Page 14 of A Princess for Christmas

You’re forgetting that she’ll be queen one day, Lu.

Of that ridiculous little country. Honestly. At least Max looks the part.

Marie was stuck in her stall, feet pulled up so they wouldn’t recognize her pink pumps. She’d selected them to match the pink ribbons in her dress, but on the ground here in America they seemed girlish and unsophisticated. Like the kind of shoes someone who was pretending to be a princess would wear.

At least here in the bushes, she didn’t have to listen to any of that. There was only the ambient noise of the city, soothing in its anonymity.

And the sound of a car pulling up, an engine being cut, a door slamming.

Was it her knight in a yellow taxi?

She rose from her hiding place—and he wasrightthere. A foot from her.

“What’s wrong?” he said urgently.

“Nothing. I was merely... hiding.” She tried to laugh. It didn’t work.

“You’ve been crying.”

“No, no.” But why lie? This man didn’t know her. And she had already, bizarrely, told him about the sad king. “Yes.”

He didn’t press her, just led her to the cab, opened the back door, and gestured for her to climb in.

“May I... sit up front with you?” She didn’t want to be a passenger, or at least not the anonymous, sit-in-the-back kind. She wanted to sit next to him and notice things about him, like how he wasn’t wearing a ring and how deftly he navigated the city streets that were, to her, an endless maze of urbanization. That was part of why she had called him instead of Torkel.

She wanted him to spirit her to the hotel, to make her white lie to Mr.Benz—He’s driving me back to the hotel after the boat docks—be true. Mr.Benz had no doubt assumed she meant Philip Gregory, but she hadn’t technically lied.

Becausehewas here. Mr.Leonardo Ricci was here.

He shrugged, slammed the back door, and moved to open the front one.

She slid in as gracefully as she,nother mother’s daughter in this regard—Lucrecia had been right about that—could, given the volume of her dress. It took some wrestling with the thing for her to get settled in.

He pulled away from the curb. “Where to?”

“The Plaza.” She braced for more of his disdain but none came.

He simply said, “Rough night?”

“You could say that.”

He nodded, seeming to accept her vague answer as evidence that she didn’t want to talk about it.

This was also why she had called him. She had known, somehow, that he would be silent. Letherbe silent. He would not pepper her with questions or crush her with his unarticulated disappointment. No, that would come later.

He was wearing a red-and-gray flannel shirt, and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Even though the car was an automatic, he rested his right hand on the shifter. He had a very nice forearm. It was muscular and lightly dusted with hair the same rich dark-brown shade as on his head. And it was very... veiny. Which was an odd thing to find appealing, but she did.

Soon she began recognizing landmarks that suggested they were almost back at the hotel. “Would you mind stopping so I can get something to eat? I... wasn’t able to eat at the party.”On account of all the crying in the bathroom.“There’s a sandwich shop that’s open all night on the next block. The concierge recommended their pastrami on rye, and I have never tried pastrami on rye.”

“Can’t stop there,” Leo said gruffly.

“Why not?”

“I don’t do Fifth and Fifty-Eighth.”

“You don’tdoFifth and Fifty-Eighth?” She laughed incredulously. What a curious man.

“I can drop you off a block up, and you can walk back down.”

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