to refuse the money. He had hardly done anything. She’d only had two appointments today. She’d given Gabby the time of her life. And despite Marie’s odd formality and her occasional lapses into prissiness, Leo had had a pretty fantastic time with her, too. The run-up to the holidays was hard for the Ricci siblings, and Marie had lifted their spirits. It felt wrong to take fifteen grand for that.
But no. If he refused the money, that meant . . . all kinds of things he’d rather not think about. She had hired him to do a job, and now she was paying him for services rendered.
And things were getting awkward, with her holding the envelope out and him not taking it.
“Thanks,” he said gruffly, sliding the envelope into his back pocket. He started the car and pulled into heavy traffic made worse by the fact that it had been snowing steadily all day. He’d have a lot of shoveling to do when he got home.
Marie sighed, and Leo glanced over. She was looking out the window, and she didn’t look happy. Which was a little odd, because he’d found that snow delighted her, generally. She’d been exclaiming the past couple days about how picturesque a New York City Christmas was.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing.” She turned to him and fake-smiled so that the empty dimples appeared.
“Bullshit.”
That got a real smile, albeit a small, wistful one. “Well, if you must know, I don’t want to go home. Despite the fact that I’m not bringing the best news home economically speaking, this trip has been a . . . surprisingly refreshing break from reality.”
A surprisingly refreshing break from reality. That was it. That was what had him so weirded out. He’d been fantasizing lately about taking a vacation. Vacations weren’t part of his life right now, but these last few days had kind of felt like one. Maybe he would spend some of his windfall to take Gabby to Florida next week.
Cheered at having figured out the cause of his ennui, he said, “At least it’s Christmas when you get back. Do princesses get a Christmas break? Gabby’s practically levitating with excitement over being off school.”
“My mother loved Christmas.”
That didn’t answer his question, and someone who didn’t know the princess might think she was trying to change the subject. But Leo heard what she wasn’t saying. This was a hard time of year to be missing people, especially if those people had died close to Christmastime.
He had no idea what to say, though. So, fuck it, he reached over and took her hand. Squeezed it.
She turned to him, and he could feel how startled she was. He wanted to keep holding her hand, to feel her relax, to have his touch be the thing that made her relax. But this was just supposed to be a quick, reassuring squeeze. A solidarity squeeze. So he made himself let go.
It was hard.
“I have to work a few days next week,” she said, going back to his question, “then I’m formally on break.”
What did that mean? The concept of “work” didn’t really jibe with his concept of “princess.” But what had she been doing all week if not working? Pretty hard, too. And it was work that seemed to weigh heavily on her, given the consequences for the economy of her country.
She must have heard his unarticulated confusion, because she elaborated. “Eldovia is a constitutional monarchy. It has a Westminster parliamentary system.”
He had no idea what that meant.
She continued with the whole reading-his-mind thing. “Which means that the crown’s power is mostly symbolic. As it should be. But my father has always had a strong advisory role. He has a cabinet of sorts made up of people who help him shape his legislative agenda.”
“And you’re on it.”
“Not formally.”
“But you want to be?”
“If I’m going to do my father’s job, it would be nice to have formal recognition of that fact.” She sucked in a sharp little inhalation, as if she’d spoken too fast or too openly. As if she’d surprised herself.
If I’m doing my father’s job. Leo had so many questions. He opened his mouth, intending to voice the foremost one—What does that mean?—but Marie kept talking. “I’ve also been trying to work with parliament informally to steer the country’s reaction to the refugee crisis in Europe. But that’s something of a side project.”
“That’s what the UN speech was about.”
“Yes.”
“Well, damn, here I thought the job description of princess would be more like getting