A Princess for Christmas - Jenny Holiday Page 0,16

earlier. He didn’t know how he knew the difference—he just did.

“Good evening,” Marie said to the clerk. “I don’t suppose if I told you that I am a member of the Eldovian royal family and am staying a block up—at the Plaza—and pledged to return tomorrow to pay for these items that you would extend me credit this evening?”

The cashier rolled her eyes.

“She’s an honest-to-God princess,” Leo added, not because he was going to let her pay. He wasn’t. But he was enjoying watching her try to conduct a retail transaction on royal credit. She had even turned up an accent that Leo had only heard flashes of before. Previously, she had spoken mostly unaccented, if slightly formal, English.

“We don’t take princess credit at CVS, honey.” The clerk examined her manicure as she spoke.

Laughing, Leo laid his credit card down.

“I’m sorry!” Marie exclaimed as they emerged onto the street, where it had just started to snow. A big, fat flake landed on one of her absurdly long eyelashes. “I can’t even buy you a slice of pizza.” The dejection that had crept into her tone would have been comical if it hadn’t seemed so sincere.

But she quickly perked up. “Oh!” It was hard keeping up with her. Her mind moved fast, and her expressive face reflected the rapid cycling of emotions she seemed to engage in. Princess Marie did not have a poker face. Leo settled in to try to get a read on her current mood. Her eyebrows were high. She was buoyed by whatever thought had popped into her head. “You could come up to my suite, and we could order room service!”

He didn’t answer right away—because it was tempting. Which was ridiculous, because whatever kind of food she would order at the Plaza would not be his kind of food. It would be like Dani wasting the fancy ice cream on him. And anyway, he needed to get going so Dani could go home.

He had been silent too long, though, because Marie gasped as if a horrible thought had just occurred to her. “I didn’t mean . . .” She looked at the ground.

“You didn’t mean what?”

Leo had a pretty good idea what she was thinking, given the way she was looking everywhere but at him, but bastard that he was, he wanted to hear what she, with her prim, formal way of speaking, would say.

“Well . . . I understand from American television that the late-night invitation to visit one’s quarters can be a . . . euphemism for other activities.”

One’s quarters. He bit back a laugh. “Really?” He schooled his face to look confused. “What activities?”

She blushed. It was apparent even in the diffuse glow of a New York night.

“Ohhhh . . .” He let the single syllable stretch out over his tongue. “You mean a booty call.” He remembered those. Barely. That was another thing that had mostly fallen by the wayside since his parents died. He opened the pizza parlor door for her, but she made no move to enter.

“A what call?”

“Booty call. Booty being American slang for ass.” He let his eyes drop. Her dress was too puffy for him to see hers, but he let his gaze linger in the general vicinity anyway. Princess Marie whatever whatever—she had a lot of names—was a very pretty woman. Those dimples. Those eyelashes. If he were a betting man, he’d say everything under that dress was probably equally enticing.

He would also bet that she never got told that. That people deferred and kept her at arm’s length. Or were catty bitches like Cruella De Vil Von Whatever.

It was nice sometimes to be appreciated for one’s . . . assets. So he let his gaze linger even longer, and because Marie was oddly innocent—he wasn’t sure if it was because of her royalness or her non-Americanness—waggled his eyebrows to make sure she got the point. “You’d better get your royal booty inside, Your Splendidness. We’re letting all the cold air into this fine establishment. I’m sorry to say I’m going to have to pass on the booty call, but pizza’s on me.”

He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she blushed even more. And the dimples—the real ones—came back as she brushed past him.

At the counter, she treated the dilemma of what kind of slice to get like it was an exam question. In the end she settled on one pepperoni and one mushroom, which he approved of. She’d surprised him. He would have thought she’d