CHAPTER THIRTEEN
T HE WORLD FLIPPED on its axis.
No , he thought.
“Yes, Magnus,” she said, making him realize he’d spoken his reaction aloud.
“It’s really that serious?” The severity of this news—of her condition—drove him to his knee before her.
“Have you known me to be overly dramatic?” There were lines of distress around her eyes. Her lips were pale. “It’s not as severe as hers, but I’ve been struggling to breathe lately. I can’t continue with my duties, but with careful management, I should have a few years before I require a transplant.”
“A transplant.” That punched the air out of him.
“I’m being brutally honest with you, which I know is one of the things you hate most about me, but it’s necessary.”
“I don’t hate you. I find your desire to do the right thing extremely annoying.” He let himself fall onto his ass, turning as he did so his back landed against the chair that was angled toward hers. He braced his wrist on his upraised knee, trying to take it in.
“I don’t want you to be ill.” It was an understatement, but it was the most emotion he could allow himself to express without giving in to the shaken sensation in his chest. He and Katla clashed because they were knitted from the same chain-link armor, but she was as much his sibling as Dalla or Freyr. It would break his heart to lose her.
“I don’t wish to be ill either, but it is a fact so we’ll deal with it,” she said with her own steely refusal to give in to emotion.
They would deal with it, but he had time to process what her illness meant to both of them. To help her find the care she needed to prolong her life, but the other part. King? He’d been preparing nearly fifteen years, but it still seemed like a bizarre fantasy so he brushed that aside to be parsed through in the coming hours and days.
No, in this moment, his most immediate concern was, “What do I do about Lexi?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Katla. Look what I’ve done to her, forcing her into royal life the way you did to me. At least I had the DNA. What you did was necessary, but I essentially kidnapped her.” There’d even been a level of emotional extortion when she had tried to delay their marriage and he’d challenged her on what kind of woman she was. He pinched the bridge of his nose, remembering their most recent argument. “When we were in London, I told her she should go back to acting if she wants to. Now I have to go walk that back? Tell her she has to stay here and become queen? I’d best have one of the bodyguards in the room with me. She’s liable to kill me.”
“Why on earth would you tell her to go back to acting?” Katla cried. “She’s a perfect partner for you. She makes you better , Magnus.”
“She makes me selfish,” he argued, thrusting to his feet. “You know that. I could have made arrangements for her, let her raise Rolf away from all of this.”
His chest felt ripped open at the thought. His son had become a part of him, but he shook off the sensation. At the time, his son hadn’t been real to him. It had all been about Lexi. About his desire to drag her into his life.
“I wanted her and went around you to get her. But the weight of this is affecting her. I don’t want to crush her and lose her. I love her too much to watch that happen.”
“I know you do,” Katla said with a choke of humorless laughter. “That’s been obvious to me since I heard the defiance in your voice when you told me she was pregnant. You were so glad. So proud. It was—” She looked away and blinked.
“Katla.” The unfairness of her infertility hit him anew.
“I do strive to do what’s right.” She folded her hands in her lap, gaze pensively fixed on the ring she wore. “I think often that if I’d been able to have children, I would not have had to force you to take this on. It was deeply unfair to you and your mother and your whole family. Sometimes there is no clear path that is wholly right, Magnus.”
“I know, but...” He ran his hand over his face. “But what you have demonstrated to me again and again, what I know to be true, is that this is a life where my wants and needs are second to the greater good. How can I be good enough to take the crown if I don’t have the strength of character to give her up, if that’s what is right for her ?”
He had to look away, to hide the fact that his eyes were growing damp. His chest was tight and there was a deep ache behind his sternum, one so acute it felt like a fracture.
“Oh, Magnus, I hope you know I’m not a saint. Look at this choice I’m making right now. Is it not selfish of me that I would rather step back from my duties in hopes of living longer?”
“ I want that.” He pointed to his chest. “I would rather you were here to provide advice than leave me to face this without you. Another self-serving act,” he muttered with a derisive wave at himself.
“And I want to live so I may see you rule,” she said quietly. In a rare moment of humanity, she let her mask slip and he saw affection and chagrin and humility. “I know you will rise to it, Magnus. You will make a wonderful king. I am so proud of you. I can’t bear not to witness it.”
Ah, hell. She was going to make him cry.
“When?” His voice thickened with emotion, because this wasn’t a choice. It was his destiny.
“A month?”
He nodded, accepting it, but all he could think was, What about Lexi?
Lexi was very used to rejection. For every role she’d landed, she’d been turned down for dozens more. For every comment or post that called her a fashion icon or a “Mom Worth Modeling” there were a hundred others that tore her down.
She knew that you couldn’t win if you didn’t try, and that trying meant risking failure, but that was what was smothering her right now: a sense of failure.
She had risked her heart and the man she loved didn’t love her back. She was married to him. They had a son—one who would one day be king of this country she had grown to love. She wanted to make Rolf proud. She wanted to make Magnus proud.
And she was failing.
She did the only thing she could do. She dismissed the nanny and cuddled her baby, soaking up Rolf’s chubby warmth and the feel of his fingers curling into her shirt, his kicking legs and his wet mouth bapping her cheek.
“Lex?” Magnus came into their lounge, voice and expression grave enough to tighten her stomach. “We need to talk.”
“Magnus, it’s fine,” she insisted while drowning in defensiveness and a desire to quickly move back to what they’d had while also wondering if that was even possible. “I knew love was not something you were offering when we married. I didn’t mean to make you feel obligated.”
“It’s not fine. But I’d rather we weren’t distracted.” He rang for the nanny.
She closed her arms more firmly around Rolf. “You know he can’t speak English any better than Isleifisch, right?”
Not one hint of amusement. Magnus was somber as he told the nanny they had some important matters to discuss and didn’t want to be disturbed.
Lexi’s heart lurched and she was reluctant to give Rolf up. Her arms felt empty as she followed Magnus into his office. Her chest ached with a chill of apprehension.
“Magnus—” She didn’t even know what to say, she only knew that whatever he was planning to say would hurt.
“I need to tell you first that we’re not going to Asia. Katla is ill. She’s planning to abdicate within the next few weeks.”
Lexi’s shock was so great her mind blanked for several seconds.
“I know,” he said, guiding her toward a chair. “Sit. It’s a lot to take in.”
“But... How ill? Magnus...” She searched his expression as she sank onto the cushion. Her stomach twisted into knots when she saw the shadows of worry behind his eyes.
“It’s a heart condition similar to her mother’s. If she reduces stress and makes resting a priority, she should be with us for a good while.” It wasn’t even lunch, but he poured himself a drink, then left it on a side table as he sat down to face her.
“She seems so young,” Lexi said, voice coming out hushed because there was no wind in her. “Obviously, I knew you would become king eventually, but that felt like something that would happen years from now. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll stay.”
“What?” She lifted her head, only then realizing she had buried her face in her hands. “Of course I’ll stay. I told you, I don’t want to go back to acting. I want to—” She swallowed. “I want to be Rolf’s mother.”
“And my wife? My queen?” His expression flexed with some unnamed emotion. “Say you love me again.”
Her mouth clamped reflexively into a hard line.
“Let me respond properly this time.” He hitched forward in his seat and extended his hand.
“I don’t want you to say something you don’t mean.” She bit her lips, trying to steady them. “I meant it when I said it’s fine. I’ll stay. You’ll have more responsibilities and won’t have as much flexibility for Rolf. It wouldn’t be a good look for me to choose now to pursue my own interests. If you can stand my reputation, I’ll take on the role of queen.”
“You won’t say it?” he asked grittily. “I killed those feelings in you? You are not that fickle.” He rose and pointed at her, staring down his nose at her. “Fine. Don’t say it. I told you not to say it because I didn’t feel I deserved to hear it. I still don’t.” He turned his back on her.
“Oh, do you have some horrible nude photos that the internet keeps regurgitating?” she asked scathingly.
“That.” He gave his beard a scrub as he turned to face her, pointing again. “That is one of the reasons I don’t deserve your love. I can’t make all that poison go away no matter how hard I try. I make it worse. Being my wife makes all of that worse for you.” He exhaled, sounding exhausted, and dropped his hands to his sides. “When I talked to my father on Christmas Day, he told me he held on to his anger for so long because he hadn’t had any choice in what had happened. That he felt my mother had made all his choices for him. When he said that, I realized that I hadn’t given you a choice. At first, I was able to believe I was justified, but you haven’t been happy, Lexi.”
“Because I could tell you weren’t happy. I thought it was because of all the bad press.”
“I’m going to say this one last time.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head to the ceiling. “Then we will never talk about it again. Screw the press. They can all go to hell. I know who you are, Lexi. And I love you. Exactly as you are.”
Love was an arrow. It went into her chest with the sweetest burn, sitting there vibrating and stinging, putting tears into her eyes.
She hugged herself, voice a thin rattle. “Do you really?”
“Yes, damn you.” His expression turned so tender, it broke her all over again. “I think it started in Paris, when you asked who was in charge. You knew damned well it was me. And you will never know how hard it was for me to say no to you in Monte Carlo.”
“It was hard for me to ask,” she muttered with a pang of remembered hurt.
“I know. And I will always be angry with myself for giving up that time I could have had with you, but I didn’t know then how much you meant to me. I didn’t really understand it until Rolf’s birth. Everything about that day scared me, Lexi, especially when I realized I could lose you. I didn’t want to face what that meant, though. I didn’t accept how much I loved you until you accused me of being jealous of a gay man whom you think of as a brother and I was.”
“You said you weren’t!”
“I lied. I won’t do it again,” he promised, running his hand down his face and tugging at his beard. “But he made you smile in a way I hadn’t seen in weeks. I couldn’t stand that he could give you that and I didn’t.”
“It was nostalgia, Magnus. I didn’t have a care in the world back then. We were children. You give me other things that are more important than candy bars stolen from craft services.”
“Orgasms?” he scoffed.
“Our son. An identity that has substance. The power to affect lives.”
“The weight of responsibility,” he countered. “Duty. Expectations that are difficult to live up to.”
“All true, but were you serious?” She rose and moved toward him, feeling as though she inched onto a plank over an abyss. “Do you love me? Have you given me your heart?”
“Yes,” he said promptly. “It’s all yours, Lexi. If you’re not with me, then I don’t have one.” He cupped her face, looking into her eyes with such swirls of emotion in his that she felt lifted off the floor and plunged into a whirlpool at the same time. “Will you say it again?”
“I love you, Magnus. I love you . The man and the father and the king.”
“You’ll be my queen.”
“I would be honored.”
For a few seconds, his mask was completely gone and all she saw was love. So much love it should have frightened her. But the swell of her love for him was so great, it met and matched his, melding into something greater than both of them combined.
When he kissed her, it tasted as reverent and holy as renewing their vows. It was tender and loving and sweet. Eternal.
Then, because they were Magnus and Lexi, she tipped back her head, wrapped her arms around his neck and encouraged him to plunder.
He groaned and angled his head, then slid his hands down to her ass, picking her up so she wrapped her legs around his waist.
“How much time do we have?” he asked against her cheek.
“You told her not to disturb us. There’s enough milk in the freezer to buy us a few hours.”
“I should show more finesse,” he said as he cleared his desk with a sweep of his arm and pressed her back onto it. “But I hate fighting with you. I need to feel you, to know we’re okay.”
They barely undressed. Her slacks were thrown over a chair and her underwear was still dangling off her ankle when she hugged his ribs with her knees.
His entry stung. She wasn’t completely ready for him, but he paused and kissed his apology onto the tip of her nose.
“I’m rushing you.”
“It’s makeup sex. I want to feel connected to you.” She tugged his hair free of its band so it fell around her face.
He braced on his elbow, fingertips caressing her temple and cheekbone and the corner of her mouth while he seemed to memorize her features.
“I thought I was losing you,” he admitted in a whisper. “I lost everyone I loved before and loving them wasn’t enough. I need to know I’m giving you enough, Lexi.”
“You do.” She finished opening his shirt and ran her hands beneath it, mapping his bare shoulders. “I thought this was all we had, but we have so much more now. And it makes this even better.”
“It does,” he agreed. As he withdrew and returned, a wicked smile curved his lips. “I like watching your eyes haze like that.”
“I like how safe you make me feel, even when you’re burning down my world.” She wrapped her thighs around his waist and arched, inviting the act. The energy of his powerful thrusts.
“I will spend the rest of my life making you sigh like that,” he growled.
“Promise,” she gasped.
“On my life.”
They stopped talking, too caught up in the pleasure they were giving each other. And soon, the inferno engulfed them.
One month later...
Crowds had been pouring into Isleif for days. People of all ages lined the streets from the palace to the parliament building where Magnus would be declared king.
Security forces had been beefed up with help from allies, particularly the ones who were attending the coronation. It would not be a long ceremony, but every detail had been choreographed to the millisecond.
Their car arrived at the end of the red carpet that led into the building. A deafening roar rose around them as they left the car and walked the short distance into the building. Magnus had always been incredibly popular and, here in Isleif at least, Lexi grew more adored by the day.
Inside, cameras broadcast their short procession, flashing to Queen Katla seated with Sorr, holding Rolf who had the good manners to remain soundly asleep. They were flanked by Magnus’s family, including his father, and Rhonda, who still wore an expression of astonishment that her daughter was becoming a queen.
After the formal declaration of Magnus as king, they would travel in a slow parade back to the palace for a full day of celebration. There would be a reception for various local dignitaries, a state dinner for the foreign ones and a midnight ball. The day had been declared a national holiday, so events were planned across the country. Every club, arena, pub and local diner would be packed.
“Magnus,” Lexi whispered as the prime minister made his opening remarks. “You’re shaking.” He normally had nerves of steel.
His expression was the contained one that was difficult to read, but he flashed her a glance, allowing her to glimpse what was in his eyes. In his soul.
He leaned close to say in her ear, “I’ve always dreaded this day because I thought I would have to face it alone. But I have you.” He picked up her hand and kissed the finger that held her wedding band. “Thank you for being here. Today and in my life. I love you.”
He was going to make her cry and she’d taken such care with her makeup.
“I love you, too.” The clip of her lips shaping those words would become a GIF shared millions of times around the world, but in those moments, they were spoken by a wife to her husband with the utmost sincerity.
Then the prime minister turned to Magnus and recognized them as, “King Magnus of Isfeild and Queen Alexandra.”