A Nordic King(65)

“At the end!” I cry out, my arms flailing. “After we made out, after you nearly fucked me from behind!”

He frowns and places his finger to his lips. “That’s not something we should talk about too loudly.”

“Right, because god forbid you’re caught nearly screwing the nanny.”

His eyes widen. “Well, yes. That’s completely it.”

“Aksel, you called me into your office.”

He rubs his lips together, taking a moment. “Yes.”

“To fire me.”

“I didn’t exactly fire you,” he says, his hand pulling at the back of his neck and avoiding my eyes.

“Yes you did!”

“You came to that conclusion on your own.”

Oh my god. Semantics?

“You let me come to that conclusion! You didn’t correct me! You only added to it!”

“I had to.”

“Why?!” I storm on over to him and poke my finger into his chest. The damn Dane is wearing another one of his sexy suits. “Why did you do that to me? You made me bare my soul to you.”

“I had to know the truth,” he says, wrapping his fingers around mine and trying to pull them away from his chest. I won’t let him.

“The truth. So it was just a lie? Were you provoking me to get the response you wanted?”

He doesn’t say anything, his gaze going to the corner of the room as if someone there will save him.

“No one can save you from this conversation, Aksel. You’re the fucking King.”

“Sounds less like a conversation and more like hysterical yelling,” he mutters.

Oh. No he didn’t.

And I think he instantly regrets saying that because he takes a step back, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Look.”

“Hey. Don’t you look me. Don’t you get what a horrible thing that was to do? To me! You made me think that I lost my job, that I lost the girls, that I lost you!”

Bloody hell. Now the damn tears from last night are coming back. I tilt my head back and stare up at the ceiling, trying to tilt them back into my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, reaching out for me.

I swat his hand away. “No. You can’t just play with my feelings like that. If you wanted to know what they were, you should have been a fucking man and come right up to me and asked.”

“Be a fucking man?” he repeats, his nostrils flaring. “I know what happened to you at your last job. I talked to your agency. I wasn’t about to put you in that position again. I couldn’t know for sure how you felt about me and I wasn’t going to risk losing you to find out.”

“But you did risk losing me! You fired me. Or fake fired me. I don’t know what the fuck you did but it was manipulative bullshit.”

“I had to.”

“Fuck you,” I snarl.

“Hey,” he snaps. “I said I had to. I didn’t want to but it was the only way I could be sure, and no I couldn’t just go up to you and ask if you’d ever thought about fucking me.”

“I gave you hints!”

“You’re hard to read.”

“Oh, I am not.”

“Yes you are. You’re always fucking with me. Teasing me. How am I supposed to know?”

I shake my head, still angry. “You ask. That’s what. Or hell, pick up the hint and just kiss me. You’ve had a million chances before now.”

“So have you!”

I let out a loud, caustic laugh. “Oh my god. Yeah right! Like I would just throw myself at my boss.”

“Well, you could have. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

“No, it isn’t over, because you did it in such an asshole-ish way.”

He reaches out for my hand and tugs me toward him. “I did it the way I had to. Look, I know about our positions here. I know I’m your boss. A king. I’m in a position of power over you and you’re my employee. As defiant as you are, I also know you love my daughters and would do anything for them, and that might mean you would do anything to keep working here. I had no idea what you’d do if I came on to you. There was a very big chance that if I did, you would have gone with it, just for the sake of keeping your job. Do you understand me?”

I squint at him because I don’t like the fact that he’s making some sense.

He squeezes my hand. “I have always been very aware of our power dynamic and I also know that some men exploit those dynamics. The last thing I ever wanted was to have you give in to me out of duty, to kiss me back because you thought it was the only way to keep your job. I couldn’t do that to you.”

“So you fired me instead,” I say quietly.

“Yes. Not for real, never for real. But just for you to think that the power I had over you was gone and you had nothing left to lose. It was the only way I could be sure. I am really, really sorry that it was so manipulative.”

Though my heart is slowing slightly and the anger is starting to fade away, I’m still upset. “There should have been another way.”

“And maybe there was. But that was the way I chose, and believe me, if I could have done it differently I would have.” He pauses and takes a step toward me, sliding his hand over the front of my robe until it hooks around the sash. “But I don’t regret it. Because it finally brought us to this moment here.”