Page 99 of A Princess for Christmas

As Mr.Benz left, Max approached cautiously. “You want to tell me what’s wrong?” He held his arms out like he wanted to hug her. She let him this time, burying her face in his shoulder—the wrong shoulder—and saying, “I fell in love, Max. That’s what’s wrong.”

Fuck it. He was going to do it. What was the worst that could happen? She’d say no thanks.Leo, I am not interested in a transatlantic booty call.And he would move on. Go home. Where he belonged.

The decision made him feel oddly light.

Oh, who was he kidding? What was making him feel oddly light was the idea of her back in New York. Boats and fuckingcherry blossoms. Getting it on in his rickety double bed while Gabby was at school.

Leo hadn’t felt this light in a long time. Possibly, he had lost his mind and that was what was making him feel so light, but hey, he was going to run with it.

He should have waited for her to respond to his knock. But that stupid lightness was propelling him, making him hurry, like he was a balloon filled with helium skittering along a ceiling.

Marie was in her sitting room. His eyes went right to her. They always did. “It’s my turn to make a proposition, Princess.”

“Leo!”

The problem with the way Leo’s eyes immediately went to Marie when she was in a room was that there was a delay in registering the presence ofanyone elsein the room.

Like, for example, the guy she was hugging.

The guy she was guiltily jumping away from.

“Leo, this is my friend Max. Maximillian von Hansburg. The von Hansburgs are close family friends, and they’re here for the festivities tomorrow. Max, this is Leonardo Ricci.”

“Ah, he of the moonlit walks,” Max drawled as he stuck out a hand for Leo to shake.

Leo ignored the hand and surveyed its owner. Max was dressed in a suit. A skinny gray one, but instead of a normal tie, he was wearing his shirt open with a scarf thing tied into it. Was that an ascot? Leo had never seen one in person, but he was pretty sure that was it. The dude was wearing an actual fucking ascot.

“Max, hush,” Marie said. “This is not your business.”

“It is if you want to keep taking those moonlit walks, my friend,” he said to Marie.

“What?” What the hell was this guy on about?

Max retracted the hand that Leo had not shaken and switched to beckoning him over to a chair near the fireplace. “Marie and I were settling in for a plotting session on how to avoid our parents’ matrimonial machinations. Join us.”

“Max!” Marie nearly shrieked, and Marie was not a shrieker. At least not in this sort of circumstance. And “matrimonial machinations.” Did that mean what he thought it meant? Leo eyed the pair of them. The hand that hadn’t been beckoning him was now resting on Marie’s lower back with a familiarity that suggested that yes, “matrimonial machinations” meant exactly what he feared it did.

“You should have told me,” he said quietly. He’d thought it was going to come out like a yell—that’s what he’d intended—but hehad to settle for a shaky whisper. His lungs felt like they were working overtime yet couldn’t seem to suck in quite enough air.

“Leo.” Marie rushed over to him. “There’s nothing between Max and me. There never has been.”

“That’s right.” Max came over, too, looking alarmed, and Leo’s fingers flexed. He wanted to punch this guy even though he understood with his higher brain that that would achieve nothing. “Marie is like a sister. We’ve been plotting ways to postpone this engagement for years. It’s almost a hobby of ours.”

“You’ve been engaged foryears?”

“Well, not technically,” Max said. “That will happen at the ball tonight, unless we can—”

“That’s not what he means, Max,” Marie said quietly. She met Leo’s gaze unflinchingly, which he had to give her credit for. “Yes. Max and I have known for years that our parents wanted us to marry. Our fathers are friends and want to unite the two houses.”

Unite the two houses. Was this the Middle Ages?

They must have read the derision on his face. “My family, the House of Aquilla—my father is the Duke of Aquilla—have extensive mining holdings,” Max said.

His father was a duke? So this guy would be a duke when his father kicked the bucket? Like Marie would be Queen of Eldovia someday?

“We could supply trace minerals for the Morneau watches,” Max went on. “Our fathers have been talking for years about joining forces.”

“So why don’t they just fucking join forces? Why do they have to—”

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