Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EMMA
Emma awoke to the rough scrape of a doggie tongue on her cheek. She opened one eye blearily.
Her heart jumped in her chest. Where the hell was she? And why was she soaked in sweat and pressed into a very impressive set of naked pecs?
She elbowed the coat and blanket off her, and everything came rushing back.
Cooper. The lake. Leo coming to her rescue.
And now here he was, sprawled out mostly naked on a hard wooden floor, a beam of sunlight hitting him like he had been personally chosen by the heavens. He’d saved her life, and then—as long as her memory wasn’t failing her—he had kissed the crap out of her.
That kiss. Holy shit. The velvety warmth of his lips pressed against her frozen ones. The scratch of his beard against her skin. A shower of sparks danced up her spine.
Maybe she had imagined it. She’d probably been closer to death than ever before.
But no. She could still feel the gentle press of his thumb against her pulse like it had been tattooed there.
So what did it mean?
Nothing. It had meant nothing. There wasn’t going to be a fairytale ending here.
He was a prince, and probably duty-bound to save the lives of dumb tourists who fell through the ice.
Women probably threw themselves at him all day long.
Who knew how many meaningless kisses he’d exchanged over the years?
But it hadn’t felt meaningless—to her, at least. He had been unexpectedly honest and open about his childhood. Her heart ached for the little boy who felt forgotten and unloved. He deserved better, and he would find his own happiness in time. She was sure of it.
There wasn’t time to dwell on it though.
No matter what was—or wasn’t—going on with Leo, she needed to get back to the castle and start plotting the parts of the dessert that she could without the blueprints.
She needed to gather recipes, make a list of ingredients, and chat with the royal chef.
Her future awaited, and she couldn’t allow anything to distract her.
Not even a half-naked prince who had saved her life.
She slowly climbed to her feet, knees cracking like kindling. There was a crick in her neck from sleeping on Leo, and the musky spice of his deodorant was on her cheek. Would it be weird if she never washed her face again?
To her relief, sensation had returned to her hands and feet, and they hadn’t fallen off in the night. It would’ve been hard to bake with no hands.
She swiveled and took in the cabin, searching for her lost pants.
She’d been too out of it to really inspect her surroundings the night before.
Embers glowed in the fireplace. A workbench backed up to one wall.
A variety of tools were scattered on top, wood shavings littering the floor. It smelled like sawdust and wet dog.
Cooper looked at her and whined. Damn, he probably had to pee.
She peered out the dusty window. Patches of blue sky peeked out behind gray clouds. It seemed like the storm was over, at least.
She swiveled to look back at Leo. What was she going to tell her mom about this?
Shit. Her mom. She hadn’t checked in with her the night before, thanks to the whole almost-dying thing. She dropped to her knees and dug through the pile of slightly damp clothes. Would her phone even work?
Anxiety flared deep and hot, extinguishing all other thoughts.
Her phone slipped from the pile and clattered to the floor. Leo woke with a start.
“How are you doing?” he asked sleepily.
“I’m fine. I just…” She frantically pressed the power button on her phone. Nothing.
“Everything okay?”
“My phone’s not working. I shouldn’t be surprised.” She tried to sound casual, but the words felt clawed from her throat.
What if her mom had fallen in the night and no one was around to help? What if she’d had another stroke and couldn’t reach her phone?
Leo rose to his feet. His body didn’t even have the audacity to crack like a sack full of marbles, and he didn’t make any efforts to cover his bare chest and torso.
She only partially noticed, as she was stabbing at her phone, trying to get it to turn on. She didn’t have access to the nanny cams. Anything could have happened.
“Hey,” he said, approaching cautiously. “It’s probably too waterlogged to work. Let’s go get it in a bowl of rice and put on some dry clothes.”
“I need it to work,” she said, clicking the power button over and over.
“Emma,” he said softly. He laid his hand over hers. “Are you worried about your mom?”
She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to banish the anxiety from her body.
“Yeah. The last time—the last time I couldn’t reach her, it was because she’d had her stroke.
She called me, and I couldn’t answer it because I was at work and there was a very strict no-cell-phone policy.
She was having a medical emergency, and I didn’t even know about it.
I didn’t find her until two hours later.
It was all my fault. If I had answered the call, or if I would’ve found her earlier, things would be so much different now. ”
There it was. Her most shameful truth. The damage to her mother’s body wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if Emma had just caught it earlier. While Lisa’s fiery spirit and sharp mind were still intact, her physical limitations had left her depressed and restless.
It was reason number three thousand why Emma needed this trip to go well. Her mom was trapped, a prisoner in her own body. With a little bit of money for better physical and occupational therapy, she could start to bring back some of that quality of life and independence.
Worry was written on Leo’s face. He pulled a cordless phone off the wall and handed it to her. “Call her.”
“Oh, I don’t know if she’ll answer. It’s like, 2 a.m. her time.”
He bent over and stepped into his jeans. “Just call her. I’m sure she’s fine, but this way, you can know for sure.”
Their eyes met, and the panic subsided just a little.
“Thank you.” She turned her back to him and dialed her mom’s phone number.
It rang three times before picking up.
“Hello?” a groggy voice called.
“Mom, it’s me.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Is everything okay?”
She sounded fine. Emma’s panic dropped to a barely noticeable hum.
“I’m fine,” she said. It was kind of the truth. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, honey. A little tired since I’m being woken up at—what time even is it?”
“It’s late. I’m sorry. I had a problem with my phone, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Please stay in bed until Shante arrives. And if you need anything, call Beatrice so she can come find me, okay?”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re calling from an international number. I thought you were calling to ask about my car’s extended warranty.”
A startled laugh burst from Emma. “I’m so sorry for waking you up. Thank you for answering.”
“I’ll always answer for you, sweetheart. Wait, whose phone are you using?”
“Just a castle landline.”
The last thing her mom needed was shocking news that her only child had almost died of hypothermia.
“Huh. I didn’t know those existed anymore. Love you, dove.”
“Love you too.”
Emma hung up and handed the phone back to Leo. She took a deep breath and willed her hands to stop shaking. Everything was fine.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything. I really should get back to the castle. Coop’s going to gnaw my leg off if I don’t get him some breakfast.”
“We’re going back to the castle, but you’re going straight to the royal doctor. No arguments,” he said when she opened her mouth. “What happened to you was really serious. I—we—need to make sure you’re okay.”
She shot him a look. “You can’t just order me around, you know. I’m not a citizen.”
“Consider it a favor. To me. And to my mom, because she’ll be mad as a box of frogs if her star baker can’t pull off this absurd dessert because her fingers fell off from hypothermia.”
He must have seen something in her face, because his smile slipped off like royal icing on a cookie that was too hot.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked gingerly.
“I’m fine. I just need to get to work. I really need this to go well.”
He walked over to stand in front of her and took both of her arms gently in his. The sweater she’d been clutching to hide her granny panties fell to the floor, and a sense of vulnerability she hadn’t felt in a long time—maybe ever?—set in.
“What happened to your mom wasn’t your fault.”
Emma shook her head and averted her gaze. There was something too raw in Leo’s dark chocolate eyes.
“It was. If I would have answered, her entire life would be different right now.”
“She should have called emergency services, not you.”
Emma took a deep breath, and her necklace glinted in the sunlight and cast a beam of light onto the far wall. She wasn’t going to cry. She had cried over the incident what felt like a thousand times, and none of those times had she been standing half naked in front of a prince.
Her mom had said the same thing, but nothing was going to assuage her guilt.
“It doesn’t change the fact that I failed her on that day, and everything is different now. I owe her a better life. That’s why I need to put everything I have into this project.”
Leo’s dark eyebrows were knit together. “We’ll get you up to the castle. Put my jacket on.”
“No, you’ll be—”
He silenced her with a look. “Put on the damn jacket.”
The prickle of annoyance at being bossed around was almost a relief after the emotional flood of the last twelve hours.
If Leo hadn’t found her, she’d be dead right now. Her mom would be childless and alone, Cooper would be without a mother. But Leo had given her a second chance at life. And she would give it all she had.
Minutes later, they waded out into the knee-high snow, blinking at the harsh sunlight.
Cooper plodded along happily, unbothered by what was probably eighteen undisturbed inches of snow.
Emma staggered along in the drifts with Leo’s help.
Her damn jeans clung to her. It was unpleasant, but nothing like the punishing freeze of the night before.
Leo was silent on their walk back. She had trauma-dumped all over him.
What was it about him that made her open up?
She had never confided in a stranger this way.
Stranger wasn’t the right word anymore. What was he? An acquaintance? A friend? Could someone really be your friend if you were never going to see them again?
Unless he came to visit Ruby in New York.
She banished the thoughts of the future from her mind. Only five days remained before the ball. The timeline was almost impossible. There wasn’t time to do anything crazy like fall in love with a prince who lived in a different country, even if she wanted to.
Leo took her past the courtyard and around to the same door she had almost gone through the night before. He cracked it open, and there was a rush of sound on the other side.
“How nice of you to join us.”
Shit. That was the queen, and she didn’t look happy to see them.