A Nordic King(88)

But let’s face it, Aksel has been making me feel beautiful every single night that I’m in his bed.

“Sleeping Beauty,” Clara says, looking me over. “That’s who you are.”

“Princess Aurora,” Freja clarifies.

Clara grabs her sister by the arm and starts twirling her around my bedroom. “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream,” she sings one of the songs from the cartoon. It’s terribly off-key and she shrieks more than she sings, but there’s something so utterly charming about the scene in front of me that I feel my heart breaking into a million pieces. It’s so strange how something can make you feel so happy, so good, it makes you painfully sad at the same time.

“You’re crying,” Freja says, once Clara has twirled her toward me.

“Am I?” I say, carefully running the edge of my fingers under my eye. “Probably just dust in the air.”

I head to the bathroom and look in the mirror again, making sure that my makeup isn’t ruined. I don’t know if it was the compliments that Maja was giving me earlier, or seeing Aksel give that rousing speech, or feeling like a princess, like I actually belong here for once, but my emotions all seem to be at the surface today.

As long as I don’t drink too much, I’ll be able to hold it together.

At about 7:30 p.m., after I get the girls into dresses of their own, shiny pink and green numbers with bows, I get a text from Aksel.

Where are you?

I breathe a sigh of giddy relief. I thought he’d forgotten about me.

I text back: Just got the girls ready.

He says: Come down. I need you here.

I need you.

Such simple words and they’re setting my heart on fire.

Be right there.

“Okay girls,” I say, putting my phone on the desk. I don’t have a clutch and the dress doesn’t have pockets so it’s better off in my room. “Let’s go.”

I take them by the hands and we head off to the ball.

The ballroom is located at the far wing of the palace on the first floor and other than playing with the girls and Snarf Snarf in there, I don’t go there much.

But tonight, it’s like entering another world.

You know those royal balls you see in the movies, people in fancy dresses dancing beneath glittering chandeliers, while butlers walk around with appetizers and champagne and a violin orchestra plays in the corner.

It’s like that.

Except everyone is a lot more modestly dressed.

And by that, I mean it’s all very sleek and Scandinavian and understated.

And I’ve just walked in the room in the world’s poufiest prom dress.

Heads turn.

People whisper.

“Who is that?”

“Is that the nanny?”

“Who does she think she is, a princess?”

Okay, well I can’t really hear or understand them from where I am, but I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re saying.

It doesn’t matter though. I hold my head high, ignoring the looks, and scan the room for Aksel.

I don’t see him at first, so, while still holding the girls’ hands with an iron grip, I slowly walk through the crowd, nodding my head at some of the staff that I know. But even they are giving me a look, you know, the one that says, aren’t you working too? Probably followed by, how on earth did she afford that dress on our wages?

The latter I don’t know. The label said Valentino and I really hope it doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass, because I don’t have those kind of funds.

And then, like the sea parting for Moses, the crowd disintegrates in front of me and I see Aksel, standing with the Danish Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister spots me first, nods and says something to Aksel.

Aksel’s head pivots toward me.

His jaw practically drops. At least it seems that way to me since it’s usually held in such a tense manner.

That was the reaction I was hoping for.

I smile at him, knowing my smile makes him weak at the knees, and then glide toward him.

“Good evening, Your Majesty,” I say to him sweetly. “I have your children here.” You know, to remind him that I’m the nanny and we haven’t been secretly screwing for several months.

Clara and Freja are incredibly quiet at the moment and Aksel says to the Prime Minister, “Warnekros, may I introduce to you my nanny, Aurora James.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Prime Minister,” I say, holding out my hand.

Warnekros is an older man with a shock of white hair and glasses and he seems a little befuddled at the moment. Still, he shakes my hand with a firm grip then looks at Aksel. “She’s much prettier in person.”

He said that in Danish but I’m certain that’s what he said.

Not sure if I should be insulted or not. I guess the tabloids never do publish my good side.

“I’ll let you two be,” the Prime Minister says, placing a hand on Aksel’s shoulder before walking away to the champagne.

“Lovely party,” I say to Aksel.

“It just got a lot lovelier,” he says, his voice awed and rough. He’s getting a look in his eyes, a look he can’t show in public. “You…” his eyes slowly rake over me, up and down. “You’re more than a goddess.”