High Risk

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  Ambra and Grace looked at each other, sharing the sense of having done something important. Ambra felt ready to pass out from lack of sleep. She was wound up and needed a shower. But she was also proud. Grace gave her a nod of confirmation. For a second, Ambra felt invincible.

  And then everything returned to normal. It was a newsroom, after all: The news continued to pour in, day in and day out. Grace disappeared, and Ambra started on the next piece in the series, which they had titled:

  AFTONBLADET REVEALS: SECT’S EXORCISM OF SWEDISH CHILDREN

  Her cell phone buzzed, and when she looked down, she saw it was a message from Elsa.

  On the way back from the hospital. Everything fine. Will read your article soon. So proud of you.

  Ambra sent a heart in reply. She felt morally obliged to be annoyed that Elsa had deliberately lied for Tom, but it was no good. If he hadn’t flown up to Kiruna, she wouldn’t be standing here today.

  She hadn’t managed to talk properly with him since he’d saved her from the burning house, just exchanged a few quick messages, and it felt incredibly frustrating.

  Back in Kiruna, she’d interrupted him just as he was about to say . . . something. She felt like hitting herself in the head. In that moment when she’d shouted to Tareq, she realized what it was he was about to say. But then it was too late, and she couldn’t exactly ask, So, it sounded like you were about to say you loved me, is that right? Maybe it was just something he wanted to say in the heat of the moment. She was a coward and felt ashamed of it. But rather a coward than rejected.

  She opened her e-mails, scanned through them. There were a number of messages from critical readers, but in general it was praise that was pouring in. One e-mail was from Lord_Brutal900. She paused, but then decided to open it:

  Read your article. It was very good. I’m sorry for everything I put you through. I’ve been disgusting. It’ll never happen again. Sorry.

  She read through the message twice, but it still didn’t make any sense. She looked up, and Grace caught her eye.

  “Did you hear that Dan Persson wants to talk to you?” she shouted.

  “Why?” Being called in to see the big boss was never good.

  But Grace simply shrugged and turned away.

  Ambra closed the strange e-mail and started to make her way toward Dan Persson’s corner office, her feet dragging beneath her. But she was proud of what she had done. If he wanted to cut her down, then she would leave with her head held high. She determinedly knocked on the pane of glass.

  “Come in!”

  Ambra forced herself to keep a nonchalant expression and opened the door to the luxurious office she had been inside exactly once before.

  Dan Persson waved for her to sit down while he continued talking with someone on the phone.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said when he hung up.

  “Yeah,” she replied. Was it meant as praise or criticism? But there was nothing to criticize. Her reports were faultless. Strong. Full of pathos. A battle between the little man and the state. The perfect piece. She was about to start bouncing her foot when she stopped herself and sat up straight. Leave with your head held high.

  “Grace wants to run it over several days,” he continued.

  “Yeah.”

  Dan leaned back in his chair and brought his fingers into a triangle. “I don’t know if you heard, but we’ll have a free position on Investigative.”

  She twisted in her seat. What was he doing? Was he messing with her?

  “I heard,” she replied neutrally.

  “I spoke with the editor. We’re in agreement. The position is yours, if you want it. You should be proud of yourself. It’s people like you Aftonbladet wants to champion.”

  “Not Oliver Holm?” she blurted out before she had time to stop herself.

  Dan looked confused. “No, he was never in the running, as far as I know.”

  He took out a flat plastic package and pressed out a piece of square gum. “Nicotine gum,” he explained, putting it in his mouth. “I stopped smoking; it’s a disgusting habit. Ah yes, I thought we should arrange a meeting for a long-term plan, too. We want to keep you here at Aftonbladet, not lose one of our star reporters to a competitor. So we need to talk wages, future, and development. How does that sound?”

  “That sounds great.”

  “Perfect. My secretary will book you. I like this. I want more women on our site. These are new times we live in, and the paper needs to reflect that. Writing more about breast cancer and women being harassed. You know. More feminism.” Ambra considered it such a personal victory that she managed not to snort at his words.

  When Ambra left Dan’s office a while later, she smiled all the way back to her desk. Grace looked up. “Good meeting?”

  “Perfectly fine,” Ambra replied breezily.

  “Good, but now we need to work. The phones are going crazy.”

  “Because of my article?”

  “Oh yes. Because of that. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  By three that afternoon, Ambra managed to make it to the bathroom for the first time. She took her cell phone with her and checked Jill’s Instagram account. Her sister was performing in Norway. Ambra wrote a comment beneath the latest picture and added a heart. She waited.

  Her phone started to ring. “I’m sorry,” said Jill.

  “Me too. Can you forgive me?”

  “Of course, but listen, I just snuck off in the middle of something, I need to get back. Thanks for writing.”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  Ambra remained where she was on the toilet. Everything was fine between them. This was completely new. The idea they could fight, say unkind things to one another, and then reconcile. Maybe other people learned that kind of thing automatically, knew that it was human to be stupid and that forgiveness was possible, but for her it was completely revolutionary. For Jill, too, in all likelihood. She washed her hands and headed back to her desk.

  * * *

  At six that evening, Ambra noticed that Grace was looking at her with a thoughtful expression. When the clock struck quarter past seven, Grace said, “You finished fifteen minutes ago. Time to go home.”

  “But . . .” Ambra didn’t want to go home, and Grace didn’t normally have anything against her working overtime. This time, however, Grace’s expression was firm.

  “That’s an order. Go.”

  As Ambra took the elevator downstairs, she realized how tired she was. She avoided looking in the mirror, knew she had huge dark circles beneath her eyes, that she was dehydrated and slightly manic from too much coffee and too little—well, too little of everything else. She zipped up her coat and clutched the bag containing her laptop against her side.

  A few of the cool guys were standing outside. They were smoking in the cold air and seemed lost now that the leader of their flock had abandoned them. Ambra walked past them and allowed herself a malicious inner laugh. She had beaten them all. With a report about women and children. And she had bagged herself the most exciting position at the entire paper. Hooray for Ambra Vinter. She just wished she had someone to celebrate with.

  “Hi there.”

  Ambra stopped dead at that low, familiar voice. She wondered if she had been working so much and sleeping so little that she was now hallucinating.

  But it was him.

  Tom.

  He was standing there. In front of her. Here, in Stockholm. And doing that thing he always did. Looking fantastic. Huge and dressed in black, overwhelming and present.

  They stared at one another.

  “Hi,” she eventually said, wondering if she sounded quite as breathless as she thought. “I didn’t know you were in Stockholm.”

  “Do you have time to talk?” he asked.

  “How did you know when I finished?” she asked, but then she realized: “Grace?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You could have called. Sent a message.”

  He shrugged in reply. He was probabl
y standing a meter away from her, yet Ambra still felt as if he was against her, inside her. His warm skin, the scent of him. The rough black hair beneath her fingers, his stubble on her cheek. What did he want? To talk? What did that mean?

  Tom raised his hand, held up a car key. “I have the car here. Is that okay?”

  She nodded, and he opened the door for her. Their coats rustled against one another as she moved past him, and Ambra closed her eyes, breathed in his familiar scent before she sat down in the passenger seat. He walked around the car, started the engine, and pulled away.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he drove toward Kungsholmen. She was far too tired for a serious conversation, too unshowered and too overworked. And he was so quiet, so lost in himself. “Tom, I . . .”

  “To my place,” was all he said. Ambra looked out the window, couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  He parked, walked around the car, and opened the door for her again. She followed him in through a doorway and into an elevator. They went high, high up. The air in the small elevator was so heavy, so saturated, that she found it hard to breathe. Tom reached out to her, and the air practically sparked as she leaned forward. And then the elevator stopped and his hand dropped.

  He stepped to one side and let her go first, and it felt like he inhaled as she passed. She couldn’t wrap her head around the strange atmosphere.

  He unlocked the front door, where she saw a nameplate reading Lexington, took her coat and hung it up, walked ahead of her, and said, “This is the living room.”

  “Ohh,” she said when she spotted the windows. She walked over to them while he moved around the room lighting candles in huge holders. The windows were tall, with low ledges. No plants, no drapes, the decor was fairly minimal. But it wasn’t cold, just restrained and masculine, exactly like Tom. And the view out onto the canal and Karlberg Castle, the city in the distance, with all its glittering lights, was so pretty.

  She turned around. “It’s so nice,” she said, wondering whether he used to live here with Ellinor. Somehow, it didn’t feel like it. There was nothing feminine about the place. The apartment felt like it was Tom’s and Tom’s alone. Shelves of books, big, modern furniture, pillows, and throws that looked brand new. She sniffed the air. “Something smells fantastic,” she said, feeling her stomach rumble.

  “I thought you might be hungry. It’s almost ready,” he said. There was a high counter at one end of the living room, and she could make out a kitchen behind it. Tom disappeared behind the counter, opened an enormous refrigerator, and returned with an ice-cold beer. Their fingers brushed when he handed it to her. She took the beer. Didn’t want to start feeling hopeful. But what if . . . This was what it could be like to have someone in your life, a man like Tom. Someone to come home to, who made food for you, who lit candles and handed you beers. These were dangerous fantasies, wanting to be important to someone. He seemed so serious, and she had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. She raised the bottle of beer to her lips and took a swig. No matter what happened tonight, she would remember the good parts. And remind herself that she was a competent working woman, a hell of a journalist. That she could survive anything. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I’ve been thinking these past few days. About us,” he began.

  She nodded, drank more beer, both did and didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

  He scratched his chin, and his stubble bristled quietly. “Lately . . . These months after Chad, in Kiruna, everything with Ellinor—it’s been . . . I don’t know what to say. It’s been a lot to deal with.” He trailed off.

  “Yeah,” she agreed as a cool sensation started to spread through her. Tom’s serious voice, those impenetrable eyes. This didn’t bode well. It was so stupid of her to come here, to allow herself all these hopes and expectations. She took another swig of beer, thought that he should have just sent her a message instead.

  “Ambra, I’m sorry if I hurt you. I know I did.”

  “I guess we hurt each other,” she said, happy she sounded so calm, so cool. She was. Cool Ambra Vinter. She took another swig of her drink. It was low-alcohol beer. She couldn’t even get drunk.

  “But I’m actually pleased Ellinor turned up like she did,” he said.

  Well, how nice for you.

  Tom continued. “I was so afraid of my feelings, repressed them for so long. After Chad, yes, but even before that. And when I met you, Ambra, so many feelings came to the surface. I couldn’t control them, and that scared me. I thought it was a sign I wasn’t doing so well, that I felt so much. That such strong feelings were a sign it couldn’t be real.”

  “You don’t need to explain.”

  “But I want to. I need to say this. Nothing happened between Ellinor and me—I want to say that, first of all.”

  “No?” She wanted to believe him, but . . .

  Tom shook his head, firmly. “No. Nothing. It’s over, and it has been for a long time. I don’t want Ellinor. I want you. Only you. I think I have since the first time I saw you.”

  “Really?” she asked skeptically, remembering their first meeting.

  Tom grinned. “Maybe the second or third time then. But I never felt like this before. It sounds so cliché, so insufficient. But I’ve fallen for you so damn hard. I didn’t even know it was possible to feel this way. It’s so different from anything I ever experienced before, so it took me a while to figure things out.”

  Her stupid, illogical heart began to pound in her chest. “And have you? Figured things out?” she asked.

  “Yeah. You’re right. I’ve been self-righteous. Mattias called me that and said I tend to bear a grudge. But I want to be better. I’d like to keep seeing you. To be together.”

  She drank more of her beer. Breathed, tried to think.

  “Ambra? Say something.”

  She looked straight at him. Stood tall, met his eye. This was the decisive moment. “I have something I need to say to you, too.”

  A shadow crossed his face. “Okay.”

  She readied herself. And then she took the leap. “I love you,” she said. It might have sounded stiff and polite. But the words were foreign to her. She hadn’t said them to anyone before. Ever. She and Jill never used those words, and there had never been anyone else she cared about.

  She would get better at it, she decided. Being brave, not just at work but also in her private life. Daring to show love, to expose herself, to wear her heart on her sleeve and keep it there.

  “I love you, Tom,” she repeated, and the strange thing was that it felt good to say it. It was how she felt and she wanted to shout it out. In a sense, she was no longer free. She loved him, and he had her trapped like that. “Regardless of what you feel and what happens next, that’s that.”

  Tom Lexington, the man who so rarely smiled, broke into an enormous grin. “That’s good,” he said. “Because I love you.”

  Her heart leaped with joy. “I thought I’d ruined everything. With that awful article.”

  “No, I already loved you by then.”

  “Maybe you aren’t so self-righteous after all.”

  “So long as I’m good enough for you, I’m happy.”

  “You are.”

  He took a step toward her, and their lips met softly.

  “Ambra,” he said, and then he kissed her neck, her forehead, her nose.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.” He slowly undid the top button on her blouse, kissed her neck, unbuttoned another, placed his palm on her skin. They undressed one another, one item of clothing at a time. They were in no rush; kissing and caressing each other as they did it, but eventually they were left facing one another, naked. There was a new gravity between them now that the words had been said. Her hands moved across his chest. Unlike her, there was almost no trace of the fire on his body.

  He looked at her with concern.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she mumbled, aware that she was covered in both bruises a
nd scrapes.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly.

  “It’s not your fault, and I’m fine, I swear. Kiss me instead.” She gently took his head in her hands and pulled him toward her. She pressed herself against the hand cupping her breast, slowly rubbed her nipple against his hot, rough palm. She panted when his hand moved down, between her thighs, as a finger found its way in. She moaned quietly, backed up until her shoulder blades were against the wall, and she pressed herself against his hand. Another finger, and he was kissing her seriously now. She clung to him. “Tom,” she breathed, following the rhythm he created with his fingers, his hands, his mouth. She lifted one leg, wrapped it around his hip. He grabbed the other and lifted her as though she weighed nothing.

  “Oh,” she gasped. It was so sexy, and she had no intention of worrying about whether she was heavy or whether the position was uncomfortable for him. Whether he would drop her. She trusted him.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, holding her steady. “I’ve got you, Ambra,” he repeated, and then she felt him enter her, slowly, deliberately, that incredible warm hardness that fit her so well. She leaned back against the wall and kept her eyes fixed on him, felt him fill her. From this angle, he reached new places inside her, and she caught her breath. His hips began to move, and then his tongue was in her mouth, in and out, in time with his thrusts.

  “Tom,” she whispered, catching his dark eyes. He was carrying her entire weight as he made love to her.

  “I love you,” he said, entering her again. He repeated it over and over as he thrust into her, kissed her, held her, hugged her. “I love you, Ambra Vinter,” he whispered hoarsely. She closed her eyes, it was almost too intense. He kissed her gently, on the lips, on her neck, her breastbone, beneath her ear, mumbled more loving words. She was so close now. He followed her every movement, held her steady, reliably. Ambra felt herself coming, opened her eyes, looked Tom deep in the eye, and gave herself over to the orgasm that was overwhelming her like a tidal wave, like a warm release. Her eyes welled up, her body shook, and he whispered her name as he, too, came, deep inside her. His arms hugged her tight as he buried his face in her neck, kissed her there, nibbled, mumbled. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, didn’t want to cry, but she felt so raw from all her emotions that a sob left her throat.