A Princess for Christmas - Jenny Holiday Page 0,82

way. There was nothing like a day of physical work to get a man out of his own head, make him feel like he was doing more in the world than just taking up space.

When they reached the main road where they would part ways—Leo to go up to the palace and Kai down to the village his house lay on the far side of—Leo turned to Kai. “Thank you. I didn’t expect so much help.”

Kai shrugged, said, “Well, when we get drawn up on charges, you’re taking the fall,” and started ambling away.

Had that been . . . a joke? From Mr. Scrooge?

Chapter Fifteen

Leo hadn’t been walking more than a minute along the main road before Marie appeared in the distance. She was wearing a bright red coat, and she looked like a beacon.

No, he corrected as she came close enough for him to see that the coat featured a fur-trimmed hood and that she was also carrying a basket, she looked exactly like Little Red Riding Hood.

Did that make him the big bad wolf?

As she strode up to him, with her cold-pinkened cheeks and her bright blue eyes, he very much wanted to eat her up. She had an ease about her out here, in the woods. She looked happy and free, and it was pretty fucking irresistible.

“Good afternoon,” she said, smiling at him. “I thought I might find you here.”

He eyed her, trying to find within himself some of the anger from yesterday. Some of what she called his honor, maybe.

He couldn’t seem to locate any. All that physical labor must have wrung it out of him. He almost wanted to . . . smile at her, this woman who, just last night, had wounded his pride in a way that had felt mortal. He pressed his lips together.

“I’m done working for the day.” She lifted her basket. “I brought lunch.”

He smiled.

Dammit.

She glanced down the road behind him. “I thought we could eat lunch in the clearing.”

“What’s Gabby doing?” he asked. “Still on the ski trip?”

She looked at her watch. “They’re probably done skiing by now.” She smiled a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “But I asked Mr. Benz to take her horseback riding after lunch.”

“I bet he loved that.”

“Mr. Benz has an overdeveloped sense of duty that can be exploited, and I had an ulterior motive in sending him skiing with Gabby this morning.”

“Yeah?”

“This morning we had a breakfast for the members of parliament. It’s a social event, primarily, but we also use the occasion to push for our priorities in the upcoming session. Usually Mr. Benz attends.” Marie’s eyes twinkled.

He chuckled. “And let me guess. Your priorities are different from Mr. Benz’s?”

“Well, some of them are the same, but I might have taken the opportunity to lay the groundwork for some of my plans with regard to refugee policy.”

“Well, good for you.”

“And what have you been up to all morning?” she asked. When he raised his eyebrows—she no doubt knew what he had been up to—she said, “May I see?”

Leo had been imagining waiting to show her the cabin—the big Christmas reveal. But screw it. She was here, she was practically vibrating with anticipation, and he could not deny her.

He tugged her basket out of her grasp and gestured for her to go ahead of him.

They walked in silence, the snow crunching beneath their feet the only sound as they made the turn onto the small, ungroomed path that would take them to the clearing. Apparently they were going to pretend that last night hadn’t happened.

Which was fine. Denial worked for him.

She was walking in front of him, so she broke through the tree line into the clearing before he did. He heard her gasp, though, and, shit, that did something to his chest.

He emerged to see her running, literally running, toward the cabin. When he caught up with her, she turned to him, her hands clasped under her chin and her hood fallen.

“Oh, Leo, it’s wonderful!”

She was overreacting. Despite today’s work, the structure itself wasn’t that different looking than it had been. It was just a bit taller, the newer logs a slightly darker color than the old ones.

But he’d be lying if he said her delight didn’t please him. A strange, warm sensation began unspooling in his gut—it turned the corners of his mouth up, too, almost against his will.

She ducked under the doorway, and he followed her inside. The walls were now taller than he was, so the sense of being enclosed was magnified. It