by Karina Halle
“You’ll break the news to him?”
“I’ll film it.” She pauses. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
I was waiting for this, the potential disappointment. “It’s a girl.”
“Perfect. Do you have a name?”
“Estelle.”
“Even more perfect.”
“You’re not, like, upset? Doesn’t it have to be a boy to be an heir? That’s all Matilde complained about while growing up, how she’d never be the ruler.”
“It’s the rule for now. But I’m sure your father can rewrite that law if he wants. And if you don’t have any more children with Stella, I know that’s what he’ll do. We aren’t losing our country to the French.”
“That’s going to piss off Matilde.”
“I think she’s over the whole royal thing by now,” she comments.
After I hang up the phone with my stepmother, it takes me awhile for everything to sink in. Penelope is happy, which means my father will be too, something I didn’t expect. It’s amazing how we let ourselves get carried away imagining other people’s feelings. If we could just ask them about them outright, we’d probably save ourselves a lot of grief in life.
I get back to the hospital, an extra spring in my step, excited to tell Stella the good news, when I’m met with a huge surprise.
Zoya is sitting in the chair beside Stella, laughing to her about something.
I stop dead in my tracks as they both look to me.
Zoya quickly gets to her feet and gestures to the chair. “Here, sit down.”
She’s smiling. She genuinely seems happy.
What’s going on?
“Uh,” I say as I slowly walk toward them. “I don’t mean to sound rude, Zoya, but why are you here?”
“Matilde called me and told me everything,” she says.
What is up with siblings making all these phone calls behind our backs?
But I can’t complain. Without Aksel’s call, I wouldn’t be here.
“So you came all the way over here?” I ask, not getting it at all. “To see Stella?”
“To see the both of you,” she says. She walks over to me and grabs my hand and leads me over to Stella, placing her hands on my shoulders and pushing me down until I’m sitting on the chair.
I glance over at Stella, my brows raised in confusion, but she just gives me a small smile that I can’t read much into.
Zoya stands in front of us. “Matilde called me and told me what happened. I went over to her house. She made me some tea. Then she really told me what was going on.” She looks between us. “I just have to say…I am so sorry for the way I acted. I know now that I was acting irrationally, out of fear. I panicked, you know? I thought I would lose everything.”
I want to tell her that she absolutely had every reason to panic since there was a chance she really could lose everything but she goes on, “But after I talked to Matilde and the way she explained it, I realized I had to talk to Emily about it, too. That I was making decisions for her without taking in how she was feeling. All this time, she was the mistress, she was the one who was the secret. Emily didn’t want that. She felt hidden and ashamed and jealous of you, Orlando. Jealous that you got to be with me and she didn’t. Emily wanted us out in the open. She doesn’t care if we lose everything because in the end, all we really need is each other. And you know what? She’s right. That’s all that matters. I don’t want who I love to be a secret, I don’t want to live in fear and I don’t want to feel ashamed. Love is love is love, as they say. And as long as I have love, as long as I have her, they can try and take it all but I won’t lose everything.”
I hear a sniff from beside me. Stella is crying.
Now Zoya is crying.
Shit.
I hold it together.
“So what are you saying?” I ask her.
Zoya smiles at me. “You guys are in love and you have a baby together. I’m letting you go, Orlando. I’m making that choice so you don’t have to. I’m choosing Emily. You’re choosing Stella. And who knows, maybe one day Emily and I will be as blessed as you are.”
Blessed.
I look over at Stella and grab her hand, kissing the top of it, feeling every single emotion burning away inside me. Happiness, relief, joy.
Gratitude.
Because Zoya is right.
We are blessed.
Stella was only in the hospital for a week in total but it felt like forever. Even after all the tests were done and it was shown that the bleeding had stopped, they wanted to keep her under observation. I have a feeling that because she’s royalty, they were being extra-cautious and I guess there’s no harm in that. But it felt like heaven when they finally allowed her to be discharged.
We could go back to normal, at least our new normal.
Me, Stella, and Estelle.
Little does Stella know that her life is going to change yet again. And for the better.
At least, I’m crossing my fingers that it does.
News had traveled fast that Stella was in the hospital, though no one in the press could quite figure out who the baby daddy was. At first, anyway. Then I think one of the hospital staff must have said something and sold us out.
It didn’t matter, though. We knew that we would announce it soon. We were waiting for the right time. And so while news of us together spread like wildfire, the two of us decided to have a little press conference in front of the palace.
This isn’t something new. Aksel and Aurora held a similar conference when they announced to the world that they were together. I guess we’re just following in their footsteps.
“This is it,” I tell Stella, holding onto her hand and giving it a squeeze. We’re both bundled in winter coats, though I tried to take the advice of Francis and pop some color into my life, so my coat is olive green. Probably not what he meant, but it compliments Stella’s grey trench that does nothing to disguise her pregnant belly.
“I’m ready if you are?” she says, flashing me her sweet smile.
I kiss her on the cheek and hand-in-hand, we exit the palace doors and step out in front of the crowd of reporters and onlookers.
There are a lot of people here, which makes me feel more nervous than ever, to the point where Stella basically has to rip her hand out of my grip. But she doesn’t get why I’m nervous.
She will soon.
Stella smiles at the crowd and waves like a princess and then she launches into her speech. It’s in Danish but she told it to me earlier and it’s all diplomatic bullshit along the lines of “I wanted to protect the identity of the father because we wanted to love on our daughter in privacy, etc etc but I have a duty to my people to keep you informed etc etc.” That sort of thing.
In fact, I think it’s more than that because Stella talks for a really long time (I’ll have to tell her this later, but she’s more of a royal than she thinks) and she fields a lot of questions. I have no idea what everyone is saying, but they all seem to be really happy.
“I have a question for Prince Orlando,” a woman with a British accent says to me once Stella has finished talking and we’ve posed for a few photos.
“Yes?” I tell her, thinking it’s going to be about Zoya.
“Your Serene Highness,” she says, adjusting her scarf around her neck. A light snow has started to pick up, though we’re under some cover. “What does your father think about the fact that you’re having a girl? Don’t you need a male heir to the throne or Monaco will revert back to being part of France, as per the treaty?”
I was ready for this one. “My father is delighted that we are having a girl. If one day we need to change that rule, we will. My daughter may very well be the first female ruler of Monaco. I know the Monégasques would rather that happen than let the French take over.”
She nods. “And how does your father feel about the fact that you’re having a child out of wedlock? Doesn’t that count against the child’s eligibility?”
Perfect fucking segue.
/> “Funny you should ask that question,” I say to her, flashing my smile at the crowd. “Because there is a solution to that.”
Stella is staring at me, curious and confused as to what I’m about to say.
I turn to her, take both her hands in mine.
Look deep into her beautiful eyes.
Smile.
She smiles back, that smile that reaches right into my heart.
“Princess Stella of House Eriksen,” I say to her and only to her. In seconds, it’s like the crowd completely disappears. All I see is her eyes, the rest of the world falls away. “The day I first met you, I knew we knew each other. Deep down inside, my heart saw something in yours. I think what it saw, was the ability to be a better person. The ability to love. The ability to find myself and the happiness that was always in me, that had always escaped me. I saw that in you and I wanted to be a part of it.”
My breath is starting to shake and I grip her hands tighter. “But you were like a shooting star. So quick and so bright across the sky, almost impossible to capture. Being with you, I can imagine what it must have been like to be as the first humans were, staring up at the night sky and wondering how something so beautiful and mysterious could exist. Wondering if they would ever see such magic again.”
Her lower lip is quivering.
I drop to one knee and hold her hand.
Everyone in the crowd gasps, including Aksel, Aurora, Maja and the all children who have been standing off to the side of us. I pull out a ring from my pocket, a giant yellow diamond surrounded by three smaller ones.
Everyone gasps again.
“Stella, my star in the sky,” I say as I stare up at her. “I managed to pull the impossible and capture you, magic in my hands. And I want that magic to last forever between us. I want the light to shine brighter with the birth of our little star, I want to keep it going until our days grow dark. Stella, will you marry me?”
She swallows. Eyes fluttering. Mouth falls open.
“Yes,” she manages to say. “Yes, I will marry you Orlando. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” My words come out hushed because I’m smiling so damn hard.
With shaking hands I slip the ring on her finger.
The diamond in the middle is her. The star.
The three other diamonds are me, Anya and Estelle.
Forever together, burning bright, as a family.
I get to my feet and we kiss.
The crowd is swooning, the cameras are flashing.
The tears flow.
I place a hand on her stomach.
The stars are mine.
Epilogue
Orlando
Three months later
“Welcome home, little star,” my fiancée whispers to Estelle, holding her close to her chest as we step inside the palace. As the doors close behind us, the shouts of the photographers and the press fade away. I didn’t necessarily want to have them here on the day we returned home from the hospital and told Stella as such. But she said she felt like she’d kept our daughter a secret for so long, that she wanted to show her off, much like I did with my proposal. She thought her people deserved to see her.
Her people.
I liked the way she was thinking—I don’t think I’d ever heard her refer to the Danes as her people before, even though it’s true. It’s like with Estelle being born, she’s finally feeling like a princess, and almost like a queen.
I know in the future she’ll be living with me in Monaco but that won’t be for some time and even then, they will always be her people. And one day, so will the Monégasques. Honestly, I’ve never seen the people so happy and excited as they have been over Estelle’s birth. I heard that the entire country had a holiday in honor of her (at least that’s what Francis says—he’s probably pulling my leg).
Stella glances up at me as I guide her through the palace, my hand protectively at her back.
“We made it,” I tell her.
“And not a moment too soon,” her aunt Maja says to us. She’s standing in the middle of the foyer beside Aksel and Aurora. To the side of them are Clara, Freja, and Anya. And behind them are the rest of the staff, also looking equally as eager. All of them are staring at us with the biggest smiles on their faces, almost twitching for us to get closer. Henrik has a guitar, which doesn’t bode well for any of us.
Before I can ask where my own family is since I heard they were supposed to be here, I hear Penelope’s shriek of excitement ring throughout the halls.
“They’re here!” she yells and suddenly the small crowd gathered in front of us becomes a bigger crowd when Penelope, my father, and my siblings join them.
Chaos ensues.
All of us are swept up in kisses and hugs and cooing and I don’t think I’ve ever had so much attention before. Okay, I know the attention is all for Estelle, but still, I had a minor part in her creation.
“She looks just like you Orlando,” Penelope says as she gazes at her adoringly.
“She looks just like Stella,” counters Aurora.
“No offense but she looks like a ball of mush to me,” Francis comments and when everyone gives him a look, he says, “But a beautiful ball of mush. Don’t get me wrong.”
“You must be exhausted,” Maja says to Stella.
“But you don’t look it,” Matilde adds.
“Is it just me or does the girl look like her grandfather?” my father asks, peering closely at her face. He’s very wrong.
Somewhere in the background, Henrik is playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” until it starts to morph into “Wonderwall.”
“I said maybe,” Henrik sings in his deep booming voice. “She’s gonna be the star that saves me.”
Stella looks up at me and rolls her eyes but I just shrug.
I don’t hate it.
“I think it’s time we had a proper toast,” Aksel says, sidling up to me. He touches my elbow and then jerks his head to the hall. “Don’t worry about the girls, we can come back in an hour and everyone will still be right here.”
I follow him down the hall and away from the crowd, feeling a little uncertain where this is going. Aksel and I occasionally butted heads over the last few months of my living here and while I think he’s come to accept me always being around, he has a way about him that’s hard to read. I think I’ve seen him smile a handful of times and they’ve all been for Aurora or the kids.
We walk into his study and he grabs a bottle of Scotch from behind the elegant bar he has set-up. The man has bars all over the palace but I feel like it’s this one that’s the most personal. This is the room he comes to when he wants to be alone (no kids allowed).
Actually, I’m honored to be in here, especially when he hands me a glass of Scotch and a cigar.
“You’re a father now, Orlando,” he says. “This is the day that everything changes. For better or for worse, you’re a man now.”
I don’t know why it feels like Aksel is giving me the talk that my father never did with me, but I’m not going to complain.
“To being a man,” I say, raising my glass.
“To being a father,” he says. “The best role you’ll ever have.”
We clink our glasses together and have a sip. The Scotch is as smooth as silk.
His face grows grim for a second. “But if you ever fuck over Stella or my niece in any way, I will seriously behead you and feed you to the pig.”
I let out a nervous laugh but he doesn’t laugh back.
Finally he pulls out his lighter and flicks on the flame. “Shall we?” he says.
He walks toward the French doors and opens them, stepping out into the fresh spring air, lighting his cigar.
I follow the king and hope for the best.
It took a few days for Stella to recover enough from giving birth. She was in labor for a long time and everyone was being extra cautious because of her previous complications.
But when she was finally feeling better, we decided to take Estelle t
o meet her grandmother.
I’d come with Stella to see her mother a few times before and it’s always been tough. But today, Stella was full of hope. Even though she was trying not to expect much, I know she thought it was important that Estelle meet her mother, even if it wasn’t really the other way around.
While Stella goes to talk with the nurse in her mother’s ward, I hold Estelle.
It’s indescribable the love that I feel for her, so I know I shouldn’t even try.
But it’s like there’s a trapdoor somewhere in your soul and it’s been there your whole life and you never even knew it existed until someone showed you the way.
Estelle showed me the way. She showed me that trapdoor and she opened it and let me see all the treasures that were hidden inside.
Love. The purest, deepest love imaginable.
That’s what I feel for Estelle. She’s shown me the love that the human heart is capable of, she’s given me my purpose in life.
To love her.
To love her mother.
To protect them both until my dying day.
“Okay,” Stella says to me. “She’s ready.”
With my other hand I reach out and put it at the small of her back, just to let her know we’re here, and we go inside the room.
Her mother is sitting in a chair, staring out the window.
We walk halfway across the room and stop, waiting for a sign of some sort to approach her further.
Her mother turns her head to look at us, curious for a moment, but then it fades and there’s no hint of recognition at all. It’s like we’re not even here.
Stella is starting to shake a bit. I know what she wanted to happen and it’s not happening. I can tell she’s about to cry.
I grab Stella’s hand and give it a squeeze, then I go straight over to her mother and sit down across from her.
“Liva,” I say to her gently, showing her the baby. “I wanted you to meet someone very important and very special. This is Princess Estelle.”
Liva’s eyes go to mine, blank as snow, then they slowly move down my face until they rest on my daughter’s tiny form.
