“I told you. And look, it’s coming true.”
She snapped her fingers at him. “Hadn’t you better start on your own buttons?” He was wearing a flannel shirt. “And you are such a liar. You did not wish for me naked in your apartment.”
Instead of doing what she said—he would, but not just yet—he picked her up. She shriek-laughed but wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re right.” He walked them down the short hallway to his bedroom. “I actually wished for you naked in my bed.” He lowered her carefully until she was within safe “tossing” distance and let go, which earned him some more delightfully shrieky laughter. He mock scowled at her from above. “So now we have achieved one-half of that wish.”
“You did not wish for me naked in your bed,” she insisted, even as she shimmied out of her camisole and underwear.
And there she was, Her Royal Highness Marie Joséphine Annagret Elena, Princess of Eldovia, naked in his crappy IKEA bed, flashing her dimples at him and wearing his mother’s engagement ring.
He had to not think of it like that, though, because it would freak him the fuck out. So he tried again. There she was, Marie, naked in his bed, flashing her dimples at him and wearing his mother’s engagement ring.
She was right. He hadn’t wished for this. But only because he would never in a million years have thought it was possible. He opened his mouth to tease her some more, but something caught in his chest and he ended up making a mortifying sort of choking sound.
“Oh, Leo.” Marie lifted her hand and pressed her palm against his cheek. “What did you really wish for?”
“You,” he said without hesitation, though it came out all raspy. “I wished for you.”
“Not a princess?” she asked. She did that sometimes, sought reassurance about why he was with her. He would gladly give it, as often as she needed.
“No,” he said sharply. But then he gentled his tone. “I wished for you. Just you.”
And he leaned down to kiss her until she believed it.
Four months later
“Holy . . .”
Leo shot Dani a look as the car pulled up to the palace, and she finished her thought with “Cow.”
“It’s okay,” Gabby said cheerfully. “I know what you were going to say, and that’s pretty much everyone’s reaction when they first see this place.”
Leo and Gabby had gone to meet Dani’s plane in Zurich. She’d finished her summer teaching and they’d lured her to Eldovia for a visit. He was so excited to see her. He and Gabby were settling in fine. Gabby was passing the summer holidays reading, learning to ride, and having sleepovers with Imogen’s niece. Leo, to his great surprise, seemed to have stumbled onto a little side gig building log cabins with Kai. It seemed his half an architecture degree wasn’t going to go to waste after all. He genuinely liked the work, and it made him feel like less of a kept man.
Still, he’d missed Dani. It was going to be awesome to have someone from home to hang out with for a while.
“You should see it when Marie or her father arrive home after a trip,” he said as the car pulled up. “There’s a lineup of literal servants here.”
Dani snorted. “I guess I only rate a princess.” She waved at Marie. “And who’s that dude?”
It was Leo’s turn to snort. While in theory he understood that Max was Marie’s best friend, and that he was a good guy, he still had trouble with the fact that in another universe he would have been Marie’s husband. Her platonic husband who totally didn’t appreciate her. It boggled the mind. He hadn’t known Max was going to be here. Last he heard, Max was in the Riviera romancing a Hollywood starlet.
“Dani!” Marie exclaimed, and the women embraced. She pulled back and performed introductions. “Daniela Martinez, this is my friend, Maximillian von Hansburg. Max, this is Leo’s good friend Dani.”
“I thought you had a . . . date,” Leo said as Dani and Max shook hands. He wasn’t sure how to phrase it. I thought you were trying to get with a B-list American celebrity on a yacht off the coast of Monaco felt a little too uncouth, even for him.
“Yes, well, it turned out that the young lady in question had a, ah . . . prior engagement she’d forgotten about with a gentleman friend of hers who walked in on us . . . engaging.” He made a face of fake contrition.
“Max is a slut,” Marie said matter-of-factly to Dani.
“A slut and a scholar,” Max said indignantly. He turned his attention to Dani. “As, I understand, you are, too, Dr. Martinez.” Then he suddenly looked genuinely contrite. “A scholar, I mean. Not a slut.”
Dani didn’t have time to process any of this because Canine Max started barking from inside the car. She turned and accepted the travel crate from the driver. “Would it be all right to let him out here?”
“Of course,” Marie said.
Soon, he was yapping and jumping around so excitedly he was practically levitating.
“Max!” Dani said sharply. “Sit.”
Max—the dog—started yapping even louder.
Max—the duke-to-be—said “I beg your pardon?”
Marie laughed. “Max, meet Max.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Max narrowed his eyes in mock indignation. “I’m not sure I approve of this. If I’m going to have a dog named after me, I’d much prefer it to be a manly dog. A hound of some sort, perhaps.”
“Can dogs be manly, though?” Dani asked. “Aren’t they just . . . dogly? Anyway, I just met you, so he’s not named after you.”
“How long are you here?” Max asked Dani.
“A week.”
“Can I take you to dinner? Tomorrow perhaps?”
Leo chuckled. You had to admire Max’s direct approach.
“Nope,” Dani said cheerfully.
You had to admire Dani’s, too. “Dani’s post-men,” Leo offered, enjoying watching her shoot Max down.
“Well, isn’t that too bad for the men of the world,” Max said, but he actually seemed sincere. He’d dropped his signature bored-aristocrat tone and he was looking at Dani with curiosity.
“Actually,” Marie said, “here’s one more introduction to make.” She turned to Dani. “Best woman, meet man of honor.” And to Max she said, “Man of honor, meet best woman. Dani’s here for a visit but also for a dress fitting.”
“Well,” Max drawled, “isn’t this going to be interesting?”
“Leo, this is amazing!” Dani turned around, taking in the interior of the cabin in the woods.
“It is, isn’t it?” Marie beamed.
Leo waved off the praise, but he was pretty proud of the place. It was why he’d wanted to bring Dani here before showing her the palace. He and Kai had reverted to the original plan for a sleeping loft, but they’d also extended the main floor so there was a cozy little den and an office alcove where Leo worked on his drawings.
“Leo and Marie basically live here,” Gabby said.
“Really? How’d you manage that?” Dani asked.
He wasn’t really sure. They’d just . . . started staying over more and more and so far, the king had not objected. There had been a few pointedly raised eyebrows when they showed up for breakfast in their outerwear, clearly having hiked up from the cabin, but he hadn’t actually said anything.
In fact, the only thing Emil had expressly said about the matter of Leo and Gabby moving to Eldovia was that he expected everyone at the palace for dinner each night at seven. Leo had been expecting peevish demands regarding protocol and behavior. He’d been prepared to sign the mother of all prenuptial agreements. But it seemed like the king, while still his cranky, slightly snobbish self, was trying. Their dinners were less frosty and, when the conversation turned to books—he and Gabby had formed a little book club of sorts—almost pleasant. Gabby, it seemed, was working her magic on him. Or something was. Maybe it was just more of the fairy-tale mojo that seemed to have infected Leo’s life.
Speaking of the king . . . A knock at the cabin door heralded the arrival of a palace worker�
�Leo refused to call them footmen. “His Majesty requests the honor of your presence for cocktails in the green parlor so he may welcome Dr. Martinez and the baron.”
“Well,” Max said, picking up Dani’s bag, “that is not a summons to ignore.”
“I can carry that myself.” Dani tried to tug the bag from him.
“Nonsense. You devote yourself to your doggy companion”—he looked at Canine Max, who had calmed down but took the baronial attention as his cue to start yapping again—“and I’ll carry this.”
“We are going to have the best drinks,” Gabby said, skipping ahead of everyone as they made their way across the clearing. “I got to help make them. They have rosehips in them. And mine has a mixture of 7Up and pomegranate juice. You guys get sparkling wine.”
Leo grabbed Marie’s hand as they brought up the rear. He let everyone else’s chatter wash over him as they strolled. Gabby was still talking about the drinks. Max was trying to impress Dani by telling her about his master’s thesis. Leo deliberately slowed their pace—not enough that they’d fall too far behind, but enough to put some distance between them and the others.
When they reached their spot, he planted his feet and tugged on her arm, stopping her progress.
“Leo!” she protested, but she didn’t mean it. They always stopped here on the way to or from the cabin. This was the spot where they’d danced in the woods that first night. He liked to mark it. He pulled her in with a flourish, as if they were contestants on a cheesy dance TV show. She came, easily, as if everything had been choregraphed for them long ago. He paused, watching Dani and Max and Gabby recede a little farther into the distance. Summer was short in Eldovia, but it was at its peak, and soon the leafy trees swallowed them.
This was what he did now, what he was learning to do. To carve out a little time and space for them to be Leo and Marie instead of the princess and the taxi driver.
“Leo,” she whispered, and her breath against his cheek made him shiver.
“Hmm?”
“Dance with me.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes.” And he pulled her closer and danced in the woods with his love.
Acknowledgments
Once upon a time I idly thought, Hey, what if I did a Hallmark-style Christmas book? I am so happy I have an agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, who responded by saying, “What if you did?!” And I’m so happy I have an editor, Elle Keck, who raised the bar by saying, “What if you did three of them?” And lo, this series was born. I am so grateful to Courtney and Elle for their enthusiasm and hard work.
The idea for this book really started, though, with my dad, who is possibly the world’s biggest fan of cable-channel holiday movies. One of the major joys of the Christmas season for me is getting his play-by-play analysis via text. So one day, I thought to myself, Hmm . . . Maybe I should try one in book form. Unfortunately for my dad but fortunately for my existing readers, what I ended up with was more aligned with the Jenny Holiday brand than the Hallmark brand. This means that even though I would prefer he not read this book, Dad will in fact read it. (He will also make the rounds to stores in his city to make “adjustments” if it’s not facing out on the shelves.) We just won’t talk about Those Parts. I knew all those emotional sublimation skills I picked up in my Minnesota youth would come in handy someday.
Thanks also to my friend Marion Kuhn for the German language help. I learned a lot about German (non) swearing!
And as usual, thanks to my readers, both old and new. You’re the best!
Announcement
Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from Max and Dani’s fairy-tale Christmas romance,
Duke, Actually
Winter 2021
Teaser
When Dani Martinez woke up Friday the twenty-first of December, she thought, It’s going to be a good day.
And then she thought, Liar.
But whatever, just because it was the last Friday of the semester and she was about to be inundated with a hundred essays on The (Not So) Great Gatsby, it didn’t necessarily follow that today was going to be bad.
So she hadn’t done a lick of Christmas shopping, forget the fruitcake she was supposed to have started weeks ago. That didn’t mean this particular day was automatically going to suck.
And just because the cherry on top of December twenty-first was going to be the departmental holiday party at which she would “get” to see her still-not-quite-ex-husband with his trade-in trollop didn’t mean—Ah, forget it. This day was going to be crap.
Her phone dinged. It would be Leo. Because of the time difference between New York and Eldovia, they often talked early in the mornings New York time. Dani missed Leo and his sister, Gabby, something fierce, missed being able to go across the hall and just walk into their apartment and have coffee in the mornings. Sometimes, before she was caffeinated, she forgot he wasn’t there anymore. And then it would hit her anew: her best friend lived in Eldovia now, where he was engaged to a princess.
Eyeing the slumbering ball of fur next to her, Dani did a slo-mo roll to grab the phone from the nightstand—she wanted the ball of fur to stay slumbering until she’d had coffee.
The text was not from Leo. Hey, it’s Max von Hansburg. Marie gave me your number. I’m in New York for a few days. Can I take you to dinner tonight?
Max. Human Max. Max was Princess Marie’s best friend. Human Max was also Marie’s ex-fiancé. Marie and Max’s past was like a telenovela, complete with conniving royal parents, arranged marriages, and elaborate balls. Leo had crash-landed in the middle of it, getting swept up in a gender-swapped Cinderella story that had made even Dani’s stone-cold heart defrost a degree or two.
Dog Max did one of his signature snore-snorts, and Dani swallowed a laugh. She even had Cinderella’s animal companions, except hers didn’t help with the tidying.
Max: Or lunch?
The Cinderella thaw in Dani’s heart did not extend to Human Max, who, in addition to being a baron, was also an insufferable man-whore. She considered the various ways she could decline his invitation. In the end she just went with No.
Max: A drink?
Dani: No.
Max: Coffee?
Dani: Coffee is a drink.
Max: So that’s still no?
Dani: Yes.
Max: Yes that’s still no, or yes you’ll have coffee with me?
Dani: Listen, dude. Or should I say listen, duke?
Max: Baron, actually. My father has to kick the bucket before I attain dukedom, and I can report that he is in excellent health. He climbs a literal mountain every day.
Dani: Okay, but here’s my point: I am post-men. As I told you last summer. Repeatedly.
Max: Yes, meaning you don’t want to date, correct?
Dani: Right.
Max: But what about Leo? You talk to Leo all the time. You flew across the Atlantic to visit him.
Dani: Leo’s my best friend.
Max: I rest my case.
Dani: What the does that mean?
Max: Leo is a man.
Dani: Your powers of observation are astounding.
Max: My point is, I don’t want to date you either. I just want to hang out with you.
Hmm. Not sure what to say to that and seduced by the smell emanating from the Greatest Invention of All Time, aka the programmable coffeemaker, Dani carefully pushed back her covers and conducted a stealth army-crawl out of bed. For some reason, minute shifts in the mattress were enough to wake Dog Max, but once she was out of bed, she could turn on the radio and have a dance party and he’d be oblivious. She padded to the kitchen.
Dani: Why do you want to hang out with me?
Max: I like you.
Dani: Why?
Max: Because I get the sense that you don’t give a shit that I’m an almost-duke.
Dani: That is correct.
Max: I would even go so far as to say that my almost-dukeness works against me.
Dani: Still correct.
Max: I like that abo
ut you. You’re normal.
Dani: Is that a supposed to be a compliment or an insult?
Max: You don’t want to hang out with me. Therefore I want to hang out with you. I’m like a kid who wants what he can’t have.
Dani: So in this scenario I’m like a toy you want.
Max: No, you’re just a cool person I would like to spend time with since I happen to be in your city.
She almost cracked as she took her coffee back to her bedroom to try to figure out what to wear that telegraphed “It’s just a normal day, a day in which I continue to be unbothered by the fact that my husband is boning Undergrad Barbie, tra-la-la.” You’re just a cool person I would like to spend time with. When was the last time someone had said anything like that to her? Well, never, because grown-ass adults did not speak like that, so openly and without guile. Her limited interactions with Maximillian von Hansburg—she’d met him last summer on her visit to Eldovia—suggested that he did, though. He told the truth. And even though that truth was often about his many and varied romantic and sexual conquests, there was something refreshing about his cheerfully relentless honesty. Max was a fuckboy, basically—a fuckbaron?—but he was a remarkably self-aware one.
Max: So there’s no scenario in which you’ll get together with me.
She was strangely tempted, but . . .
Dani: No.
She opened the closet and pulled out her standard day-to-evening black dress. She could wear a blazer over it for teaching, then take the blazer off and jazz the dress up for the party to make it more festive.
How, though? Scarf? No. If she added a scarf to the retro-silhouetted dress, she would come off a little too Rizzo from Grease—although maybe some Rizzo energy was exactly what the situation called for. She needed a statement necklace. And she needed that statement to be: Eff you very much, Vince. No, actually, that wasn’t right. The message she wanted to send was more: Sorry, what was your name again? I have moved so far on that I can’t quite remember. If only she had an accessory that would communicate that.
A Princess for Christmas Page 31