A Nordic King(96)

“Please,” I say, breath ragged, trying to breathe through the void. “Please, Aurora, move on with me. Be with me. I—I can’t do this without you.” I press my hand to her chest. “I have a home in your heart and a love that won’t stop bleeding. I need you in my life, you are my life, you are my sun that I’ve waited too many winters for.”

I watch her swallow, the pain around my chest is closing in, tighter and tighter, and I wonder if in the end, I’ll just collapse, if it’s possible to hurt this much.

She looks at me.

And in that look, I see that sun. I see her light. I see it breaking through the clouds and the darkness that almost took her away from me.

“I love you,” I tell her again, hands going to her cheeks, cradling her face as the tear rolls over my finger. “I love you. Tell me you love me. Tell me we can move on together. Tell me I’m yours, now and forever.”

She blinks and more tears spill. She wraps her hands over my forearms. “I love you,” she says. “I love you and I’m scared. I’m so scared. I don’t want to be the person that I was.”

“You aren’t.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“I don’t want the kids to be hurt.”

“They won’t be.”

“I want to deserve you.”

“You do.”

She closes her eyes and I let go of her face, pulling her into an embrace. She wraps her arms around me, holding me tight, crying into my neck.

I put my hand at the back of her head, holding her. Letting her know that her fears have no place here.

We’ll deal with the tabloids. We’ll deal with her past. We’ll deal with everything.

None of it matters so as long as I have my queen.



*

The flight back from St. Croix is long. Even on a private jet, I don’t like being up in the air and I especially don’t like it when I feel like my country is imploding on itself from too much gossip.

But that’s exactly what’s happening.

After Aurora’s past came out in the limelight early in the morning, several other tabloids started running with it until it was plastered all across the world. I spent the morning packing and dealing with the PR nightmare of the century, fielding calls from my staff and even the Prime Minister, telling everyone I would have a press conference at the palace tomorrow.

But since there is no wi-fi on this jet, I can’t answer people or check my emails and it’s probably for the best.

Clara and Freja are sitting in the row across from us, busy on their iPad games, while Aurora sits beside me. We’re holding hands, which doesn’t seem to invoke a reaction from the girls, but it does seem to get it from the royal attendants at the back of the plane. I saw a few raised brows as they passed our seat heading toward the lavatory but of course they wouldn’t dare say anything.

“You know what?” Aurora says as she leans in to me, her voice low. “I was thinking about all the stuff they’re saying about me…”

“Please, don’t think too much about it. It’s all trash.”

“Yeah, it’s trashy. But there are some details that are printed that don’t really jive. Meaning, it’s easy to dig up my mug shot once you know my old name and it’s easy to find out more about Dan. But there were some personal details in the British tabloid that they shouldn’t have been able to get.”

I frown. “What do you mean? You mean your mother talked?”

She shakes her head, rubbing her lips together as she thinks it over. “No. Not that. They quote an anonymous source, but I feel like my mother would have come right out and said who she was. That’s if she even knows who I am now. I haven’t seen or heard from her in ten years.”

“So who would it be? Amelie?”

“No, not her. I don’t let people get that close to me.”

“Tell me about it.”

She nudges me in the side. “This is serious. The tabloids reported on not just facts, but feelings. My guilt over the past, my desire to become someone new. Being homeless, living under a bridge in Brisbane. No one ever knew that. I only told those things to my diary.”

My chin jerks back in surprise. “You have a diary?”

“Yes,” she hisses. “You’ve seen it.”

“I haven’t.”

“Yes, remember when you went through it at the start of my job? Bloody snoop.”

“The thing with all the nanny notes in it? That was a notebook.”

“That was also my diary. Why did you think I was so upset?”

“Because that’s the way you are?”

She grumbles. “No, Aksel. You happened to just see the notes I made about the handbook. If you kept reading more, you would have seen my thoughts and feelings. I don’t write it in every day, just when I’m feeling down or blue or angry or have a weird dream. I write about the past a lot, in order to put it behind me. What?” She’s staring at me because I’m frowning like crazy.

“Nicklas,” I spit out. I look at her with wide eyes. “It was Nicklas. He stole your diary.”

She looks disgusted. “What makes you think it was him?”

“Other than he has it in for me? Other than he knows he can get away with it? He told me once he was in your room.”