by Merry Farmer
But just before he reached exactly where she wanted him to be, he rocked back, panting. He licked his lips, but instead of forming words, he held up one finger. Emma watched, splayed in a pose worthy of a centerfold, as he leapt off the bed and shifted through his clothes. He didn’t find what he was looking for, then moved to throw open the drawer of the bedside table.
“Thank God,” he breathed as he pulled a strip of black-packaged condoms from the drawer. “Thank God for Aegirian ingenuity.”
Emma laughed, but that only lasted until he ripped open one of the packages with his teeth and took out the condom to roll onto his erection. And what an erection! He was perfect in every way. His hips were narrow and the lines of the muscles on his abdomen led straight to a package worthy of a Greek statue, or rather, a Norse god. He was long and thick and so ready that she broke out in a sweat of anticipation.
He started back to the bed, but froze as his eyes raked her body. Every inch of her skin tingled, and although the last shred of modesty in her whispered that she should close her legs like a lady, the way he looked at her made her wanton.
He let out a ragged breath as he rejoined her on the bed. “I want to make this good, to make it last all night and be hot, but I don’t think I can hold on for another second. You’re amazing, and I just want to be in you.”
She reached for him, pulling him into the embrace of her arms and legs. “We’ve got all night and several more condoms,” she said, laughing in spite of herself.
He answered by thrusting inside of her. The surprise of the move and the way he stretched and filled her turned her laugh into a loud moan of pleasure. He echoed it with a cry of his own and proceeded to rock and thrust into her in a fast, hard rhythm. It was so primal and so amazing that the tension that had held her at the very edge of pleasure almost since they’d started exploded into an orgasm so powerful that it left her dizzy and throbbing and red hot.
Arne didn’t last much longer. The abandon with which he made love to her peaked while she was still in the middle of orgasm, and he came with a rough cry. His whole body tensed, then relaxed. He sank to her side, and the two of them lay panting and tangled.
“I’m not going to be able to get enough of you,” he sighed, stroking her face and brushing his fingers through her hair.
“I’m never going to get enough of you either,” she sighed. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to go on without him.
Emma wasn’t kidding when she said they had all night. Arne hadn’t realized he had that kind of endurance in him. He made up for the speed of his first performance by slowing things down and giving everything he had to Emma until the small hours of the morning. He’d never enjoyed making love with a woman so much. It was more than just physical pleasure. He felt a closeness to Emma that he’d only read about and hadn’t quite believed could really exist.
By the time they’d used up the strip of condoms in the drawer, they were both so exhausted that they more or less passed out in each other’s arms. And Arne was perfectly fine with that.
He awoke as the morning sun streamed through the windows, his mind already whirling with all the ways he could convince Emma to quit her job and stay in Aegiria with him. There had to be a way. He’d give her anything she wanted. All he knew was that after the fire that had consumed them the night before, he couldn’t just let her go.
That thought was at the forefront of his mind as Emma drew in a long, waking breath and stretched against him. Her bleary eyes opened, and she smiled.
“Good morning,” he greeted her with a smile of his own.
“Good morning to you.”
He loved how gravely she sounded. He loved how disheveled she looked. He’d been the cause of all of that, and it filled him with a sense of pride. If he could leave her looking so thoroughly satisfied, he could do anything.
“How about we—”
He had just pulled her into his arms and started making a suggestion when a thump and voices from the other part of the suite shook him. Those voices materialized into words.
“—can’t go in there,” a woman said.
“I can go wherever the hell I want,” a man’s voice answered.
Heavy footsteps stomped up to the bedroom door, giving Arne just enough time to shelter Emma in his arms before the door crashed open. Hoss, Fuchsia’s manager, stood in the doorway with fury in his eyes.
“These damn, backwoods nobodies are screwing with our concert again,” he barked. His expression showed shock at finding Arne in bed with Emma for only a fraction of a second before he marched a few steps more into the room. “You need to do something about it,” he pointed at Arne as though whatever had happened was his fault. “And you,” he went on, pointing to Emma, “need to get your sparkly ass out of bed and put your costume on. The damn concert is tonight, and if we can’t go on like we’re supposed to, I’m gonna need your ass singing in the streets and signing autographs.”
The shock and indignation that hit Arne over the way Hoss was yelling at Emma instantly fractured into another, darker kind of surprise.
“Hoss, you can’t just barge in here when I’m in bed.” Emma gathered the sheets around her chest and sat up. “You just can’t.”
“I can do whatever I want, sweetheart,” Hoss growled. “I created you, and I can destroy you just as fast. Now get up and get to work.”
“What exactly is the problem at the arena?” Emma asked, scooting to the side of the bed.
“Vandalism,” Hoss said, glaring. “Our set pieces are ruined. And all of your Fuchsia costumes have been torn to shreds.”
Arne was halfway out of the bed when he froze. A chill shot down his back. All of her Fuchsia costumes? He twisted, studying Emma with wide eyes.
She shot him the guiltiest look he’d ever seen before turning to Hoss. “Get out and let me put some clothes on,” she said. “Please.”
Hoss pointed at her. “We’re not done with this.” He sent a sharp look to Arne before stomping out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
The silence that followed was almost as deafening as Hoss’s shouts. Emma let the sheets drop as she got all the way out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Arne stood, unsure whether to dress first or deal with the growing beast of anger bubbling inside of him. In the end, he ignored clothes and walked to the open bathroom door as Emma climbed into the shower.
“You’re Fuchsia,” he said, unsure if it was a question or a demand of some sort.
“Yes,” she answered as she slapped soap over her body, washing in record time.
“You’re Fuchsia,” he repeated, his anger starting to come through.
“Yes,” she answered, weaker this time. “I tried to tell you.”
“When did you try to tell me?” he nearly shouted.
“Just about every time I saw you, including while we were sitting at that bar in Heathrow.” She rinsed and turned off the water before stepping out of the shower and reaching for a towel.
Arne watched her, so full of betrayal that he barely noticed the beads of water as they dropped from her naked body. “You could have told me. You could have trusted me with something like this instead of—”
“No, I couldn’t,” she said, rubbing her body and glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “I have a contract. I’m not allowed to tell anyone.”
“You could have told me,” he argued as she tossed her towel aside and edged past him, back into the bedroom.
“And what would that have accomplished?” she asked. There was hurt in her voice as she marched to the bureau and yanked the top drawer open. She took out underwear and started to dress.
“I would have known,” he said, boiling with anger that didn’t seem to have anything to latch onto. He hated betrayal, hated being kept out of the loop and made a fool of, but the voice in the back of his mind whispered to find out more about her contract before truly getting angry. “I could have helped you.”
“You didn’t know who I was,” she snapped, stand
ing straighter once her bra and panties were on and turning to him. “I liked that. I liked that you wanted me for myself, for Emma. Do you know how long it’s been since someone wanted Emma?”
“I don’t like being lied to,” he said, mostly because yes, he did know what it was like to be adored for what you were instead of who.
“It wasn’t a lie,” she said, more defeated than before, heading to the closet.
“It feels like a lie to me.” He bent over and started scooping up his clothes from the night before and dressing. “You’ve probably been laughing at me for being gullible and blind this whole time.”
“No!” She faced him as she took jeans and a shirt out of the closet. “I swear to you, I wasn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me?” He jerked his jeans up as he straightened.
“I have a contract.”
“That says what? That you can’t tell the public who you really are, right? Is that all I am to you? The public?”
“I care about you,” she said, raising her voice. But there were also tears in her eyes. “Really, Arne, I do.”
He wanted to reply, but his head and his heart were at war, and he couldn’t figure out where he stood. Part of him wanted to believe her and to understand. A bigger part of him felt used and betrayed. Thoughts kept coming into his head, ugly thoughts, thoughts he couldn’t easily back away from. Had she let the ruse go on so long because she wanted to screw a prince? She wouldn’t have been the first women he’d dated who had that as their goal. Fuchsia was even more famous than he was, and women like that had a tendency to seek out conquests instead of relationships. But Emma hadn’t seemed like that type. She’d seemed so genuine.
Right up until she’d lied by omission. Hell, he’d introduced her to his family. Not only would they never let him hear the end of it, her dishonesty toward him felt like an offense against them as well as him.
“I don’t know what to say right now.” He finished getting dressed, turning away from her in the hopes it would ease his troubled heart. “I just want to figure out what’s going on with the concert so I can do my duty to my family and to my country.”
“Arne, I’m sorry about all of this.” Emma finished with her clothes and walked around the edge of the bed to where he was standing. “This is all just a misunderstanding. It’s all bad timing. I tried to tell you last night.”
She was right. She’d wanted to say something before things heated up, but he’d been so hot and bothered that he rushed her. Guilt added to the churning stew of anger and frustration ripping his gut to shreds.
“I don’t have time to deal with this right now,” he said with a sigh. “I want to believe everything you’re saying is true. I want things to go back to the way they were an hour ago. But I’m not in the kind of position where I can afford lies and scandal. I have a responsibility to my family and my country, and right now, they’re my only priority.” He started toward the door.
“But can we talk about this later?” She rushed after him. “We need to sort this out. We can’t let things end like this.”
The suggestion that anything was ending cut straight through Arne. He was pissed off to high heaven, but the thought that anything was over shook him to his core.
“Let me sort the concert out first,” he said, opening the door. “We’ll deal with the rest after that. But again, I hate being lied to.”
“It wasn’t—” she started, but snapped her mouth shut. Her shoulders dropped as she let out a defeated breath. “All right. Let’s deal with the concert first. But, Arne….” She followed him into the main part of the suite, where Hoss, Tracy, another woman, and three men that looked like bodyguards stood. They all gaped at him, instantly guessing what had gone on the night before. “Please don’t let this go without a fight.”
Arne eyed their audience as he turned to her, at a complete loss for words. He was saved when his cell phone—which had spent the night in the back pocket of his jeans on the floor—rang. He pulled it out and saw that Sven was calling. The trouble at the arena must have been real.
“We’ve got too many fights today,” he said with a sigh, dragging himself away from her. He answered the call as he headed for the door. “Yeah, Sven. I hear there’s trouble at the arena?”
There was trouble all over, and he didn’t have the first idea how to manage any of it.
8
By the time he reached the arena, the initial sting of betrayal had coalesced into a frustrated knot that wouldn’t leave Arne’s stomach. Part of him insistently argued that it was his own fault that he hadn’t asked Emma more about who she really was, that he’d given away his heart too fast and too fully. But she could have told him. She could have said something instead of letting him run around, looking like a fool for not seeing what was becoming increasingly obvious as he ran through the details of the last few days. He’d never seen Emma and Fuchsia in the same place at the same time, and ridiculous make-up or not, Emma’s eyes were unmistakable.
“Your Highness, there you are,” Sven greeted him at the door leading from the VIP garage—which was more than usually crowded with cars he recognized as belonging to his family—to the arena. “We’ve got major problems on our hands.”
“Tell me about it,” Arne replied, not intending to be facetious, but certain he came off that way.
Sven hurried him into the heart of the arena, blurting out a story of lax security and confused schedules for the security team that was supposed to be guarding the arena. Then they passed through a narrow corridor into the backstage area, and Arne practically tripped over his feet in shock. The entire, elaborate set was in shreds. It looked as though some mythological giant had come through with a sword and sliced everything to bits. Every last concern Arne had about Emma was blown straight from his mind.
“How the hell did this happen?” he said, gaping at the destruction.
“Nobody knows,” Sven answered.
“What are we going to do?” Arne turned at the sound of Marina’s frantic voice. His aunt charged across the stage to him, her expensive heels clicking. “This is terrible. The concert can’t go on like this.”
Alek and Kristoff were right behind Marina. Both looked as serious as if war had been declared.
“I think she’s right,” Kristoff said. “It not only looks bad, it could be dangerous.”
“I don’t think it’s dangerous,” Alek countered. “I’ve been up in the fly space. None of the structure has been damaged, just the backdrops and set pieces.”
“Who could do such a thing, and why?” Marina asked, genuine anger in her voice. She answered her own question a heartbeat later with a click of her tongue and, “I bet it was those Americans, that Fuchsia. I bet they arranged this to feed off the publicity, as if we’re some third-rate kingdom that can be trifled with and used that way.”
Arne rested a hand on her arm. “I don’t think that’s it, Aunt Marina.” Although Hoss had known about the destruction awfully early. What if he’d known about him and Emma and had caused the destruction as a way to keep them apart?
He shook his head. “Let’s not go around laying blame now,” he said. His mother and Dr. Hayes walked into the back of the arena, surrounded by bodyguards, and stopped to survey the damage. Arne headed for the stairs that would take him off the stage so that he could reach them. “We have to figure out what to do about this,” he said, voice raised so everyone in the huge space could hear him.
Marina, his brothers, and Sven all followed him through the rows of arena seating—blessedly still intact—to where Viktoria and Dr. Hayes stood, gazing around with open mouths and distressed expressions.
“Do you want to cancel the concert?” Arne asked when he reached them.
Viktoria drew in a long, shaky breath. She reached for Dr. Hayes’s hand as she let it out. The couple’s eyes met, and Arne had the feeling an entire discussion was going on without him. It sent a twist of pain through his heart. He wanted that. He wanted that closeness, that connect
ion. For one whole night, he thought he’d had that with Emma. He hated feeling like a fool.
“The concert has to go forward,” his mother said at last, though her voice was filled with uncertainty. “Although we could figure out a smaller way to do it. Perhaps not here, but in one of the television studios in the city.”
“But none of them are big enough,” Marina argued. “None of them can fit the children’s choir, for example, let alone that awful American and all her…stuff.”
“She’s not that awful,” Arne mumbled. Only part of him wanted to defend Emma.
Marina glanced at him, her sculpted eyebrows pulling together in a frown of calculation.
“Sven, can the damage here be undone in time for the concert tonight?” Viktoria asked.
Sven shrugged. “My crew could clean up the stage, dispose of the debris, but sets like that take weeks to build.”
“Is there anything you could use as a backdrop?” Dr. Hayes asked. “Even if it’s plain?”
Sven rubbed a hand over his face. “We have all sorts of backdrops in the fly space.”
Inspiration hit Arne. “Do you have a plain white drop? Like a screen?”
Sven’s eyes widened. “Projection,” he said. “The equipment is already installed.”
“You just need to figure out what images to project onto the screen,” Kristoff said, catching on.
“Does it do photos?” Alek asked. “We’ve got a ton of official photos and stuff from our family vacations we could use.”
“It’s all digital,” Sven said. “If you send me the files, I can have one of my guys put together a slideshow in a matter of hours.”
“Hours is all we have,” Arne said, checking his phone for the time. His heart sank when he saw no messages waiting. It wasn’t that he was hoping Emma would pursue him or try to explain. She had enough on her plate. The problems at the arena would affect her, too. But something, an apology, even a text yelling at him for being so feint-hearted, would have been nice. He glanced up at the others. “Do whatever you need to. This concert will go on tonight no matter what we have to do.”
