A Princess for Christmas - Jenny Holiday Page 0,32
say, watch 90210 if you want to.”
She didn’t speak for a while. Maybe he’d overstepped. Really, who was he to give lessons on grieving? He didn’t know shit.
But then the quiet voice was back. “I think you are a very wise man, Leonardo Ricci.”
He wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but hell, he’d take it.
“Is your butler going to be mad at you for being gone all afternoon?” he asked as they crossed into Manhattan.
“He’s not a butler,” she said with a laugh.
“So you keep saying.” Leo shrugged. “Looks like a duck, walks like a duck.”
Marie looked out the window. “Yes, he will probably be angry with me. I texted him that I was going to the play with you, but he’s . . . displeased. The larger issue, though, is that my father will be angry with me.”
“He’s going to tattle to your father?”
“He no doubt already has. He’s my father’s equerry, not mine.”
That was the second time she had used that word. Leo made a mental note to look it up when he got home. “So let me get this straight. You had nothing else to do, so you weren’t shirking any duties. But still, going to a school play is gonna get him mad at you.”
She huffed a small laugh, as if she realized how silly that sounded. “That is correct.”
Well. “I hope it was worth it.” He was kidding. There was no way the Bronx Technology Charter School production of The Wizard of Oz was worth the wrath of a king.
When she didn’t laugh at his little joke, he glanced over at her.
“It was.” She smiled at him. “It was worth it.”
Chapter Six
Saturday morning Marie hosted a breakfast in her hotel suite for friends of the crown. This was an older crowd, people who were friendly with her father. And most of them had known her mother, too. Some of them shared reminiscences, and the morning turned out to be both more enjoyable and more emotional than she’d anticipated.
After that, she had two more appointments with watch retailers, and Leo had taken her to those.
And, more remarkably, Torkel and Mr. Weiss had not accompanied her. She hadn’t even had to push very hard. When she’d said she was going alone, they’d grumbled but acquiesced. Perhaps they had finally come to trust Leo.
“Well?” Leo asked when she emerged from her last shop. He’d inquired after every meeting, no doubt spooked by her vast overreaction—crying, for heaven’s sake—to yesterday’s final appointment.
“Oh, fine.” Marie waved a hand dismissively as he opened the passenger-side door of his car for her. “Today’s retailers are smaller ones. The stakes are lower.”
Leo narrowed his eyes like he didn’t quite believe her. It was oddly charming.
“I actually got one of them to increase his order by ten percent over last year,” she said laughingly.
It wasn’t nearly enough in the grand scheme of things, but it seemed to appease him. He stepped back so she could get in the car.
“Where to next?”
“That’s it for today. My next engagement is tea with new friends but not for two hours. So why don’t you take me back to the hotel and I’ll see you all later.”
“You’re paying me too much.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve taken you to two appointments today. It took all of ninety minutes. You can’t pay me five grand for that.”
“Well, you also had to commute down and back—and you’ll have to do so again if you’re picking up Gabriella and Daniela for tea.”
He shot her a look. “Come on.”
“We had an agreement. If you suddenly find the terms too favorable, that’s your concern, not mine.”
Leo rolled his eyes and started the car, but soon Marie realized they’d gone farther south than the hotel—she was becoming familiar with the local geography. “Where are we going?”
“Skating.”
She had her mouth preopened to protest—Leonardo Ricci seemed to inspire reflexive protest. But then she closed it. Because she really wanted to go skating. “At Rockefeller Center?” That was one of those New York things she’d wished she could do while she was here.
“Yep.”
A frisson of excitement ran through her. She tried to dial back her smile by several notches, but she did not succeed.
He flashed one of his own, a very self-satisfied one.
As they waited in line, Leo said, “What are we getting into here? Are people going to recognize you? Are there going to be paparazzi?”
“Oh my goodness, no. Thankfully, we don’t have the public profile the Brits do.”
“What about all those people taking pictures at Gab’s school?”