Stealing Cinderella(58)

She storms away, and Narcissa merely shrugs as she and Magnolia resume their tea. I mute the screen again and flip it back to the main channel.

“The queen isn’t even in the grave yet, and Narcissa thinks she’s going to replace her,” Calder fumes.

“Mor isn’t safe here.” I pace the length of the room. “We need to do something.”

“He’ll never let her go,” Calder says. “And she won’t want to leave either. She has no idea what’s going on just down the hall.”

I know he’s right, but I don’t want to accept that. We can’t just leave her here while this is happening right under her nose.

“We can work in shifts,” Calder suggests. “I’ll look after her for part of the day, and you part, and we can call Aunt Runa to come. Now that the time is close, she’ll want to be with her anyway.”

“Father won’t turn her away,” I agree. “And he’ll have to keep his dick in his pants while she’s here.”

“I’ll make the call now.” Calder fishes his phone from his pocket. “You have a date with Lavinia this evening, right?”

I cringe at the mention of it. “Yes.”

“Don’t cancel. You’ll just provoke Father if you do. And don’t mention anything about Narcissa yet,” he advises me. “Right now, they think they have the upper hand, and it’s best to keep it that way while we devise a plan.”

“I’ll come back this evening to stay with Mor.”

“Just come in the morning,” he says. “You have Ella at your house. There’s nothing keeping me at home. I’ll watch over her today, and aunt will probably be here by morning.”

“Okay.”

“Thor,” Calder calls after me as I turn to go. When I glance back at him, his expression is grim. “We’re going to get through this.”





25





Thorsen





“Dinner on a yacht,” Lavinia croons as she takes her seat. “How romantic.”

“My father planned it.”

Her eyes flash, and it seems my temperament is finally getting on her last nerve.

“Ah, yes, your poor father,” she says. “I can only imagine what this situation with your mother is doing to his heart.”

The steward comes to pour our drinks, but my eyes don’t move from her face. “His heart?”

“Oh, yes.” She brings a hand to her lips, playing coy, but it feels like she’s taunting me. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t upset you by mentioning it, did I? It’s just that he told us about his own health struggles, and I assumed you already knew.”

The steward tries to leave after pouring me a couple of fingers of akevitt, and I gesture him back, snagging the bottle from his hand. “You can leave it here.”

Lavinia smiles as the steward disappears, letting out a contented little sigh as she traces the tines of her fork with a long, red nail. “So, tell me, Thorsen, how are you feeling about your mother? Would you care to talk about it?”

“How do you feel about your mother?” I dissect the lines of her face, noting how hard they are compared to Ella’s. She may well be sculpted from ice.

Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t answer my question, but as the evening wears on, I can’t help feeling that she’s still trying to provoke me. One inane question follows another, and she doesn’t back down, even when I stop answering her. It’s around this time, I realize I’ve had far too much akevitt, and by the time we leave, every word she utters is a challenge to my foul mood.

It isn’t until we’re on the gangway that the pieces begin to fall into place. The first snap of a flashbulb blinds me, followed by a torrent of others.

“Prince Thorsen, is it true that you’re engaged to this woman?” one of the paparazzi shouts.

“Yes, it is.” She grabs my arm and flashes a ring I hadn’t even noticed she was wearing. But it’s unmistakable now. That ring belongs to my mother.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I hiss into her ear as the photographers continue to snap photos and bombard us with questions.

Lavinia doesn’t waver for even a second as she turns my face back to the cameras while she leans into me. I yank her away from the scene just as Han, the head of my security detail, rushes to join us.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. We weren’t aware you were leaving.”

“Take us to the car,” I demand.

He leads the way while the mob trails us. Once we’re secured in the back of the car, I speak to the driver in Norwegian, requesting some privacy. He nods and closes the partition between us, and when I turn to Lavinia, she looks like she just won the fucking lottery.

“What the fuck did you just do?” I wrap my fingers around her throat, tempted to squeeze the life out of her. Her hands come up to mind, nails digging into my flesh as she glares at me.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she threatens. “You wouldn’t want the media to hear all about how you beat your future wife, would you?”

“You’ll never be my wife.” I shove her back, and a venomous haze clouds over her eyes.

“On the contrary, I think I will. You see, Thorsen, there’s a benefit to being at the palace. You could only imagine all the things I overhear. Conversations between your parents. The pillow talk between your father and my mother. There are so many details I’ve become privy to. Details I’m sure you wouldn’t want getting out.”