A Nordic King(60)

Perhaps the week away did more harm than good.

Or maybe he realized that we’d become too close for comfort and that he needs to drive a wedge between us.

If that’s true, it’s probably better this way. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Here you are,” Karla says to me as she shuffles into the room, handing me a glass of wine.

I’m sitting in a chair in front of the roaring fire. It’s just after dinner and Aksel had gone out somewhere for dinner this evening, so I decided to take a few moments to rest and gather my thoughts, even if my thoughts are of the brooding and depressing kind.

“What’s this for?” I ask her.

She gives me a kind smile. “You seem a little blue,” she says. “This will help.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, grateful that she noticed, if not just a little embarrassed. “Do you know when Aksel will be back from his dinner?”

“He came back about twenty minutes ago,” she tells me before going back to the kitchen.

For some reason I thought if he came back he’d come right here, to have his brandy by the fire. I am in his usual chair after all.

Maybe he saw you and decided to avoid you, I think.

I’m probably fucking right.

I sigh heavily and take a big gulp of wine, hoping that it will cure my blues a little, though at this point I think only one thing is going to cure me.

I’m almost done with the glass when Maja’s head pops in the doorway. “I’m taking the girls to see the pig. They want to say goodnight,” she says. She never calls Snarf Snarf by name, it’s always “the pig.” “Oh and Aksel would like a word with you. He’s in his office.”

“Okay,” I say, my voice faltering as she walks off down the hall with the girls. I finish the rest of the wine in one swallow and take in a deep breath. Why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to be good? That’s the problem with distance, with going away. What if everything our relationship has evolved into has been razed to the ground?

I get up and slowly make my way up the stairs to the second floor. It’s quiet and empty and cold.

I’ve been in Aksel’s office a few times for one reason or another so there’s nothing out of the ordinary about this. It’s just everything else that’s putting me on edge.

I knock on his door, my hand shaking slightly.

It’s fine. It’s just Aksel. Nothing to worry about. Probably wants to go over tomorrow or something.

“Come in,” he says. Even though the door is muffling him, he sounds rather gruff.

Mr. Fucking Moody. Can’t he just be consistent for once?

I open the door and step inside.

He’s at his desk, staring down at some papers and still in the fancy black suit I saw him leave for dinner in, the top buttons of his crisp white shirt undone. Even though I’m the one who came back from a week in the sun and I’m still pale, his skin somehow stays this eternally bronze color.

“Shut the door, please,” he says, not looking up.

Gulp.

I shut the door quietly and stand in front of his desk, gnawing on my lip. There’s a strange energy in the air. It reminds me of the days in the desert when the storms would come after months of no rain. The air was electric and charged and promising change.

But what kind of change?

I swallow thickly, waiting for him to say something. I spot the Christmas gift I gave him hanging up on the wall and decide to comment on it. “I’m glad it found a home.”

“Hmm?” he asks, finally glancing up at me. That same electricity in the air is swirling in his eyes.

I gesture feebly to the photo. “Your gift.”

He glances at it over his shoulder but he doesn’t smile. It’s like he’s not the same person who opened it on Christmas Eve and laughed heartily, that beautiful rare grin of his cracking his face with joy.

I wish we could go back to that night.

He called me a goddess.

Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but he said it all the same and my ego will never let me forget it.

“Listen,” he says, his eyes moving back to mine. “I need to talk to you.”

Oh god. Okay, Aurora, calm down. He can’t break up with you. You’re not going out!

“Okay. What about?” I try to keep my voice light, a smile plastered on my face.

His eyes rake over my features, as if he’s searching for something. Some truth. Something inside me I haven’t found yet.

“How would you say you’ve enjoyed working for me?”

Oh my god.

“Working for you?”

“Yes,” he says, an edge to his voice. “Have you enjoyed your job as the nanny of this household?”

What’s going on? Why is he speaking to me so formally?

“Of course I have,” I say in disbelief. “Why on earth do you ask?”

He runs his tongue over his teeth in thought. “Where do you expect to be when your year is up?”

Oh no. Are we really talking about this already? My heart is starting to pick up the pace and the light in the room seems too harsh, dizzying.

“I … I don’t know. I hoped I would stay here.”

“You want an extension to your contract?” he asks this so matter-of-factly like he couldn’t care either way and, bloody hell, this actually hurts.