So you can see why I’m having second, third, and fourth thoughts about my choice of princesses from the fact sheet.

Let’s just push aside the truth for a moment, that what I’m doing is extremely unrealistic, and, well, silly. Let’s forget that I’m actually selecting a human being to be my motherfucking wife and get down to the gritty facts and logistics. Those being that even though I spent a good week pouring over my options and Google and Facebook and Instagram stalking these blue-blooded, noble ladies to the extreme, I’m still having doubts that I’ve picked the right one.

But how can I even know that at this point? How can I pick the right one if I haven’t even met them face-to-face? There’s so much more than just what my father said about intelligence and wit and it’s got nothing to do with looks. It has to do with sexual chemistry. I’ve been with my fair share of women and not all of them are stellar supermodels. Okay, some literally are. Sometimes I’m after the same pack of women as Leonardo DiCaprio. Hell, sometimes I see Leo at the same party and we do this head nod as if to say, what up brother, keep doing you.

Where am I even going with this? Right. So sometimes I’ve been with women who aren’t conventionally beautiful for one reason or another, but I connected with them on another level. If you want to get into that deep shit, you could say that it’s our souls that forged with one another. If you want to stay real, it’s more that your bodies want to forge. You want to fuck and you’re both very good at it, so you do it and go your separate ways. That’s that.

Anyway, I’ve had to scour page after page of these women and try and settle on one of them, and even though I was never fully confident about my pick—because how can I be—I’m doubting myself now.

As I pace back and forth in the main hall of the royal palace.

Hands behind my back.

Waiting for her arrival.

I don’t know what was said or what was promised, but the moment I went to my parents and told them I’d settled on Princess Isabella of Liechtenstein, calls were made, and then I was told she’d be here tonight for dinner so I could meet her in person.

I’m not sure if this is just a trial dinner, you know, like speed dating, princess-style, or something more. I’m pretty sure if I don’t like her, if she turns out to be a total bore, if we have zero spark or chemistry, I can move on to my second and third choice picks, though honestly, I can’t remember who they are right now which tells you a lot.

The reason I picked Isabella was because she looked the most normal. Apparently she was in a boarding school in England during her high school years and now is studying at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Other than a barely updated Facebook page, there isn’t a lot of information on her, which I took as a good sign. The tabloids don’t follow her, she doesn’t do anything that makes the news, and for the most part, it looks as if she lives a life of total anonymity.

And, yes, of course, she’s pretty as hell. Striking, even. Tall, blonde, sparkling eyes, and a big smile. She exudes charm and warmth through her photographs, more than any of the others did. There was no formality in them, no forced cheer. She just seemed real.

Lord knows if she’ll match my expectations.

“Nervous?”

I stop my pacing and turn around to see Mari standing in the doorway to the sitting room. Her blonde hair is braided down both sides, and her black and red dress almost looks like the traditional Norwegian dress. It strikes me that Mari is closer to Princess Isabella’s age than I am.

“Me, nervous?” I ask her with a smile.

“Of course not,” she says, slowly walking over. “Prince Magnus worries about nothing.”

My smile falters slightly. I wish that perception of me were true.

“Do you think I made the right choice?” I ask her as she walks over to the window and peers down at the courtyard at the back of the palace.

“For your wife to-be?” she asks, her eyes growing wide. “I wish I could say.” She takes in a deep breath. “Magnus…”

I nod and come over to the window beside her. “I know.”

“This is so ridiculous.”

I give her a hopeful look. “I’m glad you agree. Now perhaps you can talk mother and father out of it?”

“I wish,” she says with a shake of her head. “I’ve never seen them so adamant before. More than that, I’ve never seen them so…I don’t know. Excited.”

“Excited?”

She gives a slight shrug and starts playing with one of her braids. “You’re the first one of us to get married. They thought it would never happen for you.”

“With good reason,” I mutter, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. All this unfairness has been simmering inside me for the last twenty-four hours but my youngest sister doesn’t deserve to hear it.

“And now, it’s something new to do. They get to ensure that their legacy will live on. Mother gets to plan a wedding. Father gets to see you settle down. The world’s focus on us will be in a positive way again.”

“All while I’m throwing the rest of my life away.”

She glances at me thoughtfully, gnawing briefly on her bottom lip. Mari always has this rather unnerving way of seeing straight through you that at the same time makes you see straight through her. Sometimes I think I see an old soul trapped in a teenager’s body. “I know this is bitter pill to swallow,” she says softly. “Never in a million years did I think this would be a solution to anything. But now that it is their solution to a big, big problem, I don’t think it’s the end of the world necessarily. Your friend, the Crown Prince of Sweden, is getting married.”

“Viktor is getting married to a woman he’s fallen madly in love with. So mad that it’s not just her he’s bringing into his royal family but all her sisters and brothers as well. If anyone deserves to get married it’s those two. Not me. Not to someone I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” she says after a moment, looking back out the window. “I’m just trying to see the positive in the situation here.”

“There is no positive, not for me,” I tell her.

“Well, in that case, maybe you can at least go into this knowing this is making our parents—and it will make our country—very happy.”

I don’t care much about the latter but that’s probably something I need to work on, and fast. I do care about my parents though. But enough to actually go through with this? That remains to be seen.

“Also, you should remember that you have a choice,” she says to me. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. You can abdicate.”

“And let Cristina sit on the throne? She’d kill me.”

“You know that Irene would do it in a heartbeat.”

I swallow hard, feeling that same wave of anxiety wash over me. “He wants me to be king. I won’t abdicate. Not now. I won’t let him down.”

“He also wants you to be happy,” she says. “And I know if you said that you didn’t want the crown, he’d understand.”

He would understand. He’d probably expect it. Everyone probably does. Everyone knows as well as I do that I’m just not cut out for it. But, fuck, that fact makes me want to prove people wrong sometimes.

Is that why I’m doing this? Willing to marry a stranger just to prove everyone wrong, including myself?

“I think this is them,” Mari says as headlights come down the drive and one of our security officers at his post talks to the driver of the car. The gates open and the car glides in, parking alongside the other official vehicles.

Holy shit. This is happening.

“Now are you nervous?” Mari asks me.

It almost feels like I’m about to leap off a cliff.

Without a chute.

I watch as Tor strides out of the palace toward the car and opens the back door. Though it’s twilight and the sky is a hazy, pale gray, the car is directly under the lights and I can see Isabella in fine detail. Her hair somehow seems blonder, pulled back high off her face with a few pieces hanging loose. She’s wearing a black fuzzy looking coat and flat shoes. I’m both relieved that she’s just as pretty as her pictures, almost more ethereal and graceful, yet she’s looking at Tor and around at the palace like she’s completely out of her element.

“She’s got great eyebrows,” Mari comments, and I have to do a double take. Her eyebrows are pretty nice, I guess. They’re dark compared to her hair.

“You know I don’t give a fuck about eyebrows, don’t you?”

Mari sticks her tongue out at me. “Every YouTube tutorial is about getting brows as thick and shapely as those.”

“The only thing I want thick and shapely are her thighs and ass,” I tell her, peering back out the window. “And with that coat, I can’t see either.”

“Well, she’s pretty, anyway,” Mari says approvingly. “Even more so in person. Taller, too. Wait, who is that?”

Another woman comes shuffling rather comically out of the back seat, dressed in a bright yellow raincoat. She’s, well, the polite term would be to describe her as pleasantly plump and she’s already laughing as she struggles to get out of the car, holding on to Tor’s arm who is taking it all in stride.

“Maybe that’s her mother,” I say, though her face is round, her hair black, her skin tanned, looking very different from the Galadriel-like paleness of Isabella.

“Princess Isabella’s mother died when she was a child,” Mari says, not taking her eyes off of them.

“Oh,” I say, feeling sympathy for her. Even though my mother and I don’t always see eye-to-eye, I can’t imagine growing up without her.

“She’s probably her private secretary,” Mari says. My sister has one of her own though I don’t see them together very often. “Though she seems rather, uh…”

She trails off just as the woman starts laughing again, so loudly that we can hear it through the thick-paned windows. I can tell already I’m going to like her. I especially like how embarrassed Isabella looks, gesturing with her hands for the woman to keep it down.