Page 77 of Once Upon A Royal Christmas
Mittens went into a play bow in the middle of the bed before pouncing on one of the feet of her footie pajamas. The pup grabbed the tip of the material with his teeth and tugged. Emilie quite purposefully bent her knee, and thus commenced a ferocious game of Christmas pajama tug-of-war.
At least someone was enjoying Christmas Eve.
“She’s planning on leaving tonight, actually. Right after the unveiling of the ice ballroom,” he said tersely.
That’s what she’d told him, anyway, before she’d left him standing alone in the kitchen at the Kriegs’s B&B. Of course, Nick had planned a surprise for today—a surprise that might derail her plans for an early-as-possible departure from San Glacera. But now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe she’d still want to go. She seemed awfully determined to get back to the States and put her time in San Glacera behind her.
“That can’t be right. She’s not leaving tonight.” Emilie wiggled her toes again and Mittens attacked her foot with renewed vigor. “We talked about this when we planned the contest. She’s definitely staying at least until Christmas morning.”
Nick gritted his teeth. “Not anymore.”
Emilie propped herself up on her elbows and narrowed her gaze at him. “What did you do?”
Nick threw the covers off and got out of bed. He’d already spent half the night turning everything he and Gracie had said to each other over and over in his mind. He didn’t need to rehash it yet again with his younger sister. “Drop it, Emilie. Christmas is almost over.”
Gracie had probably done him a favor by refusing to admit that she had feelings for him, even though he knew that it wasn’t true. The very fact that she hadn’t tried to say otherwise was a pretty good indication that the way he felt about her was mutual. It was always going to end this way, though. December couldn’t last forever. It never did.
Except he’d sure wanted it to this year.
“Christmas is not over. It’s only Christmas Eve, and San Glacera’s biggest celebration is tonight. You have time to fix whatever went wrong,” Emilie said.
She was still sprawled on top of his bed like she had no intention of leaving anytime soon. Maybe Nick could talk her into taking Mittens for a walk in the palace courtyard so he could get a sliver of peace.
He didn’t want peace, though. He’d had enough decorum and serenity to last him a lifetime. For the past week, his life had been infused with unabashed joy. After spending the day with Gracie, he’d sometimes come home, look in the mirror, and spy a fleck of glitter on his face. The strange thing was, he didn’t even mind.
“I told her I had feelings for her,” he said quietly. His mouth went dry, so he turned his back to Emilie, pushed the curtains open, and pretended to be interested in the workers outside, busy constructing the skating rink for tonight’s show.
“Whoa.” Emilie jumped off the bed, shuffled over to him, and hugged him from behind. This is amazing. It’s just like an episode of Fairy Tale I Do.”
“No, it most definitely isn’t like an episode of your favorite reality show,” he said.
Although, she wasn’t entirely wrong. He’d watched the show a few times with Emilie and teased her afterward that it had qualified him to win a brother of the year award. He knew enough about it, though, to appreciate the comparison.
Gracie was a party princess, and he was a prince. It was the stuff of theme park romance dreams, right up Fairy Tale I Do’s alley. Except for the part about Gracie not loving him back.
Nick’s gut churned. Who said anything about love?
As everyone in the kingdom so famously knew, those words didn’t come easily to Nick. More so now than ever before.
“Gracie doesn’t think things could ever work between us.” Nick disagreed, obviously. But he couldn’t force her into a relationship. She had to want him as much as he wanted her.
Emilie’s gaze narrowed. Mittens sat at her feet. Even Nick’s dog seemed to be eyeing him with judgment. “You told her how you felt though, right?”
“As I said. She knows I have feelings for her.”
Emilie arched an impertinent brow. “But does she know that you love her?”
Nick stared at his sister, long and hard. She knew he didn’t like to discuss the things Sarah Jane had said about him. People all over Europe had already talked about it ad nauseam.
Emilie had no intention of dropping the matter, though. “Fine. If you can’t say it, you can still show it. That would probably mean more to her anyway.”
Nick opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but then he remembered something Gracie had said last night and he promptly closed it.
You care too much about what people think of you to make this real between us.
It had been a difficult thing to hear, and Nick’s first instinct had been to deny it. But he hadn’t, because he did care about his public image. He had a responsibility to the monarchy to live his life in a way that honored the kingdom. He wanted to be a good king someday—a man who would’ve made his grandfather proud.
But what had his father tried to tell him?
