Christmas with the Prince. Charlene Sands

zone.

      She did a very scientific, eenie-meenie-minie-moe, then went left around the corner and plowed face-first into a petite, red-haired maid carrying a pile of clean linens. The force of the collision knocked her off balance and the linens fell to the carpet.

      “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Liv crouched down to pick them up. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

      “It’s no problem, miss,” the maid said in a charming Irish brogue, kneeling down to help. “You must be our scientist from the States. Miss Montgomery?”

      Liv piled the last slightly disheveled sheet in her arms and they both stood. “Yes, I am.”

      The maid looked her up and down. “Well, you don’t much look like a scientist.”

      “Yeah, I hear that a lot.” And she was always tempted to ask what she did look like, but she was a little afraid of the answer she might get.

      “I’m Elise,” the maid said. “If you need anything at all, I’m the one to be asking.”

      “Could you tell me where to find the kitchen? I’m starving.”

      “Of course, miss. Follow this hallway down and make a left. The stairs will be on your right, about halfway down the hall. Take them down one flight, then turn right. The kitchen is just down the way.”

      “A left and two rights. Got it.”

      Elise smiled. “Enjoy your stay, miss.”

      She disappeared in the direction Liv had just come from. Liv followed her directions and actually found the kitchen, running into—although not literally this time—Prince Aaron’s assistant just outside the door.

      “Off to work already?” he asked.

      “Looking for food actually. I missed dinner last night.”

      “Why don’t you join the prince in the family dining room.”

      “Okay.” She could spend another twenty minutes or so looking for the dining room, and possibly collapse from hunger, or ask for directions. “Could you show me where it is?”

      He smiled and gestured in the opposite direction from the kitchen. “Right this way.”

      It was just around the corner. A surprisingly small but luxurious space with French doors overlooking the grounds. A thick blanket of leaves in brilliant red, orange and yellow carpeted the expansive lawn and the sky was a striking shade of pink as the sun rose above the horizon.

      At one end of a long, rectangular cherry table, leaning casually in a chair with a newspaper propped beside him, sat Prince Aaron. He looked up when they entered the room, then rose to his feet.

      “Well, good morning,” he said with a smile, and her stomach suddenly bound up into a nervous knot.

      “Shall I take your bag?” Derek asked her.

      Liv shook her head. That backpack had all of her research. She never trusted it to anyone else. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

      “Well, then, enjoy your breakfast,” Derek said, leaving her alone with the prince. Just the two of them.

      Only then did it occur to her that she might have been better off eating alone. What would they say to each other? What could they possibly have in common? A prince and an orphan?

      The prince, on the other hand, looked completely at ease. In jeans and a flannel shirt he was dressed much more casually than the day before. He looked so…normal. Almost out of place in the elegant room.

      He pulled out the chair beside his own. “Have a seat.”

      As she sat, she found herself enveloped in the subtle, spicy scent of his aftershave. She tried to recall if William, her possibly-soon-to-be fiancé, wore aftershave or cologne. If he had, she’d never noticed.

      The prince’s fingers brushed the backs of her shoulders as he eased her chair in and she nearly jolted against the sudden and intense zing of awareness.

      He was touching her.

      Get a grip, Liv. It wasn’t like he was coming on to her. He was being polite and she was acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. Even when she was a schoolgirl she had never acted this way. She’d been above the temptation that had gotten so many other girls from high school in trouble. Or as her last foster mom, Marsha, used to put it, in the family way.

      Then the prince placed both hands on her shoulders and her breath caught in her lungs.

      His hands felt big and solid and warm. You are not going to blush, she told herself, but already she could feel a rush of color searing her cheeks, which only multiplied her embarrassment.

      It was nothing more than a friendly gesture, and here she was having a hot flash. Could this be any more humiliating?

      “Do you prefer coffee or tea?” he asked.

      “Coffee, please,” she said, but it came out high and squeaky.

      He leaned past her to reach for the carafe on the table, and as he did, the back of her head bumped the wall of his chest. She was sure it was just her imagination, but she swore she felt his body heat, heard the steady thump of his heart beating. Her own heart was hammering so hard that it felt as though it would beat its way out of her chest.

      Shouldn’t a servant be doing that? she wondered as he poured her a cup and slid it in front of her. Then he finally backed away and returned to his chair, resuming the same casual, relaxed stance—and she took her first full breath since she’d sat down.

      “Would you care for breakfast?” he asked.

      “Please,” she said, though her throat was so tight, she could barely get air to pass through, much less food. But if she didn’t eat something soon, she would go into hypoglycemic shock. She just hoped she didn’t humiliate herself further. She was so used to eating at her desk in the lab, or in a rush over the kitchen sink, she was a little rusty when it came to the rules of etiquette. What if she used the wrong fork, or chewed with her mouth open?

      He rang a bell, and within seconds a man dressed in characteristic butler apparel seemed to materialize from thin air.

      “Breakfast for our guest, Geoffrey,” he said.

      Geoffrey nodded and slipped away as stealthily as he’d emerged.

      Liv folded her hands in her lap and, because most of her time was spent huddled over her laptop or a microscope, reminded herself to sit up straight.

      “I trust you slept well,” the prince said.

      She nodded. “I woke at seven thinking it was last night, then I looked outside and noticed that the sun was on the wrong side of the horizon.”

      “I guess you were more tired than you thought.”

      “I guess so. But I’m anxious to get down to the lab. You said I’ll get a password for the door?”

      “Yes, in fact…” He pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. As she took it, she felt lingering traces of heat from his body and her cheeks flushed deeper red.

      She unfolded the paper and looked at the code—a simple seven-digit number—then handed it back to him.

      “Don’t you want to memorize it?” he asked.

      “I just did.”

      His eyes widened with surprise, and he folded the paper and put it back in his pocket. “Your ID badge will be ready this morning. You’ll want to wear it all the time, so you’re not stopped by security. It will grant you full access to the castle, with the exception of the royal family’s quarters of course, and any of our agricultural facilities or fields.”

      “You mentioned something about a map of the castle,” she said, too embarrassed to admit that she’d actually gotten lost on her