Stranded with prince cha.., p.1
Stranded with Prince Charming, page 1
STRANDED WITH PRINCE CHARMING
EVER AFTER
BOOK 3
LAUREN SMITH
CONTENTS
Once upon a time…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Lauren Smith
Cover Art by Angela Haddon
Cover Photography by Sara Eire
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at lauren@laurensmithbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-958196-68-7 (e-book edition)
ISBN: 978-1-958196-69-4 (print edition)
ONCE UPON A TIME…
THERE WAS A PRINCESS CURSED WITH A FROZEN HEART, BUT TRUE LOVE’S KISS COULD SAVE HER IF ONLY SHE WAS BRAVE ENOUGH TO LOVE…
1
Gstaad, Switzerland
Roarke Covington was trapped at the North Pole. All that was missing were little elves and reindeer wandering around. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t actually the North Pole, but it felt like it, with snow everywhere and the Christmas-like feel to the shops and hotels on every street. He wasn’t a fan of Christmas. He always spent it alone and, if he was honest, miserable.
Roarke took in the sight of the Swiss town of Gstaad from where he stood on the street outside his hotel. It was an ideal vacation place with soft, powdery ski slopes, fancy restaurants, and fairytale–like hotels tucked into the base of the idyllic Alps. Unlike other similar destinations, Gstaad retained an air of exclusivity which drew in celebrities and rich travelers from all over the world.
A woman in a skintight ski suit, was chatting loudly on her phone with long, fake nails, overly puffy lips and nearly white blond hair extensions as she walked past him. The slight frown on his lips became more prominent. Roarke was old-world, old-school and old-class money from the East Coast even though he now lived in Chicago. He despised the pop princess icons with bleached hair and fake breasts, and the steroid-fueled boy toys that came with them. He hated the Hollywood actors who came here with their mistresses and the rich families that had made money from questionable means… In other words, he hated the world he’d been born into. He would never come to a place like this by choice. No matter how beautiful it was, it was full of people he didn’t want to socialize with.
“Fucking Thad.” He cursed the name under his breath. He had lost in a game of poker to an old prep school classmate named Thad Worthington last month and agreed to go to Switzerland over Christmas to help him on a real estate deal. He always honored the terms of a bet when he lost, but that didn’t mean he liked doing it.
He slung his leather weekender bag over one shoulder and walked up the entrance to the Hotel Gstaadorhoff. It wasn’t the most expensive place he could have stayed, but it was where all the clients who were meeting to discuss the deal planned to stay. The streets were crowded with tourists and skiers. Christmas festivities were already underway. Roarke hated Christmas.
The wooden lodge-like frame of the hotel’s entrance loomed over him as he dodged a trio of snow bunnies. The girls giggled at him and wiggled their hips in expensive ski suits as they hobbled past him in the snow. Most men would have jumped at the chance to follow those girls and offer to buy them a drink in hopes of it leading somewhere private. Not him. Roarke would bet his life that not one of them actually knew how to ski. He wanted to be with an authentic woman; if she didn’t know how to ski, that was fine. But people who posed as something other than what they were didn’t interest him.
He entered the lobby and groaned at the site of a wedding party filling the room. That was the last thing he wanted to be around. There was nothing more annoying than a wedding. Such fanfare for so little return on investment. Roarke was not much of a romantic. In fact, only one person ever drew that side out in him, and she was out of his reach. For everyone and everything else, he was anything but romantic. Instead, he was practical, calm, intense. That was who he was. He dodged the wedding party and approached the front desk.
“Welcome to the Hotel Gstaadorhoff.” The receptionist smiled at him warmly.
“I have a reservation under Covington.” He had been told he would likely have to share a room with the junior lawyer he was supposed to be helping on the real estate deal. It was another thing to add to the long list of his irritations over this entire endeavor.
“Ahh, yes, here we are.” The woman made him a set of room keys and he slid his credit card across the counter, which she put into the system. “Your other guest is already checked in.”
“Have any of the other guests under these names checked in yet? We’re here for a business meeting, and we’ll be using a conference room this week with them.” He handed the receptionist a sheet with the names of the other parties on it.
“Give me one moment.” She checked for the names, then shook her head. “No, none of these people have checked in yet, sir.”
“Thank you. Could you call my room when they arrive?”
“Of course, sir.”
He’d already started to turn away when the receptionist spoke up again. “The weather will be quite severe here over the next few nights; please be careful outside. They will be clearing the ski slopes tonight in order to maintain safety. It should be better during the day. I’m not sure if the airports will be closed, in case you’re waiting on your guests to fly in.”
“Right,” Roarke muttered as he glanced out the windows at the picturesque mountains. He actually liked Gstaad’s scenery. He didn’t get to spend much time at places like this. Being able to look at the Alps was one of the few benefits of losing the bet to Thad. He followed the signs to the elevator and headed up to his room.
He pulled out his cell and texted Thad, letting him know he’d landed and would be meeting up with the junior lawyer soon. Normally, he was on the opposite side of the table from Thad on business deals because he worked at a law firm that usually represented the other side in any real estate transactions that Thad participated in. A real estate tycoon, Thad ran a successful company with his father. They exclusively used the lawyers from Pimms & Associates to represent their company because Thad’s best friend Jared was the senior real estate attorney at Pimms. Normally, Jared would have handled a deal like this, but he was busy spending Christmas with his wife and new baby girl, so a junior lawyer from Pimms was handling it. Thad apparently didn’t trust this rookie lawyer, so he’d called in the favor Roarke owed him.
All Roarke had to do was show up here, help this associate attorney out and show the kid the ropes, as well as make sure Thad got a good deal on the property he wanted to buy. And then Roarke and Thad would be square.
I’ll never drink and play poker with that bastard again.
They weren’t friends, but they’d recently run into each other in Vegas at a private card game and when Thad had challenged him to play, he couldn’t resist. So he’d sat down and played, and he’d lost. Rather than take the chips he was owed, Thad had demanded a favor to be called in when he needed it.
Roarke pressed the key card to the door. When the green light flashed, he turned the handle and stepped inside. The room was bright and clean with light walnut wood paneling on the walls and a pair of twin beds along the wall, only four feet apart. The bathroom door was closed, and he heard the sound of running water.
The other lawyer had to be in the shower. The guy probably had jet lag like he did. Roarke traveled internationally a lot, but he didn’t sleep on planes that well, even in first class. He always felt like shit the first day. He dropped his bag on the floor and then lay back on one of the beds.
He chose the one that was near the window, which led to a small balcony that overlooked the snowy mountainside. It would be nice to wake up in the morning and have a good view of the scenery. The snowy landscape was somehow calming. He folded his hands behind his head, crossed his legs at the ankles and shut his eyes. If the rookie lawyer had a problem with him getting the primo bed, too bad.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d dozed off for before a screech jerked him awake. Bolting upright, he found a nearly naked woman standing in the bathroom’s doorway. All that covered her was a flimsy hotel towel.
“Roarke?” The woman gasped his name as both of her hands clutched at the edge of the towel, holding it tightly together at her breasts and thighs. It took him another moment to pull his eyes off the most gorgeous pair of legs he’d ever seen before he could look at the woman’s face.
Wet blonde hair hung in long burnished gold strands down her shoulders, and soft, startled blue eyes stared back at him.
Holy shit…
“Shana? What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded as he got to his feet.
“Me? What about you? This is my room.” Those lovely eyes were lit with fury. God, he had always thought Shana Pimms was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but she’d been off limits for years. She was the daughter of his biggest legal competitor, and she was also Jared’s ex-girlfriend, which meant she was completely untouchable. Still, it didn’t stop a man from wanting her with a barely controlled madness.
“Roarke, seriously, what the hell are you doing in my room?” she asked more quietly this time, and he realized how he must have scared her by being there.
Wait a damn minute—this was his room.
“When I checked in at the front desk, they gave me a key to this room and said it was mine.”
“Okay, we’ll figure that out in the minute. I meant, what are you doing here in Switzerland?” she asked, still clutching her towel. He was a bastard for wishing desperately that her grip would slip so he’d get to see what he’d fantasized about for years.
“I lost a bet,” he said.
“A bet? What does that mean?” She arched a dark gold brow at him. God, the expression was adorable and sexy but also intimidating. It was an intoxicating combination.
“I lost a bet in a game of poker to Thad, and my repayment was to help some associate lawyer of Jared’s in negotiating the hotel purchase. But it was supposed to be a man I was meeting.”
“You were supposed to meet Braden Wallace?”
“Er… Yeah, that was the name Thad texted me.”
Shana closed her eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Great, just great. My dad sent me here to cover for Braden. He had a family emergency. I didn’t know Thad was sending someone to help him.”
“So we’ll just call the hotel front desk, and I’ll get another room.” The last thing he wanted was to stay in another room, but sleeping so close to Shana was a temptation he’d be hard pressed to resist acting on. He needed to do the right thing and just get another room, even though every fantasy he’d had for years involved sharing a room and a bed with this woman. Though his back was turned toward her, he could still feel her presence as she moved near the bathroom.
He picked up the phone on the small nightstand between the two beds and dialed zero.
“This is the front desk. How may I help you?”
“Hi, this is Mr. Covington from room 208. There seems to be a bit of a mix-up. I need a new room; I can’t share one with Miss Pimms.”
“Oh ... I understand, but Mr. Covington, we are completely booked up. We don’t have a spare room we can move you into.”
Roarke’s heart gave an excited little jump at the thought that now he had no choice but to stay with her. But the receptionist shattered that hope quickly.
“I could call a few other hotels in the city for you.”
“Yes, please do that, thank you.” He hung up and met Shana’s questioning gaze. She was standing a little closer and the smell of her soap, clean and vanilla scented, drifted across the room. It made him a little dizzy with desire, but he had to stay focused. He’d never been more aware of anyone in this life than he was of her right now.
“What did they say?”
“This hotel is booked. They’re checking other places in town for me.”
“What a mess,” Shana muttered. Then she seemed to remember she was practically naked. “Do you mind if I grab a few things from my bag and—”
“Not at all.” He sat back on the bed again and lay back once more, closing his eyes. He listened to the rustling about the room and, because he was an asshole, he peeked one eye open to see her retrieving a gossamer thin set of bra and panties from her suitcase.
Fuck... That was his punishment for peeking. He would give anything to know what she looked like in that pale pink lacy set of lingerie. She closed the bathroom door to change inside, while he retrieved his phone from his pocket and sent Thad a text.
Roarke: Tell me you didn’t know.
A moment later, Thad responded.
Thad: Know what?
Roarke: That I’d be rooming with Shana, not Braden Wallace at this hotel in Switzerland.
He almost laughed when a call came a second later. He got up and stepped out onto the balcony, closing the glass doors behind him before he answered. It was damned cold outside, but he didn’t want Shana to hear.
“What do you mean you’re rooming with Shana?” Thad demanded. He never had dated her, but he protected her like a sister.
“I mean, unless another hotel has a spare room, I’m bunking with the beautiful bombshell ex-girlfriend of your best friend. I’m not complaining, by the way.”
“You’re such a dick, you know that right?” Thad growled.
“I know,” Roarke chuckled. “But it’s not my fault. Jared sent her to replace Braden, who had a family emergency.”
“Shit, I didn’t know. I’ve been busy with Veronica. We’re planning a Christmas at Disney. I’m going to propose to her, and it needs to be perfect. Jared’s busy with Felicity and Hayley.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re both going to be old married men now with kids,” Roarke snorted.
He was the same age as Jared and Thad, but for the first time he felt weirdly behind somehow because he didn’t have a wife and 2.5 kids plus a minivan. Not that he would be caught dead in a minivan. He’d get some badass SUV to drive the kids around in. Wait… Since when did he think about kids? God, Jared and Thad were rubbing off on him in the worst way.
“So how is it that you’re rooming with her? Why don’t you get your own room?” Thad asked, as if Roarke hadn’t been smart enough to try that.
“We tried that. No rooms are left at this inn,” he joked. “We might be sleeping in the stables…” He couldn’t keep from grinning and was glad Thad couldn’t see his face.
Thad made an angry huffing sound that filled Roarke with boyish glee.
“Then stay somewhere else in town.”
“I’m trying to, but it might not happen,” Roarke warned with a smug chuckle.
“Then sleep in the fucking lobby, Covington. Shana is off limits.”
Roarke pictured Shana with her dewy skin fresh from the shower and wearing nothing but that little hotel towel… That image would occupy his dreams for the next decade.
“Actually, I’d say nothing is off limits.” He leaned on his forearms on the balcony railing and watched the people below eating at the outdoor restaurant on the first floor.
“If you do anything to her, I will end you, Covington.”
Roarke frowned. “Why do you and Jared treat her like she’s made of glass? She’s not some fragile princess to protect.”
Thad was quiet a long moment. Only his breathing on the other end of the line assured Roarke he was still on the phone.
“I shouldn’t even be saying anything to you, but Shana’s father is a controlling asshole. Ever since she and Jared failed to do the whole ‘marry and run the firm as husband and wife’ thing, Shana has had a difficult relationship with her dad. He’s a cold, unfeeling asshole. We’re just trying to watch out for her.”
Roarke knew exactly how it felt to have a man controlling your life and all of your decisions, and none of it was what was best for you. He’d had to break away from his father’s control, and it hadn’t been easy. Knowing Shana faced the same situation left a heaviness in his belly.
“I come from a long line of asshole fathers, Worthington. If anyone understands what bullshit a person puts up with under those circumstances, it’s me. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”
“You may have a point,” Thad reluctantly admitted. “But I’m serious. Do not pull some one-night stand crap and leave her with a broken heart. She is a class act and deserves better than you.”
“She does,” Roarke agreed. Shana was classy.
She was beautiful, but that beauty paled in comparison to her compassion and intelligence. It always puzzled him that she’d ended up in real estate law. She had a large heart, one suited for the tougher areas of family law, instead of property transactions. Any lawyer could learn to do real estate. But to have an instinct above and beyond to work with people—that was a rare gift. He’d had the pleasure of seeing her in action in court more than once, and each time he found himself turned on by her brain, not just her body.
