I stare at them blankly, my brain too drugged and sluggish to comprehend.
“This is your therapy, Viktor,” my mother says. She looks at Dr. Bonakov who nods ever so slightly. “We know that you haven’t been handling the changes here very well.”
“So you’re giving me a new identity?”
“Temporarily,” the doctor says. “It’s a break. A break that we would all rather see you take than abdicate.”
“Abdicate?” Who said anything about abdicating?
“Look,” my father says, walking over slowly, hands still behind his back. “We’re no fools. We’re not heartless either. You’ve gone your whole life knowing you’d probably never sit on the throne, never having to worry about anything beyond just showing up for photos. The press has left you alone for the most part. You’ve been in the military, you’ve gone to school, you’ve studied, you’ve planned a different future from the one you’ve been handed. Now you’ve had to re-route. Your freedom has been stripped. That’s why you’ve been having a nervous breakdown.”
“Getting drunk isn’t a nervous breakdown,” I protest, though even as the words leave my mouth they’re already sounding like lies.
“Last week you swore during a live interview,” my father says, ticking off his fingers like bombs. “The next day you proceeded to forget the names of our own government officers during your meeting with the Prime Minister. Followed by you getting…ahem…handsy with one of the women at the Estonian embassy’s dinner party.”
I shrug. “She was handsy first.”
“She was the ambassador’s daughter!” he snaps. “You grabbed her ass in front of him!”
“Arvid, calm down,” my mother says, waving him away with her hand.
He lets out a huff of air and starts pacing.
She looks back to me, sympathy creasing her brow. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But we think the best way for you to deal with what happened to Alex, to deal with your new future, is to take a break. A real break. A holiday. Pretend to be someone else for a while.”
I blink at her, still having a hard time letting this sink in. “Who will I be? Even under another name, people will recognize me.”
“Here they will. Europe too. Go to America. Canada. Australia. Anywhere away from the continent. I promise you, they don’t know who you are.”
“For how long?”
“However long it takes you to get yourself together,” my father says, pausing near the door.
“I would say three weeks,” the doctor says after my mother looks at him for his opinion. “Maybe four. Any longer than that, and you might not want to come back.”
“Oh, you’ll come back, even if you don’t want to,” my father says, “you’ll come back. Or we’ll force you back here.”
“Arvid,” my mom chastises him. “Have a little kindness right now.” She smiles at me gingerly. “Four weeks. That’s about as long as we can cover for your lack of public appearances.”
“What are you going to tell people?” I have to admit, there is a kernel of hope burning in my stomach, the idea of not having to do any appearances for four weeks. Not having to be the heir apparent. Not having to be a prince.
I’m not sure the last time I felt this much light inside me.
“We’ll think of something,” she says. “You just make sure that you stay out of trouble, wherever you are. If it gets back to us that there is a prince on the loose,” she stops to chuckle at her own words and I can’t help but smile, “well, we’ll all have a lot to answer for. Above all, my dear boy, I want you safe.”
“Which means I won’t have any guards…” I say slowly. I’ve never not had a bodyguard around me, even when I was at university, even when I was in the military.
“That’s right.”
“We’re taking a big risk,” my father adds. “What you did yesterday, you won’t get away with over there. You understand?”
I look him in the eye, nod. “I understand.” I glance at the doctor, at my mother, and do my best to hold back my smile. “When do I leave?”
“After you’ve apologized to Frederick and Gustav,” she says. “In person.”
“Of course, of course. I’ll apologize right away. That was…that was beneath me, what I did.”
She pats my hand. “Then if you do that today, perhaps you can leave tomorrow. Just let us know where and we’ll arrange your ticket.”
I pick up the passport, slowly flipping through the pages.
The pages are blank and waiting.
A clean slate.
Chapter Four
Maggie
I was tossing and turning all night long, my mind racing, latching onto Korkort Sverige in my parent’s bedroom and then running wild with loose and erratic thoughts that didn’t make much sense at all. At one point I got up to pee and spent a good five minutes standing in the dim light of the hallway, staring at my parent’s door, daring myself to open it and see if the stranger was still in there. Maybe the whole thing had just been a dream, my underused imagination having concocted this mysterious man out of thin air.
It was probably an hour before my alarm went off that I finally did fall asleep, so that when I woke up again, I had that sticky panic that I didn’t know where I was or what had happened.
I groan and look at my phone as everything comes flooding back to me again. It’s six a.m., the sun is moments from rising, the dark-gray light of dawn starting to brighten before my eyes. It’s also Saturday, which means the house will be silent until around eight or nine when the first bleary-eyed kids make an appearance. I’m not even working today and normally sleep in for another hour before I get started on the day’s chores, but suddenly I’m all too aware of the foreigner in the house.
I get up, slip on my robe and slippers and silently open my door, padding down the hall. Pike’s door is still closed–so much for him spending the night outside his door with a gun–and I have no idea what to expect if I open the stranger’s door. Should I wake up Pike just in case? Do I need a knife?
I quickly duck into the bathroom and grab one of my razors, the closest thing to a weapon, and holding it in one hand like I’m about to brandish someone with it, I put my hand on the knob and gently open the door.
It doesn’t creak. Everything creaks in this old house but for once the door opens silently and I’m able to take a few cautious steps inside the room.
It’s completely dark inside, so I keep the door open so the light from the hall is able to flow in, a spotlight on his legs that barely illuminates the rest of him.
He’s sleeping, I think. He’s motionless anyway, though I can see the rise and fall of his chest. He’s on his back, which in hindsight wasn’t the best place to leave him since he might have gotten sick in the night and choked.
I realize I’m staring at him like a total creeper, mesmerized by his face even in the low light, the way that the shadows catch the hollows of his cheeks, the depth of his brows, the sharp angles of his jaw.
Then he stirs, just a little.
“Korkort?” I whisper, not wanting to startle him. “Mr. Sverige?”
He mumbles something in some language, his eyes still closed.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” I continue. “Just know that you’re safe and sound.”
God, do I ever sound like a moron.
I reach out and touch his foot.
His very long, very large foot. It sticks straight up off the bed like an Easter Island monolith.
He twitches.
I should probably stop touching his foot.
“Who is that?”
The voice makes me yelp, jump off my feet.
I whip around to see Callum in the doorway, rubbing his eyes and staring at the man.
Then I whip right back in time to see the man wake up.
Sit up.
Startled.
Sees me.
Sees Callum.
Starts yelling.
I don’t understand him
, but he is pissed and being pissed in a foreign language always sounds worse.
“Callum go back to your room!” I yell at him, waving him away frantically before I approach the guy, my hands raised, but of course one of my hands is holding the razor and it’s gleaming in the light from the hallway like a guillotine blade about to fall.
The man’s eyes widen and he moves back, rattling the headboard and somewhere down the hall I can hear doors open.
Oh crap. So much for keeping this under wraps.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say, trying to sound assuring though my voice is cracking like thin ice.
“Then why do you have a razor?” he says, speaking English now. That same perfect English from yesterday, his accent seeming to melt away though his voice is booming.
I stare at the razor for a moment while he keeps talking, “Where am I? Did I have an accident?”
I shake my head. “No. No you’re fine. You’re safe.”
“I’d feel safer if you dropped that weapon,” he says, nodding at the razor, his words sounding more polished as he calms down.
I nod and can’t figure out where to put it. I don’t want to put it in the bathroom because I feel like he’ll make a run for it when I do and the last thing I want is for this stranger to come barrelling down the hallway into everyone else, and I don’t want to put it on the bedside table behind him in case this was a tactic on his behalf and then he’ll be the one armed with the razor. And I’m definitely not giving it to Callum who I can tell is still standing right behind me.
So I chuck it across the room where it hits the window and drops to the floor.
“Callum don’t walk over there,” I tell him, still keeping my eyes on Korkort.
“Where am I?” Korkort repeats.
“You’re in our house,” Callum says.
“What is going on in here?” Now it’s Thyme behind me. “Who is he?” she gasps.
I turn to look at her standing there in her pajamas. “Thyme, take Callum to the kitchen now. Please. And wake up Pike while you’re at it.”
“I’m already up,” Pike says, not sounding impressed, not looking impressed. He comes into the room, arms crossed, eyes fixed dangerously on the stranger, Rosemary right behind him.
That doesn’t put the stranger at ease. He immediately gets to his feet and everyone kind of goes whoa and takes a step back. Even though I know he’s tall, he’s just such a looming, formidable presence, he commands the entire room
“I need someone to tell me what the…” Sverige pauses, looks at Callum, “heck is going on here before I call the police.”
“You should be grateful I didn’t call the police on you last night,” I can’t help but retort.
The man flinches slightly, a cloudy look coming across his eyes.
“Now, if everyone will just calm down and I’ll explain,” I go on. “This is Mr. Sverige,” I announce to everyone behind me, gesturing to him. “Mr. Sverige is staying at my hotel.” And at that, a look of realization washes over his face, slowly at first, then like he’s been doused in cold water. I clear my throat. “I was with Annette at the bar last night and recognized him. He wasn’t feeling very well, to put it mildly, so I decided the best bet would be to bring him back here so he could, well, sleep it off.”
I’m pretty sure my mother would have sugar-coated this whole situation to everyone, maybe to spare potential embarrassment on his behalf, but I’ve never been good at sugar-coating.
“Why didn’t you take him back to his hotel?” Rosemary asks.
I lock eyes with him. Even in the dim light, they’re the kind of eyes you get lost in.
Not here, I remind myself. Stay on task.
“Because,” I say carefully. “The hotel doesn’t like the staff and the guests to mingle outside of work hours. I could have gotten in trouble.”
The guy nods, swallowing thickly. I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his neck and feel a low hum in my core.
“Everyone up to speed now?” I ask in such a way that’s basically telling everyone to get out.
I turn to look at them with wild eyes to coax them on their way. Rosemary and Thyme and Callum are still staring at Sverige, both fascinated and scared by him. With a grumble, Pike goes in front of them and attempts to make them backup, ushering them into the hallway.
“You might as well wake up April too,” I call after them.
“April never came home last night,” Rosemary informs me as she disappears into the hall.
“What?!”
“I think I should go,” the guy says, quickly grabbing his leather jacket from the chair, though he wobbles on his feet just enough to make him quickly sit back down on the bed.
I stare at him in confusion trying to make sense of two things at once. “No, I’ll drive you,” I tell him absently while my mind goes over what Rosemary said. April didn’t come home last night? Why is no one more worried about this? Why am I the last to hear of it?
“I can get a cab,” he says, searching his leather jacket pockets for his phone. When he finally locates it, he swears. “Shit.” It looks dead.
“It’s not a problem,” I tell him. “I brought you here, it’s only fair I take you back.”
He looks up at me, his forehead creasing, and for the first time I feel like I’m really looking at him and he’s really looking at me. We see each other, not in some awkward naked encounter or drunken mishap, but actually as two people, two strangers brought together in the strangest of circumstances.
“Is this your house?” he asks after a moment, breaking his gaze to glance at his blank phone again.
“Well I live here, so yeah,” I tell him.
“And those are your…kids?”
“Siblings,” I tell him, not wanting to get into it. “I’m the oldest.”
He nods. “I see.” He’s staring at his hands now, shaking his head ever so slightly. “I’m really sorry for what happened last night. If I…if I hurt anyone, if I did anything, I can make it right.”
“Hurt anyone?” His words make me stand up straighter.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember any of it and I was at a bar…”
“Well I can’t tell you if that was your first bar of the night or not but from what the bartender said, you took a seat at the bar, ordered a drink and that was that. You passed out. Then my friend and I got there and I can confirm that you didn’t hurt anyone, you were out cold. And when the bar was closing, well it was either I bring you here or the bartender was going to call the cops to put you in a drunk tank.”
His eyes widen somewhat fearfully at that. “It would have been easier for you.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess because I’d seen you earlier in the day…” Pause for awkwardness. “It just didn’t feel right. Look, about that, I’m sorry I walked in on you naked.”
“You are?” he asks, tilting his head ever so slightly to study me through his long lashes. “I could have sworn you enjoyed that.”
Now my brows are raised.
A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips.
He’s fucking with me.
“It was an accident,” I tell him. “You oughta lock your door if you’re going to be strutting around your room naked like that and can’t hear if someone’s knocking.”
“But then I would have never met you, would I have?”
“That was scarcely a meeting.”
“Sure, but then you never would have seen me later and felt bad enough about the whole thing to actually take me to your house to sleep off the drugs.”
“Drugs?” I repeat. God, I should have figured it was drugs.
He frowns, getting back to his feet. “Prescription drugs,” he says emphatically. “I, uh, took a pill or two I probably shouldn’t have and then had something to drink, which I most definitely shouldn’t have. The combination has been known to knock me out before. I’m not sure what I was thinking.”
He stares past me at the wall and for a moment I think he’s j
udging the stained and peeling wallpaper of my parent’s neglected old bedroom but then I realize he’s lost in his thoughts, his gorgeous eyes running through an array of emotions I can’t sort through.
“Well don’t worry too much about it,” I reassure him. “You weren’t much of a problem at all.”
I don’t want to tell him that I felt strangely compelled to take care of him all night. That even though our encounter previously was anything but sexual and romantic, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Even now, with him standing here in this room, pulling on that worn, butter-soft leather jacket over those thick arms, those broad shoulders, I wish there was something I could do to make him stay longer. I’m no longer holding onto a razor blade, he no longer seems like a dangerous stranger. I actually want to get to know him because even from this brief time I can tell there’s a lot more to this man. Behind the movie star good looks, there’s a man with a story, the kind you want to pull up a chair and get lost in.
I cough awkwardly, suddenly aware of how I’ve been staring at him. “Well, Mr. Sverige, I guess I’ll take you on your way.”
“Thank you, Miss America,” he answers.
I give him a funny look. “Where are you from anyway?”
“You don’t know?” he asks.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” I tell him. Then my expression turns sheepish. “Which reminds me, I better go get your wallet.”
“My wallet?” he asks in surprise.
I point to his boots at the foot of the bed before I head out of the room. “Your boots are there. Let me just grab it.”
He starts to sit down at the end of the bed and I quickly scamper to my room to grab his wallet.
Pike reaches out to grab me just as I curl my hands around the leather and come back into the hall.
“What are you doing, Maggie?” he asks in a hush, pulling me toward him.
“I’m taking him to the hotel, chill out.” I shrug myself out of his grasp.
“I’m coming with you.”