Page 31 of A Princess for Christmas

“Oh, fine.” Marie waved a hand dismissively as he opened thepassenger-side door of his car for her. “Today’s retailers are smaller ones. The stakes are lower.”

Leo narrowed his eyes like he didn’t quite believe her. It was oddly charming.

“I actually got one of them to increase his order by tenpercent over last year,” she said laughingly.

It wasn’t nearly enough in the grand scheme of things, but it seemed to appease him. He stepped back so she could get in the car.

“Where to next?”

“That’s it for today. My next engagement is tea with new friends but not for two hours. So why don’t you take me back to the hotel and I’ll see you all later.”

“You’re paying me too much.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve taken you to two appointments today. It took all of ninety minutes. You can’t pay me five grand for that.”

“Well, you also had to commute down and back—and you’ll have to do so again if you’re picking up Gabriella and Daniela for tea.”

He shot her a look. “Come on.”

“We had an agreement. If you suddenly find the terms too favorable, that’s your concern, not mine.”

Leo rolled his eyes and started the car, but soon Marie realized they’d gone farther south than the hotel—she was becoming familiar with the local geography. “Where are we going?”

“Skating.”

She had her mouth preopened to protest—Leonardo Ricci seemed to inspire reflexive protest. But then she closed it. Because shereallywanted to go skating. “At Rockefeller Center?”That was one of those New York things she’d wished she could do while she was here.

“Yep.”

A frisson of excitement ran through her. She tried to dial back her smile by several notches, but she did not succeed.

He flashed one of his own, a very self-satisfied one.

As they waited in line, Leo said, “What are we getting into here? Are people going to recognize you? Are there going to be paparazzi?”

“Oh my goodness, no. Thankfully, we don’t have the public profile the Brits do.”

“What about all those people taking pictures at Gab’s school?”

“Don’t you think that was merely because word had gotten out about me rather than because someone actually recognized me of his or her own volition?”

He shrugged. “You do have a way of drawing attention.”

“I do?” Marie looked down at herself. She’d tried to look more American today, and under her coat, she was wearing a simple black day dress, though she supposed the very concept of a day dress wasn’t American. The coat itself, though, was bright pink, belted, swingy, and decorated with black wool piping. Princesses didn’t really do parkas. And she was wearing Grand-mére’s emerald brooch. “It’s the clothes, isn’t it? The clothes are all wrong.”

He looked at her for a long time without saying anything. The line was outside in the cold, but his gaze heated her from the inside. Embarrassed her. He did that so easily. “No,” he finally said. “The clothes are just fine.” He drew out the vowels in the last two words:juuustfiiiine. She did not know what that meant, but it caused more of that heated embarrassment.

Soon enough, they were easing themselves onto the ice. Marie felt her shoulders relax, and the vestiges of her discomfiture faded as they took their first few strokes.

“You’re very good!” she said, and indeed, Leo had an easy grace as he matched his pace to hers.

“I played organized hockey as a kid and was in and out of rec leagues after I graduated from high school.” He sped up and rapidly spun around so he was skating backward in front of her, grinning from ear to ear. The move was so well executed that she laughed in delight. “I haven’t been on the ice in years, though. Not since before—”

She knew what he’d been about to say. “I imagine you gave up a lot more than hockey after your parents died.” She had seen firsthand the way he took care of his sister. That kind of guardianship didn’t come without a cost.

He shrugged as he fell in beside her again. “It’s worth it.”

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