A Nordic King(77)

Aurora





March





Amelie is coming today.

I’ve been so wrapped up in Aksel over the last two weeks—literally and figuratively—that I’d completely forgotten. It wasn’t until she called me and told me her flight details a few days before that I remembered what she’d promised.

One was to come here and check on me.

Two was to get me laid.

I can’t possibly tell her that she doesn’t need to worry about that last one anymore because I’ve been having sex with Aksel as often as I can. It’s literally the best part of my day (or night, as it is), sneaking around the palace and trying to find alone time with each other. Some days it just doesn’t work out, but most days it does. We make it work, no matter how little sleep we get, no matter if it’s just a quickie in the shower or a hidden corner of the palace.

“She’s here,” Maja says from the open doorway to my bedroom. “I’ll show her to your room.”

We had Henrik go and pick her up from the airport. I probably should have gone with a sign that said Amelie on it, but the fact is, the public knows who I am now. I’m certainly not harassed when I’m out and about—Danes are far more polite than that. But they do love their royal family and I guess I’ve been accepted as one of them.

More or less.

I mean, I have seen some tabloids about me. Usually I’m just in a picture with the kids and get a one-liner about being the nanny. The more Danish that I know, the more I understand what they’re talking about and I’m not really that interesting to anyone.

But then, sometimes, there’s a strange expose on me. That’s more from the British tabloids and those Royal Rags, as they call them, media that’s completely devoted to reporting on all the juicy gossip and public events of royal families around the world.

They can be pretty merciless. I’ve seen them basically crucify Prince Viktor of Sweden and his American fiancée, and they love to hate on Prince Magnus of Norway and his old partying ways, even though he’s now married.

They have tried to go after me, just a little. They talk about the other families I’ve been a nanny for in France, they talk about how pretty I am (thank you very much), but they also talk about my slutty uniform (urgh) and how it must be hard for King Aksel to work around me. That shit bugs me the most of all. They go on to say how if Queen Helena was alive, she would have never allowed me to be hired.

That’s probably true, the more I hear about her, the real her. Aksel is still very careful when he talks about her and goes out of his way to not blame her for anything, as if her ghost is going to appear at any moment and hit him upside the head, but as I first suspected when I met him, Henrik spills the beans. Since he was her driver, he knew her pretty well and that public persona rarely matched her private one.

But it’s the public one that counts when it comes to royalty and the public still thinks she’s an angel. And since she did do a lot of good, some of it even for altruistic purposes, there’s no tarnishing her reputation.

So it’s Aksel who gets shit on and speculated on and sometimes I’m thrown into the mix. Mind you, it’s not the Danish media who is unfair to him in that way, but still.

I’m just really lucky that they haven’t been able to dig up any dirt on my end of things.

If they found out the truth about me.

If they discovered who Rory Jameson is, all of this would be over.

I really should come clean to Aksel. I should at least come clean to Amelie and start from there. But revisiting my past and the terrible horrors of who I was doesn’t seem worth it.

Everyone deserves a second chance.

Everyone deserves a fresh start.

Otherwise we’re forever shackled to the people we used to be.

Amelie herself snaps me out of my torrid thoughts.

“Bonjour!” she cries out from the door, shuffling toward me with her arms out.

“Bonjour!” I exclaim, getting out of my seat and going over to her. We embrace, bisous on each cheek.

“You look fantastic,” she says to me, motioning to my plaid skirt. “I like this whole schoolgirl thing. Very, how do you say, kinky?”

I laugh. “That’s probably not a good thing when you’re visiting a client.”

“Ah, but he is a king and you are doing so very well. You should have no trouble getting laid at all.”

I roll my eyes, stifling a guffaw. “Is that seriously why you came here?”

“No,” she says bluntly with a mild shrug. “I also came to spy. This is my first time in a royal palace, I could not pass it up.” She reaches down and tugs at my skirt in the same way that Aksel does. I raise my brow. “Now, tell me you’ll wear this out tonight.”

“If you insist.”

But, of course, before we go anywhere, I give her the informal palace tour, starting with the girl’s and Snarf Snarf, with Maja entertaining them as I enjoy a legitimate day off, then the rest of the rooms in the palace. We even pass by Nicklas in the hall, who gives me a cold nod.

“Who was that? He’s scary,” she whispers to me as he goes around the corner. Then before I have a chance to respond, she goes, “Mon dieu, that was him! The Queen’s butler.”

“He’s Aksel’s secretary now.”