A Nordic King

“Please, don’t think too much about it. It’s all trash.”

“Yeah, it’s trashy. But there are some details that are printed that don’t really jive. Meaning, it’s easy to dig up my mug shot once you know my old name and it’s easy to find out more about Dan. But there were some personal details in the British tabloid that they shouldn’t have been able to get.”

I frown. “What do you mean? You mean your mother talked?”

She shakes her head, rubbing her lips together as she thinks it over. “No. Not that. They quote an anonymous source, but I feel like my mother would have come right out and said who she was. That’s if she even knows who I am now. I haven’t seen or heard from her in ten years.”

“So who would it be? Amelie?”

“No, not her. I don’t let people get that close to me.”

“Tell me about it.”

She nudges me in the side. “This is serious. The tabloids reported on not just facts, but feelings. My guilt over the past, my desire to become someone new. Being homeless, living under a bridge in Brisbane. No one ever knew that. I only told those things to my diary.”

My chin jerks back in surprise. “You have a diary?”

“Yes,” she hisses. “You’ve seen it.”

“I haven’t.”

“Yes, remember when you went through it at the start of my job? Bloody snoop.”

“The thing with all the nanny notes in it? That was a notebook.”

“That was also my diary. Why did you think I was so upset?”

“Because that’s the way you are?”

She grumbles. “No, Aksel. You happened to just see the notes I made about the handbook. If you kept reading more, you would have seen my thoughts and feelings. I don’t write it in every day, just when I’m feeling down or blue or angry or have a weird dream. I write about the past a lot, in order to put it behind me. What?” She’s staring at me because I’m frowning like crazy.

“Nicklas,” I spit out. I look at her with wide eyes. “It was Nicklas. He stole your diary.”

She looks disgusted. “What makes you think it was him?”

“Other than he has it in for me? Other than he knows he can get away with it? He told me once he was in your room.”

“What!?” she exclaims so loudly that the girls look this way.

“It’s nothing, go back to your games,” I tell them.

Aurora grabs me by the collar, tight. “What do you mean he was in my room?”

Right. Well I suppose I did shit the bed on that one. “He says he was looking for you. I don’t know if I believe him or not, but he saw your vase and decided to comment on how expensive it was.”

“Oh god. Oh god. What if he stole my underwear?”

“Please don’t say that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“This was just after Christmas,” I explain. “I roughed him up a bit.”

“I can’t believe you have to rough up your own staff.”

“You know how he is and there was no point telling you. You would get upset and then you’d want him fired and I couldn’t tell you why I couldn’t fire him.”

“You and I are a fucking mess,” she says, releasing me and folding her arms across her chest.

“Well where is your diary now?”

“It’s in the belly of the plane. I took it with me. And the first thing I’m going to write in it is what a big fat jerk you are.”

I burst out laughing. I can’t help it.

“What? You are. Dear diary, King Asshole was an asshole again.”

“I hope you’re including all the times I made you come in there.”

Her mouth drops, and she looks over at the girls to see if they heard but they now have their earphones on. Smart girls.

“How can you be so, so trivial about all this?” she cries out. “We’re going to land into a shitstorm and it was most likely your blackmailing employee who did this, threw me under a fucking bus. How are you going to deal with him?”

I shrug and it’s like I’m shrugging off the world. It’s hard to explain.

I think it’s because there’s a press conference tomorrow and I’ll finally be able to tell our truths.

Also, “If it was him, then he’s fired.”

“But you can’t fire him.”

“I most certainly can.”

“He’ll get back at you.”

“He already has gotten back at me. Why do you think this happened? He knows how I feel about you, how you feel about me. He knew it for certain during the ball. He’s not stupid. He found your diary on one of the many days you weren’t in your room and he’s been holding this stuff to his chest for a long time, digging up all the dirt on you that he could to ruin what we have together. But it’s not going to work.”

“But you can’t fire him. He’s going to tell the truth about…that night.”

“Then let him.”

Let him. Let him say what he needs to, and we’ll see what happens after.

“This is a gamble, Aksel.”

“Life’s a gamble.” I glance at the girls, lost in concentration on their games. But I won’t gamble them.

I undo my seatbelt and get out of the seat, taking a moment to stretch before I crouch down in the aisle beside them, staring at them until they pause their games and take off their headphones.

“What is it Papa?” Clara asks, glancing at me and then Aurora sitting behind me, in annoyance for having interrupted her.

“Girls,” I say in my stern father voice. “I have something very important I need to tell you, so I want your full attention. This is a conversation for big girls, grown-ups, and I need you to listen.”

They nod eagerly. Probably think I’m going to get them a pony or something. They’d have a whole farm if they could.

“You know that I love you both very, very much,” I tell them. “And you know that Aurora also loves you very, very much. But we also love each other very, very much.”

The girls are still nodding. I’m not sure they get it.

I reach back for Aurora’s hand and hold it against my shoulder. “I know no one will ever replace your mother. I know that. But…” I don’t even know how to word this right when there’s still a lot of uncertainty, “I want to be with her in the way I was with your mother.”

Clara cocks her head. “Is she going to become a queen?”

“Jaaaaaa,” Freja hisses. “Goddess queen.”

I laugh. “That’s what I hope.” And that’s all I can say because it’s all that I hope.

“Is she going to live in the palace forever?” Clara asks.

“That’s also what I hope.”

“Will she still be our nanny?” Freja asks.

I glance over my shoulder at Aurora, brows raised. A little help?

Aurora leans forward, smiling. “I’ll be your nanny always. But I’ll also be more than that. Remember when you asked if I had a boyfriend? Right now, that’s what your father is. And I love him a whole bloody lot.”

“But you’ll still live with us,” Clara says.

“I’m not going anywhere. In fact, this might mean I live with you forever.”

“Wait,” Freja says, scrunching up her nose. “Does this mean you’ll kiss each other?”

I grin at her and reach out, tussling her blond hair. “We’ll try not to do it in front of you.”

She sticks out her tongue in disgust.

“But listen,” I go on. “There’s one more thing. You might hear about it from other people and so we wanted to tell you first.”

“When I was young,” Aurora explains, “older than you are, but still young, I got in a lot of trouble.”

“Was it because your dad died?” Clara asks.

“Yes and no. It’s because I didn’t have a lot of love in my life, not like you two. I did some bad things. I stole things.”

“Toys?” Freja already looks like she’s plotting her next move at the toy store.

“Uh, kinda. Anyway, I was bad, and it was wrong, but I was also sick at the time. So I went to jail for a night or two, to teach me a lesson.”

Both girls gasp.

“And,” she goes on, “I learned my lesson. I never did it again. I just wanted to tell you so that you knew the truth.”

“She wasn’t always perfect,” I add, to which Aurora laughs.

“No, I wasn’t perfect, and I’m still not, and that’s fine. I made mistakes and I learned from them, as everyone does. But we wanted to tell you because people might talk about it.”