Page 87 of A Princess for Christmas

“So don’t stop.”Please don’t stop.

“Unwinding you?”

“Unwinding me, yes, but calling me Princess, too. I like it when you call me Princess.”

“Okay. But you know I’m not going to do itnowbecause that would be too much like obeying a royal proclamation, right?”

She laughed. “Of course.”

He kept his fingers in her hair, playing with it, undoing the putting-to-rights he’d done a moment ago.

“Thank you, Leo.”

“Are you thanking me for having sex with you? Because I can assure you, it was my pleasure.”

She was, but really, she meant it more holistically. “For everything. For coming here. For putting up with my father. For the cabin.”

“About that. I’m not going to be able to get more than the rudimentary structure done before I leave. But if you can get it past your father, you could have Kai put in windows and floors. And we’re leaving a spot where a wood-burning stove could vent.”

Marie hated to think of Leo not being around to see the finished cabin. She was going to furnish it in the summer, too, she’d decided, her father be damned. Make it fully functional. Maybe she’d even figure out a way to spend a night there.

“How did you get interested in architecture?” she asked, suddenly curious.

He rolled over and stared at the ceiling. She, having got control of her limbs, rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin on his chest, worrying belatedly that maybe she was getting too cozy. But his arms came immediately around her and he started playing with her hair again as he spoke.

“I told you I used to work construction?” She nodded. “It was what my dad did. So he would get me on his crews in the summers, when I was in high school. I thought it was interesting. The way a building comes together physically from what starts out as a plan on paper—and before that, just an idea in someone’s head. I always assumed I’d follow him into the business full-time, but when he got wind of that he read me the riot act. Pointed out all his injuries and maladies—it was true that his back was all screwed up from that job. He said he hadn’t worked so hard his whole life so his kids could do manual labor. He marched me into the high-school guidance counsellor, and before I knew it I’d been set up to job-shadow an architect.”

“And you liked it.”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “It was all the stuff I loved about buildings, but also all this problem solving, you know? How to make the most of a site. How to incorporate what people said they wanted but also what you thought they needed. How to do all that and make it look good. It sounds dumb, but it kind of reminded me of a real-life video game.”

It didn’t sound dumb. It sounded exactly like Leo. “So what happened?” She recognized that as the wrong question the moment it was out. “Well, I know what happened.”

“Yeah. I mean,yeah. But it wasn’t... just that.”

“What was it?” she asked gently.

“I was the first person in my family to go to college. It was a big deal for someone like me to be in architecture school.”

“That’s good, though, isn’t it? You should be proud of yourself.”

He blew out a breath. “There wasn’t a day that I didn’t question whether I belonged there. If I should just give up.”

“Of course you belonged there. They admitted you, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, but I was barely hanging on. I worked my ass off for middling grades. I tried, but it was just... never enough.” He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “Which actually turned out to be good practice for what came next.”

“What doesthatmean?” she said sharply. She hadn’t meant it to come out like a rebuke, but she hated to hear him talk like this.

“It means Gabby. I try with her, but it’s never enough.”

“Leo! That’s objectively not true!” She had seen the love between the siblings. She hadenviedit.

“It is, though,” he insisted.

“Give me one example.”

“Braids.”

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