Page 19 of A Princess for Christmas

When she won that round, Marie repeated herself, morefirmly this time. “I wouldn’t want you to miss your two o’clock engagement.”

His two o’clock “engagement” wasThe Wizard of Oz. When the princess had made her proposal last night, he’d told her he could clear his schedule of everything except Gabby’s play this afternoon and counterproposed that she pay him only for half a day. She’d refused. He was planning to argue it with her later.

“All right then.” He started the car, and off they went.

“What happened to the taxi?” Marie asked.

“I don’t own it. The medallion belongs to a family friend. So I drive it, but I effectively pay for the right to do so.” It was owned by one of their old neighbors on Belmont, in fact, an old drinking buddy of his dad’s.

“Like rent?”

“Exactly. He gives me first dibs on schedule, so I can have the cab whenever I want, but I have to pay him whether I’m using it or not. If I’m not using it, someone else can drive it.” In addition to first crack at the schedule, Leo suspected that Mr.Bianchi was undercharging him, though he insisted he wasn’t. One of these days, Leo was going to have to push the issue. While he’d been willing to swallow his pride enough to take the handouts necessary to get him and Gabby on their feet after the accident, he wouldn’t live on charity forever.

“So this is your car.”

“Yep.”

He eyed the backseat passengers in the rearview mirror, irrationally wondering if they could see through the lie. The big guy was looking out the window, but the butler was staring right back at him.

The car was a rental, but he didn’t want to get into it with her—she’d probably insist on paying for it. He’d calculated that renting a car would cost about the same as what he’d have to pay for the use of the taxi, and the black sedan seemed . . . classier. More fit for a princess.

Not that he cared about any of that shit. “So are these meetings going to be stressful like last night?”

“Oh, no.” She did seem more at ease today, despite her annoyance over her royal babysitters. “These are courtesy calls. I’ll chat with them about upcoming orders, see if they have any concerns or technical questions.”

“You can answer technical questions about watches?”

“I can.”

Leo racked his brain to think of one. He wasn’t sure why. “Is it true that some people have weird magnetic fields that make watches stop?”

She laughed. It was more gratifying than it should have been. And it was getting a little easier to ignore her handlers since the butler had quit his sniffling. “I can’t answer that one. Our watches don’t have batteries.”

“They don’t?” He’d never heard of that.

“High-end watches don’t. You have to wind them. They’re powered by a spring and a series of gears.”

Well. He felt like an idiot. They had an old clock in the apartment that had been his great-grandmother’s, and it needed to be wound—which was why it was always stopped. “Wind the clock” wasn’t something that ever made it to the top of his to-do list.

“But it’s a good question. And actually, you don’t have to wind allour watches. Some of them are self-winding. They have a rotor that captures energy from normal movement and transfers it . . .” Just when it seemed like she was ramping up, she trailed off. “Sorry. I get carried away. I studied engineering at university.”

A princessanda brainiac. It figured. “Where was that?”

“Oxford.”

Of course.

“Did you attend an institution of higher learning or undertake any postsecondary studies?”

He swallowed a chuckle. The formal way she sometimes spoke tickled him. “Nope.”

That was another lie. He’d spent four years working toward a bachelor’s degree in architecture at the City College of New York—which he’d chosen over the other, more prestigious colleges with architecture programs in the city because it was much cheaper. He’d only been going part-time, though, so when the accident happened, he only had two years’ worth of actual credit. He couldn’t see his way through to sticking with it. He had student loans already, which was one thing when it was just him, but he couldn’t have a negative incomeandkeep a roof over Gabby’s head.

Maybe someday he’d be able to return, although at twenty-five he already felt too old to be an undergrad.

Anyway, it wasn’t like he’d been very good at it to begin with. He’d been holding on by his fingernails, his status as the first Ricci ever to attend college the only thing keeping him going some days.

He didn’t want to get into it with Princess Smartypants,though. Especially with the audience in the back seat. He didn’t need her pity. He didn’t needanyone’spity.

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