“I’ll be back in time for Christmas,” she said into her dad’s shoulder. Barely, but she would make it. She was scheduled to land the morning of Christmas Eve day. “And we’ll FaceTime constantly.” She broke the hug with her dad and avoided eye contact with both parents. “And I’ll make partner soon.” The brass ring. The goal she’d had since her first day of work at CZT as a twenty-one-year-old intern. Once that happened, she would stop having to do Thanksgiving duty when Brad from Manufacturing Operations came down with shingles. She would be able to be more selective about which projects she got personally involved in, and choose where, when, and how much she traveled. You paid enough dues, you stopped having to prove yourself.

She assumed.

That was the plan anyway, and she’d come too far not to stick to the plan.

*  *  *

As much as he didn’t want to, Matteo decided at the last minute to go to the airport himself. He could have sent a car. There was no reason he personally had to make the trek to Zurich, much less physically go inside and hold up a sign that said “Ms. Cara Delaney” in order to welcome the woman who would be his undoing. He did it anyway.

Matteo would freely admit that he was the sort of person for whom duty mattered. Well, perhaps that wasn’t entirely fair. That made him sound like a protocol droid. It was more that tradition mattered.

So when the king charged you with personally making sure that the hotshot American management consultant was welcomed properly, when he asked you to be her interpreter and tour guide, you went to the airport yourself. Once you started deciding how, or god forbid, whether, to do certain parts of your job, you might as well give up and throw open the doors to the forces of chaos.

Speaking of the forces of chaos, a woman burst into his field of vision, suddenly there when she had not been before. He had been keeping a close eye on the doors that disgorged passengers from the customs hall—he’d thought. But there she was.

She was wearing a black pantsuit and the highest heels he had ever seen on a woman in Eldovia in the winter. She approached at an impressive speed, given those shoes, pulling a small rolling suitcase behind her. The staccato clacking of her heels joined the steady buzzing sound made by the bag’s wheels to create an ominous, crescendoing symphony. Her dark, almost black hair was pulled into a severe chignon and, along with the black suit, provided a stark contrast to her skin, which was almost as pale as the snow falling outside. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue, like the sky over the mountains after a storm. She looked like an angel.