Page 30 of A Princess for Christmas

“Is that why you don’t have an accent?”

She laughed. “I don’t think so. If I’d learned diction from American TV, I would totally talk like a valley girl, like oh my gosh.” She had attempted—and failed—to deliver that last line with a valley-girl accent. “My mother’s favorite show wasBeverly Hills, 90210.”

“Well, I’ll be.”

“But I should switch to something else,” she said with an odd sort of vehemence.

“Why?” Even ifBeverly Hills, 90210hadn’t been from before his time, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been his thing. But he wasn’t one to shit on other people’s choices.

Marie didn’t answer right away. She turned her head to look out the window, in fact, so he thought she was dismissing him. So he was surprised when she said, very quietly, “Because watching them without her hurts too much. And yet I can’t seem to stop.”

“Ah.”

“Do you have anything like that? Any routines that are part of your life that remind you of your parents?”

He sure did. Reading the fairy-tale book with Gabby. Looking at his mom’s handwritten recipe cards. Driving past buildings he’d worked on with his dad’s crew. “Yeah,” he said, his voice having gone all gruff. “Though I mostly try to avoid them.”

“Like Fifth and Fifty-Eighth?” she asked gently.

“Like Fifth and Fifty-Eighth,” he confirmed, feeling a bit sheepish. “But you know what? Not that I’m an expert, but I don’t think it matters whether you face those things or try to ignore them. It hurts just the same. So I say, watch90210if you want to.”

She didn’t speak for a while. Maybe he’d overstepped. Really, who was he to give lessons on grieving? He didn’t know shit.

But then the quiet voice was back. “I think you are a very wise man, Leonardo Ricci.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but hell, he’d take it.

“Is your butler going to be mad at you for being gone all afternoon?” he asked as they crossed into Manhattan.

“He’s not a butler,” she said with a laugh.

“So you keep saying.” Leo shrugged. “Looks like a duck, walks like a duck.”

Marie looked out the window. “Yes, he will probably be angry with me. I texted him that I was going to the play with you, but he’s... displeased. The larger issue, though, is thatmy fatherwill be angry with me.”

“He’s going to tattle to your father?”

“He no doubt already has. He’s my father’s equerry, not mine.”

That was the second time she had used that word. Leo made a mental note to look it up when he got home. “So let me get this straight. You had nothing else to do, so you weren’t shirking any duties. But still, going to a school play is gonna get him mad at you.”

She huffed a small laugh, as if she realized how silly that sounded. “That is correct.”

Well. “I hope it was worth it.” He was kidding. There was no way the Bronx Technology Charter School production ofThe Wizard of Ozwas worth the wrath of a king.

When she didn’t laugh at his little joke, he glanced over at her.

“It was.” She smiled at him. “It was worth it.”

Chapter Six

Saturday morning Marie hosted a breakfast in her hotel suite for friends of the crown. This was an older crowd, people who were friendly with her father. And most of them had known her mother, too. Some of them shared reminiscences, and the morning turned out to be both more enjoyable and more emotional than she’d anticipated.

After that, she had two more appointments with watch retailers, and Leo had taken her to those.

And, more remarkably, Torkel and Mr.Weiss had not accompanied her. She hadn’t even had to push very hard. When she’d said she was going alone, they’d grumbled but acquiesced. Perhaps they had finally come to trust Leo.

“Well?” Leo asked when she emerged from her last shop. He’d inquired after every meeting, no doubt spooked by her vast overreaction—crying, for heaven’s sake—to yesterday’s final appointment.

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