As Mr. Benz left, Max approached cautiously. “You want to tell me what’s wrong?” He held his arms out like he wanted to hug her. She let him this time, burying her face in his shoulder—the wrong shoulder—and saying, “I fell in love, Max. That’s what’s wrong.”
Fuck it. He was going to do it. What was the worst that could happen? She’d say no thanks. Leo, I am not interested in a transatlantic booty call. And he would move on. Go home. Where he belonged.
The decision made him feel oddly light.
Oh, who was he kidding? What was making him feel oddly light was the idea of her back in New York. Boats and fucking cherry blossoms. Getting it on in his rickety double bed while Gabby was at school.
Leo hadn’t felt this light in a long time. Possibly, he had lost his mind and that was what was making him feel so light, but hey, he was going to run with it.
He should have waited for her to respond to his knock. But that stupid lightness was propelling him, making him hurry, like he was a balloon filled with helium skittering along a ceiling.
Marie was in her sitting room. His eyes went right to her. They always did. “It’s my turn to make a proposition, Princess.”
“Leo!”
The problem with the way Leo’s eyes immediately went to Marie when she was in a room was that there was a delay in registering the presence of anyone else in the room.
Like, for example, the guy she was hugging.
The guy she was guiltily jumping away from.
“Leo, this is my friend Max. Maximillian von Hansburg. The von Hansburgs are close family friends, and they’re here for the festivities tomorrow. Max, this is Leonardo Ricci.”
“Ah, he of the moonlit walks,” Max drawled as he stuck out a hand for Leo to shake.
Leo ignored the hand and surveyed its owner. Max was dressed in a suit. A skinny gray one, but instead of a normal tie, he was wearing his shirt open with a scarf thing tied into it. Was that an ascot? Leo had never seen one in person, but he was pretty sure that was it. The dude was wearing an actual fucking ascot.
“Max, hush,” Marie said. “This is not your business.”
“It is if you want to keep taking those moonlit walks, my friend,” he said to Marie.
“What?” What the hell was this guy on about?
Max retracted the hand that Leo had not shaken and switched to beckoning him over to a chair near the fireplace. “Marie and I were settling in for a plotting session on how to avoid our parents’ matrimonial machinations. Join us.”
“Max!” Marie nearly shrieked, and Marie was not a shrieker. At least not in this sort of circumstance. And “matrimonial machinations.” Did that mean what he thought it meant? Leo eyed the pair of them. The hand that hadn’t been beckoning him was now resting on Marie’s lower back with a familiarity that suggested that yes, “matrimonial machinations” meant exactly what he feared it did.
“You should have told me,” he said quietly. He’d thought it was going to come out like a yell—that’s what he’d intended—but he had to settle for a shaky whisper. His lungs felt like they were working overtime yet couldn’t seem to suck in quite enough air.
“Leo.” Marie rushed over to him. “There’s nothing between Max and me. There never has been.”
“That’s right.” Max came over, too, looking alarmed, and Leo’s fingers flexed. He wanted to punch this guy even though he understood with his higher brain that that would achieve nothing. “Marie is like a sister. We’ve been plotting ways to postpone this engagement for years. It’s almost a hobby of ours.”
“You’ve been engaged for years?”
“Well, not technically,” Max said. “That will happen at the ball tonight, unless we can—”
“That’s not what he means, Max,” Marie said quietly. She met Leo’s gaze unflinchingly, which he had to give her credit for. “Yes. Max and I have known for years that our parents wanted us to marry. Our fathers are friends and want to unite the two houses.”
Unite the two houses. Was this the Middle Ages?
They must have read the derision on his face. “My family, the House of Aquilla—my father is the Duke of Aquilla—have extensive mining holdings,” Max said.
His father was a duke? So this guy would be a duke when his father kicked the bucket? Like Marie would be Queen of Eldovia someday?
“We could supply trace minerals for the Morneau watches,” Max went on. “Our fathers have been talking for years about joining forces.”
“So why don’t they just fucking join forces? Why do they have to—”
He’d been going to say, Sell off their children, but what was the point? Leo already knew these people were different than he was. He’d been reminded in a thousand little ways since he got here.
And more to the point, why the fuck did he care? Because he wasn’t going to get his stupid springtime in New York with the princess? It was always going to end at some point. As Dani said, better to end things now, before he got hurt.
Except it was too late, wasn’t it? He was already hurt. So much that, apparently, his lungs had stopped working. He was literally panting now. It felt like his chest was being punctured by a million tiny needles.
He had fucked this up big-time. He’d let this woman get to him.
He’d flown across an ocean and eaten excruciating five-course meals. He had endured passive-aggressive abuse from her father—like Dani used to have to do with her in-laws. And he wasn’t even married to Marie—or engaged to her. He’d done that part voluntarily.
He’d built a fucking log cabin for her.
“We’re going to use a turkey baster if it comes down to it,” Max said, and oh fuck, Leo doubled over.
“Max!” Marie whisper-shouted.
“What?” Max protested. “I’m trying to say that if we can’t avert this, you guys can come to some sort of arrangement. I’m certainly not going to get in your way. That’s always been the plan, hasn’t it? We do what we want on the side?”
Oh god, they were talking about making him a royal mistress. A master? Whatever. No fucking way.
But good, actually. That additional little bit of info was enough to tip him from hurt to angry. To royally fucking pissed, actually.
He didn’t know what had happened with him and Marie, but he did know that he was never going to be her dirty secret on the side while she was married to someone else. Leo didn’t consider himself a practicing Catholic. But he still believed in enough of that shit to know that when you stood in front of a church—or a judge or whatever—and vowed to love and honor someone, that was what you did.
So, no. He was done here, even though it hurt like hell—which made him madder than he otherwise would have been because it wasn’t supposed to hurt. It was supposed to be a vacation fling. A “surprisingly refreshing break from reality.” The anger was growing, eclipsing the hurt. It was allowing him to finally breathe. Leo straightened, let the air saturate his lungs for a few breaths, and looked Marie in the eyes. Hardened himself to the pain he saw there and said, “It was always going to end anyway.”
It looked for a moment like her face was going to crumple, but she got control of herself, lifted her chin, and said, “Right.”
He should have left then, but that prissy princess chin-lifting, directed at him, pissed him right off. He wasn’t standing for that shit. “You should have told me,” he said again, but this time it came out properly. Like the angry accusation it was. For fuck’s sake, they had lain in bed and bared their goddamn souls to each other—he’d thought. He’d told her about maybe wanting to go back to school, and she’d told him about her mother. She’d told him that he was the only person who saw the real her.
“Yes,” Marie agreed, “I should have told you.” Her face did crumple then.
“I’m going to take Gabby to Cocoa Fest now.” Leo spoke to the side of her head—she’d turned it away in what he was pretty sure was shame. “She’ll want to watch you get ready for the ball tonight if you’re still willi
ng.” He didn’t have it in him to deny the ball-obsessed Gabby that. Marie gave a little nod. “We’ll be out of your hair tomorrow morning.” They were scheduled to leave midday on the twenty-sixth but no way were they staying that long. He would go back to his room now and book flights for tomorrow morning. And a car to get them to the nearest airport. It would probably cost all of the fifteen grand he’d earned from his driving gig, but that was fine. Suddenly he wanted more than anything to wash his hands of all this. To be left with nothing that reminded him of her. To have none of her blood money left.
“You can’t leave on Christmas,” she protested weakly.
“I can, though,” he said, not unkindly but forcefully. “I can do whatever I want.”
She burst into tears, and he turned and fled before he did, too.
Chapter Twenty
Cocoa Fest really was something, Leo had to admit. He and Gabby walked the palace grounds sampling peppermint cocoa and black cherry cocoa and Nutella cocoa and Gabby’s own butterscotch s’mores cocoa. Each flavor really was served out of a giant cauldron manned by a member of the palace staff—Gabby’s featured a sign that credited her as the “chef”—and there were tables set up with elaborate toppings ranging from homemade marshmallow fluff to candied orange rinds to half a dozen flavors of whipped cream. It was all so extravagant that Gabby didn’t notice Leo was not himself. He managed to walk around and nod at the right times and generally act like a person whose heart had not been splintered into a million pieces a few hours ago.
He was relieved when, after doing a lap of the festivities, Gabby agreed to his suggestion that they walk down the hill and see what was going on in the village. He’d seen Marie and the king and Max walking around the grounds with an older couple he could only assume was the duke and duchess and a poshly dressed guy who looked a little like Max. That was probably Marie’s future brother-in-law. Leo didn’t want to see any of them. He didn’t trust himself to see Marie again and not lose his shit.
The village square was abuzz with carnival games and ice skaters. The aroma of roasted nuts wafted through the chilled air, joining the smell of hot chocolate emanating from stands that were selling it out of more traditional urns than the palace cauldrons. It was snowing gently, the fat, white flakes making the whole scene look like a movie set. It was the Hallmark movie he’d teased Marie about, except he was pretty sure Hallmark movies didn’t end in heartbreak and ruin. Of course, they also didn’t feature as much fucking as had happened the past few days, so clearly he was on the wrong channel.
“Gabby!” It was Imogen’s niece from the pub, along with a couple of younger boys Leo didn’t recognize. “You want to come skating with us?”
Gabby introduced him. They turned out to be Imogen’s nephews, whom Gabby had met on the hayride a couple days ago. “Can I, Leo?”
“Sure, kiddo.” He handed her a few euros, and she ran off to the skate-rental stand. He looked around for a place to sit and watch and spied Imogen working a booth out front of her bar.
“Hello!” she called as he approached. “Can I interest you in some hot buttered cocoa?”
“Sure.” She had set up a small outdoor wooden bar complete with stools, so he collected his mug and went to sit on one. He watched her hand off cocoa-serving duties to someone else and make her way over to him.
“Gabby and I are heading home tomorrow.” He hoped. He was a little worried about the forecast: this snow was not supposed to stop anytime soon. “Thanks for all the hospitality while we were here.”
“I thought you were staying through Boxing Day. I was going to invite you all down for a little post-Christmas party I usually hold for close friends. I close the pub at five on Christmas Day and we all kick back and toast the fact that we don’t have to drink, discuss, or look at cocoa for another twelve months.”
“Yeah, well . . . our plans changed.”
“Did you and Marie break up?” she said softly.
“We were never together,” he said automatically.
“But you kind of were, weren’t you?”
Leo sighed. There was no point in lying—to her or to himself. “Yeah. We were.” He wasn’t really sure how it had happened, but it had. “Did Marie say something about us?” God, listen to him. He sounded like a teenager.
“No. It was obvious, though.”
“It was?” That was mildly horrifying.
“To anyone who really knows Marie. It was easy to see how lighthearted she was around you. I think our princess has been alone—existentially alone—for a very long time. Since her mother died, certainly.”
He sighed again. “Will you . . .” Fuck. What? What was he trying to say? “Will you take care of her when I’m gone?”
“I will.” She smiled. “But you could also just . . . not leave? Merely a friendly suggestion.”
“Maximillian von Something of the House of Whatever has arrived, so, yeah, I pretty much have to leave.”
“Ah. I see.”
Imogen didn’t sound like she saw, though. “They’re engaged. It’s being announced at the ball tonight.” He hated how indignant he sounded. He cleared his throat. “I’m supposed to just stick around for that?”
“I don’t know if it’s sticking around for that so much as sticking around for Marie. She hates that ball. She would probably appreciate having an ally there.”
“She’s getting married to someone else.” What part of this did this woman not understand?
Imogen nodded sympathetically, but then she winked. “Unless someone rewrites the ending.”
In the end, it was Max who made Marie brave. Marie had made good on her promise to invite Gabby to witness the ball preparations. They chatted while Verene did Marie’s hair and makeup. Gabby clearly had no idea what was happening between Marie and Leo, but she had been informed they were leaving tomorrow, and she was not pleased about it.
“I don’t understand what the big hurry is. There’s supposedly a party at the pub on Christmas night after it closes, and Imogen’s niece invited me to sleep over afterward.”
Marie was going to miss Gabby’s babbling so much.
“Wow, that lipstick is so pretty!” Gabby moved a little closer to get a better view. “Is that an actual paintbrush you’re using?”
“Ahem.” Max appeared in the doorway of her dressing room.
“Max,” Marie said, meeting his gaze in the mirror while Verene murmured “Good evening, Lord Laudon.”
“Lord!” Gabby exclaimed.
“Gabby,” Marie said, “this is my friend Max. Max, this is Gabby Ricci, Leo’s sister.”
“Are you a prince?” Gabby asked.
“Alas, no. A mere baron.” When her face fell, Max added cheerily, “Future duke, though, if that helps.”
“What can we do for you, Max?”
“I need a word with you.”
Marie eyed her half-made-up reflection. “Now?”
“Yes.”
She raised her eyebrows. Easygoing Max never insisted on anything, never showed up uninvited into a space as private as her dressing room. “All right.”
Verene stood. “Miss Gabriella, let us step out for a moment. Would you like me to apply some of this lipstick for you?”
After Verene and Gabby left the room, Marie rose and moved to join Max on a sofa by the fireplace. She said, “What’s on your mind?”
“We can’t do this.”
“What? The engagement?”
“Yes. It’s madness.”
“Excuse me?” Max had always been cheerfully resigned to their turkey-baster-and-open-marriage plan. “I appreciate you trying with Mr. Benz earlier, but since when have you thought this was anything other than a strategic union we’d resigned ourselves to?”
“It still is that for me, but it’s clearly not for you, so we’ve got to call it off.”
“But it’s not like I’m going to marry Leo.”
He shrugged as if that wasn’t the most preposterous idea he’d ever heard.
&
nbsp; “Max. I can’t marry Leo.” Could she? No universe, right? That’s the phrase that had been echoing through her head during the confrontation with her father.
“Let me ask you, why did you agree to marry me in the first place?”
“I don’t know that I did agree. It’s more that I went along with it.”
“All right, then why did you go along with it?”
“I—” Because going along with things was what she did?
But . . . was that true anymore? Marie thought back to last night, when Leo had listed off all the ways she hadn’t bent to her father’s—or Mr. Benz’s—will.
“I’ll tell you why I went along with it,” Max said. “Because I like you. I like you better than most people. I’m never going to meet anyone I want to marry. Since I have to marry, it might as well be to you.”
“I know.” She tried not to let the frustration she felt come through in her tone. Max was only trying to help. “We’ve talked about all this.”
“It’s all the same to me,” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard her. “But it’s not all the same to you. Not anymore.”
It wasn’t. It wasn’t the same at all. There was theory, and there was . . . Leo.
A sob started to rise through her chest. She tried to swallow it—there was no point in crying—but Max knew her too well. He scooted closer and took her hand.
“I’m not going to pretend I understand this love business. But I can grasp it intellectually, and I know you well enough to know that now that you’ve had it—even if it can’t work out with Leo—you can’t settle for . . .” He grinned. “My sorry ass.”
“What am I going to do, though, if he doesn’t want me? Just not get married?” Could she do that?
He only shrugged again. She glared at him. She needed real advice here.
He sobered. “Don’t you at least think the first step is to get out of marrying me?”
“I have no idea what my father will do. What if he . . . kicks me out?” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say disown.
“Does it matter? You have money.”
She did. Her mother had had a trust, held independent of any of her father’s family money. She’d drawn on it for their impromptu trips to America. She used to say, “It’s my money. I can do what I like with it.” Marie had forgotten that. Her mother used to say that rather vehemently, too. Defiantly, almost. As if someone had objected to the way she was spending it.
A Princess for Christmas Page 27