Page 49 of A Princess for Christmas

Marie:My guest is not a she.

Max:WHAT.

She got up and retrieved a sweater from her armoire. By the time she’d pulled it over her head, he had exploded.

Max:M! Explain! WHO IS HE?

Max:HELLO?

Marie:Good night, Max. xo

Chapter Nine

Leo wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe a horse-drawn carriage to pull up and whisk them away? He certainly hadn’t thought they’d just walk out of the palace unaccompanied, but that was exactly what they did. Marie came to collect him from his room and led him through silent halls to the imposing marble entryway he’d glimpsed but not really processed when they’d arrived. But there was the big tree she’d talked about, and the fireplace, complete with stockings. It was impressive, even in the dim light of evening when it wasn’t officially on display. But he could see what she’d meant about liking his homespun version better.

“Is that your mother?” he asked quietly, pointing toward a large painting of a woman with Marie’s dark hair.

“Yes, but it doesn’t really look like her. She was...” She stopped and contemplated the painting. “Happier than that.”

It was true that the woman in the painting didn’t look like a devotee ofBeverly Hills, 90210.

Marie, however—and in contrast to earlier in the evening—didseem happy. She pushed open the huge, oaken front door,took a big breath in, and skipped down the stairs. It was like the outside air suddenly brought her to life. He followed suit—with the deep breath, not the skipping. The air was clean and bracing. It smelled like pine. “So you can just stroll out of the palace by yourself? What happened to that bodyguard guy?”

“Torkel’s gone home for Christmas. We have other security staff, but to answer your question, yes, I can just stroll out of the palace by myself. It’s not like New York where they feel they have to babysit me. The entire hill is fenced in—the gate we went through is the only way in or out by car. When we get to the village at the bottom, there’s another gate, a smaller one for pedestrians. It’s manned, but I’ve told them to let you and your sister pass freely.”

“And what about the village itself?” he asked.

“Everyone knows me,” she said, as if that was an answer that had anything to do with how safe she was there. But hey, if she wasn’t going to sweat it, he certainly wasn’t.

As they crossed the snowy grounds, Marie tilted her head back. Leo followed her gaze and had to swallow a gasp. He didn’t think he’d ever seen this many stars. He’d headed off the audible gasp, but his astonishment must still have been apparent, because she said, softly, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It sounds stupid to say that you don’t see stars like this in New York City, because of course you don’t. But... you don’t see stars like this in New York City.” Or anywhere he’d ever been—no boat ride with Dani’s dad out on Long Island Sound, no Boy Scouts camping trip.

“You know that rhyme, ‘Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight’?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“My mother used to say that all the time—we used to spend a lot of time outside.”

“What did you wish for?”

She didn’t answer, just started walking. He followed. She pulled out a flashlight and aimed it at the road—they were walking down the same road they’d driven up.

“When I was younger, I used to wish for a sibling.”

“I used to wish for a sibling, too, when I was younger—Gabby’s fourteen years younger than I am.” He’d forgotten about that. But some of his earliest Christmas-stocking wishes had been for a little brother or sister—though by the time Gabby finally arrived, his teenage self had moved on to Islanders-related wishes. “She was a bit of a surprise to my parents, I think.” He was happy when they’d announced their news, and even happier now to have Gab. Life could be a lonely business, and having someone who shared your experiences and your blood made it a little less so. He suspected that growing up royal, despite its perks, was a lonelier road than average. The cage was gilded, but it was still a cage.

It occurred to him suddenly that despite the huge economic and social gulf between them, he had more freedom than Marie did. Or at least a different kind of freedom.

“My parents had trouble conceiving, then never managed to get pregnant again after me,” Marie said. “Once I got old enough to understand that, I’d wish for frivolous stuff. A crush to like me back. A good grade on a test.” She paused. “Now I wish my mother was here.”

Her voice was so small. Leo wanted to grab Marie’s hand but checked the impulse, saying instead, “What was she like?” A fan of90210, but he wanted to know more.

He could hear the smile in her voice when she answered. “She was a force of nature.” Marie paused, trying, he sensed, to put words to complicated emotions. “She was like Audrey Hepburn inBreakfast at Tiffany’s. She was fun and charming and always bursting with plans for some grand adventure. She’d throw an impromptu dance party and invite everyone from the village, or she’d take me to L.A. for the weekend and we’d go on star tours in disguise. She loved L.A., because of the American TV obsession.”

“They say we live in the golden age of TV,” Leo said. He didn’t watch any himself—no time—beyond Thursday-night K-drama.

“Oh, but it wasn’tgoodTV that she liked. No HBO for her. No, she was into the old, cheesy 1990s stuff of her youth. Programs you couldn’t get on satellite or via streaming. She was always ordering DVDs. So that combined with the L.A. trips meant my vision of America was all these beautiful people with puffy, shiny hair hanging around by pools and having affairs with each other.”

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