A Nordic King(13)

Aurora





Maja hangs up the phone and presses her lips together, staring at the blank screen in her hands.

“Everything alright?” I ask. I’m currently nursing the biggest wound of rejection and disappointment imaginable after being dismissed by King Asshole but that doesn’t mean I can’t be concerned about her. I rather like Maja and I have no idea how she can deal with a man like that. Though I guess being part of the royal family helps.

Maja looks at me with a tight, wincing smile. “Miss Aurora, there’s been a change of plans.”

“Change of plans?” Am I going to a different airport now or a later flight or …?

“Yes. You see, the King has made a mistake. He’d like you to come back.”

I stare at her blankly. Speechless.

She goes on, “He apologizes for it but I suppose he dismissed you too hastily. Or something to that effect. I confess, I’m not really sure what’s going on but he ordered me to do so.”

“And you do everything he says, is that it?” I question.

She gives me an odd look. “He is my King, as well as my nephew.”

“Well, he’s not my King. We don’t have a king in Australia, we have a prime minister, and frankly I wouldn’t listen to him either.”

One of her brows slowly raises. “You don’t have to take the job. But I think what this means is that it’s yours if you want it.”

Her words aren’t making the embarrassment I felt back there fade away. “I mean this with no disrespect, but I’m not exactly as, well, eager, for the position as I was before. King or not, I don’t like feeling small and that’s what he made me feel.”

“I did tell you he was disagreeable. You’ll get used to it.”

Right. Disagreeable.

“Henrik,” she says to the driver. “Tilbage til slotted.”

The driver nods, and suddenly we’re making a left and turning around.

So I guess we’re heading back to the palace.

I’m not sure how it’s possible but I’m even more nervous now than I was before.

I swear it has everything to do with the way he treated me and nothing to do with how deadly handsome he was. I say deadly because there was something about his manner and his face that almost dared you to compliment him, as if calling him handsome would get you beheaded. It was a tense, cold kind of attractiveness, like his face and body and spirit were forged in steel and you might turn to stone if you looked at him too long.

King Medusa.

Just like before, we go back to the castle, driving past the crowds who have gathered in the square, but now I’m staring up at the imposing windows knowing they keep a cruel king behind the panes. I know the proper thing would be to just gratefully accept the job but it’s rare that I’ve been able to do the proper thing. I have to remind myself to keep my anger in check. If anything, maybe I’ll try the cold and indifferent approach, much like the same approach he used on me.

Cold and indifferent, cold and indifferent, I repeat to myself as the driver parks behind the gates again and I walk with Maja back into the building.

But instead of taking me back to the room I was in before, she leads me down the gilded halls lined with statues and velvety oil paintings of important people, everything looking more French than Scandinavian, and then up a massive staircase to the second floor.

“Where are we going?” I ask quietly, feeling the need to whisper in the cavernous hallways.

“To his office,” she says, which lights my nerves on fire. “The first floor is primarily for guests and visitors, waiting rooms and dining rooms and the like. This floor is for the staff and any offices. The third is the residential floor.”

But all of that floats over my head because, damn, she’s taking me to his bloody office? Why do I feel like I’m back in high school and being dragged yet again to the principal?

I don’t have too much time to dwell on it because we’ve stopped in front of a pair of large double doors.

Maja gives me a small smile that offers no hope and then quickly raps with her knuckles on it. “Sir?” she calls out loudly.

There is a pause and then his deep voice booms, “Show her inside.”

Oh jeez.

Maja opens the door and leads me in.

My eyes quickly flit over to King Asshole sitting at his desk and then take in the rest of the room. Like I’m sure most rooms are in this palace, it’s large and impersonal. In fact, other than the desk with a phone and stacks of folders, plus some books on the shelves, there isn’t anything about this room that screams “Office of the King.”

Also, I think I was expecting him to be wearing a crown while he sits at his desk.

The only thing he’s wearing is a grimace.

I thought he would be the groveling type, but I guess not.

King Aksel barely looks at me, instead focusing on the papers in his hand. “Thank you, Maja. I’ll need a few moments alone with her.”

Her. Not even my name yet. Does he even know my name?

“Very well, Your Majesty,” Maja says and leaves, shutting me in the office with the King.

It feels like I’m being locked in a jail cell.

I clear my throat out of habit and stare down at him, waiting for him to address me personally, all while trying to appear cold and indifferent.