A Princess for Christmas

by Jenny Holiday

  Chapter Twelve

  King Emil was a real ass.

  A real, royal ass.

  He was insufferable and snobbish and generally a dick.

  Which was one thing. But as dinner that night went on—and on and on and on—Leo started to understand that he was doing it on purpose. Emil’s snobbery wasn’t a defense mechanism like Marie’s occasional bouts of prissiness were. He wasn’t trying to cover social awkwardness or lack of confidence with a stiff upper lip.

  Marie seemed to think it was grief driving him, but Leo was pretty sure it was just pure, unfiltered arrogance. Spite as sport.

  He would have been able to handle it were it not for the way he treated Gabby. Yes, Gabby talked a lot. And perhaps ladylike wasn’t a word you could apply to her. But she was a child.

  Every time she got rolling on one of her monologues—and since they were four courses into dinner and counting, there had been a few of them—the king did this thing where he looked away and up. Like he was rolling his eyes but not quite. As soon as he could, he would interrupt and ask some question expressly designed to highlight the economic and social gulf between them. “And what exactly,” he had drawled, “is a . . . Hatchimal?” when Gabby was in the middle of talking about how she’d grown out of liking some of the toys she used to be mad for. This, of course, had led to her enthusiastically explaining, with accompanying gestures, that Hatchimals were big eggs out of which animatronic stuffed animals hatched. “And after they hatch they go through all these different stages—baby, toddler, kid. You can tell which stage they’re in by rubbing their tummies and seeing what color their eyes are.”

  “How . . . delightful.” There went the king’s eyes again. If you called him out, he would probably say he was noticing a cobweb on the ornate chandelier that hung above their heads, but they all knew what was happening here.

  Well, the adults knew. Gabby wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand that when the king stressed the word delightful, he intended to convey the opposite concept. But, judging by her furrowed brow, she could tell something was off.

  Leo formed his hands into fists under the table. The only thing stopping him from pounding them on the table was Marie, who was clearly mortified, and whose repeated attempts to rein in her father were going ignored.

  “They’re really expensive,” Gabby said. Leo didn’t know if she was just doing her usual talking-to-fill-space thing or if, bless her, she somehow knew she was being talked down to and was trying to hit back without really understanding the context.

  “Are they indeed?” Emil held his glass—a crystal goblet of red wine—up so that the light of the chandelier above glinted off it.

  “Yeah, they’re like sixty-five dollars at Walmart. But if you get the twins, they’re even more expensive.”

  “My heavens.”

  “Father.” Marie’s horrified whisper twisted something in Leo’s chest.

  But not enough for him to keep his mouth shut—it was hard to imagine any amount of twisting doing that when someone was insulting Gabby. “Yeah,” Leo said, “I had to drive a lot of extra shifts—in my cab that I drive, for my job—to earn enough for that thing.”

  It was all he could think to do, to double down on his identity as the working-class guy from the Bronx. If the king was going to cast him in that role, Leo was going to play the hell out of it. He wasn’t ashamed of who he was or where he’d come from. He stared defiantly at the king while he spoke, and eventually the fucker looked away.

  “Oh, I forgot,” Marie said suddenly, with an air of excitement. “I had an email from the UN High Commission on Refugees today!”

  That got her father’s attention. He put his wine down. “Oh?”

  “Yes! They asked me to become a goodwill ambassador! Can you imagine?”

  The king raised his eyebrows as if to signal that no, he could not imagine.

  “I’m not surprised,” Leo said. “By all accounts your speech was a smashing success.”

  “Were you there, Mr. Ricci?” Emil asked, his upper lip curling slightly. Strangely, that almost imperceptible curve was more effective than a full-on one would have been.

  “No,” Leo said, meeting the elder royal’s gaze unflinchingly. “But I googled it, and I read an analysis of it that said your daughter had ‘exploded on the scene as an articulate and formidable presence in the realm of humanitarian policy.’”

  So, yeah, he had google-stalked Marie. Big deal. Who wouldn’t have, in his place? A princess offers you five thousand dollars a day to drive her around Manhattan, you do a little creeping.

  “Anyway,” Marie said, “if I agree, they suggest a trip to their center in Copenhagen to highlight their mission to create alternatives to camps with—are you ready for this?—Jessalina Angelo!” She turned to Leo. “She was one of my mother’s favorite celebrities. She always wanted to meet her, but it never worked out. I know I shouldn’t be focused on that aspect of things, because that’s completely not the point of this work, but I can’t help but be a little starstruck.”

  It was funny to think of Marie, an honest-to-God princess, being starstruck by the Hollywood action-star-turned-do-gooder.

  “Ooh!” Gabby exclaimed. “She played the evil queen in that movie! So you could be like the good princess and she could be the . . .” She was overtaken by a huge yawn. She was so tired. It was late to be eating dinner—it was late, period.

  “I’m sorry,” Leo said, speaking only to Marie. “I think we’re gonna have to bail on the rest of dinner. It’s really late and Gabby needs to get to bed.” He was tired, too. Exhausted, really. Lunch at the pub seemed like a lifetime ago. And in the interim, there had been waltzing lessons and the clearing and . . . making out with Marie in the clearing.

  Thinking about the last item on that list suddenly had him feeling significantly less tired.

  “Of course,” Marie said. “We’ll eat earlier tomorrow evening.” When her father sniffed, she turned to him. “You needn’t join us, Father.”

  “But Leo—” Gabby swallowed her protest when Leo shot her a withering look. She had probably been going to object to missing dessert, but it seemed to him that Gabby had Frau Lehman wrapped around her little finger—he took some comfort in the fact that it wasn’t just him—so probably a quick in-room bedtime snack of the sweet variety could be arranged. Or there would probably be some nonsoapy chocolates in her room.

  After Leo had gotten Gabby to bed and retreated to his own room, it was almost eleven. Too late to text the princess, probably. They hadn’t had a moment alone since they’d returned to the palace. He was a little relieved. He wasn’t sure what the post-orgasm-in-the-woods protocol was. Hell, he didn’t even know which fork he was supposed to use.

  He had the vague idea that you were supposed to call the next day.

  But that was assuming you and the woman in question went to your separate houses. It didn’t account for what to do when you were staying at the woman’s house.

  And for when that house was a palace.

  Well, whatever. He would worry about it tomorrow. For now he was going to . . . what?

  He looked around, almost guiltily, at his posh surroundings. Someone had lit a fire in the hearth and turned back his covers. There was a tiny, foil-wrapped chocolate resting in the exact center of the pillow closest to the nightstand.

  He knew what he wanted to do, but it didn’t seem right.

  Well, fuck it. He unwrapped the chocolate and after tentatively prodding it with his tongue just to make sure it was chocolate, he popped it into his mouth. It was dark and bitter and shot through with a mint flavor so intense it made his eyes water.

  He shed his clothing and flopped down on the ridiculously cushy bed.

  Stuck a hand down the front of his boxers and groaned in relief. It had been a very long evening.

  He tried not to do it. Tried to turn his mind to something else—anything else. Anyone else. Jennifer Lopez. So shoot him. JLo was from the Bronx. She was gorgeous. She
did it for him.

  Usually.

  He could tell, though, that tonight there was only one thing that was going to work.

  One image.

  He could only hope he wouldn’t be haunted by it for the rest of his miserable life.

  He tightened his grip and let himself feel her breath on his cheek. The rush of it as she exhaled her surprise—and pleasure—as he whispered dirty nothings in her ear.

  He let himself see her. Flushed and emboldened by her own power. Her Royal Highness Marie Joséphine Annagret Elena, Princess of Eldovia, making herself come as she ground all over his leg.

  He muffled his shout by turning his head into that ridiculously fluffy pillow.

  “You could at least try to be nice,” Marie said quietly to her father after bidding the Riccis good night.

  He whipped his head up from where he’d been refilling his wineglass—they’d kept up her mother’s tradition of dining without servants hovering over them.

  He was shocked. Marie had learned not to speak to him like this. After he’d sent her back to school and made clear that there would be no shared father-daughter grief, no strengthened emotional bond as the silver lining of her mother’s death, there didn’t seem to be any point in trying to say anything real to him. So she never corrected him or suggested that his behavior was anything less than impeccable or that his whims were anything less than gospel. It was easier to go along with what he wanted. It was almost never worth starting a row.

  But that was before he started being cruel to her friends.

  It hurt her, to see him like this. She’d told Leo that her mother had always tempered her father. Softened him. She was realizing now how much she had always believed that eventually, he would thaw. That things would get better between them. That beneath her father’s gruff exterior, there was still a good man.

  Like Leo.

  But what if that wasn’t true?

  What if, without her mother, her father was just a big bully?

  What if she never got him back?

  “You’ll tell the UN you’re honored but you have to decline their offer.”

  She blinked at the change of subject. But, fine. They might as well have it out now. “No.”

  The king physically recoiled a little. Because if she never scolded him, she certainly never outright defied him. She wasn’t sure what made her so bold tonight.

  “You won’t have time. We have to focus all our efforts on shoring up Morneau.”

  “Father.” She sighed. “About that. I think it might be time to—”

  “Mr. Benz reports that Marx is—”

  “No.” There it was again. How astonishing. “Mr. Benz does not report. I report.” She had made a full report to her father and his cabinet this morning. “I’m the one who saw Marx.”

  “Yes, well, between him and Gregory, we need to focus all our energies internally for the foreseeable future.”

  “I can do both.”

  “So what I hear you saying is you want to throw open our borders to hordes of people who have no skills and—”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying Europe has a refugee crisis. The world has a refugee crisis. It’s not going to go away, and we—I—want to help.”

  He glared at her.

  She glared back.

  It’s what Maman would have done.

  She was being uncharacteristically bold tonight, but Marie didn’t quite have the guts to say that out loud.

  She wondered if he heard her anyway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I can’t see the phone when you hold it like that.” Leo sounded peevish. He tried not to, but honestly, how was he supposed to copy Hair & There’s tutorial if he couldn’t see the damn phone?

  Try to copy.

  Leo was really bad at braids.

  It shouldn’t be this hard, with his years of construction experience. What were braids but building with hair? But he’d never gotten the hang of it.

  Gabby heaved an extremely put-upon-sounding sigh.

  He held his hands up like he was being robbed. “Okay, let’s try again.”

  “Forget it,” she snarked, letting his phone clatter to the dressing table she was seated at.

  He closed his eyes. Started counting to ten in his head. He tried not to get into arguments with Gabby. She needed the stability of someone who supported her unconditionally. But sometimes she drove him batty. So, yeah, he was bad at even the most basic of French braids, forget the more elaborate creations she coveted. Dani sometimes reminded him that they were still siblings. Still family. “And what is family,” she said, “if not a bunch of people who annoy the hell out of you a large proportion of the time?”

  He tried to comfort himself with Dani’s words, but really, the whole braids thing always gave him that borderline-frantic feeling that he was fucking everything up. That no matter how hard he tried, he would never be enough to replace the parents Gabby had lost.

  The worst part was Leo had thought they were post-braids—he had thought this particular reminder of his inadequacy was behind him. Gabby used to want braids all the time, but she hadn’t asked at all this school year. He put it down to her getting older. Well, that or the fact that Glinda and company wore their hair down. Either way, he’d been happy for the reprieve.

  When he finished counting and opened his eyes, it was to the princess’s reflection—he was standing behind Gabby and they were both facing the mirror.

  “Can I help?” Marie asked with a smile.

  “We’re good,” he said automatically. And to Gabby: “What about a regular French braid?” He could do those. Sort of.

  “Fine,” she bit out.

  “Wait a moment.” Marie stepped farther into the room. “What kind of braid are you after? What about a waterfall braid? I’m pretty good at those.” She turned her head to display what Leo could only assume was the braid in question. It snaked diagonally back on one side of her head, except it was sort of like half a braid—the pieces that were pulled through fell loose. Hence the name, he supposed—it did sort of look like a waterfall made of hair. “A staff member did this one because I can’t do my own, but I can have a go at yours.”

  Come to think of it, Marie was probably the source of Gabby’s renewed interest in braids. Though she hadn’t worn them in New York, the princess seemed to favor braids here at home.

  Marie came to stand next to Leo and made eye contact with Gabby in the mirror. “You don’t have to keep the ends down like mine. We can do two braids like this.” She sketched where the braids would go. “And then gather everything up in a ponytail or bun.” She held her fist at the nape of Gabby’s neck.

  “Yes!” Gabby squealed.

  “All right. Stand aside, big brother.” Marie mock shoulder-checked him.

  Her fingers moved with an ease Leo had never been able to achieve, try as he did to follow the instructions on the YouTube tutorials Gabby called up. Marie’s fingernails were bare. They’d lost the ugly New York polish. Soon Marie was fastening the first of the two braids.

  “You’re really good at this,” Gabby marveled.

  “Well, I think I had my hair braided every day of my life until I turned fifteen. I’m not that good at doing my own hair, but I picked up a few things. I used to do Imogen’s all the time when we were younger.”

  “Can you do Dutch braids?”

  “I can. And you know what’s fun?” She paused in her progress and used one hand to mime an imaginary braid diagonally across Gabby’s head. “You do a side Dutch braid, but then when you hit the bottom, you do the tail as a fishtail.”

  “Oooh!” Gabby’s mouth had formed an O, as if such a fantastical combination of techniques had never occurred to her.

  “And we have a . . . woman who works here, Verene, who can do much more elaborate creations than I. I’ll have her pay you a visit tomorrow.”

  Servant. That’s what she’d been going to say. Not “woman who works here.” Leo stifled a snort.
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  He watched in silence and thought about last night. He’d wondered if he should text Marie. He’d decided to put it off until tomorrow. Well, it was tomorrow. The day after he’d made her come in the woods. So he should say something, right? What, though? I enjoyed getting you off very much, Your Royal Temptress, and look forward to being of service in the future?

  “There you are.” The princess tied off Gabby’s ponytail and patted her on the shoulder.

  “Thank you!” Gabby rotated her head in front of the mirror so she could see the hairstyle from all angles.

  Obviously, he wasn’t going to say anything now, in front of Gabby. So Leo settled for addressing the immediate proceedings. “Thank you.” He’d spoken softly, but it drew Marie’s attention in the mirror. He was strangely touched by how easily—both from a technical perspective but also, like, emotionally—Marie had handled the situation. “I try, but braiding is not my forte.”

  She shook her head as if to disagree with him, but let the matter drop as she glanced at her giant watch. “I’ve come to check in on you. I’m afraid I have meetings again this morning.”

  Oh. Was this the royal blowoff? Okay, so maybe he didn’t have to say anything about yesterday. Maybe she had already moved on.

  That was fine. Good. A relief.

  Right?

  “No worries,” Leo said. “Gabby and I are going to walk down to the village this morning, maybe go ice skating. So don’t worry about us.”

  “However,” she went on, “I have only one more morning of work—tomorrow—before we all break for the holidays, so I shall be a better hostess after that. I hope we will . . .” She sought Leo’s eyes in the mirror. “Get to see each other this evening.”

  Okay then.

  She turned pink.

  Leo very much feared he did, too.

  For god’s sake, Leo thought as he and Gabby approached a cabin in the woods a half mile or so out of the village, this damn country really is a Hallmark movie come to life.