Page 88 of A Princess for Christmas

“I beg your pardon?”

“She always wants braids, and I can never get them right.”

“Oh, Leo.” He was breaking her heart. He didn’t see how wonderful he was. “Girls need love, not braids.”

He swung himself off the bed without answering. He didn’t seem angry, but clearly he didn’t want to continue this conversation.

She asked one more question anyway. She couldn’t help herself. “Do you ever think of going back to school?”

“I don’t see how I can swing it until Gabby’s much older.” Leo darted a glance at her but looked away quickly. “As it is, we get by, but barely.”

She was certain it hurt him to admit that. Leo was proud—though there was no shame in what he was saying. She was absurdly pleased, though, that he regarded her as a person he could say such things to. She resisted the urge to offer to pay forhis school, or to help them in some way. He was only confiding in her because he trusted shewouldn’treact that way.

“My mother used to talk about the accident of birth,” he said thoughtfully.

“You mean like unplanned pregnancy?”

“No. The randomness of the life circumstances a person is born into.”

“Ahh. Meaning some people are princesses and some people aren’t?”

“That’s one way of looking at it. But I meant more that even though some shit has happened lately, I have a good life. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything.”

“I know,” she said. And that was what was so great about Leo Ricci.

They stared at each other for a long moment, him standing and her on the bed. She knew he had to go back to his own room eventually, but didn’t want him to leave yet. “Leo?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you stay a little longer?”

“Yeah.”

“If you stay past midnight, it will be the twenty-third.” She wasn’t sure why she was still talking. He was already sliding back into bed. “It will be the dayafterthe anniversary of the day my mother died.”

“I know, Princess. I know.”

Chapter Seventeen

Leo got to the cabin site late the next morning, having inadvertently slept in. He’d had a hard time extricating himself from Marie’s bed last night. It had been ridiculously cozy there, and he didn’t just mean her puffy, soft bedding, but the cocoon effect of talking late into the night. About real things like his aborted academic career and her mom’s death. But also about silly things like how the kitchen staff had allowed Gabby to invent her own cocoa flavor for the Fest, and they had been testing variations on her butterscotch s’mores creation.

He’d been so... relaxed. Profoundly relaxed. Being so had thrown into sharp relief hownotrelaxed he had been for such a long time.

By the time he’d finally heaved himself out of bed and sneaked back to his room, it had been three o’clock. He was bleary-eyed today, but, paradoxically, the relaxation effect endured. His steps were light as he hiked into the clearing.

The roofing materials were all in place, neatly stacked near the structure itself. Kai, however, was not present. Well, Leo haddone his share of roofs back in the day. By the time he had the ladder set up and started shuttling shingles up, Kai appeared.

With a horse.

Pulling a cart.

This country was bananas. Though the single horse and narrow cart did explain how he had gotten the materials to the site via the paths.

Leo raised a hand in greeting. “What’s this?”

“I brought you a stove.”

“What?” But sure enough, there was a black iron stove and pieces of a chimney in the cart.

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