A Princess for Christmas - Jenny Holiday Page 0,57
it wasn’t dancing to begin with, and because it was too intimate. Eldovians didn’t flaunt their emotions the way Americans did.
“These are cool.”
Marie forced her attention back to the present, the present where she was having a friendly, platonic drink with Leo and not dwelling on their private forest dance. He was looking at some of Kai Keller’s snow globes. Each of the snugs had an inset, glass-walled cabinet that displayed a selection of them.
“There’s a carpenter in the village who’s really talented. He mostly does residential work, but he started making snow globes a few years ago, as a lark. Imogen—she’s the owner here—has been trying to convince him for years to start selling them.”
“He should. The workmanship is amazing.”
“Who should what?” Imogen slipped into the booth bearing a tray of drinks and sat next to Leo.
“Kai should sell his snow globes.”
“Don’t I know it.” She shook her head. “Stubborn, stubborn man.” She passed out drinks. “I took the liberty of bringing a few flights of our beer. We brew it here.” Imogen gave a quick rundown of the four different varieties served in small glasses on a little board.
“I was surprised to hear you’d started brewing,” Marie said as she sipped the seasonal offering, which was, of course, a cocoa porter.
“Yes, well, as my dad always says, ‘Change or die.’”
Marie was about to ask a follow-up question—it seemed like there was a story there—but before she could get it out, Imogen turned to Leo and said, “So. Leo. How do you know our princess?”
“I was in New York last week, and he was my driver.” Marie, trying to rescue Leo from a signature Imogen O’Connor interrogation, realized that her explanation was going to fall short. People didn’t bring their drivers thousands of miles home with them for Christmas. “We struck up a friendship,” she added, which, of course, didn’t go terribly far toward clarifying things. People didn’t bring their new friends thousands of miles home with them for Christmas, either.
“My little sister developed a massive crush on her,” Leo said. “She’s a little bit princess obsessed, so meeting a real one blew her mind. And we’re on our own, so . . . Her Royal Highness was nice enough to invite us to the Christmas extravaganza here.”
Leo’s use of her proper title sounded . . . wrong. Like he was speaking the wrong language.
“Was she now?” She looked at Marie. Then back at Leo. Then at Marie again.
Marie sighed. She should have known better than to invite Imogen to join them. She’d forgotten how astute her old friend was. Probably all her years behind the bar—she’d tended it since she was a teenager, back when her father was still in charge—had sensitized her to unarticulated emotions. She had an abundance of what the Americans called emotional intelligence.
“Yes, and having realized that my father has turned into Ebenezer Scrooge, I decided to bring Leo here so he knows how to escape when he needs to.”
Imogen flashed a smile that seemed on the edge of wicked as she turned her whole body to face Leo. “Well, you come by anytime.”
The other thing about Imogen was that she was . . . Well, back in their school days, when everyone called her Minnie, they also called her boy-crazy.
A flare of jealousy, sharp and spiky, traveled up Marie’s throat, but she kept her mouth resolutely closed. She could have no claim on Leo, and she would do well to remind herself of that fact.
When he got back to his room after tucking Gabby in, Leo sat down to eat some nonsoapy chocolates and deal with an onslaught of texts from Dani.
Holy shit, Gabby FaceTimed me earlier and showed me her room. You really ARE in a Hallmark movie.
But seriously, are you hanging in there?
HELLO? Where are you? Have you been indoctrinated into an Alpine cult? Don’t do that. I’d miss you.
He smiled and initiated a FaceTime call.
“Finally.” Dani was sitting at the tiny desk in her bedroom, and she looked rumpled and exhausted.
“How’s the book?” he asked.
“I need to have sex with a human.”
He chuckled at the non sequitur. “As opposed to a not-human?”
“No! Gross.”
“What’s happening? I thought you were holed up writing?”
“I am, but it turns out that with you guys gone, I revert to living in my head, and a girl can only immerse herself so much in the stifling sexual and social norms of the nineteenth century before she starts thinking about the state of her life.”