Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Stellan
Ipull at my tie, wishing like anything that I could loosen it. But this little gallery opening is as fancy as they come. My black suit and tie just make me one of the crowd.
I take a sip of the old fashioned I ordered at the bar earlier, scanning the gallery for the hundredth time. Margot is running late.
If she’s coming at all, that is.
And I’m standing here, uncomfortable in my suit jacket, fending off the general public. I sigh aloud and make myself focus on a large framed photo photograph that’s displayed on the wall.
Somehow she sneaks up to stand beside me. When I notice her standing there, looking thoughtfully at the art, I take a step back.
“Jesus christ,” I mumble. “You look…”
I trail off. She’s wearing a short-sleeved, floor-length dress that is just a shade or two darker than her neon pink hair. Although the dress doesn’t show any cleavage or legs, it’s so tight that it looks like she was sewn into the damn dress.
She runs a hand through her hair, giving me an uncertain smile. “I hope that sentence ends well.”
I nod slowly, trying to unglue my eyes from her tits and ass. “Uh huh.”
She cocks her head. “I’m guessing you’re not secretly mad at me, then?”
“What?” I glance up and meet her deep blue eyes, puzzled. “Why would I be?”
She shrugs one shoulder, coming close to me. One corner of her mouth turns up. “I didn’t know what to think when you didn’t show up today.”
Casting my gaze out over the gallery, I squint. “Ja. My grandmother changed my itinerary unexpectedly. Apparently, no one thought to inform the press office.”
“Ah. Is everything okay?”
Her eyes are on me. Probing me. I glance down.
“Ja. My grandmother is just reminding me of my duty to the country, I guess. Nothing for you to be concerned about, Margot.” I sigh, smoothing my face into a pleasant expression. “Let us talk about other things. The art, for example. I thought you would like the exhibition.”
She arches a brow, then swings her gaze to the wall. A large photo of a busy Bombay market hangs in front of us, the image colorful and busy. While she looks at it, taking a little step toward the canvas, I look at her.
Margot really does look beautiful this evening. Her dress rustles a little as she leans forward, then she looks at me, her dark blue eyes crinkling with humor.
“Do you have any idea who this photographer is?”
I screw up my face. “No. This is a benefit for the Copenhagen Contemporary Museum. I just thought that you would appreciate this particular room, that’s all. You know. It’s the same kind of art that you do.”
Her lips curve up. “It’s very nice.”
I cock a brow. “There seems to be a but waiting in the wings.”
“But nothing.” She comes closer, standing beside me and sliding her hand into the crook of my arm. “Is this okay?”
I look down into her face, my mouth kicking up. I hope that no one looks at the two of us standing so close and assumes that we are guilty of exactly what we are doing… but then again, I don’t really care. Not when she’s so close.
“Ja,” I say softly. Bending down, I whisper in her ear. “Your dress is really killing me right now. I’m imagining that it would look so nice on my bedroom floor.”
“Stellan!” she admonishes me. Then her lips twitch. “I guess you really aren’t mad at me.”
“You wouldn’t be here if I was.” I straighten up as one of my father’s cabinet comes into view. “Ah, shit. There is a man over there that I would rather avoid, if I can. Let’s keep moving.”
Margot lets me guide her into the next room, which is just more of the same thing. Light gray walls, with photographs centered ten feet apart. I flag down a waitress and get her a glass of champagne.
For her part, she seems to pay less attention to the art hanging on the walls than the glamorous people in fancy dresses and swanky suits strolling around. She’s unusually closemouthed, which makes me even more curious.
“I can’t help but wonder what you’re thinking,” I say.
She breaks away from her hawk-eyed gaze over the gallery patrons and flushes. “I guess I’m just… absorbing. I had never considered before today that maybe people just live like this. The parties and galas, the freshly pressed suits and fancy dresses…”
“You realize that you are wearing a ballgown, do you not? You’re actually a little bit better dressed than almost everyone else here.”
She gives me a tiny glare. “This is a rented dress, Stellan. I’m definitely Cinderella in this scenario, trying to fit in at the ball.”
I smirk. “Do you have singing mice to dress you?”
“No, but I’ve got Pippa.” She rolls her eyes. “I just… I’m wondering if all billionaires and millionaires are so… hands off. That’s what I was thinking, to answer your question.”
“Ah. Well… in my family, the answer is definitely no. My mother is very active in her charitable work, most of which involves spending a lot of time with HIV and AIDS patients. My sister Annika is really devoted to working with the NATO peacekeepers. She’s gone for a month at a time, advocating on their behalf.
Finn spends a good deal of time working with refugees in Spain and Portugal.
Anders is worried about feeding the entire world…
” I shake my head. “Everyone that I know has their causes that they support and work toward.”
She frowns. “But not you?”
“Uhh, no. I mean, I have events like this. I’m a major patron of so many museums and I sit on the board of tons of charities… but when it comes down to it, I just have the crown to worry about. Trust me, it’s plenty.”
Her eyes meet mine briefly before she glances away. “I see.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Do you?”
She nods, screwing up her face briefly. “Actually, yeah. I can imagine that it’s an all-encompassing thing.
As it should be, I guess. I mean… in the United States, we have the president.
And they have to be on call twenty four hours a day, seven days a week while they’re in office.
I can’t imagine that being the king of Denmark is any different… and that’s for life.”
Making a face, I nod. “Ja, that’s about the size of it.”
She squeezes my arm. “Wanna get out of here for a while? I mean, as long as you are avoiding people…”
I smirk. “I can give you about half an hour. Then people will start to notice my absence, I think.”
She grins, mischief lighting her eyes. “Take a walk on the wild side, Prince Stellan. Be bad.”
I roll my eyes. “Please. Nobody does bad the way royals do it, okay?”
“Mm.” Her eyes dart around the room, spying a partially hidden door. “Let’s see where that one goes.”
I let her pull me along after her, slipping out the door and into the shadows of the museum after nightfall. Margot slides her small hand into mine and pulls me down the hall.
I would be lying if I said that feeling her warm skin against mine wasn’t as exciting as our escape from the gallery benefit. I try to remind myself that I can’t actually like this girl… I shouldn’t even be here, letting her pull me into a darkened gallery.
But I don’t do anything to stop her. I’m not entirely sure I could if I wanted to. She turns the light switches on, a spotlight falling on her and throwing her into profile.
She glances at me, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Pick a painting.” She motions to a couple of paintings. “And look at it for a minute. Then tell me how it makes you feel.”
“You had me sneak away from the party to critique art?” I ask.
Margot cocks her head, tugging at my elbow.
“It’s important to look at things and process how we feel about them.
Art is all about making that process happen in a safe space.
Sometimes what you see intentionally invokes emotion; sometimes it’s a more…
” She pauses to find the right word. “Internal process, I guess.”
She pulls me over to one painting. It looks vaguely familiar.
It’s small, probably only two feet by three.
Hanging in a simple silver frame, it’s an enormous field of what looks like wheat, all in oranges and yellows.
There is a lone figure cutting the wheat in the far corner.
Overhead, a light green sky overshadows the mountains.
“It’s… nice, I guess?” I say, tilting my head to take it in from another angle.
Her lips curve upward. “I recognize the painting. It’s called Wheat Field With Reaper.
Look, look how everything is yellow, yellow-green, orange-yellow, gold…
There is a man working over here. And he is just surrounded by these dry, thirsty colors.
I look at all that and I wonder at how hot it is…
I can’t quite make out the detail of the man’s face, but I see him laboring all alone. It’s sort of serene, I think.”
I nod slowly, glancing down at her. “I can see that.”
She gives me a half smile. “It’s by Van Gogh, for what it’s worth. He said it was about death and how he wasn’t scared of dying.”
“Ah! For some reason, I find that sort of worrisome.”
Margot shrugs a slender shoulder. “I think the next painting is a Van Gogh too. I don’t know what it’s called, though.”
We walk over to look at the painting, which is several trees painted against a field of little white flowers. In the back, a river or a road meanders past.
“Hm.” I study the painting.
“What does it make you feel?” she asks delicately. “The mishmash of colors on the trees. The oddly… sort of curvy and pointy bark of the trees. The white and yellow and green of this field of flowers… Back here, you see some blue flowers as well.”
She gestures, wiggling her fingers over the painting. I make a face.
“I’m really terrible at this game.”
“Just look for another minute. Let that particular bright shade of green soak into your senses. What does it make you think?”
I give her a long look, then glance at the painting. “I don’t know. The green is… fresh? Sort of… it has an energy?”
She lights up. “Yes! It definitely does.”
Scrunching half my face up, I sigh. “It’s spring, obviously. So it kind of makes me wonder what the same place would be like in other seasons.”
“It most certainly does.” She grins. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She looks up at me, her eyes so deep blue, her hair so perfectly pink. Grabbing her by the waist, I pull her against my body and kiss her. I pull in deep lungfuls of her scent, making me horny as fuck and plastering a stupid smile over my face.
When I release her, she turns pink and bites her lip. “Thanks.” She giggles. “For the kiss, I mean.”
“Oh, that was strictly for my personal pleasure.”
Margot rolls her eyes but she has a grin on her lips. “Should we get back?”
I let her go, following her back into the darkened hallway. But as I go, there’s something in the pit of my stomach… a sensation I can’t quite name.
It sticks with me for the rest of the night, floating around in my head. I don’t want to name it, so I pretend it isn’t there.
But it definitely is…