Chapter Three
Three
LAILA
I learned at a very early age that life will utterly rip the rug out from under you when you least expect it, and hell if it wasn’t raising its ugly head again because holy shit .
How is this happening?
How the hell am I staring right into the face of the last person on earth I wanted to see?
James Hunter. A person whose name I have trained myself to never repeat inside my head is standing right in front of me, a face I thought I’d erased from my imagination. Somehow he’s walked right back into my life, like he’s been teleported here.
My mind and my body are functioning on two vastly different levels. My brain and my heart are racing, while my body is as frozen as the ice on the ground.
I stare down at James’s hand, wondering what my next move should be. Every instinct inside me is telling me not to shake it, to kick him in the shin and then storm off toward the house.
But my instincts often get me in trouble. It’s logic that I need to start listening to more, not what my gut tells me, because I swear my gut just wants a little excitement from time to time.
I have to do what my brain says. And it says that the only way I’m going to get through this is to make nice with him. Or at least pretend to make nice.
I hold out my hand and quickly shake his. His grip is strong, and far too familiar for my liking, and I try to take it back right away. But his hold is as persistent as he is.
“I mean it,” he says to me, and I hate how rich his Scottish accent is.
“I know we both have a lot of baggage behind us, but I’d like to keep it behind us for the sake of our jobs. I can’t imagine being here,” he continues, looking at the house, the fields, the woods, “and having an enemy.”
I snatch my hand back, burying it in my jacket pocket. “I’m not your enemy,” I tell him.
But he’s giving me a look that says, Oh yeah, then what am I, love?
Okay, he has a point. You’d think I would have had enough time to figure it out, but after I left the Fairfaxes, I put him out of my head. It was next to impossible when I was seeing him every day, but the moment I was gone, I did my best to put everything behind me. His transition from lover to enemy was pretty natural.
Besides, I had my grandmother to look after. She very quickly taught me the significance of life being too short and not letting the bad things take up too much space in your head.
And James Hunter was a very bad thing.
“So now what?” he says to me, shoving his hands into his pockets. “If it’s your night off, and I don’t officially start until tomorrow, do you want to get a drink somewhere?”
I stare at him. “Are you kidding me?”
He frowns, puzzled. “What?”
“What?” I repeat. “I’m not going to get a drink with you.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” I have to think about that for a moment. There are a million reasons why—so many that it’s hard to pin it down to one. “Because I don’t want to,” I eventually say.
He lets out a dry laugh. “Fair enough. So much for trying to start things off on the right foot.”
Ugh. I guess he is trying. I should too. Even though he’s the one who broke it off with me and turned into a complete douchebag right after, so really, it’s about balance.
“Just because I can suck things up and tolerate you being here doesn’t mean I want to get intimate.”
His brows go up. “Who said anything about intimate?” He grins at me, and damn it, I hate that his smile still has the power to knock the air from my lungs. In fact, nothing has changed about him at all. I had foolishly hoped that if I ever saw him again, perhaps a wart would have popped up on the end of his perfect nose, or that he’d lose all the tight, lean muscle I know he has under his clothes, or maybe he’d lose a couple of his perfect white teeth, forever screwing up his smile. Maybe he’d lose some hair while he was at it. But no. His hair is still thick, shiny, and dark. The smile is still gorgeous, his face is smooth and blemish free, maybe a bit more of a beard than the last time I saw him, but it suits him well, and his body seems as in shape as ever.
“There’s nowhere to get a drink around here anyway,” I tell him, averting my eyes before his ego gets a boost. “I’m guessing you didn’t know that part of the job description. Total isolation.”
“You’re right, I didn’t,” he says, and I can’t help but feel a little smug about that.
James is a city guy through and through. He likes going out to bars, to restaurants; he likes to date as many women as he can on his days off. I’m not sure how much of that is his actual personality or if it’s a method of distraction (you’d think I would know James on a more personal level, considering, but when you’re in it for the sex, you tend to skip over that stuff). Either way, we’re in the middle of nowhere and I know it will drive him crazy.
“And so now you’re stuck here, with me,” I tell him, trying not to smile.
His dark brows knit together. “In case it isn’t clear, Laila, I don’t have a problem with you. You’re the one with the problem.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
I make sure he knows that.
I give him the death glare. I swear I see him shrink back, just a little.
“If I have a problem, it’s because you…” I stop myself abruptly, closing my eyes, trying to remember the Zen yoga training that Ella makes me and Lady Jane do every Saturday morning with her, as if that’s enough to get me through the week without losing my damn mind.
“I what?”
I exhale slowly through my mouth before opening my eyes again, fixing my gaze on him. “Nothing.”
I watch him closely for a moment, trying to see if he’s squirming. He knows what he did. He knows how he broke things off between us. He can’t possibly think any of that was okay, that he’s not at fault.
To his credit now, he does seem a little squirmy. He worries his perfect lips between his teeth, lips that I’ve had all over my body.
“Look,” he says, tilting his head as he stares down at me. He’s always been a giant next to me, even though I’m tall. “I’m serious about wanting to start over. I know I messed up in the past. I know things ended between us badly, and I know that I’m mostly at fault for it.”
“Mostly?” I question, folding my arms across my chest.
His eyes go sharp for a moment. “Aye. Mostly. But I’m here now, and you’re here, and either we bury the bloody hatchet and start again, or we make ourselves miserable for the next while. And I need this job, Laila, just as much as I assume you need yours. Who knows how long that will be, but we have to accept that we’re working together.”
I sigh, tilting my head back to the sky for a moment. The first stars are starting to appear. “Okay.”
“We already shook on it, but do you want to hug it out?” he asks, holding out his arms.
I balk, giving him an incredulous look. The nerve of this guy. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“What? Prince Magnus already gave me a hug. You can’t tell me that this is inappropriate.” He flashes me a grin.
Before I even have a chance to say anything or try to move away, James comes in and envelops me in a big bear hug.
I freeze in response, shocked and not wanting to give in either. But still, just for a moment, my eyes flutter closed and I find myself resting my head on his chest, breathing in his familiar scent of cedar and salt. My god, I can’t remember the last time a man hugged me, let alone touched me.
And it’s with that worrying thought that I abruptly rip myself out of his grasp. I didn’t want to—I would rather have stayed there for a while, just letting the comfort overtake me and smother all my problems—but it had to be done. Of course, now I feel colder without it.
“Okay, so you had your hug,” I tell him, staring at the snow between our feet. “You had your handshake. And we’ve agreed to bury the hatchet. Sounds like you’ve gotten everything you wanted.”
“Not quite,” he says, eyeing the house. “To be honest, I’m not sure I would have taken this job had I known how isolated we would be. Please tell me that you get to the city at least a few times a week.”
My left brow goes up. He hasn’t changed at all.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing. You just have the wrong impression of my job. Again. If you were Magnus’s bodyguard, Einar, then yes, you’d go at least once a week into Oslo, and not just to see the king and queen but probably to go out and do fun things. But Ella…she’s more of a homebody. She goes out only for business and royal duties. And the kids, well, we try to keep them here as much as possible.”
“But if my duty is to protect Ella and the children…”
I bite back a smile. “Then my job is pretty much your job now.” I let that smile loose once I see how crestfallen he looks. “Going from protecting the regal Prince Eddie of Fairfax in the throes of London, jet-setting around the world, to being stuck in an isolated manor watching over two zany children, their no-nonsense homebody mother, and their irritable nanny.”
“Does she have to be irritable?”
I laugh, which I immediately regret. All my life I’ve been known for having the loudest laugh. I’m surprised herds of reindeer aren’t suddenly flushed out of the forest from the noise.
He’s smiling at me now. Not so much that shit-eating smirk he wears so well, but something gentler, something that softens his eyes.
It makes me want to be… nice to him.
What a ridiculous idea.
“Look,” I tell him. “I don’t have the energy to go into the city tonight, and even if I did, I don’t think it’s a good idea. If I were you, I’d just get myself acquainted with the estate and the rest of the staff and try to settle in.” I head off toward the house and pause, looking at him over my shoulder. “There’s a bar in the library where most of us spend our evenings. Feel free to help yourself.”
I go up the steps, and even though I’m bundled up like Stay Puft, I can feel his eyes on my ass. That part of him definitely hasn’t changed either.
I decide to be smart and spend the rest of my night off in my room, skipping dinner because listening to everyone ask James questions and hearing him talk with that damn sexy brogue of his is bound to piss me off further. Then again, the longer I stay in my room, attempting to read a psychological thriller from the growing collection on my bookshelf, the more my brain wants to stew on what’s happening out there. And the more I start thinking about James, the more I start realizing that everything about my job has now changed, possibly forever, or at least until one of us quits. And quitting is not an option.
Though, to be honest, my role as nanny has not been the easy job I thought it would be. Ella and Magnus are lovely, very down-to-earth people, and I do appreciate the zany family atmosphere here. Everyone is easy to get along with and friendly (if a little up in your business), and I crave that sense of stability, especially when it feels like things with my grandmother are so precarious.
But the boys… whew . I want to love them, and I hang on to the belief that in time I will grow closer to them. But Bjorn is an absolute terror who doesn’t listen to me no matter what I do, and while Tor is young, he’s impossible to keep happy. He cries at the drop of a hat. As a result, we don’t go into public that often. When we do, the Norwegian tabloids always either comment on me, being the poor forsaken nanny who is in over her head (case in point, when Bjorn smashed a chocolate ice cream cone in my face, creating a wonderful photo op), or they make fun of the kids. I know it hurts Magnus and Ella to read it, and in time, the boys will realize how unfairly they’ve been treated.
Anyway, I can see why a protection officer is needed, because the older the boys get, the more they’ll be out and about, and the more that we’ll need protection. I just never thought it would be James taking on the role, swooping back into my life like a disgraced knight in tarnished armor, about to upturn everything for good.
···
I wake up with the lights on in my room and the paperback on my face.
Crap. I fell asleep.
And from the way my stomach is growling, perhaps skipping dinner wasn’t such a good idea.
Then I remember the reason why I skipped dinner.
James Hunter.
Why, oh why, is he here? I know he already used the whole “of all the gin joints” Casablanca line, but seriously, why did he have to walk into mine?
I groan and roll over, glancing at my phone. It’s almost midnight. At least everyone should be asleep. I’ll just go into the kitchen and see if there are any leftovers. The cook, Sigrid, probably made extra food, not knowing how much James would eat.
I get up, put on my slippers, and head out into the hall. It’s dark down this wing, save for a few sconce lights, and I’m extra careful not to alert James in case he still sleeps lightly.
Shit. How annoying is it that I know how he sleeps? (Naked, actually, and on his stomach, facing away from you, arm tucked under the pillow.)
I make my way to the kitchen, not at all surprised to see Lady Jane sitting at the table in her fluffy leopard-print robe, drinking a giant cup of some lavender Valium concoction. She often battles her insomnia at this time of night.
“There you are,” she says to me, and pats the seat beside her. “Here. Come sit down. Let me make you a tea. Or food. You hungry? Oh, you must be hungry. You didn’t have any dinner. Are you feeling all right? Feverish?”
I can’t even get a word in before she’s coming toward me and pressing the back of her hand on my forehead. “You do feel a little warm,” she says.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Just came to get a snack before I go back to sleep.”
One of the benefits of living in the same house as the royals, and having them treat you as family, is having unfettered access to the kitchen and bar. Anything you want, any time of day, you just go right on ahead and get it. When I worked for the Fairfaxes, we (the help) were sectioned off in our own house and quarters, so we didn’t have quite the same “family” atmosphere as we do here. It’s one of the reasons why, even when the going gets tough, I like working here.
“But you weren’t at dinner,” Jane says, sitting back down. “Magnus said he gave you the night off. I thought maybe you’d gone out.”
I laugh, opening up the fridge. “That would be a first.”
“That’s what I said, though I also thought you would deserve it.” She pauses. “You know I worry about you, Laila.”
“Why?” I ask, pulling out a dish of cold roasted lemon potatoes. That’s good enough for me. I close the fridge door and give her an expectant look. Lady Jane has looked after Ella for a long time, and now that she has Magnus and her children, I feel Jane’s overbearing tendencies being directed toward me.
“Well, because you’re so young and single.”
My eyes roll to the ceiling. Good lord. “Twenty-eight isn’t so young.”
“I’m thirty years older than you,” she points out.
“Well, you don’t act like it,” I tell her, grabbing a fork and taking the potatoes over to the table. “If anything, I should be worried about you . Why are you still single? Huh?”
Her eyes narrow wickedly. “You know why. No one is good enough for me.”
“Maybe it’s the same for me,” I tell her, spearing a potato with a fork.
“You’re not going to warm that up?” she asks, looking horrified.
I shrug. “Too lazy.”
She doesn’t look impressed. “So you think no one is good enough for you? No, I don’t think that’s it.”
I point my potato at her. “Hey, I have standards.”
“I’m sure you do. But in the four months that you’ve been working here, living in this house, I haven’t seen you go on a single date, haven’t even heard you talk about a single boy.”
“Boy,” I snort. “I date men, Lady Jane. Just not at the moment. I’m busy, if you can’t tell.”
“You have your days off.”
“And you really expect me to date a guy on Sundays only? Never mind the fact that I’m seeing my grandmother on those days?”
“It just doesn’t seem right,” she says after a moment. “You know, Ella was single for so long before she and Magnus became involved. I know she wasn’t quite sold on him in the beginning, but I was just so happy for her to be with someone.”
“But I’m sure Ella would have been fine if she stayed single too.”
She sighs and has a loud sip of her tea. “I suppose. But you know, she was never as happy as she was when she fell in love with Magnus. Even if she would have been fine, I would have hated for her to miss out on all the good stuff.”
“Well, I’m doing just fine,” I tell her, feeling defensive. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being single. Besides, I’m focused on this job right now, this career. The rest, the falling in love and getting a boyfriend, that can come later.” Or, like, never. The less hassle in my life, the better, in my opinion. The more detached from people you are, the safer you’ll be. I learned that the hard way.
“Hmmph,” she says, leaning back in her chair and fixing me with her gaze. “You know what I think it is? Someone broke your heart.”
Oh boy. Here we go. Even though Lady Jane is Ella’s lady-in-waiting, she’s become this meddling mother figure for everyone in the house. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but if you have a problem, she will definitely try to solve it for you—regardless of whether you want her to or not.
“No one broke my heart,” I tell her, and I’m not really lying either. I don’t think I’d fallen in love with James; I’d just fallen in very strong lust with him, and he took that lust and twisted it around until it snapped in two. I had all the rejection of a broken heart but with twice the bitterness.
“Uh-huh,” she says, taking another sip of her tea.
I finish my potatoes quicker now, afraid of where this conversation might go.
“So James is a nice man,” she says in a cheery voice. A little too cheery.
“He is,” I say, smashing the last potato in my mouth so I don’t have to talk.
“I have to admit, I found it kind of strange that you worked together for so long in London, hadn’t seen each other for at least a year, and then his first day here, you don’t even show up for dinner.”
I attempt to swallow. Was I that obvious?
I shrug, getting to my feet and taking the dish to the sink to wash it since the dishwasher is already running. “I was tired. How often do I get a night off to just be alone in my room?”
She thinks that over. “Maybe. Or maybe you don’t like James.”
I give her a very fake incredulous look as I rinse the dish, squirting out the soap. “What are you talking about?”
Her eyes dance beneath her blunt bangs. “That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t like him. Something happened at the Fairfaxes’, and now you hold a grudge.”
How is she this astute? She must be reaching.
I need to keep my cool.
As much as Lady Jane is a servant, part of the staff, like the rest of us nonroyals, I know I can’t confide in her. If I ever told her the truth of what happened between James and me, not only would she watch our every move like a hawk, but I have no doubt she would tell Ella. The lady can’t keep any secrets. And then Ella would go about finding another nanny. One who can control her beloved children better and hasn’t slept with the new bodyguard.
I dry off the dish with a towel and shake my head. “You’re the one who needs to get out of the house,” I tell her. “You’re making up fantasies.”
“I’m not. I’m just observant.”
I put away the dish and walk over to the table, resting my palms on top and leaning toward her. “Lady Jane,” I say. “I don’t have a problem with James. There is no grudge. I honestly didn’t know him very well. We weren’t together much. I was always with baby Madeline; he was always protecting Eddie. He was outside of their lives; I was in the middle of it. We’d be friendly when we saw each other, but that was usually in passing. Honestly. I don’t know James well, but I like him just fine, and I’m glad that he’s working for the prince and princess.”
I hold her eyes until it feels uncomfortable, and then she deflates, shoulders sinking. See, she wanted us to have a problem. What a drama queen.
“Oh, all right,” she says. “I guess I’m just imagining what’s not there.”
“That’s right. And I’m sure the two of us will be having many dinners together in the future.”
And with that I leave Lady Jane with her tea and head back down the hall to my room. I quickly use my en suite bathroom, then get into my pajamas and crawl into bed.
As I do so, the headboard of the bed jostles against the wall.
And then I hear a knock back.
Oh my god. James. His bed must be right up against mine. I’d gotten so used to having no one in that room.
“You up?” I hear very faintly through the wall.
Shit. How is it that I can hear him? How thin are the walls in this place?
I raise my fist, about to bang on the wall, but then stop myself. I don’t want him to think I can hear him, and I don’t want to start playing some silly game with him.
I turn around, more carefully this time, and switch off the light. I pull the covers up to my chin, totally conscious of even breathing now, hoping that I don’t snore.
“Good night, Laila.” His voice comes through the wall.
I put my pillow over my face.