A Nordic King

I know I just spent the last twenty-four hours researching it but all that information has currently vacated my brain.

Shit. Well, I guess I’ll sit down and then I can kind of do a curtsey as I get up and also maybe it looks like I’m going down on one knee. Wait, isn’t a curtsey a combination of that and a bow? I…

The sharp step of insoles in the hallway outside the door makes me freeze.

Oh god.

I quickly sit down on the chair, remembering that I’m supposed to tilt my legs to the side and cross them at the ankles, a la Kate Middleton, just as Maja appears.

“Miss Aurora may I present to you His Majesty, King Aksel of House Eriksen.”

She steps to the side.

The King walks in.

It feels like it happens frame by frame.

I’d looked at his picture dozens of times before I came here so I shouldn’t be taken aback, but I am.

I’m nearly speechless.

It’s not just that he’s severely handsome with his cut-glass features, his tall and imposing presence. It’s the haughty tilt of his chin, the cold downward cast of his eyes. It’s the way he changes the energy in the room, both demanding that you look at him and chastising you for it.

And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Gaping at him like I’m a bloody fool.

“How do you do?” I manage to say to him as I get to my feet and offer a weak half-bow, half curtsey. I’m not sure what the hand shaking protocol is here either but I’m definitely not going to offer mine until he does.

He stops in front of me and stares down at me like I’m some strange creature he’s stumbled across on his morning walk. His eyes lock on mine and I feel my breath being stolen, as if his glacial blue irises are steeped in Norse magic.

Then his lips curl into what can only be considered a sneer.

“No, not her. She won’t do at all,” he says in crisp English. Before I can even process what’s happening, he’s abruptly turning around and striding past Maja. “Who else do you have? Bring me someone else.”

My mouth drops, cheeks going red, and Maja glances at me warily before turning to him as he leaves the room. “Sir?”

“Someone else,” I hear him snap at her as he heads down the hall.

Maja slowly faces me again, offering a deeply sympathetic look. “I’m so sorry to have brought you all this way for nothing, Miss Aurora.” She sighs and then straightens her back. “I’ll give you a few moments to compose yourself before I take you back to the airport.”

And then she’s gone too, and I’m alone in this room which feels a million degrees colder, while my skin is on fire, and my heart is beating so fast I need to sit down.

I flop back onto the seat. This is beyond feeling small. This is about feeling worthless.

I feel like whatever creature I was to King Aksel, it was something that needed to be stepped on and scraped off the bottom of his shoe.





Chapter 2





Aksel





“No,” I tell Maja, my voice booming. “No. No. No. Absolutely not.”

“But Aksel,” she says. “She’s one of the best candidates.”

I shake my head, my hands clasped behind my back as I stare out the window down at the gardens. I hate this. I hate that I have to pick out a nanny, a substitute mother for my children. It shouldn’t be this way.

It’s your fault it’s this way.

I can’t seem to get through an hour of the day without reminding myself of that.

I clear my throat. “What about the one you brought from Germany? The one with the mole between her eyes and the, uh, ear hair.”

Maja scoffs. “Aksel. The children were terrified of her. They called her a witch.”

“Terror is good for children.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. Both Clara and Freja seem to absolutely adore Miss Aurora.”

“She’s Australian.”

“So?”

“You said she was French.”

“I didn’t. I said she was in France and has been an au pair and a nanny there for seven years.”

“I don’t like her.”

“You barely met her,” Maja goes on. “You took one look at her and dismissed her. Rather rudely, I might say,” she adds under her breath.

“I heard that.”

“Well, it’s what your mother would tell you.”

“As if she was Miss Sunshine.”

“Aksel.” She admonishes me in a hush.

I turn around to face her. “She’s not dead. I can speak freely of her. And if she were all there upstairs, she would be the first to agree with my assessment.”

She sighs and rubs her weathered hand across her brow. Both my Aunt Maja and my mother were raised to be proper and rigid and eternally elitist. Maja has a heart of gold underneath her frosty fa?ade and my mother very much does not. I know I shouldn’t speak ill of her considering she’s permanently hospitalized and heavily medicated, but it is the way she taught me.

“Then give me a good reason why you’re saying no.”

“I’m your King. I don’t need a reason.”

She narrows her eyes. Unfortunately, this kind of talk doesn’t ever work on her like it works on the rest of the nation.

“I have to tell her something,” she says.

“Then tell her I don’t like her face.”

Her eyes bug out. “My god. What’s wrong with you? I can’t say that.”

I shrug. “It’s the truth.”

“Have you gone mad? Blind? That woman out there is quite beautiful.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

Or, it will be a problem. I don’t need any distractions in my life and I certainly don’t need a repeat of whatever twist I got in my chest when I looked into her big brown eyes. It hurt like hell.

“Aksel, I haven’t seen you look twice at a woman ever since…”

“This is not about me,” I tell her hastily. “A woman like that, young, attractive, she won’t last long. Some man will sweep her off her feet if they haven’t already and she’ll leave us.”

“I do believe she’s single.”

“Right. Which makes this worse. Find someone who is more…”

I raise my brows, expecting her to fill in the blanks without me having to say it.

“You want to hire someone less attractive, is that it?”

“I just don’t want to hire her.”

“That’s discrimination.”

I let out a dry laugh. “What isn’t these days? Listen, I’ve made up my mind. A nanny like that is probably flighty and unreliable, and she’s just going to up and leave and we’re going to start this process all over again.”

“But sir, she—”

I sit down at my desk and busy myself with papers, waving her away with my hand. “Send her back to the airport and on her merry way. That’s final.”

I hear Maja sigh. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The door closes behind her.

Finally, space to breathe.

I put my head down on the desk and close my eyes, letting my thoughts run rampant for a minute before I rein them in.

That was bizarre, to say the least, and I have no idea what came over me out there. I took one look at the Australian and it was like something pierced my heart. In a terrible way.

There was nothing familiar about her. In fact, everything about her seemed wholly unique, from the paleness of her skin against her mahogany hair to the pouting curve of her lips to those eyes. Damn those eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any so big and brown before, like she was a fucking cartoon. They completely caught me off-guard.

I don’t like being caught off my guard.

My guard is up for a reason.

And as a result, she has to go.

I have to say, I do feel better after making that decision. I abhor complications and especially when it involves feelings. There is no place for them in my position—you’d think I would have learned that enough while growing up. I certainly learned that with Helena. And after she died, I might as well be branded with it. Feelings don’t just complicate things, they kill.