A Princess for Christmas

by Jenny Holiday

  “What was the name of the country again?” the girl asked.

  “Eldovia.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Lots of people haven’t. It’s a small nation located between Switzerland and Austria.”

  “Near Italy, or up closer to Germany?” the man asked.

  She was impressed. Most Americans thought of Europe as one indistinguishable mass. They knew the UK and perhaps the boot of Italy, but that was usually as far as their geographical knowledge went.

  “Germany—we’re north of Liechtenstein.”

  “Eldovia.” He snorted. “It sounds like one of those fake Hallmark Channel countries.”

  “Leo!” the girl protested. “That was so rude!”

  Marie smiled. She was pretty sure that was exactly what most people thought, but she’d never met someone who actually said it to her face.

  Also: Leo. The girl had called the man by his first name. Was this perhaps not a father-daughter relationship? She glanced at the man’s—Leo’s—hands on the steering wheel. No ring.

  Not that that mattered in any way.

  “It’s a real country,” she assured them. “It has a long, rich history. But it is absurdly picturesque. The Alps will do that.”

  “And it has a princess!” came the voice from the back seat.

  “And a king, too,” Marie said, enjoying the girl’s unbridled enthusiasm. That wasn’t an emotion she had a lot of experience with, at least not lately, and it seemed . . . like fun. She twisted in her seat again so she could see the girl.

  “Is he an evil king who tries to thwart your happiness at every turn?”

  Marie startled herself by laughing. She wasn’t normally easy with laughter. She also wasn’t sure how to answer the question. Her father was thwarting her happiness, but he wasn’t doing it on purpose. And he wasn’t evil.

  “Or! Is he a kindly king?”

  “I think he’s a sad king.” It was out before Marie could think better of it, but it was true.

  The girl scrunched up her face as if sad was not an entry in her mental reference book under Kings, types of.

  “Why is he sad?”

  “Because my mother died.” And with her, any opportunities for unbridled enthusiasm.

  Normally, Marie would never speak like this. But these people seemed safe. They were so far from her life at home, both geographically and in every other way, that she felt like she could tell them the truth.

  “Oh! I’m sorry.” The girl opened her mouth like she was going to say more, but closed it.

  The man was looking in the rearview mirror. He’d been doing that a lot, and Marie was fairly certain, given the length and frequency of those looks, that it wasn’t traffic he was examining. “Why don’t you introduce yourself, kiddo?”

  “Right!” The girl arranged her face into a parody of seriousness and said, “I am Gabriella Ricci, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty.” Then she placed her hands on the sides of her skirt, moved the fabric out, and dipped her head. She was trying to curtsy while buckled into the back of a cab.

  Marie bit back a laugh. “You don’t have to bow or curtsy, you know. Or call me anything like that.”

  “Because I’m not your subject?” The unchecked delight from the back seat was back.

  So was the disdain from the front: the man—Leo—snorted again. Marie refrained from saying that technically, it was her father who had subjects.

  “Stop being rude, Leo!” Gabriella rolled her eyes at Marie like they were sharing a secret. “This is my brother, Leonardo Ricci.” She sniffed—she could give Mr. Benz a run for his money on that front. “Leo’s not very . . . refined.”

  Brother.

  Well.

  That was interesting.

  Someone laid on a horn, and it jolted her back to reality. Reality where it was not interesting that Leonardo Ricci was Gabriella Ricci’s brother and not her father. Because it was neither here nor there.

  Reality where—she glanced at her watch, the very symbol of her mission this evening—she had exactly thirty-four minutes to make it to the boat before Lucrecia, a kind of neo-Euro Lady Gatsby ruling over her boatful of beautiful but empty revelers, lifted a champagne flute and trilled bon voyage!

  Goodness, she was anxious. No, scared. Full-on scared. Her pulse started hammering in her neck so hard it made her throat ache.

  Part of her wanted to miss the boat. To have tried her hardest but failed.

  But then she conjured her father’s face at the cabinet table—his scowl.

  The sad king.

  “How much longer to you think it’s going to take? Can you go any faster?”

  Who the hell was this lady?

  Well, Leo knew who she was—a literal princess.

  He extended one arm, palm up, toward the gridlock visible as far as he could see out the windshield. “Does it look like I can go any faster?”

  Jesus. Just when he’d started to think that Her Royal Highness—she was an actual fucking Her Royal Highness—with her sad father and her kindness to Gabby, had a human side, she’d reverted to form. She’d gotten all stiff and prissy and entitled. Or maybe she was just delusional. Maybe she thought a fairy godmother was going to appear, harness some magical flying horses to his cab, and off they would fly to catch the yacht.

  “It is vital that I reach that boat before it leaves.” Her tone was clipped. Prim. Dripping with privilege.

  He was driving a princess to a party on a yacht. That was not something he had a ton of patience for. “God forbid you should miss your night of champagne and caviar, Your Most Exalted Majestyness.”

  He was being mean, but he didn’t care. There were people in this world for whom twelve bucks for pasta on a Thursday night was a splurge. How dare she elbow her way into his cab—his off-duty cab—and start ordering him around?

  She pressed her lips together and looked out her window.

  Fuck. That was the problem with him—he did care about being mean. Not a lot. But enough for a splinter to work its way under his skin—his mother had raised him too well.

  But not enough to apologize. So he just kept driving. There was a shortcut they could take around Washington Square Park.

  “Leo! Give me your phone!”

  “Why?” He tried to limit screen time. Dani had told him that too much of it fried kids’ brains, and Dani knew about that stuff. Other than Minecraft, which he and Gabby played together—he couldn’t help himself; it satisfied his frustrated architectural ambitions—he gave her an hour a day.

  “I want to look up Eldovia.”

  Sighing, he tossed the phone through the partition.

  A few minutes later, she was reading aloud from Eldovia’s Wikipedia entry. “‘Though not diversified, Eldovia’s economy is robust. It is dominated by manufacturing—of luxury watches primarily, but also of power tools.’”

  He chuckled. Power tools and Rolexes? Maybe this woman’s huge watch was a homegrown specialty.

  “Then there’s a whole bunch of stuff about winter tourism, but it all says ‘Citation needed.’” Gabby laughed. “I could totally update this right now. I’d be like, ‘Source: Actual princess of country.’”

  Gabby chattered happily for a while, not noticing that the princess was growing increasingly agitated. She was trying to hide it—she had her right hand resting over the watch on her left arm, and she’d shift to the side and subtly peek at it from time to time.

  Leo should keep his mouth shut. Gabby was happy—and talking, which was a minor miracle. But eff him if he didn’t suddenly want this princess chick to be happy and talking, too. “You gonna do any New York Christmasy stuff while you’re here? Skating at Rockefeller Center?”

  She looked startled. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Not a skater?”

  “Actually, I’m quite a good skater. I just don’t think I . . . will have time.”

  “Too busy yachting?” He said it teasingly this time.

/>   She smiled, but it was a pathetic one. “Something like that.”

  A sad princess to go with the sad king?

  Well. Not his problem. He turned south on Sixth Avenue, reasoning that he might be able to shave a few minutes off their trip if he wound his way through Greenwich Village—he knew its maze of nonstandard streets like the back of his hand. Her Most Royal Prissiness didn’t know what good service she was getting here.

  Soon enough, they were crossing the West Side Highway with five minutes to spare. He slowed to a halt as they reached the end of the road. You couldn’t drive right up to the docks from here, so she would have to walk the rest of the way.

  As Leo watched the princess heave a shaky breath before getting out—he would have thought, given how impatient she’d been, that she’d have leapt out of the car—he realized she was not looking forward to this party.

  “We’ll walk you the rest of the way.” He got out and opened the back door for Gabby. Max barked. “Not you.” But then he rethought that. There was a little circular park ahead of them, and the beast could pee there. “All right. Come on, everybody.”

  He leashed the dog, locked the car, prayed his illegal parking job wouldn’t earn him a ticket, and they set out, walking briskly.

  “I don’t have any money,” Princess Marie said, loping along beside him. “But do you have a card with your direction? I will ensure that you’re compensated.”

  Your direction? What century was this woman living in? “There’s no need to pay me.” Though if he got a ticket, he was totally sending it to her. So he took the card she produced from the world’s tiniest purse, a diamond-encrusted thing that dangled from a strap around her wrist.

  He didn’t like the idea of her alone in New York with no money. “Do you have a credit card?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t planning . . . I just have my phone.”

  He heard what she wasn’t saying. She wasn’t a person who normally had to sully herself by carrying cash or credit cards.

  They’d reached the park. He handed Max’s leash to Gabby and pointed down the path to where a big boat was visible. “Gabby, make sure Max pees. I’ll be over there, and then I’ll be right back.”

  “Bye!” Gabby’s farewell was drowned out by a foghornlike noise. Despite being dragged out to Long Island on the reg by Dani, Leo didn’t know boats. But to him, that sounded like the kind of noise a really big boat might make before it departed.

  Marie must have thought so, too, because she squeaked in protest and started jogging.

  He matched his pace to hers, even as he dug in his pocket for a card. He carried cards with his cell number on them. He had a handful of regulars—passengers he’d hit it off with and who called him personally when they needed a ride.

  He had not hit it off with the princess, but he pushed a card into her hand anyway. “You call me if you need a ride home or if you get into any trouble.”

  “Thank you.” It was more breath than words—she was panting from the running.

  “You know which boat it is?” he asked.

  “It’s called Lovely Lucrecia.”

  Was he mistaken or did he detect a hint of derision in her tone? Like she knew Lucrecia and found her not very lovely?

  “There.” He pointed. The Lovely Lucrecia was still docked. It was glowing with lights, and laughter and conversation spilled from its deck.

  “Thank you so much,” she said again, her voice all quivery. She gave him a little wave and set off toward the boat.

  He was about to turn away, but he noticed the back of her dress was gaping. It looked like it was supposed to be tied up with a pair of pink ribbons that were hanging loose. She’d worn some kind of fur cape thing in the cab, but she was currently carrying that over one arm, leaving her back exposed. Almost bare.

  “Wait. Your dress.”

  “Oh! Oh, I forgot!” She ran back to him and turned around. “Please, can you do it up?” Her voice was even shakier than it had been before, and as she lifted one of the ribbons as if to hand it to him, her hands trembled.

  This was definitely not just a party. Something else was going on.

  “It’s like an exercise shoe,” she said. “Tighten the laces and tie a bow at the top.”

  She was misinterpreting his inaction as confusion. And it was, in a way, just not over the mechanics of how her dress worked.

  He was confused by the fact that she was apparently so afraid of whatever awaited her on that boat that she was shaking like an abandoned baby bird. But also by the sight of her almost naked back, covered with a fine sheen of sweat despite the cold evening air.

  Clearing his throat, Leo moved to tighten the ribbons. He tried not to touch her skin. His clumsy hands were too rough for her. But he couldn’t entirely avoid it.

  Goose bumps rose on her back when his hand brushed her spine. Goose bumps and sweat. That was . . . something.

  He tied off the bow, hoping he’d done a decent enough job. There was probably some kind of royal knot he didn’t know about. “There you go.” His voice had gone low. Husky. It was those goose bumps. They were fucking with him. But those goose bumps only meant she was cold. His brain was moving slowly for some reason, so the realization was belated. He sincerely hoped the boat was heated. Who had yacht parties in the winter?

  Absurdly rich people, apparently.

  He took the fur cape from her and settled it over her shoulders. Then he patted her back—which was now covered with silky fur. Somehow, nonsensically, that fur didn’t seem as soft as her actual back had been.

  She didn’t move, just stood there under his hand, breathing hard.

  The boat made another of those jarring hornlike noises.

  Galvanized, she smiled at him—really smiled. And unlike when they’d been seated side by side in the car, he was looking at her straight on.

  She had dimples. Two of them.

  “Thank you, Mr. Leonardo Ricci. You saved the day.”

  Before he could think how to respond, she whirled, hitched up her skirt, and took off running.

  He watched her run all the way down the dock and leap onto the Lovely Lucrecia just as it started moving.

  He stood there for a while, watching the boat begin to inch out of the marina.

  Hell, he probably would have stayed there until it was out of sight had Gabby not appeared beside him, Max yapping excitedly at her feet.

  “That was wild. Also, I’m starving.”

  “Let’s get Ralph’s on the way home.”

  “Yay!” She slipped her hand into his—which was not something she did much anymore—as they walked back to the cab. Oh, his heart. His heart could not take any more of this little-sisters-growing-up business.

  He squeezed her hand as hard as he dared.

  Chapter Three

  An hour and a beer later—he had stopped for some Moretti; that was his treat—Leo was feeling a little more in control of things.

  Gabby was almost done with her pasta, Dani had demolished a big salad—they always brought their own dinners to Thursday-night K-drama—and Leo was eating random bits of leftovers from the fridge at his place.

  “You guys done?” Dani paused the show. “Ice cream time?”

  “Yes!” Gabby said. “What kind?”

  “I have Half Baked, Triple Caramel Crunch, and”—she made a face at Leo—“Vanilla.”

  Gabby and Dani shared an affection for ice cream with tons of crap in it, and they both mocked Leo for his simple tastes.

  “You are so boring, Leo!” Gabby said.

  “I don’t like stuff in my ice cream!” he protested. “You can’t even taste the ice cream through all the texture in yours! Is it ice cream or trail mix?”

  Dani served Gabby a huge bowl that was half of each of the crazy flavors and gave herself a small serving of each. Then she emptied nearly the entire pint of vanilla into Leo’s bowl and began scooping hot fudge she’d heated in the microwave onto it.

  Leo used to protest the elabo
rate ice cream course that always followed their Thursday-night dinners—those pints of fancy ice cream were pricey. And when that didn’t work, he tried to bring his own grocery-store-brand vanilla, insisting that his taste buds didn’t know the difference. But Dani wouldn’t hear of it. She just kept serving him Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean topped with hot fudge that came from a mason jar with a cutesy, hand-lettered label on it that almost certainly came from one of the bullshit new shops in an area a little south of here that idiot gentrifiers persisted in calling “SoBro.”

  Eventually, Leo had stopped protesting the ice cream situation. He’d been worn down by Dani’s cheerful stubbornness, her fancy hot fudge, and her Korean dramas.

  “Thanks,” he said as Dani slid him his bowl. Then he said it again. He had no idea why. “Thanks.”

  Dani must have known why, though, because instead of giving him shit, which was their usual mode of expressing their friendship, she tilted her head, looked at Leo for long enough to make him uncomfortable, and said, “You’re welcome.”

  Leo was, officially, the super of this building, but without a doubt the real caretaker of his little family of two was Daniela Martinez. His second-cousin-in-law. Soon to be ex second-cousin-in-law—just as soon as she managed to finally get rid of her shitty estranged husband. About the only thing Leo’s second cousin Vince had going for him was that it was through him they’d met Dani. It had been Dani who’d pulled strings not only to get Leo and Gabby a place in the building, once it became clear that they weren’t going to be able to hang on to the family house, but to arrange the super gig to help them afford it.

  He owed her so much, it made his throat hurt.

  “So what’s with this robot?” he asked, settling in to his role as K-drama skeptic. Their latest show was bonkers. “Is she actually a robot?” He was guilty of not having paid one hundred percent attention. The subtitles on this one were small, and his brain was tired. It kept zooming back to . . . pink ribbons.

  “Well, she’s pretending to be a robot, but there is actually a robot, too,” Gabby said.