CHAPTER EIGHT
Glen
The doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it!” Max rushes toward the door.
Murmurings sound, and I frown and follow him.
He turns to me, and I don’t like the nervousness in his gaze.
“Tell them to come back after dinner.”
“I don’t think they’ll listen.”
I narrow my gaze, because that statement’s strange, then a large bulky bodyguard I recognize and two similarly suited men wearing dark shades burst into my living room.
They search the room with the efficiency of people long practiced in seeking out bombs, lifting the couch, and checking under the table.
A chorus of “clears” rings out.
“What’s happening, Dad?” Max asks. “Are we in trouble?”
“Nope,” I assure him, hoping I’m correct. I pull him into a hug.
Finally, King Erik strides into the house, his expression somewhere between nervous and apologetic.
I suppress a snort.
“Should have figured I’d see you again,” I say. “Your Majesty, this is my son, Max. Max, this is King Erik of Solberg.”
Max tilts his head up and eyes King Erik suspiciously. I don’t blame him.
“You’re really a king?” Max asks.
“Yes.”
“Like King Arthur?”
“Well, I never found a sword in a stone.”
Max raises his eyebrows. “They made you a king anyway?”
“Yes.” Nervous energy bounces off King Erik. I want to get him settled on a couch, pour him a cup of hot cocoa, and wrap my grandmother’s quilt around him.
I have a feeling that wouldn’t be appropriate.
I settle at just looking at him, until I realize that’s not appropriate either, even if it’s interesting how his eyes happen to be that light a shade of blue-green. I wonder if they look like the ocean.
I know the world’s filled with more landscapes than just desert and red mountains and cacti.
King Erik’s gaze falls on Dean’s picture. Dean’s holding Max, and I’m squeezed in the frame beside them, one happy family. “Is that...?”
“That’s Papa!” Max exclaims.
“Oh. That’s... Uh.” King Erik looks sort of horrified, and I wonder if he thinks he’s arrived on the doorstep of a married man, and Dean’s gonna show up any moment with a shotgun.
Dean would look mighty silly carrying my shotgun around. He never learned to shoot. Guess he successfully avoided going to the shooting range with me. Huh.
“Papa is in heaven,” I explain.
Max frowns. “And in the photo.”
I chuckle. “That’s right, Max. And in the photo.”
Max does his squaring shoulder thing. That boy is gonna be a handful once he starts lifting.
“Please take a seat, Your Majesty,” I say hastily. I look at his security staff. “You can grab some chairs from the kitchen—”
“We prefer to stand, should a sudden situation occur,” the super bulky bodyguard says.
Max’s eyes widen. “Are you talking about a shooting situation?”
“Or a bombing situation. Or a stabbing situation.”
“Wow.”
“No royal in Solberg has ever been assassinated,” King Erik says. “Or has been the victim of an assassination attempt.”
The bodyguard thrusts out his jaw. “No assassin would dare attack.”
“Cool.” Max stares wide-eyed at him. “Do you know about protein?”
“Sven knows everything about protein,” King Erik says.
Sven nods solemnly. “We are built of protein.”
Max and Sven seem to be involved in some sort of nodding competition. They’re definitely silently communicating.
“Perhaps we could talk outside?” King Erik whispers.
“If Sven doesn’t mind answering questions about protein.”
“He definitely doesn’t mind that,” King Erik promises, and his eyes do some sort of shimmer thing that I like way more than the sad thing he had going on earlier tonight.
After I tell Max and Sven where we’re going, King Erik and I wind up outside.
The sky is fully dark. Snow flutters down, the snowflakes sparkling in the glow of the Christmas lights I strung.
“Wanna walk to the gazebo?” I seem to get extra energy around King Erik, and I don’t think I can stand beside him without my heart doing some wild beating thing, like a broken jackhammer that won’t switch off.
King Erik nods, and we stroll toward the white-painted gazebo. I’ve strung it up with white bulbs and hung it with garlands. I’ve even set up a Christmas tree in one corner.
We enter the gazebo, and King Erik looks wide-eyed. “Did you build this?”
I stuff my hands in my pockets. “Yup.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Wanted a little sparkle for the boy,” I say.
King Erik nods. He looks up. “You have mistletoe.”
I follow his gaze. The mistletoe sprigs are directly above us. “Uh-huh.”
My voice is a pitch it never is.
Because I know what you’re supposed to do under mistletoe.
Don’t want His Majesty to think I brought him out here for that, even if I am thinking about it. I’d sure like to explore King Erik’s lips with my own.
King Erik’s cheeks are darker than before, and any hope that Solberg hasn’t learned about mistletoe and mandatory kissing rules vanishes, replaced with my cells jumping about like some weeks-old colt.
“I need you to play my fiancé,” King Erik says.
Well, that got me to stop thinking about mistletoe.
“Uh...” My tongue is thick. Maybe I misheard. I must have misheard.
“Please?” he asks. “I want you to come to Solberg with me. Just for Christmas.”
“You want me to pretend to be your fiancé in front of more people?”
“Yes.”
I press my lips together.
At one point, I was a fiancé.
At one point, I was laughing and romancing my future husband.
It feels all sorts of wrong to pretend to be someone else’s fiancé. To say we’re going to do those happily ever-after things together, when we don’t intend to be in each other’s lives past Christmas.
My heartbeat quickens, and when I open my mouth to say no, I can’t quite manage that either.
Reckon I pretended too well that we were in love. Now he has a mess to clean.
I should have walked straight out that door when I saw him in the restaurant.
I’m a widower, not someone who goes around playing some king’s fake fiancé.
“After one week, I’ll announce to the press that you miss the United States. People will be shocked—Solberg is beautiful, but they’ll accept I’ll never attempt to date again.”
I don’t like him planning to lead the rest of his life alone, but I can’t say anything... that’s my plan too, and I get mighty annoyed when someone hints I should do otherwise.
“And then, you can live happily ever after alone,” I say.
“Precisely.”
I’m silent.
“I’m sorry. You have a son. I’m disturbing you.” His breath is faster, like he’s having one of his panicky moments.
My fingers twitch, and I want to rest my hand on his thigh to calm him down. “Would it truly be helpful?”
I shouldn’t consider it. There are things involved in going there that I don’t want to do.
“It would,” he says. “And you can bring Max. Of course.”
I nod solemnly. Maybe going to Solberg is better than another Christmas sitting around the Christmas tree imagining what Dean would say if he were here and pretending his absence don’t matter.
Reckon they’ve got some skilled cooks over in that kingdom to make some yummy things for Max.
What kind of dad would I be if I turn down a chance for a boy to go to a European castle?
That’s what people call a lifetime memory.
I flick my gaze to the king. He’s quiet, somewhere between hope and a nervous wreck, and his energy seems to vibrate unsteadily. I’d like to calm him. I don’t know how I’m the guy who can make him feel okay, but if I am, well, reckon I can make myself useful.
“Okey-dokie.” I extend a hand.
King Erik stares at my hand, like there’s something special about it, then we shake hands. Warmth fills me at once, like the king was sitting close to the fire, but he was only sitting close to me.