CHAPTER THREE

      TO HELL WITH IT. That was what Sopi had been thinking the whole time she’d been scrubbing the saunas. She felt grimy and sweaty and resentful and entitled to enjoy herself.

      Not in the treated waters of the hot pool, though. No, she was going to the source, the original spring that had been formed by long-ago explorers, possibly ancestors of the nearest First Nations tribe. No one knew exactly who had dammed the hot water trickling out of the mossy ground, forming a small bathing pool on a bluff in the woods, but through the 1800s and into the early 1900s the small swimming hole had been used by hunters and snowshoers who heard about it through word of mouth.

      Eventually, an enterprising railway baron had built the first rustic hotel here. He had brought in a crew to dig a proper pool by hand, and that hole had eventually become what was the indoor pool today. He had lined it and filled it with snow that he melted and heated by piping water from this tiny hot spring. Since this natural, rocky pool was impossible to clean, the hotel wasn’t allowed to let guests use it. It was kept as a heat source and a point of interest. In the summer, the gate next to the pump house was left unlocked so guests could picnic on the bench nearby, enjoying the view of the lake and the soothing trickle of the water.

      Tonight, Sopi’s were the only footsteps as she veered off the path to the maintenance shed and wound through the trees. The snow wasn’t too deep under the laden evergreens, but she was only wearing sandals. By the time she emerged and shoved at the gate to open it against the accumulation of snow, her feet were frozen and aching.

      She waded through the knee-high snow the final few yards. As she reached the edge of the pool, she kicked off her sandals and stepped into the hot water. It hurt like mad, but was a relief, too.

      She hadn’t been to the pool in a long time. Not since she had come out here to cry after getting the news her father had passed from a sudden heart attack. This had always been her sad place, and that moment had been one of her saddest. Since it wasn’t something she liked to revisit, she didn’t come here often.

      She had forgotten how peaceful it was, though. The height of the trees hid it from hotel windows. The only reminders of civilization were the fence and gate and the distant hum of the pump house. She turned her back on those man-made things and faced the lake. The slope fell away, allowing a clear view of its sparkling, snow-blanketed surface.

      The longer she stood here, the better she felt. The waters truly were capable of healing, she decided with a sigh of reclaimed calm. She started to pull her top up over her head but froze when she heard the crunch of footsteps.

      Really? She almost screamed in frustration. Who? Why? She twisted to glare at—

      “Oh.”

      “You’re not supposed to swim alone.” The prince’s breath fogged against the frosty air. He wore his robe and rattled the gate to open it farther before he took long strides through the snow in his slippers. As he came closer, she was able to read his frown of dismay in the moonlight reflecting as a faint blue glow off the surrounding snow. He abandoned his slippers next to her sandals and stepped into the water, hissing at the bite of heat.

      She looked back the way he’d come, expecting at least a few bodyguards and one or two of his cohorts, if not a full harem of adoring women.

      “Are you lost? What are you doing here?” she asked him.

      “What are you doing here?”

      “You inspired me,” she admitted truthfully, although Nanette’s pithy talk of refusing to compromise had also lit a fire of rebellion in her.

      “To try skinny-dipping? This is hotter than the pool.”

      “It is. Too hot in the summer, which is the only time this area is open to the public.” She nodded at the sign obscured by a buildup of frozen condensation. “No swimming allowed.”

      “Ah. I’ve inspired you to break rules.” His mouth barely twitched, but he sounded pleased. “Live dangerously.”

      “Not really. I happen to know it’s tested regularly and is always found to be potable.” The fence kept wildlife out, so risk of contamination was next to zero.

      “That takes some of the thrill out of it, doesn’t it?”

      His words made her think of her stepsisters’ disparagement of her. Their contempt had gone far deeper than a scoff over a moth-eaten dress. They knew she wasn’t any match for a man in his position. Sopi knew it. She was standing here prickly with self-consciousness, aware that she was still covered in sweat from laboring in the spa. Definitely not anywhere near his exalted level.

      The water beckoned, but she murmured, “It was a dumb impulse. We should go back.”

      He dragged his gaze from the frozen lake, eyes glittering in the moonlight, but his expression was inscrutable. “I wanted you to join me.”

      “Here?” She shook her head. Part of her was tempted. Where was the harm in a nude swim with a stranger? And where had such a reckless thought come from, she wondered with a suppressed choke of laughter. But he was the first man to make her consider such rash behavior. Everything about this was a rarity for her.

      “For dinner,” he clarified. “Did you…get that memo?”

      The air that came into her lungs seemed to crystallize to powdered ice. “I didn’t imagine for a minute you were looking for me. Besides, every woman here got a decal—”

      “I know that,” he cut in, sounding aggravated. “Now.”

      She bit back a smile. “You could have sent me a proper message.”

      “I didn’t know your name. My assistant asked the booking clerk, but Karl was listed as my masseur. Who are you?”

      She hesitated. Tell him everything? Would he care?

      “I know this is inappropriate,” he growled into the silence that she let stretch out with her indecision. “That’s why I didn’t want to make overt inquiries.”

      Inappropriate? It hadn’t been, not really, until he used that word. Now she reeled, astonished that he was making this private conversation into more than she would have let herself believe it to be.

      “If I’m out of line, say so. We’ll go back right now.”

      “I don’t know what this is,” she admitted, hugging herself against the cold, because the hot water on her feet wasn’t enough to keep her warm when she was outside at midnight before spring had properly taken hold. “My father bought this hotel for my mother. She named it after me. Cassiopeia. My friends call me Sopi.”

      “Cassiopeia.” He seemed to taste the syllables, which made her shiver in a different way. “Maude is your mother?” He sounded surprised. Skeptical.