Page 119 of Royal Icing

“Leo, I—” Emma stopped. “Hold the fucking phone. Did someone just say fifty thousand euros?”

“What?” He whipped his head toward the park.

“Go,” she said.

He took off, jogging through the market and dodging passersby. Had they heard correctly? He had seen the auction items. Unless someone had airlifted in a luxury SUV, none of them were worth anything close to 50k.

“Fifty thousand going once. Fifty thousand going twice. One meal with Prince Leopold of Lynoria, sold to the—uh—hooded figure in the back row. You guys can see her too, right?” Henri asked.

A couple people chuckled.

Leo rushed around the corner in time to see a mysterious figure in a floor-length emerald cloak that completely obscured their face. The figure stopped at the payment table, then left. Who in the hell had just bought an incredibly expensive dinner with him? Even their hands had been covered in gloves, so there were no distinguishing features to hazard a guess.

Everything in his body was tingling with energy. With the mysterious person’s generous contribution, there was an excellent chance that they had just hit their goal. But there was only one way to find out.

Leo ducked into the community center, where volunteers were double-checking the amounts brought in by the booths. Cash machines whirred, and a hand-drawn thermometer was filling up on the whiteboard.

Someone snuck up behind him and looped their arm through his. Emma. She squeezed him, and they waited together.

The cash collector from the auction came in. Silence fell as they tallied checks and double-checked everything. They handed a piece of paper to Isabelle. She turned her back to the room, looked at it, and looked back with a poker face.

She looked him dead in the eyes and broke into a smile. “Congratulations, Your Highness. You’ve got yourself a community center fund.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LEO

“You did it!”Sal clinked a glass with Leo at the bar. The atmosphere was festive and joyful, but Leo was still apprehensive. “I have to admit, I never thought you’d pull this off when you got cut off.”

Leo shook his head. “We have the money, yes. But we still don’t know about the land. We shouldn’t celebrate yet.”

Sal leaned over the bar. “Do you really think your mom is going to go on record saying she doesn’t think the children of the village deserve a playground?”

Leo took a sip of his beer. “I don’t know. She’s capable of a lot of things I never thought.”

“Get your negativity out of here,” Sal said with a wag of his finger. “We’re manifesting.”

“I don’t put much stock in manifestation,” Leo muttered.

Sal rattled the ice in his glass. “That’s because you’re a fool. Like you’re a fool for not telling Emma you want a relationship.”

“Shh,” Leo said, then shot a glance over his shoulder. Emma sat in a booth with her mom and Arizona, laughing and clinking together glasses of Santa’s Revenge.

“You need to have this conversation. Doesn’t she leave tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Then put your big boy britches on and go talk to her.”

“Fine.”

His heart was galloping as he crossed the crowded bar. Everything was teetering on a precipice—the project, his career, his relationship with Emma. He was unmoored, anchorless. But Emma was a lighthouse in the shitstorm of his life. And she would still believe in him, even if he let everyone down.

She didn’t care that he was a prince. She didn’t even care that he was the worst kind of prince with no real job and virtually no money. Emma took him as he was, warts and all.

“There he is,” Lisa said as he approached. “Congratulations, Your Highness.”

“Let’s not celebrate too early,” he said with a grim smile. “Emma, can we have a chat?”