Page 81 of A Princess for Christmas

“I’m sure she is. She’s loving it here. But I hadn’t planned on being gone so long today. I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Let’s go find her, shall we?”

“Your braid is a mess.” He tried to smooth the destroyed hairdo, but it was no use.

She pulled off the elastic securing the bottom of the braid and combed her fingers through her hair. “It will just take me a moment to redo it.”

“Why don’t you leave it down?”

“You don’t like the braids?”

“I do,” he assured her, and it was true. The sometimes elaborate hairdos she wore in Eldovia were kind of like her white nightgown—maddening in their seeming primness. But he also liked her hair down. The way it had been in New York when he’d first been getting to know her.

Well, actually, what he liked best was her hair downafterit had been in braids. It was the dishevelment he liked. It was being the disheveler. He wasn’t going to say that, though. So he pulled her hood up and said, “I like your hair all ways. You have good hair.”

And good eyelashes.

And good lips.

Okay, enough. He nodded toward the path. “Shall we?”

“I’m sorry again about the NDA,” she said quietly once they started walking.

“Forget about it.” He had.

“The first boy I slept with took a picture of me sleeping in his bed and tried to sell it to the student newspaper—this was at university.”

“What?” The fucker. “Did he succeed?”

“No. I called Mr.Benz, and he took care of it. I’m not even sure how.”

Maybe there was something to say for meddling Mr.Benz after all.

“I hadn’t had him sign anything—Mr.Benz had told me, when I left, to make sure anyone who might ‘be in a position to compromise me or my reputation’ signed an NDA. But I was afraid of insulting him.”

Shit.“Write me up a new one. I’ll sign it.” He contemplated asking her for the name of this dude, but checked the impulse. What was he going to do? Hunt him down vigilante-justice style?

“I don’t want you to. I just wanted to explain.”

“Princess, I appreciate the trust, but now I’m going to have to insist on signing one.” He had been thinking about the document as an affront to his pride, as a symbol of the gulf between them. He hadn’t been thinking of it from her point of view, about what she risked when she made herself vulnerable to men who might turn out to be dickheads.

“No,” she said decisively. “It’s good to reevaluate one’s habits periodically. Actions one performs by rote that may not... be serving one anymore.” He was ramping up to object again, but she cut him off. “Let’s find Gabby, shall we?”

Back at the castle, Frau Lehman reported that Gabby had enjoyed both skiing and horseback riding, that Mr.Benz had taken to his bed exhausted, and that she had escorted Gabby to the library to borrow a book, then tucked her into her room for a rest.

Except Gabbywasn’tin her room when Leo and Marie poked their heads in. “I bet she’s back in the library,” Leo had ventured, and yep. When they appeared, she sprang up from where she was sitting on an old-fashioned-looking sofa surrounded by haphazard piles of books. She was holding an equally old-fashioned-looking volume in her hands. “Oh my gosh, Leo! Look at this!” Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright with excitement.

“The Red Fairy Book,” he read aloud from the faded gold-leaf lettering on the battered cover. “Andrew Lang.”

“It’s in English, unlike a lot of the rest of the books in here, and it’s full of fairy tales I’venever heard of!”

“Yes,” came a posh voice from behind them. Leo didn’t have to turn to know it was King Emil. He braced himself for a royal damper to be put on what had, so far, been an incredible day. “Remarkably,” the king drawled, “it turns out your Disney schlockisn’tthe sum total of the world’s folklore.”

“Father,” Marie said.

Emil ignored his daughter and turned to Gabby. “MissRicci, I must ask you not to use my library if you’re going to treat its contents so carelessly.”

Leo sighed and turned back to his sister, the princess of clutter. On the one hand, he couldn’t really argue with the king. Gabby’s room at home was a complete sty. And that was saying something, because it wasn’t like Leo had the highest standards himself on the domestic front—it was another arena where he constantly felt he wasn’t keeping up.

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