. Her studio. “You have four and a half minutes,” she said.
Okay. So she had no intentions of going easy on him. What had he expected, really?
“Put out your hands.”
“What?”
“Just put out your hands.”
She did as he asked, cupping her hands together. Jake reached into his coat pocket, then released a pile of something white. As the flecks fluttered down, Mariabella first thought he had dropped snowflakes into her hand, then realized the white pieces were shredded bits of paper. “What…what’s this?”
“Every one of the purchase and sales agreements signed by the business owners of Harborside. Including you.”
She stared at the pile in her hands. Then him. “Why would you do this? I thought you needed these lots to build your hotel.”
“I did, until the board double-crossed me. They pressured my father into going in another direction, and used both of us to get what they wanted. You saw the newspaper article, right?”
She nodded.
“I had nothing to do with that. Nor did I tell the media who you were. That was all Darcy, and the board at Lattimore Properties, trying to exploit every angle they could for ‘the good of the company.’” The air quotes and sarcasm in his voice made his feelings clear.
She glanced out the window behind her, the one that faced the side yard. No curtains hung there, and she half expected a flash bulb to go off, broadcasting a private moment to the world.
“They’re gone, Mariabella. And those reporters won’t get within a hundred yards of you. Ever. I hired a security detail to keep them away. You can go on living your life here.”
The media had left. Her life could return to the way it had been. Private, quiet. She owned her gallery again. She should have been happy.
But she wasn’t.
An emptiness invaded her, something still missing, a piece of herself she had yet to find.
She dumped the pile of papers onto the small desk in the corner of her studio. “Why would you do that? You will get fired, Jake.”
“No, I won’t. My father and I together are the ones in charge now. We just had to join forces and eliminate the board. As a team, we own fifty-one percent of the company. It took a little doing to remind my father of who he used to be, and how we could go back to the kind of company we were. But now he’s excited, charged up in a way I haven’t seen him in years. He hadn’t lost his touch, simply his passion for his job.” Jake took Mariabella by the shoulders and drew her over to the large picture window. He pointed to the red light skimming across the water, the telltale sign of a boat riding through the channel. “Zeke issued a challenge to me the first day I was here. He told me I could be like a motorboat, churning up everything in my path, or like a sailboat, leaving the world relatively unchanged after I was here.”
“And which have you chosen?” She held her breath, sure she knew the answer, but needing to ask the question anyway.
He leaned down, placing his fa
ce beside hers, cheeks meeting. “The sailboat, building an inn that fits Harborside, fits the people, fits the vision of those who love this place. We’ll show every business owner, and be sure they all want to be on board, before they sign new agreements. Start at square one, and get community input. Make it a true Harborside property.”
She turned in his arms, her gaze meeting his blue eyes. “What if it fails, like the last one?”
He shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But I have a good feeling about this.”
Mariabella’s gaze drifted to the eagle half-finished on the painting sitting on her easel. Even birds had a nest to come back to, a place where they roosted, a home they built and tended lovingly. It wasn’t just about how far they could soar, but about whether they could fly back to where they wanted to be.
And where she wanted to be was right here. As herself, not as Mariabella Romano. Not as a woman lying every day of her life. There was, as Jake had said, no freedom in lies. “Would it help if a princess ran an art gallery at the inn?”
“Mariabella, you don’t have to do that. You can go on being Mariabella Romano. Keep your life the way it is.”
“It is no life at all,” she said. “Not if I am being someone else. I do not have to be queen to make a difference. I can do it as a princess.”
He traced the outline of her jaw, and smiled. “And as a wife.”
Had she heard him right? “A wife?”
“I’ve fallen in love with you, Mariabella. With you, not you the princess, or you, the gallery owner, but just you. And I don’t want to do any of this—” he swept a hand toward the beach, the town “—without you. You are the dream I was looking for outside my window. And now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to let you go.”
A tear escaped and slid down her cheek. “I…I do not know what to say.” He’d told her everything she’d always wanted to hear, and the words hummed in her heart.
Jake dropped to one knee, pulled a velvet box out of his pocket and held it open. A simple round diamond glittered back at her. Nothing ostentatious, nothing overdone. The perfect ring. “Say you’ll marry me.”