A Nordic King

And I do try. I avoid her when I can, put up my walls again and again, keep my distance. I do everything I can to keep her in her place as the nanny. She isn’t supposed to be anything more than that, and I certainly am not supposed to think of her more than that.

But Aurora is a force of nature. She’s sunshine and fresh air and the northern lights. She’s a goddess, through and through with playful eyes and a smile that will knock you flat on your back. She came into our lives like the first rays of the morning and she won’t be shuttered out or dimmed.

Even when I do my best to ignore her, she has this way of pulling me back into her orbit, wrapped up in her very being.

I always thought I was stronger than most people because I had lost so much. I thought that my upbringing, being groomed for the throne, would have made me hard and impenetrable. And it did. I prided myself for being the sort of man that nothing would get to. Even when Helena managed to penetrate my defenses, I was quick to put them up again. Stronger. Better.

But the truth is, Aurora, this living goddess in my home, is making me weak, and for the first time ever, I have something to lose.

Her.

I can’t lose her.

And I can’t keep her.

I don’t know what to do.

“Aksel,” Stella says gently, putting her hand over mine. “You know it’s okay for you to move on.”

I eye her sharply. “What do you mean?”

She levels me with a disbelieving look over her coffee. “Come on. You know what I’m talking about. It’s been two years since Helena and…”

I shake my head. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

“I’m your sister.”

“I know you are. But there’s nothing to even say.”

She frowns, and in that moment looks so much like my mother that I feel yet another pang of guilt for not going to see her recently. “I have a hard time believing that. Look, I know what you and Helena had in the public eye was not what you had in private.”

My heart lurches. Our loveless marriage was something I’ve strived to cover up, no matter the cost.

You’re so good at covering things up, I tell myself.

I’ve been silent for a few seconds so I finally manage to say, “What makes you say that?”

“You think I don’t know what a loveless marriage looks like?” she says. “Come on, Aksel. My divorce was just finalized. I know that Egil was only interested in my money and status, just as I know Helena was only interested in yours. She wanted that throne and she got it.”

I have trouble swallowing, my heart wrapped in layers and layers of hardened guilt. “She did a lot of good.”

“I know. Everyone knows. You can still do a lot of good for the world and generally be a good person all while doing the wrong things. People aren’t just black and white. We’re not even grey. We’re all the colors, mixed into one muddy mess. Maybe Helena just wanted to be a queen so she could make a difference in the world with her charities. That’s a noble cause but it doesn’t erase the fact that she was cheating on you.”

I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. “How did you know that?” My words come out ragged.

Her eyes grow soft. “Because I saw her and Nicklas once when they thought I wasn’t there. If they were that sloppy around me, they’d be that way around you. I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t assume you already knew.”

She’s right. They were sloppy. It’s like Helena wanted me to know, knowing full well that I’d never divorce her. The thing is, she was right. I wouldn’t have divorced her—that’s not why I confronted them in Madeira. I just wanted the charade to be over. I needed to say my piece.

And I said it. It was the last thing Helena heard.

“Why on earth did you keep Nicklas working for you?” she whispers. We’re in the dining room. Everyone else is outside taking part in a snowball fight that Aurora orchestrated.

“It’s complicated,” I tell her.

“It wasn’t your fault that Helena died.”

I give her a wry smile. “As much as I love it when you visit, I don’t like talk of death with my morning coffee.”

“Fine.” She sighs, annoyed with how obtuse I’m being. “Shut me out. I’m used to it. But don’t do the same with her.”

“Her?”

“Aurora.”

“My nanny?”

“Yes. The nanny you bought a priceless heirloom for. Stop pretending she’s just your nanny. I’ve seen the way you look at her. I’ve never seen you look at anyone like that before.”

I get up abruptly, the scrape of my chair echoing in the room. “You’re seeing things that aren’t there, Stella. You’ve always done that, since you were little. Your imagination gets the best of you. She’s just a nanny. End of story.”

“She isn’t,” she says, staring up at me, pressing her fingers into the table. “And if you don’t figure out your shit, you’re going to lose her one way or another.”

The thought of that, hearing those words, is another punch to the gut, this one more subtle, like the cool slip of a sharpened knife right into the spine. “There’s nothing there,” I tell her gruffly. “We have a professional relationship, that’s it, and we both know she’s only here for a year contract.”

“You should tell her,” she says, and it’s like she doesn’t even hear me. “She might just feel the same way.”

I don’t let her words in. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Even if she thinks she sees something between us, she of all people should know that I can never ever act on it. Helena was a saint, loved around the world. For me to start up with my children’s nanny would be a scandal neither I or this family would ever live down. I could never do that to them. I could never let what I feel for her become anything at all.

I can’t even say anything to Stella. All my protests fall on deaf ears. I just turn and head into the kitchen.

“I’m just looking out for you, Brother,” I hear her call softly after me. “You deserve to be happy.”

But she should know how much that’s not true.



*

I can’t stop thinking about what Stella said. Specifically, the “she might just feel the same way.”

But I certainly can’t take her advice and just tell Aurora.

First of all, I’m not even sure what I’d say because I don’t know what I feel, just that I feel it. Second of all, I’m her boss. Aurora trusts me. When I first hired her, I’d spoken to her contact at the placement agency in Paris and asked her why Aurora had left her previous jobs. Apparently at her last one, the father was a complete bastard. Sleazy, inappropriate, manipulative. The last thing I would ever want is for Aurora to think that about me, and if I do as Stella suggests, that’s exactly what she’s going to think.

No, I can’t break Aurora’s trust. I can’t act on whatever impulses I have, no matter how feverish they are. I wouldn’t ever put her in a position where she might give in to me out of duty.

But the thought alone makes me hard. The idea of her giving in to me.

That I could finally do all the dirty, wild things I’ve been dreaming of doing to her.

That I could finally unleash everything I’ve tried so hard to bury.

Then there’s the fact that she’d actually never do anything out of duty. There would be no “giving in” to me. If she didn’t want me, she’d be the first to vocalize it with no fear. That woman has a backbone made of steel.

“Sir,” Nicklas calls to me from the doorway to my office.

I look up from my paperwork, the endless paperwork of being a king. I really had no idea when I was younger that this would make up the bulk of my days. The reality of a monarchy can be tedious at times.

“I placed a call at the hospital for you,” he says. “They said she’s having a good day if you wanted to visit.”

The other day when I was talking to Stella I was reminded that I hadn’t seen my mother in a while. I had wanted to go while Stella was still here on holiday, so that we could do it together, but she and Anya have already returned back to England.

“Thank you, Nicklas,” I tell him. At least he makes the hard calls for me, but it’s not like he could go in my place. Not that I’d want someone like him to deal with my mother.