“Ella, I am so, so sorry about earlier,” I tell her, hand on her shoulder, wishing I could make it stop. “I hate arguing with you.”

She just sniffles and sobs and buries her face deeper into her pillow.

“Baby, please,” I tell her, running my palm over her arm. “I’m here. Talk to me.”

Silence. Then more sniffling.

I take in a deep breath, trying to feel emboldened by Aksel’s words. Doesn’t stop me from feeling nervous as hell though.

What if she doesn’t feel the same way?

I have no choice but to ignore it.

No choice but to solider on.

It’s that moment before I make the jump.

“Ella, I’m sorry about what happened. About what I said. It was the truth, but I could have handled it better. The real truth is, I needed a moment to think about it. I’d just never thought I’d meet someone like you, someone I wanted to be with, someone who wanted to be with me. Forever. But that’s you. I know that’s not what we were expecting from this when it first started, but that’s the truth of the matter now. If you want babies, Ella, I will give you babies, and I will do it gladly because I want that life with you. I want any life with you.”

The sniffling stops. She’s listening, breathing hard.

I reach over and gently smooth her hair against her head. “Sometimes I might seem brash or confused about things but it’s never to do with how I feel about you. That’s the one true thing that hasn’t faltered. Things are tough, and they’ll get tougher and our relationship and our marriage was never meant to be conventional and neither is the way I feel. Least not to me. Because I never imagined in a million years that someone could see me the way that you see me and make me feel that I’m worth something. And I hope, beyond all hopes, that I do the same for you.”

Slowly she lifts up her head and rolls over to the side, blinking up at me with tears swimming in her eyes.

“You mean that?” she whispers.

I can’t help the lovesick puppy smile that I know is spreading across my face. “I mean it. I mean it with every beat of my Viking heart.”

“A savage heart,” she whispers. “A warrior heart.”

“A heart that’s all yours. Ella, I fucking love you.”

I thought my words would hit her slowly, but instead they drop on her like a bomb.

She bursts into the saddest, most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, the kind of smile that leaves a mark on your heart. “I love you too.”

But those words take a moment to sink in.

She loves me.

I never really imagined anyone loving me, but it here it is.

The woman that I’ve fallen for, stupidly in love with, loves me back.

Loves my heart.

She’s seen the real me and all my dark and devious places and she loves me.

I swallow, my throat feeling thick with emotion. “You don’t have to say that because I did.”

“I didn’t,” she says softly. “I love you.” She pauses. “Do you really think I would say that to make you feel better?”

I smile. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” I sigh, feeling both elated and still terrible over our fight earlier, for making her cry. “I just want to apologize again, I know we like to fight sometimes, but I could tell that one cut deep.”

She nods, holding onto my hand. “I know. And I overreacted. I want kids, I know I do. I was just so damn afraid that maybe you wouldn’t. It reminded me of things that I don’t want to be reminded of. Of how we started. And I know I need to stop thinking about that because it’s not about how we start, it’s about how we end. It’s about everything in the middle.”

“I hate to be the one to make you cry.”

She closes her eyes and blows a strand of hair off her face. “No, it wasn’t just you. I called my father, and, well, I got him on the phone.”

Uh oh. “And?”

“And he was short with me. I mean it was fine, he said he was coming to the wedding and that he’ll talk to your father about it. But he was off the phone with me so fast, it was like his castle was on fire or something. I really thought he would have been more receptive but…I dunno. Maybe this doesn’t change anything.”

At this point I’m not sure what I’m going to say to my future father-in-law when I finally meet him because he’s put Ella through the ringer enough times by now.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her. “I promise.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know, I just feel it. It’s a royal wedding. No matter what, everyone is going to be on their best behaviour.”

“Great. So that means I’ll have my father there pretending that he cares about me.”

“Ella, you can’t go into this like that. You’ll just set yourself up for disaster. It’s not about him anyway. It’s about us. And I promise you when that day comes, and we stand before each other at that altar, there will be only truth between us. Okay?”

She nods. “Okay.” She sighs, and her eyes start to droop closed. “What happened to the old Magnus?”

I stiffen. “The fun one?”

“You’re still the fun one. I mean the man-child. I only now see the man.”

I lean down and rub my lips along hers. “Oh, I’ll show you the man, all right.”

Twenty

Ella

“Here comes the bride, all dressed in white!”

Welcome to my new alarm clock.

Apparently, it’s Jane, sneaking into my room in the wee hours and singing this song. But before I can laugh at how horrible a singer she is and how obnoxious she’s being and how much I want to keep sleeping, it all hits me like a hot frying pan to the face.

Today is the day.

I’m getting married today.

It’s actually happening.

I open my eyes to see Jane holding a tray of food and coffee.

I slowly sit up. “What is this?”

“Well, since this is the first morning in over a month that you’ve slept in this bed here and not with your husband-to-be, I decided to take advantage of that and bring you breakfast in bed.”

She places the tray down on the bed and then hustles over to the windows, opening the curtains. It’s been snowing for the last few days, though today the sun is out, and everything is blinding and bright.

This should be a good omen.

As is Jane bringing me food.

I stare down at the tray, eagerly going for the cup of coffee and slice of cake. I turn my nose up at the pickled herring strewn bread in the corner. “Jane?” I gesture to it. “I’m not eating that.”

“Sorry,” she says cheerfully, snatching it up and cradling it in her hand like it’s a precious gem. “This is for me.”

“Since when do you eat pickled herring?”

“Since I decided to become as Norwegian as possible,” she says, taking a large bite. I grimace and turn away. “Today I’ll stand before the public as your maid of honor, and I want them to know I’m fully embracing their culture.”

“Well, then I’m sure they’ll appreciate your culinary sacrifice,” I tell her as I take a sip of coffee. I close my eyes. It’s bliss. I feel like I’ve gotten no sleep these last few days and it was only last night when I went to bed early that I was able to get some shut-eye, AKA my beauty sleep.

It helps that Magnus stayed at the royal palace in Oslo last night as part of the tradition of the bride and groom not seeing each other before the wedding. I love that man, but my god does he tire you out sometimes, especially in the bedroom. He can go all night. I can go once, okay, usually twice when he’s working his magic. But then I need to sleep.

“Are you nervous?” Jane asks. “How do you feel?”

I give her a dry smile. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re handling all of this rather calmly. The last few days with all your fittings and that damn drama with your tiara, you’ve been taking it in stride. I’m impressed.”

That damn tiara. It’s customary for those marrying into the royal family to wear their own tiara at the wedding, given to them from their own country or family. I’m not sure what the protocol is if you’re not of royal blood but in any case, I had to get Schnell to send it from Liechtenstein. Only it was never sent.

Now, he and my father arrived in Oslo last night and are also staying at the royal palace and apparently have the tiara with them. I just hope I get that thing on my head before I’m walked down the aisle.

I really should just be grateful that my father came at all. I know it would have been in very bad taste if he didn’t—he really does care about a better relationship with Norway—but I hate the feeling that I was pulling teeth with him. I mean, my brothers aren’t coming, and they were invited.

I sigh. I’m not upset that they’re not coming, per se, but I do feel slighted. They’ve never given a damn about me and maybe it’s because I was sent away from them so young, it was easy to forget I existed, but even so it brings back all those feelings of being not wanted and not good enough.

“Oh, come now,” Jane says, coming over to me. “Keep your chin up.”

I look at her fearfully. “I am nervous, obviously. It’s not just this whole family drama. It’s the fact that this is a wedding, my wedding, and there’s a lie underneath this whole wedding and then there’s the fact that it’s going to be televised! I mean, people in Norway have the day off today because of this! This lie is a fucking national holiday!”

“Calm now,” she says, taking the coffee from my hands and putting it on the tray. “You’re spilling your drink.”

“I am calm,” I try to say, but the words come out shaking.

“Yeesh, I shouldn’t have asked you. But listen, now that we’re talking about it I just want you to remember one thing. This isn’t a lie anymore, Ella. You love Magnus. He loves you. You are getting married now because you love each other. It may have not started that way, but that’s what it’s become. There is no shame, no wool over the public’s eyes. Maybe you have to lie about how you met, but you will never ever have to lie about the way you feel about him. You got that?”