The Wild Heir(30)

“But now we have to get married!” he cries out.

“This was your idea!”

“This was my parents’ idea,” he counters, shaking his finger in my face. “And now it’s real. Jesus. I’m not ready for this.”

“You’re insane,” I mumble. “And it doesn’t matter. I’ll tell my father the truth in a few days. I just didn’t want to tonight. He sounded so happy and, well, you told me that this was all worth it to make your father happy, right?”

He seems to think that over before he nods with a heavy sigh. “Yeah.”

“And it’s the same for me. Only I don’t have the relationship you have. I don’t have one with him at all. And I wasn’t about to sever the little contact we just had because of some technicality.”

He lets out a dry laugh. “You make it sound like it’s wording on a legal document.”

“If we’re not careful, that’s what it’s going to be. Only the legal document will be a marriage certificate.”

“I need to talk to my father,” he says, turning around and opening the door.

“And tell him what?”

He pauses and looks over his shoulder at me. “I don’t know. Just that he’s put you in a very awkward position.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m fine. It’s no different than before, I had just hoped or assumed that when I told you the truth about all of this that you would decide to do it based on your own merit and not anyone else’s lies. I can have my father call yours in the morning and explain that everything has been a big mistake.”

Ugh. That hurts my heart. Not just in terms of my own father being disappointed, but Magnus’ too. He actually cares for his father and vice versa. That might be a blow neither can handle at a time like this.

“No,” I tell him. “Let me just think about it for a few days and get back to you. Let it go with your father. I just need time to process everything and figure out the right thing to do.”

“But isn’t the right thing to do to call it off?” he says. “I mean, in your mind.”

God, I’m tired. Exhausted to every last brain cell and weary to the bone. And yet there’s something blocking me from agreeing to what he’s just said.

Maybe it was the promise of respect.

Of power.

Of a voice to make change in ways I’d never dreamed of.

I only nod to Magnus. “What I really need right now is sleep. Perhaps I’ll see you in the morning.”

His dark brows knit together. “I can’t believe you might actually give this a chance.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” I tell him.

He nods. “Goodnight, Princess.”

“Goodnight, Your Highness.”

He shuts the door, locking me in with my thoughts.





Seven





Magnus





“Sir, I really don’t think you should go out there,” Ottar says, pulling back the curtains and peering out my window.

It’s not just that the weather has taken a turn for the worse and it’s absolutely pouring, dark and dreary, like October has decided to strangle the last breath out of summer.

It’s that last night as I was walking back from the pub I was harassed by not only the paparazzi but a few party boys looking to cause trouble with Mad Magnus. It took a lot of restraint not to punch them out, because, believe me, I could have with ease, and it wouldn’t have mattered how big they were. But with the paparazzi on my trail and cameras at the ready, I couldn’t afford to blow it.

So I just took their insults. Apparently I’m an attention whore, I’m not fit to rule, and I’m the laughing stock of the country. You know, the usual things I’ve been hearing these days.

I guess it didn’t help that earlier in the day a press conference had been called at the palace. I had to stand, with my parents flanked on either side of me, before a row of photographers and journalists, including those damn Russian twins, and make a public apology to the prime minister, to his daughter, to my family, and to the Norwegian people.

I don’t even know how I got through it. It was humiliating to say the very least but I guess that was the point of the whole thing. Plus, I did mean what I was saying. I am beyond sorry that all of this happened, not just because it’s brought deep shame to my family, my father especially, but because it’s pretty much ruined my life.

Then, after the press conference and the profuse apologies, I had to head over to the prime minister’s office and apologize to him in person. Thank god his daughter wasn’t there.

Prime Minister Erling Lundstr?m has never liked me. That’s been apparent from his glib comments over the years about my reputation, and the way he kind of sneers at me when we’re face to face, as if I’m the chewed up gum beneath his shoe.

This meeting was no different and there were many times I wanted to wipe that smug look off his face with a cutting remark or two. But, for the sake of everything and everyone, I managed to bite my tongue and behave. I nearly had tears rolling down my face, and I hope he thought it was because of how sorry I was that I humiliated him, not because I was thinking about having to spend the rest of my life married to a stranger.