Chapter 19
NILS
The words hung in the air between us. “Upstairs?”
Everything in me wanted to say yes. To follow Adan up that ladder, to lose myself in the pleasure with him again, to pretend for one more night that this was simple. That we were just two people falling for each other without complications or secrets or lies. That there was no tomorrow.
But I couldn’t do it. We couldn’t build a real relationship on a foundation of deception. I’d already crossed so many lines, but if we went upstairs now, if I touched him again while still lying about who I was, I’d never forgive myself.
I pulled back slowly, watching confusion replace desire in Adan’s eyes.
“We need to talk,” I said, the words feeling like glass in my throat.
His expression immediately shifted to defensive. “If you’re about to tell me this was a mistake, or that we shouldn’t have come here—”
“No.” I caught his hand before he could pull away completely. “It’s not that. This night has been perfect. You’re perfect. It’s something else. Something I should’ve told you months ago.”
The defensiveness morphed into wariness. “What kind of something?”
I took a deep breath, trying to find the right words. How did you tell someone that everything they thought they knew about you was built on carefully constructed half-truths? “Remember when you asked if my family had money?”
“Yeah. You said they did. So?”
“It’s more than that. More than having money.” My throat felt tight. “My last name isn’t exactly Anders.”
Adan frowned. “What do you mean, not exactly?”
“Anders and Gustav are my middle names. I’ve been using them here, which isn’t technically lying, but…” I forced myself to meet his eyes. “My full name is Nils Anders Gustav Bernadotte.”
“Okay?” He looked confused. “Why would you hide your last name? Is Bernadotte like a weird name in Sweden or something?”
Herregud, this was harder than I’d imagined. “It’s not weird. It’s significant.”
“Significant how?”
There was no easy way to say this. No gentle lead-in that would soften the blow. “I’m a prince. Part of the royal family of Sweden. Sixth in line to the Swedish throne, actually.”
The silence that followed felt like it lasted hours. Adan’s face went through a series of expressions: confusion, disbelief, comprehension, and finally something that looked devastatingly like betrayal.
“You’re…” His voice came out strangled. “What?”
“I’m a prince. Of Sweden. I came here to live as a normal person for a year, to see what life would be like without the title, without people knowing who I—”
“Stop.” He pulled his hand away from mine, physically recoiling. “Just stop.”
“Adan—”
“You’re a prince.” He said it like he was testing the words. “An actual, literal prince.”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve been lying to me since the day we met.”
“I—” The word yes stuck in my throat, but what else could I say? “Yes.”
“You lied to me,” he repeated, his voice getting harder as he rose, creating distance between us. “So every conversation we’ve had. Every time I opened up to you. Every fucking moment between us has been built on a lie.”
“Not everything—”
“No?” He whirled to face me. “When I told you about my parents working extra shifts to pay for my equipment, you sat there knowing you’re a fucking prince? When I talked about never seeing anything outside of Buffalo, you didn’t think to mention you grew up in actual palaces?”
“I wanted to—”
“When?” His voice was rising now. “When did you want to tell me? Before or after I made a complete fool of myself?”
“You never made a fool of yourself.”
“Didn’t I? Because from where I’m standing, I’ve been spilling my guts to someone who’s been laughing at me the whole time.”
“I never laughed at you. Never.” I stood too, needing him to understand. “Everything between us has been real—”
“Real?” He let out a harsh laugh. “How can any of it be real when you’ve been pretending to be someone else?”
“I haven’t been pretending. I’m still me. The same person who’s been coaching you, who built furniture with you, who—”
“Who lied to me every single day.” He stepped closer, getting in my face.
I wanted to step back from his anger, but I forced myself to hold my ground. “I know I should have told you sooner—”
“Sooner? You shouldn’t have lied in the first place!” He was close enough that I could see the hurt beneath the anger in his eyes. “Was any of it real? Or was it all part of the experiment? See how the common people live?”
“Don’t.” Now I did step forward. “Don’t diminish what we have like that.”
“What we have?” He shook his head. “What exactly do we have, Nils? Or should I say, Your Highness?”
The title on his lips felt like a slap. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? That’s who you are, isn’t it? Who you’ve been this whole time while I’ve been falling for a lie?”
“You’ve been falling for me. The real me.”
“The real you?” His voice went deadly quiet. “I don’t even know who that is. Is Nils Anders the hockey coach real? Or is he just a character you’ve been playing?”
“He’s real. Everything I’ve shown you is real.”
“Except for the tiny detail of being ROYALTY!” The volume came back suddenly. “When were you planning to tell me? After you met my parents? After we’d been together a year? Never?”
The thought that he’d considered a future with me made it all hurt a thousand times worse. “I wanted to tell you so many times—”
“But you didn’t. You looked me in the eye and chose to keep lying.” He ran his hands through his hair, pacing again. “What else are you lying about? What else don’t I know?”
“Nothing else—”
“How can I believe that? How can I believe anything you say now?” He spun to face me again. “Is anything you told me true? The hockey injury? Living in Canada? Or was that all part of your cover story?”
“The hockey was real. University was real. My injury was real.”
“At Rideau University. Which I’m guessing knew exactly who you were.”
I couldn’t deny it. “Yes, they knew.”
“Of course they did.” He laughed again, that same bitter sound. “But you let me believe we had something in common.”
“We do have things in common—”
“No, we don’t. You’re a prince who was slumming it for a year, and I’m an idiot who fell for it.”
“That’s not what this was—”
“Then what was it?” He got in my face again, close enough that I could feel his breath. “Explain to me how this is different from using me.”
“I never used you.”
“No? You wanted to see if someone could care about you without knowing about your title. Congratulations, experiment successful. Hope you got the data you needed.”
The comparison to Alexandra’s betrayal twisted like a knife to my chest. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” His voice cracked slightly. “How is any of this fair to me?”
“I’m sorry—”
“No.” He held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear about your fears or your reasons or how hard it was for you. I want to hear you say you’re sorry for lying to me. Not sorry I found out. Sorry you lied. Sorry you didn’t trust me. Sorry you let me make a fool of myself for months.”
I swallowed hard. “I am sorry. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you with the truth. I’m sorry I let fear control my choices. I’m deeply, truly sorry for hurting you.”
“Now tell me why I should forgive you.”
The question hung between us, and I found I didn’t have an answer. What could I say? That I’d been hurt before? That I’d wanted one year of being valued for myself? All of it sounded like excuses in the face of his pain.
“I don’t know if you should,” I said honestly. “I broke your trust. I made choices for both of us without giving you a say. I was scared, because…”
Something shifted in his expression. Still angry, still hurt, but listening now.
I had to tell him the truth. All of it. Every fucking embarrassing detail. “A year ago, I broke up with my girlfriend. Her name was Alexandra, and we’d been dating for eight months. I thought we were serious, that this was the real thing. I thought I loved her or at least, that I could love her.”
Adan frowned. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“Alexandra was only with me because of my title. Because I’m a prince. I overheard her talking to a friend about how boring I was, but that she’d go through with it because being with me would mean becoming a princess, would open doors for her.”
Adan opened his mouth, then closed it again. “What a bitch.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. It was such a classic Adan reaction. “Yes. She was… is a bitch. She recently got engaged to a Danish prince, so she got her wish after all.”
“Jesus.” Adan scrubbed his face with both hands. “I hope she wakes up thirsty and hot every night, needing to pee, only to step on Legos.”
It took a second for the full insult to register, but then I snorted. I immediately slapped my hand in front of my mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I mean it. I hope both sides of her pillow will always be warm and that she’ll always have an itch right between her shoulder blades that she can’t reach.”
At first, I grinned, but then my smile faded. “She hurt me. Deeply. She took something from me: my self-confidence.”
“And you needed to test if people liked you for who you were rather than for your title or your money.” When I nodded, he let out a long sigh. “Well, fuck…”
“That doesn’t make it okay what I did.”
“No, but…” He studied me for a long moment. “I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. The whole truth this time.”
I nodded again.
“What’s your full title?”
“His Royal Highness Prince Nils Anders Gustav of Sweden, Prince of Sweden, Duke of ?ngermanland, Knight and Commander of the Orders of His Majesty the King in The Royal Order of the Seraphim.”
“Jesus Christ.” He rubbed his face. “What about your family?”
“My uncle is the King of Sweden, King Alexander. He’s my mom’s older brother. My mother is Princess Margarethe, my father is Prince Evert. He’s what we call a commoner, so not of royal or noble blood, but he became a prince when he married my mom. I have one younger sister, Margaret.”
“And you lived in a palace, I guess?”
At least we were still talking. As long as he asked me questions, I had a chance to explain, to fix this.
Right? “I grew up in Solliden Palace on ?land. After graduating from what you would call high school, I did attend Rideau for four years and received my bachelor’s degree in sports coaching with a minor in sports management. ”
“But you don’t need a job. Not financially…”
I hesitated. “Yes and no. Technically, I have enough money to live on for a while.” When he quirked an eyebrow, I corrected myself.
“For a long time. But people frown upon royal family members who don’t work, especially further down the line of succession, like me.
That’s why I chose to get a degree in something I loved. ”
His anger seemed to have dissipated, which gave me some cautious hope. “So this job is not some kind of charity?”
I firmly shook my head. “This is a real job that I applied for. That I wanted.” Then I added softly, “That I love.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
This was the question I’d been dreading. “I wanted to. Especially after… after we became close. But the longer I waited, the harder it became. And I was afraid of exactly this. Of losing you.”
“So instead, you guaranteed it by lying.”
I had no defense for that.
Adan finally sat back down, the last bit of anger seeming to drain out of him all at once. He looked exhausted. “I need to think. I need to figure out if I can get past this.”
“Take all the time you need.”
“I’m not running away,” he said firmly. “But I need space to process what the fuck just happened. We’re going back to Buffalo. You’re going to drive. And we’re not going to talk during the drive because I need to think.”
“Okay.”
We packed up in silence, the perfect romantic night in ruins around us.
The drive back was excruciating: three hours of complete silence except for the sound of tires on pavement. I wanted desperately to explain, to apologize again, to beg for forgiveness. But I’d lost the right to ask for anything from him.
When we finally reached Buffalo, when I pulled up in the parking lot near his dorm, he turned to look at me for the first time in hours.
“I don’t know if I can forgive this,” he said quietly.
“Not because you’re a prince. I honestly don’t give a fuck about that.
But because you didn’t trust me. Because you looked at me every day and chose to keep lying. ”
“Adan—”
“I’m canceling our private Monday practice. After that, I’ll see. Don’t contact me. I’ll reach out when I’m ready. If I’m ready.” He opened the door, then paused. “You broke something tonight. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”
Then he was gone, walking into his dorm without looking back. I sat in the parking lot for a long time, staring at the building.
I was so afraid of scandal, so concerned with protecting myself, that I’d hurt the one person who’d seen me for exactly who I was.
Except he hadn’t. Because I’d never given him the chance.
I drove home to my empty apartment, to my IKEA furniture and my careful normalcy, and wondered if I’d lost the only real thing in my entire carefully constructed life.