Page 50 of A Princess for Christmas

Leo laughed. It was so incongruous to imagine a European queen watching that stuff.

“Movies, too, though she preferred the serial format of TV.” Marie was gathering speed, clearly happy to be talking about her mother. “But when my father would start getting cranky or stressed by work, she’d declare it family movie night. He would grumble, but he knew better than to refuse family movie night. We always watched in a small private parlor in their suite—you would call it a den, I think. She would order up a feast of all our favorite food, make everyone put on their pajamas, and we’d watch whatever silly movie she’d selected. My father always started off annoyed, and he’d sit at the far end of the couch. But by the end of the movie, they’d be all cuddled up. He was like a horse she had tobreak every few months. She’d get him back into a good mood. It was like she was . . .”

Marie’s mother sounded lovely. Like a woman who cared for her family in little ways. Not that different from Leo’s mom, really, except that she’d mostly done it with pasta. The princess had trailed off on her last thought, left off the final adjective she’d been going to use to describe her mother. He wanted, suddenly, to know what she’d been going to say. “It was like she was what?” he prompted softly.

“Magic. It was like she was magic.” She waved a mittened hand in front of her face like she was erasing a chalkboard. “That sounds silly. She wasn’t magic. She just knew how to handle my father. No one else could—no one elsecan.”

“He loved her enough that he let himself be handled, maybe,” Leo ventured.

“I think that’s right,” Marie said quietly. “Of course shealsotook after Audrey Hepburn in that she was lithe and graceful and beautiful and refined.” She snorted. It seemed like a snort that was tinged with self-disgust.

“What?” Leo asked, genuinely confused.

“Nothing. It’s just that life as a female royal is a lot easier if you’re beautiful. My life would be so much simpler if I took after her in that regard.”

“Hang on, now.” He supposed what she meant was she didn’t look like Audrey Hepburn—and she didn’t. But Audrey Hepburn, or at least theBreakfast at Tiffany’sversion of her that he knew from watching the movie with Gabby, was not the be-all and end-all of female beauty.

“Oh, I’m not fishing for compliments. I know I’m not beautiful,and for the most part, I genuinely don’t care. I don’t have a long, graceful neck—fine. It’s not a character flaw. But it’s absolutely true that if you look the part, people treat you a certain way.”

She didn’t have along, graceful neck? Huh? A long neck would look stupid on her. It didn’t fit her proportions. “But you’re—”

“Remember when I was hiding in that bathroom on that yacht?” Marie didn’t wait for him to answer—she was on a roll. “I overheard Lucrecia and her friends talking about what a shame it was that I didn’t take after my mother in terms of looks and grace. It’s not enough for them to comment on what a professional disaster that party was? I have to be ugly, too?”

“Hey. None of that.” That was objectively wrong.

She didn’t seem to hear him. It was like she was talking to herself, now, rather than to him. “And it’s almost like they see a causal relationship between the two things, you know? The Philip Gregory disaster order has nothing to do with what I look like, or at least I’d like tothinkit doesn’t, but you’d never know it to hear them talk.”

There were angry embers inside Leo, and her words were stoking them. “My point is, when you’re a princess, beautiful is the baseline. If you’re beautiful, people can look past that and judge the rest of your merits. If you’re not, well, good luck.”

He stopped walking. It took her a few steps to realize she’d gotten ahead of him. She shined the flashlight between them at chest height, its ambient light enough to allow him to see her face.

“Are you done?”

“Am I done what?”

“Comparing yourself to Audrey Fucking Hepburn?” Leo didn’t bother tempering the annoyance in his tone.

Marie’s eyebrows shot up.

“Look. I know I’m only here for a week, but I swear to God, if I hear you call yourself ugly again, I’m not going to be responsible for my actions. In addition to being possibly the prettiest human I have ever laid eyes on in the flesh, you’re smart, so don’t tell yourself things that objectively aren’t true.”

Her mouth fell open. Then she closed it. Then opened it again. He’d flustered her. Good. Maybe it would be enough to knock some sense into her. “Okay, point taken. I’m notugly. On my best days I achieve cute. It’s... It’s hard to explain.”

Shewascute, with her rosebud mouth and those goddamn dimples, but apparently that was a bad thing? He would never understand this world of hers. “It’s hard to explain because you’renot making sense.”

She huffed a frustrated little sigh. “There’s a certain quality that the most popular female royals possess. Think of Princess Diana. Grace Kelly. Meghan Markle. There’s a grace there that’s hard to define except I can say I don’t have it. Part of it is height. I’m five two.” She chuckled. “But it’s more than that. It’s more just... ease. I’m awkward. I’m always worried about what I’m going to say next.” She laughed again, but it had turned bitter. “And you should see me try to dance.” She cut off the laugh with a small snort. “Which you will, if you come to the Cocoa Ball.”

“I’m not going to the ball,” he said reflexively. But he sort of understood what she was saying about ease and awkwardness. His first impression of Marie had been that she was snooty and formal. But he’d come to realize that it was a cover, a way of keeping people at bay. He did it, too, but with different qualities. Her snootiness functioned the same way his grumpiness did.

But it wasn’t a crime to feel awkward in social situations. And he wasn’t about to start agreeing with her because she’d muddled up all kinds of traits in her mind into some paragon she thought she had to aspire to.

So instead he baited her. “Dancing is not hard. Anyone can dance.” He started walking again as he spoke, and she fell into step beside him. “Even me.”

She took the bait. “Really? I don’t know. I’m not picturing it. You all dressed up in a suit, cutting a rug? I bet you can’t keep the steps straight any better than I can.”

“Steps?” He laughed, suddenly seeing what the problem was, at least as it related to dancing. “Nah. You’re overthinking.” Before he could do the same, he grabbed the flashlight from her, turned it off, and stuck it into his pocket. He took her hand, spun around, and pulled her into his arms. Into a classic slow dance stance. “No need for steps. Just sway.”

He started moving, willing her to move with him.

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