Page 13 of A Princess for Christmas

“We forgot to stop for maxi pads.” He congratulated himself on getting the words out without his voice doing something weird.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I wadded up some Kleenexes. I’ll be okay until the morning.”

Jesus Christ on a cracker. Shewadded up someKleenexes? Why hadn’t she reminded him?

Probably because despite her casual delivery of the news, it had taken a lot for her to tell him in the first place. And then, with the ball in his court, he’d done nothing.

He debated getting up and asking Dani to come over while he ran to a bodega. Or maybe Dani herself had some supplies she could donate to the cause. But Gabby was almost asleep. So he stroked her hair and said, “Okay,” even as he beat himself up for forgetting something so important. He would get up before she did tomorrow and get some from Dani or from the store.

Hours later, Leo was nodding off over one of his mom’s old mystery novels—like her, he preferred his fiction with a side of murder rather than the romance Gabby favored—when his phone buzzed.

Well, eff him. It was Her Majesty, the cake topper.Hello. This is Marie. You collected me earlier and drove me to the marina?

As if he could forget. As if he picked up princesses every dayand delivered them to yachts. Also,collected? He typed a reply.Everything okay, YourRoyalness?

She sent an eye-rolling emoji. Apparently even though her vocabulary was that of an octogenarian, she knew emojis. It was quickly followed by a question.Did you mean it when you offered to pick me up?

Well, shit. He’d meant it at the time, when he was face-to-face with her fear. Or face-to-face with her unnaturally soft, goose-bumpy back. Or maybe both.

Did he mean it at eleven thirty after a strangely emotional day he just wanted to be over?

He sighed. He wasn’t the kind of guy who made false promises.

Leo:Sure. It will take me a while to get there, though.

Marie:That’s fine. I’m still on the boat, but we’re headed back to shore.

Leo:Enjoy your champagne. It will probably take me forty minutes, maybe a little longer.

Marie:No champagne for me. I was working, and now I’m hiding in the bathroom.

Hiding in the bathroom? Huh? Another text arrived before he could think what to say in response.Thank you, Mr.Ricci. You are a good man. I will meet you where you dropped me off.

Luckily, Dani would still be up and would come over and sitwith Gabby. Dani was an English professor who, as far as Leo could tell, worked pretty much all the time including into the wee hours of the morning. So he heaved himself out of bed, got dressed, and went across the hall to knock on her door.

He had a princess to rescue.

Again.

Marie was hiding in the bushes.

Hiding. In. The. Bushes. The way Americans sometimes wrote sentences with a period after each word in order to convey the gravity of a situation used to seem excessive to her. She was beginning to understand.

She tried to tell herself that hiding in the bushes was better than hiding in the bathroom. In the bushes, you could cry without anyone seeing.

She’d cried in the bathroom on the boat, after Philip Gregory informed her, in no uncertain terms, that Gregory Inc., the largest independent watch retailer in North America, would not be reconsidering its decision to drop the Morneau brand from its inventory. And that, moreover, if she and her people didn’t leave him alone, he was going to have to pursue legal action. He’d had too much to drink, even though the boat had just departed, and he’d started ranting about restraining orders. She had watched enough American legal shows with her mother to know that she had done nothing to warrant a restraining order—arestraining order, for heaven’s sake—but his vitriol had stung nevertheless.

And of course Lucrecia had heard everything. Witnessed Marie’s humiliation.

And said some choice things to her friends while fresheningher makeup in the same bathroom Marie was hiding in. She’dknownMarie was in there—Lucrecia didn’t miss anything.

It’s a pity her mother is dead. She was a lot more at ease at these sorts of things.

That one barely stung. It was true, after all.

But then they’d moved on to how no one would have her except poor Maximillian, whohadto have her.

Can you imagine? Someone like him marrying someone like her?

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