I shouldn’t knock on the door because I don’t want to wake everyone up, and unfortunately, she has her window closed.
I stoop down and scoop up some pebbles, stand underneath her window, trampling over some weeds, and start tossing them at the glass.
Shit, I hope this is her window. If I get her sister April’s, I’m in for one hell of a tongue-lashing.
I wait and look around, feeling like a stalker. The street is quiet, sleeping, no sign of life except for the cab driver sitting in his car, pretending not to watch me. After a minute, when nothing happens, I throw the pebbles up again.
Finally, I see Maggie’s face in the window, her skin pale, eyes darker than the night, looking ghostly in the faded frame.
I wave for her to come down, hoping that she will.
She disappears from sight and my chest tightens. I wait.
The front door slowly creaks open and she steps out onto the porch. She’s barefoot wearing a white robe that hits her mid-thigh and nothing else. She still has this aura around her, pale, fragile, cautious as she takes me in, her dark hair drifting around her shoulders on a soft breeze. I yearn to reach out and run it through my fingers.
It’s only then that I notice the emblem on her robe is the La Quinta logo.
“Present from work?” I say in a low voice, nodding to it.
She looks down and then wraps her robe around her tighter. “Why are you here?” she whispers, frowning.
“Because I wanted to apologize.”
She looks even more puzzled, her lower lip pouting slightly. The sight of it is forcing my brain to go in a different direction, my skin to feel hot and tight.
“What would you need to apologize for?” she asks, incredulous. “I’m the one who betrayed your trust.”
I nod. “You did. But I betrayed it first, by starting out with a lie. And I could have ended things better instead of being so stubborn and sending you home in the cab like that. I wasn’t raised to act that way.”
She seems to relax at that, eyeing me with sympathy. “You’re only human,” she says softly, sticking out her leg so the robe falls away from her white, creamy thigh, and she points her slender foot at me, tapping me on the side of the knee. “You’re allowed to be human, to be angry, to react.”
I swallow hard, trying not to stare at her thigh as she retracts her leg. I don’t know if it’s the moonlight, the fact that it’s just the two of us talking in whispers, the fact that I don’t know what’s underneath that robe, but I have a sudden urge to reach down and grab her under her thighs. Feel the smoothness of her skin squeezed between my hands then pick her up and press her up against the house, letting that robe fall open, sliding to the ground, leaving her breasts bare. I bet under the moonlight she would glow.
“What?” she asks me in a furtive hush.
I blink up at her, aware that I’ve been staring at her hungrily. My heart beats loudly in my head, sabotaging my ability to think, and I’m forgetting the whole speech I had prepared on the ride up here.
She cocks her head, studying me, still a wary look on her brow but her eyes are curious now, waiting for what I have to say.
“Anyway.” I cough. “I should have handled everything better than I did. And for that I’m sorry. But I have to know, and please be honest with me, did you know from the very start who I was?”
“No!” she says emphatically, then glances up at the windows and quickly lowers her voice. “No, I didn’t. I swear. I saw you in the hotel room and I thought you were just an average guest.” I raise my brow. She smiles. “I mean, above average, obviously. We’ve already talked about the size of your, uh…”
“Cock,” I fill in.
“Yeah,” she says, and fuck do I want to hear her say it. But I bite my lip and let her continue. “But still, a guest. Then I saw you at the bar and I don’t know. Maybe I was already drawn to you in ways I couldn’t explain, maybe it was because I’d already seen you naked, but there you were. And it was like fate was bringing us together or something. Okay, not as lame as that sounds, but you know what I mean. And I just knew I had to help you. So I did. I didn’t know who you were until I looked at your wallet.”
She’s talking a mile a minute and waving her hands around but in her eyes I see her truth and in her voice I hear her honesty and I know she had no idea.
She continues, “I can’t say that everything I did for you was because I was selfless. I think in some way, I just wanted to get to know you.”
“It worked.”
“Kind of,” she says, scrunching up her face. “Except I only got to know you as Johan. I never got a chance to know Viktor.”
“Would you like a chance?”
Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”
“Why don’t we start all over again?”
She stares at me.
I stick out my hand. “Hello, I’m Viktor.”
A shy smile lifts the corner of her mouth and she extends her hand. “Hello, I’m Maggie.”
I grasp it, giving it a firm but warm shake. “And now we start again.”
I know what I want to do, how I want to start. I want to keep holding her hand and then slide my palm up her arm, to her neck, wrap my fingers around the back of it and hold her tight. I want to pull her into me, suck that pouting lower lip of hers into my mouth until she blushes. I want to see if she tastes like vanilla ice cream, the creaminess of her skin makes me believe she does.
It takes a lot of self-control to keep myself in check, to focus on my plan.
I take in a deep breath and hope she doesn’t notice how badly she affects me.
“Maggie, I’ve been thinking that despite the last twenty-four hours, we don’t really know each other. You definitely don’t know me. So I’m offering you a chance to get to know me and to make some money at the same time.”
This whole time I’ve been speaking she’s been nodding attentively but now that I’ve mentioned money, she immediately tenses up.
“What are you talking about?” And the way she says it makes me realize she might think I’m talking about prostitution.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to pay you to have sex with me.”
Her eyes widen. “Uh, I wasn’t thinking that. But now I am.”
“Look, what if you still did the article you were going to do. But this time you have my permission. This time we’re doing it on my terms, all out in the open.”
“The article?”
I look over my shoulder to see if the cab is still there and it is. I look back to her. “Yes. What you were recording. You were going to write that up weren’t you?”
She gnaws on her lip, doesn’t say anything.
“So just do it again. Officially. You can take pictures, whatever. As long as I get to approve what you write before it’s sent wherever you were going to send it. We can even send it to the Swedish tabloids, you know they would pay top kroner for it.”
“How many kroners?” she asks.
I laugh. “Enough. Enough to get all those things you need for your family. More than that. I’d say fifteen or sixteen thousand kroners.”
“Oh my god, that much!” Her eyes nearly bug out of her head.
“It’s about two thousand American dollars,” I explain. “Still good though.”
Her shoulders slump a little as she tries to grapple the idea. “But…why would you do this?”
“Because you helped me. Now I’m helping you. That’s how these things work.”
“You think I’m charity.”
“No Maggie,” I tell her, grabbing hold of both her hands, “I think you’re beautiful.”
Her stare lingers on my mouth for a long, agonizing moment until she blinks up to my eyes. She looks scared, unsure, a tiny line forming between her brows. I can’t tell if it’s because of what I just proposed to her or if it’s because I called her beautiful, but I’m not willing to rock the boat.
“Look,” I say, letting go of her and taking a step backward. “You can c
all it My One Week with the Prince. Everyone will eat it up.”
“I just…” she looks away, her eyes searching the darkness of her front yard as if she’ll find something lurking there.
“Or call it whatever you want,” I say quickly. “I just want to help, and I think it would be fun. For both of us.”
“I work so much this week. Every week. And you’re leaving.”
“I don’t have to leave. I’ll go to LA and fly out as promised but I can spend the rest of my time here until that happens.”
“My work,” she says again.
“Luckily you work where I’m living.”
“But I can’t be seen with you.”
“It doesn’t have to be difficult. Just let me into your life this week and I’ll let you into mine. We don’t have to distract from your family. In fact, why don’t I come by tomorrow night and cook dinner for everyone. We can have the interview after.”
“You would cook for everyone?” she asks in disbelief.
“I can make more than Swedish meatballs,” I say.
At that she starts giggling, her cheeks flaring. Wonder why.
She looks over my shoulder, noticing the cab. “Is that…Earl? Is he waiting for you?”
“He’s fine, I think we’re friends now,” I tell her. “Just tell me you’ll do it.”
She’s torn. But I can tell she’s leaning toward the side I want.
“I want to help,” I add. “And before you protest again and tell me it’s charity, I’ll tell you it’s because I like you. And then when you say that it’s too much, I’ll tell you that’s what I do. Always more, never less. There is no too much with me.”
She sighs, relenting, her eyes going up to the stars for a moment and it looks like she’s having a silent conversation with God.
Then she gives me the sweetest smile, the kind that makes you melt right there and then on the spot and under that moon, and says, “Okay.”
I break into a grin, elated. “Okay.” I jerk my thumb toward the street. “Well I better get back to the hotel and you better get back to bed. I know you have to work early.”
“Yeah,” she says, “I guess I might see you around tomorrow.”
“It’s going to be hard not to know you,” I tell her.
She gives me a small wave, just a few fingers, and then turns to walk inside her house.
I stand there for a few moments wondering if I should go in after her. Wondering if when I said we were starting over, if we could fast forward and go straight to the middle.
But I lose my nerve. It’s the middle of the night and we’ve both had quite the day. Then there’s the cab, its meter running.
I look up at her window hoping to catch a glimpse of her and when I don’t, I head back to the cab and get in.
Chapter Eleven
Maggie
“Maggie, get out!” April yells at me from the other side of the bathroom door and before I even have a chance to yell back, she starts pounding on it, rattling it on its hinges.
I close my eyes, counting down to ten, hoping to rein in this permanent caldera of frustration I seem to have whenever she’s around.
“I’ll be a few minutes,” I tell her as I grab a towel, having literally just stepped out of the shower. “Go use the other bathroom.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” Her animosity flows right through the door.
The other bathroom is the one in mom and dad’s room. The room no one likes to go in, unless I have a drunk Swede passed out in there.
Which I don’t. Not today.
Last night I was shocked that he showed up like that in the middle of the night, throwing rocks at my window nonetheless. I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours after I’d spent a lot of time sobbing into my pillow and generally feeling sorry for myself, when I’d heard the clatter on the windowpane.
It took a lot of effort to wake up and notice the sound was real and happening and then I was at the window and looking down at Viktor.
I thought I was dreaming.
Viktor bathed in the moonlight, pebbles in his hand, looking up at me like every romantic movie scene you can think of. But this wasn’t make believe, even though it felt like it, and it wasn’t a dream. It was like high school all over again when my old boyfriends would throw shit and yell up at my window, so I could sneak downstairs and go have sex with them in the back of their car.
Except Viktor is the antithesis to every boyfriend I’ve ever had, and he wasn’t at my doorstep because he wanted to have sex with me.
Although, there was something carnal and hungry in the way I caught him gazing at my mouth and my body a few times…
Regardless, he was there with an apology and a proposition, neither of which I felt were owed to me.
But I still accepted them. I accepted them because I’m a weak, weak woman who is okay with feeling like charity as long as it benefits others.
And yet it wasn’t just that. I accepted his apology, his willingness to start over, his offer to be the subject of the article because I like him. I want him. I want to be around him, as much as I can before he leaves forever.
I want to get to know Viktor as Viktor. It’s not about the article anymore, though of course that money will help immensely. It’s about finding someone else who seems to understand you in ways no one else does, even if you don’t understand yourself all that well.
I mean, I was not only humiliated after what happened at the restaurant, my heart felt crushed too. Every naïve and silly hope I had inside me, the ones I kept buried, those moved to the surface like bones through a freshly-dug grave. They were exposed, bare, and felt every lash of the consequences.
This time I won’t fuck up.
Which is why I’m taking a shower right now, trying to get all gussied up for the date tonight. Okay, so I’m not sure if it’s really a date anymore. Things seem kind of odd now between us and we’re technically starting over.
Except that he wanted to kiss you last night, you know he did.
I ignore those thoughts.
Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with looking your best for a fucking prince, that’s for sure. In fact, I wish I could get everyone else in the family to dress up a little bit and behave. I know that Viktor’s already seen our side of crazy but now that I know he’s a prince, we could try a little harder.
Only I haven’t told anyone yet who he is. I did tell them his name is Viktor and I had been mistaken earlier, but I’ve left the prince part out. They definitely don’t need to start losing their shit and fawning all over him and with April being my sworn enemy these days, I hate to think what she’d do. She’d be the one contacting the local paper, or at the very worst, Tito and his crew. I’m sure they’d love to fuck up Prince Charming.
And you’d love to fuck Prince Charming.
I push that thought out of my head too.
“Maggie,” she whines, still hitting something against the door, maybe her head now.
“Argh!” I yell and quickly wrap my towel around me, whipping the door open. “Fine, it’s yours!”
I storm past her and she storms into the washroom and that door slams shut, and I slam my door shut and now I’ve officially regressed into being a teenager again.
Knock, knock.
My door now.
“Oh my god, what?” I cry out.
“It’s me,” Pike says, voice muffled on the other side.
“I am naked this time, okay? Go away.”
“Does the Swede know that Callum is allergic to shellfish and peanuts?”
Argh, fuck. I should have mentioned he has allergies. “No. I’m sure it will be fine!” I yell.
“Okay,” Pike says. “Well I’m going to skip out on dinner.”
I clutch my towel tighter around my chest and go over to the door and yank it open, wet hair in my face. I blow a strand away. “What? Why?”
Pike looks bored as he leans against the doorframe. “I have a date.”
I cock a brow.
“You…you have a date?”
“Oh fuck off,” he says, clearly way too insulted by what I just said. “You think I can’t have one?”
I just shake my head. “It’s fine Pike. Go on your date. We’ll save you the leftovers.”
“So what’s his deal?” he asks as I’m trying to close the door on him.
I pause. “Who, what deal?”
“The Swede. Why is he cooking for you, for us?”
I shrug. “I guess that’s a thing they do in Sweden. Haven’t you heard of Swedish hospitality?”
“I’ve heard of IKEA and Stig Larssen and that’s about it.”
“Well it’s a thing. They like lots of candles and throw pillows and little painted horses and they like to cook dinner for people, okay?”
“I’m not sure I trust him,” he says, looking off down the hall as if he’s smelling something.
“You can trust him,” I tell him, trying to close the door again.
“He just seems too good for you, Maggie. Too good for us.”
Again, I pause. Let out a painful sigh because damn if I haven’t been thinking that this whole time and Pike doesn’t even know the half of it.
“You can’t second guess everyone’s intentions,” I say to him. “That’s not the way to go through life.”
“No?” His eyes darken. “That’s the way dad thought. And look what happened to him. To mom. You give someone the benefit of the doubt and you’ve given them too much. They trusted too much, and it got them killed.”
Well, fuck. Way to forever inject paranoia into my life, Pike.
“I know,” I say softly. “But I’m fighting really hard to let this guy in. I can’t stay an island forever. I can’t stay a rock. I want to be soft for once.”
Pike rubs his lips together and looks away. Finally, he looks back and says, “Just be careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt. When you hurt, we all hurt.”
Then he turns and walks away. “I’ll be home late,” he says over his shoulder. “Story time is on you tonight.”
I know Pike is just looking out for me as any good brother should (watch Callum when he gets older, he’ll throw me right to the wolves), but I wish he wouldn’t worry that much.