Page 77 of A Princess for Christmas

“Open it and see.”

He pulled the ribbon off and peeled back the fabric. The jar was full of small scraps of paper that looked like they’d been ripped by hand.

Well.

He looked up at her to make sure he was interpreting this correctly.

“I’ve given some more thought to the matter and have come to the conclusion that I owe you an apology.”

He was shocked but also not shocked. He was starting to understand that there were two... well, not two versions of Marie, but two sides to her, maybe. There was the proper-bordering-on-prim princess who shouldered a shit-ton of duty. The wallflower who let balls and parties shake her confidence.

But there was also the woman who got into a stranger’s cab with no money and only a vague idea of where she was going and ran after a ship belonging to a villainess. Who manipulated her butler-dude in such a way that she got what she wanted politically.

“I’ve been thinking about your question from last night,” shewent on. “When I asked you to sign this document and said, ‘We do them all the time,’ you asked me who ‘we’ was. It made me think that I didn’t really know. Well, I do know. It’s a generic ‘we.’ The royal establishment. But then I started thinking, there are only two members of the royal house of Accola, and I’m one of them. Why do I just mindlessly do what I’m told?”

“I’m not sure you do,” Leo said, thinking back to the “version two” of Marie he’d just conjured in his mind. “I think you justthinkyou do.”

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for example, you had quite the argument with your father about the UN appointment. That didn’t look to me like doing what you were told. You got rid of Mr.Benz back in New York pretty handily, too. And you just told me you made him go horseback riding with Gabby today so you could get your way with parliament.”

A slow, semi-self-satisfied smile blossomed. She liked his interpretation of things. “Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that insisting I make everyone I have any sort of meaningful interaction with sign a nondisclosure agreement suggests that I have bad judgment. That I don’t know my own mind.”

“That doesn’t seem like you at all,” Leo said, wanting the semismile to turn into a real one.

It did. “And if that’s the case...” Marie picked up the jar and tipped it upside down. Little bits of paper scattered on the wind.

Okay then. Leo cleared his throat and tried to tamp down a spike of that same panicky excitement that had hit him outside her door last night. He wasn’t sure what the destroyed NDAsignified. Was he just witnessing a moment of emancipation? Or were they going to get back to what they’d been planning before she’d whipped out the document to begin with?

“So what now as it relates to... us?” she asked, verbalizing his thoughts exactly.

“You tell me.”And please tell me yes.He had to adjust his position on the blanket. She was making him go half hard with her signature mixture of boldness and innocence.

“I’m unsure. Has the momentum been lost?”

He barked a laugh. She was so... primly herself. “No momentum lost here, Your Rebellious Highness.” None at all. In fact—he shifted around some more on the blanket—momentum gained.

She looked skeptical. “I am fretting, though, that here I told you not to treat me like a princess and then...”

“You acted like the most princessey of princesses?”

She smiled sheepishly. “I’m afraid so.”

“We’re overthinking this. Here’s how this is going to work. We are going to drop the princess/not princess distinction. I think it’s less useful than it seemed. If you want to have sex, we’re going to have sex the way you”—he pointed to her—“and I”—he pointed to himself—“have sex.”

She liked that idea, judging by the way her eyes lit up. “And what way is that?”

He shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to find out, won’t we?”

“Now?”

“No time like the present.” He wagged his eyebrows. “If you want to.”Please want to.

“I want to, but I didn’t bring any contraception.”

I didn’t bring any contraception.That was such a Marie way to say it. He smiled. “Well, we’ll just have to do things that don’t require contraception, then, won’t we?”

She looked as shocked as if he’d suggested they run away and join a sex cult.

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