Page 31 of Once Upon A Royal Christmas
And then his gaze drifted lower, toward the explosion of glitter, lace, and tulle that surrounded the princess’s graceful frame. Nick blinked and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
It looked as if she’d had a run-in with a unicorn on her way to the castle. Many unicorns, actually. A whole, sparkly herd of them. Was that…a crown on her head? It certainly looked like one, except it was comically oversized. Like she’d taken the topper off of the San Glacera Christmas tree and placed it directly on top of her lush brown hair.
Nick’s chest tightened, and his forehead beaded with sweat, despite the cold. He dabbed at it with his white-gloved fingertips, and then he remembered something the princess had said when he’d mentioned San Glacera’s famously chilly winters.
I don’t mind the cold at all. It’s actually kind of my thing.
And like a magnet, his attention went straight to the garish rhinestone snowflake earring dangling from her ear.
No.
Panic seized him. He hadn’t shared waffles with Princess Alana this afternoon, after all, had he? He’d spent the day with none other than Emilie’s cartoon character.
How had he not recognized her from the video? But there hadn’t been any closeups. And in the market, she’d worn a classic winter coat and hat, without much makeup, her hair loose down her back. She’d looked nothing at all like Princess Snowflake.
Just no…
Even her name was ridiculous.
“Hello,” he said stiffly.
She smiled at him, all sweetness and light.
A gust of wind picked up the skirt of her gown and it wrapped around both of their legs, threatening to eat them alive. Nick couldn’t have fled, even if he’d tried. He was trapped.
“Wow, your costume is really…” He shook his head, unsure how to complete that sentence. There were truly no words.
“Thank you.” She spread her hands over the voluminous skirt, utterly clueless as to his sudden and acute mortification. In the distance, the people gathered in front of the castle were beginning to stare.
He needed to do something. This couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t. If the press even got a whiff of the fact that he’d mistaken a dress-up character for Princess Alana of Vernina, he’d be the biggest laughingstock in Europe. There’d be no coming back from that sort of humiliation.
Or had this entire thing been a setup all along? He didn’t want to believe that, but given his past history, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she’d intentionally misled him.
“You’re not a real princess,” he said flatly.
She gave him an exaggerated wink. “Father Christmas and his reindeer say otherwise.”
The rhinestones on her gown glittered beneath the twinkle lights strung overhead, nearly blinding him. But who was he kidding? Clearly, he hadn’t been seeing straight for the entire day.
“I’m serious,” he said.
She laughed. “Obviously.” She gestured toward the gaudy crown on her head. “Newsflash: this thing isn’t real either. Just like your medals.”
She tapped one of the gold medallions hanging from the sash strung across Nick’s chest with a glitter-tipped fingernail—a royal order, not a medal. Of course she didn’t know the difference.
Nick arched an accusatory eyebrow.
Then Gracie’s cheeks went as pink as cotton candy as the reality of the situation finally hit her, and the magic spell that had wrapped itself around them all day was broken once and for all.
“You’re not Prince Charming.” Gracie looked Nick up and down. No wonder his costume had seemed so authentic. It was real. He was real, and he was looking at her with a mortifying combination of disdain and pity. She blinked as visions of that awful newspaper picture with the Abominable Snow Prince headline danced in her head. “You’re…him. The beast.”
“The beast?” Nick’s expression hardened. Every last trace of sympathy in his eyes promptly vanished.
Which was just fine with Gracie. She didn’t need this beast to feel sorry for her. She had nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of…
Except that she’d told an actual prince that she was royal. And now she’d just called him a beast. To his face. No biggie.
“Sorry.” She swallowed hard. How could this have happened? Forget San Glacera. She wanted to run away and spend the rest of her life in a tower in the middle of nowhere, like Rapunzel. “About the beast thing, I mean.”
