“There’s no cow on the ice,” he says with a warm smile. “It’s fine. I’m just glad I was here.”

“There’s no cow?” I repeat, dazzled by both that strange phrase and the way he came to my rescue, the way he’s looking at me now, like it was his honor.

His smile widens, and he lets out a laugh that makes my stomach fill with butterflies. “Yes. Sorry. It is a saying we have. Det är ingen ko på isen,” he says in Swedish, the language sounding so light and beautiful. “There’s no cow on the ice. It means don’t worry.”

“Because you would worry if there was a cow on the ice?”

“Well yes. Wouldn’t you?”

I laugh despite myself. “I guess I would.” I reach out and touch his hand, his warm, strong hand, and hold it, examining his knuckles. “You need to get fixed up.”

“Too bad there isn’t a nurse at the hotel,” he says in a low voice, still watching me intently. I’m not sure if it’s because of the adrenaline running through our bodies or the way we’re standing so close, but I swear his eyes seem to darken, like clouds coming over a summer sky. Nothing ominous, just mercurial, like an intensity is building.

I swallow. “I have to take April back home. You don’t mind coming along for the ride? Again?”

“Not at all. I have nowhere to be and you’re the only person I now know in this town. I think it would be rather lonely if I went back to my hotel room right now. Not to mention boring. There are no fistfights there.”

“No cows on the ice either,” I point out as I walk around the hood to the driver’s side.

“You’re picking up on Swedish already,” he says. “I’m rather proud.”

Now I’m grinning like an idiot and for a second, I forget all the horrible shit that just happened.

I’m reminded of it the minute I get back in the car.

April is crying in the backseat while simultaneously giving me the finger when I ask if she’s okay. Outside, Tito staggers to his feet and goes back inside his drug den. Then there’s the Swede buckling in beside me with his long legs and bleeding knuckles. I can’t believe he just fucking took that beast Tito down like that. I’m having a hard time processing all of this, it all happened so fast.

But rather than an uncomfortable silence all the way back to the house, the Swede fills the air by talking about his trip in America so far. How he started out in New York City and spent a few days there before buying a vintage mustang from a collector and driving across the Midwest, through the Rockies and all the way here before his car decided to bite the dust.

I hate to admit it, but I’m envious. Here’s a man who seems so self-assured, who is traveling by himself through America doing whatever he wants. Money doesn’t seem to be an issue. Time doesn’t seem to be an issue. I’ve never seen someone look so free.

I want that. I want that freedom to drop everything and just run away. Run away like a coward but at least I would feel the wind in my face and hope under my wings. At least for a little while I could live under the pretence that anything can happen until the guilt and shame and responsibility would drag me back home.

I hate that I feel that way. And then I hate myself for hating myself.

The cycle never breaks.

Before I know it, I’m pulling the van back up to the house and my heart feels waterlogged. April immediately jumps out and runs inside even before I’ve had a chance to cut the engine.

I sigh and look over at him with a weak smile before resting my head on the steering wheel. “Back again.”

“Are you okay?” he asks, one brow delicately raised.

Funny how he asks it, his tone suggesting we’ve been friends for many years. We’re not even friends. We don’t even know each other. I barely remember his real name. And yet there’s no denying this feeling.

It’s only because you’ve seen him naked, I remind myself. Don’t be fooled by your hormones.

But I know that’s not the only reason.

I give a slight nod. “I’ll be okay. I guess I better go inside and see how Pike is handling it. Who knows what version of our story she’s giving him.”

He studies me for a moment through those long lashes of his. Finally, he says, “You’re a lot stronger than you think you are.”

I flinch, taken aback. “What?”

“I just don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

I can’t help but frown. “No offense, Mr. Sweden, but you don’t actually know me.”

He rubs his lips together and shrugs. “No. I suppose I don’t. And you don’t know me either.” He pauses. “Would you like to have dinner tonight?”

I blink, floored by the question. “Dinner?”

Dinner?

Is he asking me out for dinner?

Like…a date?

After all that, why the hell would he ask me out on a date? Shouldn’t I be taking him out for dinner after the way he came to my defense and knocked Tito out?

“You do eat dinner, don’t you?” he adds.

“Uh, usually.”

He continues to stare at me expectantly. “So? Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

“But…why?” I blurt out.

“Because I like you,” he says. He says it so simply, so earnestly, that it could be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. “I find you very interesting. And it would be nice to not eat alone for once.”

“There isn’t anywhere nice to eat here,” I tell him, aware that my palms are starting to get sweaty.

“But I’m sure there’s somewhere good, yes?”

There are a few restaurants that I personally love, even if they aren’t anything fancy, but I haven’t gone out to eat in a year. Not since New York. “I’ll have to ask Pike,” I tell him. “He was stuck with the kids last night when I was…well, with you at the bar.”

“All right,” he says with a slow nod. “And if he says no to tonight, how about tomorrow night?”

God, he’s persistent too.

I’m in heaven.

A sweaty-palmed, heart-racing, lightheaded kind of heaven.

“Maggie?”

My name on his lips sounds sweeter than a love song.

I come back to earth.

Give him a smile. “I would love to.”

Chapter Six

Viktor

I’m living a lie.

I’m living a lie and for the first time in three weeks, I hate it.

Up until my damn dream car broke down outside of however you pronounce this town’s name, I was reveling in the freedom that being Johan Andersson brought me.

It was fucking unbelievable.

From the moment I stepped on that private jet leaving Arlanda airport in Stockholm, to landing in Germany where I took one last glimpse of my bodyguard and started my journey under a fake passport, I’ve been living a life I’d only dreamed of.

I was no longer shadowed by guards. I was no longer recognized. I was no longer of interest to anyone. I was no longer on my best behavior. I was no longer conscious of anything other than remembering my new name and my new job. Johan Andersson, heir to a fictional Swedish pharmaceutical fortune. I was free.

There was no better place to land than New York City, Manhattan, the city where dreams are made. It was everything I thought it would be. I was immediately enveloped by the bright lights and honking cabs and endless streets, swallowed by the pulse of millions of people. I was anonymous. I was free to be whoever I wanted.

The first day I slept in until past noon. No one was there to wake me up. I had a new mobile just for this trip and no one was calling it wanting anything. There was no Freddie making sure I was on task. There were no butlers knocking at my door. I got up when I felt like it and even though I was groggy and jet-lagged, I went out onto the streets to a coffee shop and spent hours at the window just watching the world go by.

I’ve never been able to look at people that way. Unabashedly. Openly. Observing strangers like I’d never been around humanity before. No one noticed. No one minded. I was just another face in the crowd. I wasn’t a prince at all, I was just a human being.

It felt fucking good.

That’s pretty much all I did in New York. I wandered the streets, I watched people. I went to both rooftop bars full of the types of socialites I grew up around and I went to hipster bars where people pretended not to care but really did and I went to the dive bars where people sat in silence and drank until their minds were silent too. I sat on park benches, I watched dogs run around tiny dog parks, I saw tourists run from pigeons and drivers arguing about traffic.

I even tried to see Hamilton but lost patience trying to get tickets. Maybe next time.

After New York, I took the train to Chicago, something I’d always wanted to do after I saw the movie North by Northwest and under a false identity, I really felt like Roger Kaplan. Then in Chicago I spent a few more days walking, observing, eating and found myself the car of my dreams from a private seller on Craigslist. A Caspian Blue 1965 Mustang hardtop in near mint condition. I handed over the money in cash and hit the open road. Windows down. Wind in my smile.

Smile. I hadn’t smiled since Alex died and yet now I was. I was smiling and every time the guilt crept up on me, reminding me of what I lost, that I had no right to smile, I buried the feeling and pretended that Johan Andersson has never experienced loss. And I kept smiling.

With each day I spent driving across the States, the more into my new character I became. It was fairly easy. When you’re thrust from one type of life, a very bizarre, very specific life that you’ve only ever known, and into one the total opposite, it becomes easy to pretend to be somebody else.

It was working too, until I was driving between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. I’d always wanted to see Vegas so I got a room at The Venetian for a night. I’d barely given my car to the valet when I walked through the ornate lobby with its painted ceilings and got caught in the middle of a large wedding party that was passing through.