Chapter 35 Kissed Again #2
I inhale suddenly. Hope hurts. Time without number, it has splintered through my heart with the swing of its sword. Stomping in with heavy boots, ransacking, destroying. If I let it in again—
Marc holds my gaze, and the seconds stretch between us. This time, hope comes as a friend.
Freja makes a strangled sound in her throat. “The immigration thing? Ella, I love you for this. Oskar will love you for it, too.” She leans over the balcony. “Be good to her, Marc, even when she’s beastly.”
“I like a challenge,” he grunts, his face suddenly serious.
My breath catches and my hands feel unsteady. Is this possible? Marc and I are nothing alike. He wears linen suits, dark sunglasses, and silk ties to boiling-hot tennis matches. He deserves a self-contained goddess whose clothes are always crisp and whose angles are always right.
I try to imagine this perfect woman, but she won’t materialize.
My mind is busy remembering all the straw hats he brought along just in case I burned, his laughter at my improper jokes, and the way he would tuck my flyaway curls behind my ear. I think of all his crumpled programs, used to fan the back of my neck.
Watching his progress, my thoughts are like a herd of cattle, preparing to ford a stream, bunching up at the riverbank, watching the rushing water, terrified and dizzy with excitement at the same time.
Vede. This is it. Marc is coming for me where everyone can see.
He deserves a goddess but he’s getting a gremlin.
There’s no taking this back. I swear, if he falls I’m going to kill him.
Just as I’m getting used to the idea of being kissed again, a shaft of light falls across the terrace and my brother strides into view.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Noah’s thunderous gaze bounces from me to his best friend, and I have never wanted to assassinate the future head of a government more.
But Marc’s attention remains fixed on me, gaze warming my skin. His tone is mild. “I’m going to kiss your sister in another minute. When she’s had enough of that, I’m going to ask her to start dating me with a view to matrimony.”
“She doesn’t need you to make a noble sacrifice,” Noah growls. “She’s got spreadsheets.”
“He’s on the spreadsheet, you idiot,” I shout.
“I’m at the top of the list.” Marc looks at me again. “Elskede, don’t turn me down just for that. I promise you I can be profoundly inappropriate.”
My eyes dance. He’s already doing a bang up job with the flashing abs and the climbing walls. My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my palms.
“Stop making passes at my sister,” my brother barks. “And come down so I can knock your teeth in—” Noah reaches for the vines but Caroline, appearing out of nowhere, canons into him.
They stumble back a few paces, and he holds her, the both of them panting with surprise. She scoops a fall of hair out of her face and seems to regain her footing. When he moves to the wall, Caroline reaches for him again, placing her hand on my brother’s sleeve.
“Noah,” she whispers, shaking her head. The gesture is so little and yet it carries the weight of a command. Clara gasps.
Noah checks. I wait for him to pour out his royal wrath—using words like temerity and presumption—but it never comes. When he drops back, Caroline retreats through the open door.
My brother straightens his tie. “We’ll settle this later,” he clips.
“It’s already settled,” Marc says, sparing his best friend a glance. “Ella is my girl. You should go find your own.”
I imagined Marc’s loyalty to Noah and the Crown as a genetically altered gorilla, rampaging on a remote, skeleton-littered island. I thought it would end up destroying me if I got in the way of it, but it’s only grumpy and human-sized now. Noah fixes his jaw, inhales sharply, and departs.
Marc continues his climb until he’s within kissing distance.
“Watch out,” he tells me. My sisters shuffle back, eyes wide, holding hands like finalists in a beauty pageant, and I don’t breathe until he lands the vault onto the balcony.
I rush into his arms. “You idiot,” I breathe.
He holds me like he has done a thousand times this spring, and I feel like the door of a vault when the tumblers fall into place. Secure. Safe as solid gold. When I’m here, I never worry if I’m not enough or way too much. For this man, I am just right.
“Cat memes?” I remind him. “Nothing but cat memes and whui-ho for a whole week?”
He nuzzles into me. “I was afraid I was going to tell you that I love you over text,” he says. He lifts my face for a soft kiss. “I do.”
I close my eyes and burrow into him, reading the signs secreted in between bottles of Vestfyn and first-thing-in-the-morning selfies.
I touch the soft flesh of his side and he claps a restraining hand over my fingers. “Don’t be mad about the cat memes. I’ve been busy getting you something you’ll really like.”
My room is filled with Noah’s gifts. “I like you,” I breathe.
He rewards me with another kiss. “Don’t stop there.”
“My sisters need to leave,” I say, laughing against his lips.
“Not yet.” He lifts his watch to check the time. Half past the hour, and a little bit over. “Alma, be a dear. Look up some parliamentary news I embargoed until about a minute ago and read it out.”
She’s already scrolling. “‘In a stunning turn of events, Parliament voted for the repeal of’—” She shrieks, tosses the phone to Clara, and pushes me out of Marc’s arms, hugging him around the waist. Clara stares at the screen, then shoves the phone into Freja’s hands.
My littlest sister is bawling by the time she works her way under Marc’s arm.
Freja, who hugs no one but her husband, passes me the phone and reaches for Marc’s hand, holding it in a death grip. Her face is twisted with emotion.
I pull up the news and read. “‘Hereditary peer Neerheid van Heyden introduced an act of parliament to overturn a significant portion of the Marriages and Succession Act of 1798…’”
I fan my face with both hands, eyes stinging with unshed tears. Does he know what this means? No man could possibly understand as he does. A massive boulder, pressing in on me and my sisters with each breath for as long as we have been alive, has shifted.
Even with his hands full, Marc reaches out to me, brushing his fingers across my cheek.
I catch them, kiss them, and continue to read, leaning into his palm.
“‘It passed with overwhelming support, bringing the number of royal personages who must secure government permission to marry from five places in the line of succession down to one. Parliamentary watchers suggest it was due, in large part, to recent overreaches by Prime Minister Torbald, Vrouw Velasquez’s pregnancy, as well as an interview with noted Sondish artist, Linus Tiele, also known as Trash Panda Princess.’” I choke with a laugh, the words tumbling from my lips.
“‘Though the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Noah, must still, by law, seek Her Majesty and her minister’s permission to marry, the amended act will allow the royal princesses to choose whom they wed,’” my voice has risen to a shout, “‘without the consent of the government.’”
I squeeze my eyes shut. All my life I imagined my wedding as a gauntlet of legalities.
I imagined that my tender feelings, if I was allowed to have any for my future husband, would be smothered by article this and subsection that.
I imagined myself in a sheath dress and pearls on the steps of the Grousehof, emotions withering under the dark, unblinking glare of a thousand cameras.
But now— I take a breath and then another, my lungs burning as I try to wrap myself around this new freedom.
“What about Freja?” I ask.
“It’s not retroactive,” he murmurs, his words carrying regret. “I tried. I—”
“I don’t care,” Freja declares. “I don’t. Oh, Marc. Ella is crying.”
Marc rubs a thumb over my cheek, chasing away tears. I scrub a hand under my chin, catching more.
This is the life I choose. My family is still difficult—and I still have to get up next month, wrangle myself into heels and stockings, and sweat through every kind of ridiculous engagement. I shake my head. But this life— I can love it now.
Another tear slips down my cheek.
“There are too many people on this balcony,” I say, peeling through my sisters, aiming strategic kicks to get them moving. “You all need to leave, right now.”
Alma grimaces as I slip into Marc’s arms. “I can’t get used to this.”
“Get used to it,” I tell her, working my way in more deeply, only truly content when I hear the soft close of the mechanized door.
“Did you mean it?” I ask. “Do you really want us to start—” He climbed up the side of a palace for me and I can’t even complete a sentence.
“Yes.” His tone is firm. “I want to date with a view to matri—”
I slap my palm over his mouth and my face flames. “We haven’t even been on one date.”
The words ring false as soon as they leave my lips. Of course we’ve been on dates. It didn’t matter what we called them. It didn’t matter what little story we told ourselves about our motives and goals.
I think of my avatar in brIx, hefting one block at a time, each pixelated segment mined and moved. It doesn’t look like anything up close, but when you stand back, you see a castle. All spring, kiss by kiss by kiss, Marc and I have been building a future.
He peels my hand from his mouth, lacing our fingers together. “I’ll give everyone a minute to adjust to the idea of us. When we seal this deal, I don’t want to be tearing out of the Grousehof just to beat the news. I don’t want to be in a rush.”
“Rush?” I laugh, placing a kiss in the smooth hollow of his throat. He makes a low sound and curls against me. I look up and hook a slim finger under his sleeve. “You made time to find the tiniest shirt in Handsel.”
He grins. “I didn’t want to risk showing up in a suit and tie, bearing roses and your mother’s stamp of approval. You would have run me off.”
“I wouldn’t,” I say, suddenly serious. Here it is. No more trying to be cool. “I would have told you I love you.” There is a catch in my throat. “I do.”
I thought I knew Marc’s face, memorized its lines and expressions over years of patient study, but I’ve never seen it like this. Like a saint at his prayers and a child on his birthday. Like he has counted the days of his life and found them too few. Like he believes in forever. Like he has to.
“I thought you were going to get me out of your system,” I say.
He releases a broken breath. “I thought you wanted to run away and never come back.”
I go up on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck. “My father is going to ask about your intentions.”
“Scope creep,” he answers, giving me a wolfish wink. Then he holds his pinky between us. “I want dates and family dinners and being hounded by the press to make it official. I want to be caught kissing where we shouldn’t. Do we have a deal?”
“We have a deal.” I wrap my pinky around his and press his thumb.
“I would take you if it meant tiaras and military parades every day. I would take you if I had to wear sky-high heels to serve school lunches. If you want me,” his embrace tightens, “they’ll have to wrestle you out of my cold, dead hands. ”
“Tiaras everyday? You do love me.” His smile is lopsided. “At least the Dandelion Tiara won’t give you headaches.”
I do a little internal squeal. Very chill. Sort of chill. My spiritual fingertips are prancing. The Dandelion Tiara will be mine. Oh, yes, it will be mine.
Marc leans down until we’re forehead to forehead. His breath comes with a shake. “I have missed you so much. I had Werner start shopping for an island.”
“Why do you need an island?” I lead him to the sofa. Sealing this deal might take some time.
“For whenever you need to run away.”
Marc has covered all his bases. “What else should I ask for, since you’re in a mood to grant my every wish?”
“Hurry and decide,” he tells me, placing soft kisses on each eyelid, and on the end of my crinkled nose.
I don’t think about how much Mama will approve of this or what Alix might say. I have mentally consigned Noah to the end of the long meadow where he can overlook the dark ocean and consider what he owes his Viking blood.
I sink against Marc, and his hands band my waist. My eyes drift closed as his mouth covers mine. When he holds me, he keeps on holding.
I think, Whui-ho. We’ve got this. There’s nothing left to wish for.