Prologue
"I have a dream, a song to sing..."
The reception was spotless. The guestbook was fresh and crisp, ready and waiting for a pen to mark the first names and dates in.
"To help me cope with anything..."
She was ready. She was sure she could do this. She'd never done anything quite so spontaneous in her life, but this didn't feel like a mistake. This felt right.
"If you see the wonder of a fairytale...you can take the future, even if you fail..."
She wasn't going to fail. She wouldn't let it fail - her new hotel was in a prime location, and it was bound to attract a large number of guests. Napa Valley always did (the wine tourists, or "vineyard enthusiasts", as she'd been training herself to tactfully say). And all of them had a lot of money - as much as her parents did, and sometimes even more.
And she needed them to want to come.
All for the sake of the little four-month old girl nestled in her arms as she wandered, making her final checks.
She nuzzled the baby gently as she continued to softly sing her lullaby.
"I believe in angels...something good in everything I see..."
Her little Amelia was something good. About the best thing that had happened to her, if she really thought about it.
Even if she had come...more than unexpectedly.
Barely thirteen months ago, she'd been working as Maxwell Sheffield's assistant, helping him run his Broadway empire from the green loveseat in his office. She'd been in the position for a little over a year at the time, and she'd loved it.
Scratch that, she'd adored it.
Thoughts of successful musicals and being a big and mighty producer alongside the English-born Sheffield had plagued her daydreams. She'd come up with so many good ideas to help their company soar...
And then he'd come along.
Niles Brightmore.
The man she refused to even think about.
When she did, it made her blood boil over. He'd been the one to start everything off – the reason she'd left in the first place.
They'd...not entirely gotten along, when they'd first met. He'd been the Sheffield family's butler, and the two just had this instant mutual need to insult one another from the start.
It got so bad, Mr Sheffield hadn't wanted them in the same room at the same time anymore.
But Mrs Sheffield had insisted that they try to get along, and had sent them out to dinner together so that things might improve. She'd assured them it was only a date if they made it one, but C.C. had seen her drop a sly wink at her husband straight afterwards!
Not that it had mattered. It had turned into a date anyway.
They'd talked, and found that they had more in common than they'd thought. They'd laughed, drank, and danced into the night...
And then...well, it was inevitable where everything would end up.
She'd woken up in his bed the next morning, with his arms around her and his lips peppering kisses on her shoulder and neck (jokingly asking for another round). And it had been perfect. She'd thought it couldn't be taken away.
But she'd been wrong. His phone had rung, and it had all fallen apart when a woman's voice came from the other end of the line.
He'd turned awkward when she'd asked who it was, and his answer had sealed her never wanting to see him again.
Her name was Kathleen. She lived in the UK. And she was his long-distance girlfriend.
She hadn't listened to any of his stupid excuses. She hadn't wanted to. She hadn't been able to bear hearing his reasons for taking her heart and stomping on it.
She'd left immediately after, posting her resignation letter as soon as she'd gotten home. Maxwell had called her tirelessly, leaving so many messages that he'd filled up her answering machine's voice mailbox. He'd demanded... no, needed... no... begged... pleaded... deserved and explanation.
But C.C. hadn't given any.
She'd simply packed up her bags and bought a first class ticket to Greece.
She had a trust fund with more money she needed and a broken heart that required mending, so what better than a trip to paradise to do just that?
Of course, her having her own rotten luck, had met this charming banker wannabe at the airport. Collin Vince, recent MBA in international business graduate from Harvard.
He'd literally bumped into her when they'd both walked into the check-in counter, sending her straight to the floor alongside her purse and carryon.
He'd apologised profusely, visibly flustered and more than a little red in the face, and had helped her up. She waved it off as unimportant, and somehow a small commonplaces apology had ended up in them spending the hours until their flight chatting.
They'd eventually asked to be seated together.
Suffice to say, she and Collin had gotten to know the plane's cramped bathroom quite well, thus joining the infamous Mile High Club.
They'd gone straight to his hotel when they'd landed. They'd joked about seeing what it would be like without turbulence.
But when he was finally asleep, she'd gotten up, dressed, written him a note and left. She'd had to do it – she wouldn't have been able to say it to his face. All the time they'd been together, it hadn't felt...right. She knew she was doing it for the wrong reasons - to forget about Niles, to force herself to bury her feelings and move on by seeing other men, to get...well, to think that she'd gotten revenge.
It hadn't worked. How could it? Niles hadn't known where she was – she hadn't wanted – still didn't want – him to know where she was! The whole time she'd spent with Collin had been about making herself feel better in a "two could play at that game" kind of fashion, but who'd won from it?
Niles wasn't aware. He probably wouldn't even care if he was. That sort didn't - they used their charm to have women how they wanted, and no one else's feelings mattered apart from their own. They were vain and self-obsessed, and falling for them was a mistake.
She she'd been trying so hard to rectify her mistake, and bury the fact that she'd even made it in the first place…
So why she'd done what she did next, she didn't know.
The last of the mistakes had happened when she'd missed the ferry out to the Greek Island of Kalokairi. She hadn't been the only one, but she had been the only one to kick up such a fuss about it that she'd drawn attention to herself.
And that attention had come from Patrick McLaughlin, a Scottish man who claimed to be travelling to see as much of the world as he could. He said he loved adventure, and that he'd be happy to take her to the island on his boat.
He'd been charming, and clearly liked to laugh. The lines in his rugged face showed it. He had some wit, and enjoyed showing it off for anyone who was willing to listen.
He'd also had a far-too familiar pair of blue eyes, complete with sand-blonde hair.
Why she'd even agreed to go near him, she didn't know.
She'd stuck around him for about three days. What could she say? The guy had been good.
Not as good as some, but still.
Eventually she'd snapped out of it. She'd realised she wasn't getting away from the...problem she'd gone away to avoid. She had just been saddling herself with an almost complete carbon copy.
She'd had to go. She'd gone practically the same way she'd left Collin; leaving a note and explaining a few things.
There were a few other things she'd left out, of course. But still, the principle was the same.
It was a little while after that, that she'd found out she was pregnant. Far too late to work out which man was the father.
Not that she wanted to contact them about it in the first place.
Mia was all hers. And she'd be better off that way, with a strong mother who'd built a business and given her a loving home.
She didn't need two potential fathers who were just awkward mistakes to her mother. And she definitely didn't need a father who was the biggest, most hurtful mistake of them all.
Her mother had disowned her upon learning about her pregnancy and the uncertain parenthood of her child. She'd called her a disgrace to the Babcock name and said she wanted nothing to do with her anymore.
Her father had been less caustic in his disappointment, but nevertheless he'd shaken his head at her and asked her what she'd been thinking.
She hadn't had a good answer to give.
Stewart had told her he wouldn't be giving her any more money than she'd already had in her trust fund just because she'd fallen pregnant. He'd said she had to make a living for herself, using all the tools given to her by years of the finest education money could buy. Should she fail, he'd said, she would be allowed back home, no questions asked, but she had to try and succeed first.
And that's exactly what C.C. intended on doing.
She may be a young single mother, but she was by no means a wimp nor would she allow contrarieties to let the air out of her tires – she simply couldn't sit around and have a pity party when she had a child to look after.
So she'd gotten down to work: she'd bought a ten thousand acres terrain in Napa Valley, hired an architect and entrusted him with the creation of a luxury boutique hotel.
She'd overseen the design and subsequent construction of her hotel throughout her pregnancy, and it had been ready only one week after Amelia's birth.
It looked magnificent, even if she did say so herself. Everything was brand-new, and she could already imagine guests pouring in through the doors, excited to spend their time in a place C.C. had spent so much time, effort and money on.
If someone looked close enough, they might've seen the blood, sweat and tears that she'd put into each and every inch of the place!
All to make sure she didn't let her father down. He'd never said he wasn't proud of her, when she'd confessed that she was pregnant. But his silence when it had happened had been enough. She knew he couldn't be completely proud - she wouldn't be taking the path he'd probably had planned for her.
She had to forge her own path, and get her father to accept it when she succeeded.
And she was going to succeed. Her little girl was depending on her.
"I believe in angels...when I know the time is right for me..."
She'd make it. They both would.
"I'll cross the stream...I have a dream..."
AN: Hello there! Both TheCrownedLioness and I recently saw "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" and subsequently bawled our eyes out and thought we just had to write a Mamma Mia! AU for our fav couple. We sincerely hope you like it and we'll soon be uploading new chapters to "The Parent Trap" and "Once Upon a December". We'd looooove to get your reviews! H&L