by Wood, Vivian
She gives me a hard look. “Do you always expect that when you snap your fingers, other people will jump?”
Raising a single eyebrow, I give her a hard stare. “Yes.”
She glares at me. “Look. You clearly have a…” She waves her hand over my body. “Like a whole thing going on here. Cocky, handsome, bad boy, brooding… whatever. To each his own. But I think we can dispense with the bullshit. Don’t you?”
I don’t give her an inch. Instead I just roll my eyes and casually head for another set of doors on the other side of the hallway. I call back as I fling the doors open. “So you think I’m handsome?”
She makes a strangled sound, following me into a darkened parlor. There is no furniture except for one couch, which I promptly fall on. Margot looks around the room, then opts to sort of lean against the back on the sofa.
“I clearly meant that… you were going for… that sort of thing,” she bites off.
I can’t help but notice the outline of her ass in that velvet dress. Just looking at her right now makes me thirsty. I have to say something, something to let her know she doesn’t get to me.
Even though she so clearly does. She starts pacing, from her spot behind the couch to a spot right in front of me.
God, I have never wanted her more than right now. Her color is high, her dress is slutty, and she’s stalking around the room in a fit of pique.
I frown, scanning Margot from head to toe. “God, you really are underdressed. Are you even wearing panties?”
She turns bright red, standing up straight and avoiding my gaze. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she snaps.
“Well… yes, actually.” I smirk at her. “That’s why I asked.”
To my complete shock, she actually balls up her first, moves right up to me, and smacks me on the shoulder. “You are such a jerk!”
My eyes widen.
No one other than my brothers has ever dared to breathe too hard in my direction, much less actually hit me. I’m surprised a second time when I burst out laughing. I throw my hands up, playing innocent. “It’s strictly for scientific observation!”
Margot scrunches up her face and hits me again. Only this time I grab her small hand in mine before she can land a blow.
She glares at me, tugging at her hand. “You really are the worst. Do other people get to witness this side of your personality, or am I just the luckiest girl in the world?”
I smirk, refusing to let her go. “You’re a brat. Did you know that? Every single inch of you is just a spoiled little brat.”
She yanks at her hand, which makes me grip it harder. “When did I have the chance to become spoiled? Hmm? Was it when I was growing up in that group home? No, maybe it was when I was busting my ass and working two jobs to put myself through college.”
The way she’s looking at me makes my blood sing. My heart starts hammering a staccato beat in my chest. My cock stirs, making its needs known. I give her a dry rumble of a laugh.
“I don’t know, but you are. You’re also rather defiant.”
She tosses her head haughtily. “You know next to nothing about me. How can you stand there and judge me?”
Margot’s eyes are throwing sparks as they burn into mine. Her chest heaves.
“We are not equals. I was born to the throne… I was born to rule. What were you born to do?” I tug on her hand hard and her small hips jerk against mine. The contact sears me through.
She actually laughs at that. My eyes stray from hers down to her mouth. Her lips are bewitching. “You’re crazy.”
I bring my hand up to grip the back of her head, barely aware of my intentions. Before I know it, I lean forward and press my lips to her lips. She only has a split second to respond; she turns her head just a little so that my mouth ends up only catching the corner of hers.
Margot’s eyes widen.
For a moment, we are frozen just like that. Me, knowing I have made a huge mistake. Her, probably wondering how to get out of my embrace.
That second seems to stretch forever… but it shatters when she raises her hands to my chest and shoves me. She’s smaller than I am so in effect she pushes herself away, sputtering.
“What are you doing? Are you insane?!”
I can’t help but agree with her, honestly. What was I thinking? Taking a deep breath, I try to ease some of the tension that has been building between us. I shrug my shoulders and play it cool.
“It seemed like the thing to do.”
She makes a disgusted sound and backs away from me. “It wasn’t.”
A narrow my eyes. “I won’t apologize.”
Margot gives me a bitter look. “Of course not. Why would you apologize about anything at all, ever?” Straightening her dress, she turns and starts to leave the room.
I stop her with a word. “Margot.”
She stills, although she doesn’t turn back toward me. When she answers, her words are tart. “Yes, your highness?”
My lips twitch. “You look good in that dress.”
She whips her head around and glares at me, then leaves the room with a disgusted sound on her lips. I lean my head back and close my eyes.
For just a moment, I enjoy my solitude. Then I hear Erik.
“Stellan?”
I open my eyes to find him poking his head in the room.
“Haj,” I greet him.
“You need to meet with the French ambassador. And there are also a whole entourage of people here from Morocco to meet with you.”
I sigh. “Ja. I’m coming.”
And just like that, I’m swept up in the royal machine again.
Chapter Fourteen
Margot
I turn a corner, hurrying along the bright streets of Copenhagen. I’m wearing a set of headphones which are plugged into an ancient iPod. Hole is playing, the angsty, screechy guitars and rollicking drums paired perfectly with Courtney Love’s violent wails.
I know, it’s not for everybody. But for me, it’s soothing. Sometimes it’s nice to hear something that really matches how I feel on the inside. I cast my gaze over the city street in front of me.
Everything seems clean here. There is no trash on the ground. There are no homeless people milling around. The buildings that rise up on each side of me are white or tan or brick. They contrast nicely with the slate gray of the street and the black and orange and green roofs.
It’s early morning and fog clings to the tops of the buildings. It’s hard to see more than a few blocks in front of me, which is just as well. I try to keep my mind on the architecture as I cross the street. The second I turn a corner and the palace rises out of the mist like a graceful giant, my heart rate starts rising.
There are four buildings that make up the palace; four massive tan brick buildings all huddled in a circle, all saluting a rather large statue of a man on a horse. With their white-trimmed windows, dark roofs, and guards dressed in scarlet, the palaces definitely proudly exude money.
It’s funny to think that the whole compound belongs to one family. Wrapping my brain around it is hard. Every single instinct I have tells me to run away screaming. The dirt poor little girl from Brooklyn who still lives inside me is terrified of all this… this wealth.
It’s just so… conspicuous. I’ve worked so long and so hard to fight against the idea of oligarchy, that a country should be run by the rich and not by the common man. I’ve protested with Occupy Wall Street; when Citizens United was handed down by the supreme court I marched in the streets.
And yet… here I am, staring up at the palaces with a sourness in the pit of my stomach.
How is this place Stellan’s home?
And how did I end up spending a night in his bed?
I swallow against the strange knot of anxiety that forms in my throat as I walk up to the gates. The palaces seem to frown down at me as I present my press card at the security checkpoint.
I feel like a fraud just walking through these gates, even though I’m not perpetrating any kind of dec
eit. A stoic guard waves me inside the gates and instructs me to walk straight ahead to the giant door of the first building on my left.
Tossing my hair back over my shoulder and smoothing my hands down my blazer, I adjust my tote bag on my shoulder.
You can do this, I tell myself.
It takes a couple of minutes and two separate skeptical looking palace servants to gain access to the palace.
I’m led down a large hallway by one of the servants. I can’t help the fact that my eyes bug out a little as we walk; the echoing hallway is made entirely of dark wood, adorned with a demure dark blue carpet runner, and lined with paintings of royalty.
I feel like every painting I pass stares down at me, somberly disapproving. Telling me I don’t belong here. My palms start sweating.
The servant stops by a door, motioning me inside. I’m not expecting to see Stellan; I’ve seen enough royal movies to know that I should be content to wait.
But there he is, extraordinarily tall in a white button up shirt and dark suit pants, standing in a room with crisp white walls. He faces away from me, contemplating a photograph that is hung on the wall. The photograph is a black and white close up of a lion on the hunt in the savannah.
How appropriate for Stellan.
He turns a little when I approach his side. He stares down at me, brooding. The intensity in his ice blue eyes makes me repress a shiver.
Ah, yes… I forgot how compelling he is, here in the flesh.
He smirks a little. “You are a photographer, ja?”
My hand slides to my tote bag, where my camera rests. I raise my chin. “Yes.”
He looks away, back to the photograph on the wall. It’s a little like a spotlight has been taken off of me.
Why do I always feel like he is going to look right through me?
“What do you think?” he asks idly, nodding to the photo.
Frowning, I turn toward the photo in question. Tilting my head, I just stare at in for a second. “It has an interesting composition. The play of light around the lion lends the photo an intensity that I like. And the lion is very close up, and obviously fixated on something the audience can’t see. It draws the audience to look just past the edge of the photograph.”
“So you like it?”
Squinting, I shrug. “Yes. It’s not the most interesting concept to me, but art is very subjective.”
He nods, looking at the photo for another few seconds. Then he turns, pacing a few feet away to stare at the next photograph hung on the wall. I follow him, curious.
“What am I doing here, Stellan?”
He looks at me for a second, his expression telling me nothing. “I was told you were here to do an in-depth article about me. Is that not the case?”
My eyes tighten on his face. “I think you know that the reasons for the article are… well, to be polite, I would say that they are politically motivated.”
One corner of his mouth curls up, making a dimple appear in his cheek. “And if you were not being polite? What would you say then?”
My mouth twists. “That buying my silence and covering your tracks by using Politiken is a form of government corruption.”
His eyes pin me right where I stand. “I see. That’s a harsh view of things, ja? As far as I am concerned, it just sort of…” He pauses, then shrugs. “It worked out to benefit both of us. Don’t you think?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “It’s just you and me here, Stellan. You don’t need to lie to me. I’ve already signed your nondisclosure agreement. There is no illusion between the two of us.”
He mirrors my gesture, wrapping his arms across his broad chest with a smirk on his face. “It’s often like that when you are dealing with the aftermath of a royal scandal. Trust me. This isn’t the first one I’ve seen.”
My brow hunches. “That’s it? That’s your answer?”
He looks thoughtful for a moment. “That’s about the scope of it, yes.”
I shake my head, a little disgusted at him. “I don’t know how I was ever attracted to you. Your…” I wave my hand to indicate his body. “Your body is so great, but your politics suck. Usually I hold myself to a higher standard than this.”
His eyebrows lift in surprise. “You are saying that you learned that I’m a royal… and it made you less attracted to me?”
I let out a laugh. “Yes! I like to sleep with people who are actually from this planet. People who are dealing with the same kind of issues that I’m dealing with. That is…” I give another huff of laugher. “That’s just not you.”
He casts a skeptical gaze over me. “You’re telling me that even as a little girl, you never had dreams of being Cinderella? Come on now, Margot. Be honest.”
The image of me at age six flashes through my brain. A skinny, dark-haired little girl in an oversized hand-me-down dress. A little girl who had just realized that Santa wasn’t real in the same month she found out what it meant when kids at school called her a welfare princess.
Bitterness threatens to overtake me. I screw up my face. “No, Stellan. You know what I dreamed of when I was a little girl?”
He pauses, his brow wrinkling. He cocks his head to the side. “No. What did you wish for?”
“I wished that my mom wasn’t a junkie. I wished that the other kids in my elementary school wouldn’t make fun of the old clothes that I wore. But most of all, I wished that I would always know where my next meal was going to come from.”
His eyebrows rise. “Surely not. There had to be some sort of…” He splays his hand out in front of himself, gesturing. “Social safety net or something. I mean, no one in Denmark suffers that way.”
My face tightens. My voice lowers. “A lot of people fall through the cracks, no matter how many safety nets there are in place. People like me. That’s just how life is. As the future king of Denmark, I hope you know that by now.”
He scowls at me. “I don’t believe it.”
I give him an offended look. “What, that I was starving while you were living your best life? You are the top one percent of the top one percent. You’re beyond rich. And me?” I thump my chest. “I’m poor. Even with a college degree, I will never earn a fraction of what you were just… born with.”
Stellan stares at me for a second, his ice blue gaze direct and intense. “You would correct the imbalance, I presume? Take my family wealth and distribute it differently?”
I make a face. “That’s not really what I’m about. I want systematic change. Global change. The weakest and most vulnerable among us need to be taken care of. And places like this palace…” I gesture to the walls around me. “They should be repurposed. Made into museums and hospitals and schools. They shouldn’t be held by one family that was chosen to rule Denmark centuries ago.”
For several long seconds, Stellan actually looks like he might just leave the room. That or summon some guard to seize me. He stares at me with an icy glare.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low and gravelly, his expression stony. “The people of Denmark need their royals.”
I give a soft chuckle. “Why? Why do you get to live such a lavish life just because you were born into a certain family?”
He takes a half a step forward. “We guide them in times of crisis. We celebrate when good things happen. We do a ton of charity work. But most importantly, we reflect the current state of affairs back at them. We serve as a touchstone for the entire Danish community!”
I cock a brow. “You deserve wealth because you are a mirror of the Danish people?”
He glares at me, smoothing a big hand over his stomach. “Among other things, yes.”
“You keep telling yourself that, buddy. And I’ll just be over here, working to right a small portion of the injustices that happen every single day.” My mouth twists sourly.
He takes another step toward me, then another, then another. I gulp as he approaches, the difference in our heights never more apparent than now. Determined to show no fear, I raise my chin and g
lare at him, defiant.
He stops when he’s almost on top of me. A hair’s breadth away. The air between us seems to thin, making me drag in my breaths. Our gazes clash, him staring down at me as if I’m a bug, me giving him my best impression of the rebellious James Dean.
I can feel the heat radiating off of his big body. Scorn lights the fires raging in his ice blue eyes.
When he speaks, his voice is low and rough. “Just so you know, Margot. This little journalism assignment wasn’t my idea. You being here doesn’t exactly please me. And I am counting the days until you’re out of my life forever. Do you understand?”
My gaze wanders down to his mouth for a second. I notice the dip of his cupid’s bow, the press of his lips, the hint of his perfect teeth when he sneers at me. Am I stupid to bother arguing with someone that has obviously been bred for this kind of wealth?
I give my head a tiny shake. “I completely understand, your highness. In a month’s time, I will be gone. You will move on with your life. Believe me, I fucking get that.”
His laugh is deep and gravelly. “Good.”
Then he moves past me, deliberately bumping my shoulder as he goes. I frown, watching Stellan stalk from the room.
That guy is definitely tightly wound.
The question is… will his behavior affect me? Because if it does, I could be well and truly fucked.
Chapter Fifteen
Stellan
My fingers are cramping up from scrawling my signature on over eight hundred letters. Not only that, but I can feel Margot just behind me. Her eyes threaten to burn a hole in my upper back. I roll my neck until it makes a satisfying pop.
Tension still simmers in the room. It has ever since Margot walked in half an hour ago.
Arrogant. Spoiled. Full of yourself.
Those words still ring in my head, thrown at me by Margot herself. I’m cantankerous today and that’s a big reason why.
I turn and face the windows of my study, a room as large and dimly lit as the rest of the palace. With the same high ceilings as the rest of the palace, this room manages to be as drafty as the others. The only difference here is that the walls are predominately dark wood, the only color a hint of blue in the curtains surrounding the floor-length windows.
