She gave him a solemn look. “I love snow when it’s deep and new, and if it’s right for making snowballs…” The solemn look became a wicked grin. “Then it’s perfect.”
He laughed, and took her across the street, to Gramercy Park.
The bluestone pathways had been cleared, but the snow on either side of them was deep, a pristine white blanket that covered the grass, shrubs and trees. The big Christmas tree that had gone up weeks ago looked like part of the stage set for “The Nutcracker.”
Kaz slipped his arm around Katie’s waist as they strolled along.
“When I was a kid in the Bronx, I used to live for snow days.”
“The Bronx?”
“Uh huh. Not your usual stomping ground, right?”
She smiled up at him. “I went to the Bronx Zoo in fourth grade. Does that count?”
“A school trip?”
She nodded. “Miss Chapman’s School for Young Ladies,” she said, and giggled. “Can you even imagine a place with a name like that?”
“Well, I bet it didn’t hold a candle to P.S. 40.” Kaz grinned. “But yeah, I can. It was probably a lot like The Academy for Stuck-Up Future Tycoons that I got shoved into when I was ten.”
Katie poked him with her elbow.
“It wasn’t called that!”
“It should have been.”
“How did you end up there?”
Kaz hesitated. He never talked about his past, certainly not about his childhood. But this was Katie. His Katie.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said softly.
“No. I do want to talk about it. With you, anyway.” He took a deep breath. “See, my mother raised me alone.”
“Oh,” she said, with sadness in the single word.
“No,” he said quickly, “it was OK. Most of the kids in our neighborhood were being raised by single moms. I mean, it wasn’t great, but she did the best she could. She never talked about my father and I never asked. And then, one day, I came home from school…”
He told her everything. All of it. When he’d finished, she stood still and turned toward him.
“The king is your grandfather?”
Kaz laughed. “Some claim to fame, right?”
“No wonder my father and his friends don’t like you, Kazimir! They’re afraid of you!”
“Of me? Hey, I’m just the guy who runs the Sardovia Fund.”
“Exactly! You control the treasury.”
“Sure, but—”
“And you’re the king’s grandson.”
“Trust me, sweetheart. There’s no love between us. I remind him of my father—who, by all accounts, was a useless piece of—”
“You and the king share a bloodline.” Katie made a face. “I know. It’s all such nonsense, but it’s a royal bloodline. That surely matters to some people.” She sighed. “People like my father probably panic over the thought that one morning the king will wake up and say, “‘My grandson, Kazimir, will rule in my place.’”