Epilogue
JAMES
One year later
“Are you ready?!” Magnus yells at me at the top of his lungs, trying to be heard above the roar of the wind and the engines.
I manage to tear my eyes away from the open door and look at him. He’s giving me the thumbs-up, his expression manic as he nods. He wants me to be ready. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to jump out of an airplane.
I manage to give him a thumbs-up, though I can’t force the smile.
Ottar pats me on the back, making me jump. He leans in, even though he’s already close because I’m going tandem with him. “I told you you’d end up doing something like this one day,” he yells.
“Never a dull moment,” I mutter.
Obviously none of this was my idea, and I tried to back out as gracefully as I could, but once Magnus had it in his head to go skydiving, I was forced to go along. He says it was for his protection, but I mean, come on. He’s the one throwing himself out of a plane. I can’t do much to protect him from that.
Anyway, it was either this or BASE jumping, and I figured I’d have better luck with a commercially operated skydiving company than with Magnus, who just runs off cliffs with a backpack attached, hoping to pull that cord right away.
I have to say, in the time that I’ve been working as Magnus’s protection officer, it’s been a wild ride, but all this time I feel like he’s been building me up to this, to see what I’m really made of. I mean, sure, I nearly died saving his own son from drowning, but let’s see what jumping out of an airplane will do for my character.
The skydiving instructor pats Magnus on the back, and then Magnus lets out a rip-roaring cry and leaps from the airplane, disappearing from sight.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
The instructor yells at us to come closer to the door, and we do. I don’t know what kind of a wild world we live in where Ottar is the one pulling the cord because he’s got more experience doing this, but here we are.
“You ready?” the instructor says.
“Yes!” Ottar yells in my ear.
“Not really,” I manage to say.
But it doesn’t matter because we’re literally standing on the edge of the open side of the airplane and someone is counting down, and I think I’m just going to have a heart attack right here and now. Sorry, Magnus, I failed the ultimate bodyguard test and died before I even hit the ground.
Then we’re jumping.
Falling.
And the sun is in my eyes and the wind is in my ears, buffeting my face, and the sky is so blue and the fields outside Oslo are coming up faster and faster, spreading as far as the eye can see, turning into mountains and fjords.
Bloody hell.
I’m beside myself with feeling, my heart in my throat, the adrenaline running in me like it never has before. I can hear Ottar yelling in my ear. When I look down I see Magnus, freewheeling like Tom Cruise before he pulls his chute. Then Ottar pulls ours.
We’re yanked back as the chute opens and the rush stops and everything goes…calm.
We just float.
And I’m beside myself with happiness in ways I can’t even describe. It’s not just that the endorphins are running amok inside me, it’s everything that’s led up to this moment and everything that will happen afterward.
Because this isn’t the scariest thing I’m about to do today.
No, I have a diamond ring in my suit pocket, waiting for me below.
Magnus, Ottar—they both know I’m going to propose to Laila tonight. They’re pretty good at keeping secrets in the long run, because for the last six weeks straight I’ve literally been telling them I’m going to propose to her and I haven’t yet.
But now? After jumping from an airplane, I realize I’m brave enough to do all the things that scare me. And asking Laila to marry me doesn’t scare me anymore. Wanting to spend the rest of my life with her. None of that scares me anymore.
I’m ready.
We touch down on the soft earth, and I try to keep my legs moving, but Ottar’s extra weight pushes me forward until we’re both rolling on the ground. Okay, not the most graceful landing.
“You did it!” Magnus yells at us, coming over and helping us to our feet. I unclip from Ottar, and then Magnus pulls me into a hug. “I’m so proud of you,” he says, getting all emotional.
“Okay, okay, ease up there,” I tell him. “I survived.”
“No thanks to me,” Ottar says.
“All thanks to you, Ottar,” I tell him, giving him a grateful nod. “Thank you for pulling the chute on time.”
He chuckles then shrugs. “Well, I figured if I didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to propose.” He squints at me. “You are proposing tonight, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “For real this time.”
“Ha,” Magnus says, patting me on the back. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Come on, that took a little longer than I thought. We better get back home so you can catch your other flight. Hopefully you don’t jump out of that one.”
Other than deciding that I want Laila to marry me, a lot of other things have changed over the year.
We still work together at Skaugum Estate. We’re obviously a couple, though our work doesn’t always have us interacting all day long, especially as Magnus gets more and more involved with the king and queen, a transition that will happen sooner rather than later with the king’s health in decline. I spend a lot of time in Oslo, but when I come home each night, we’re at least sharing the same bedroom now. No more whispering—and, erm, other stuff—through the walls.
Laila has really found her groove as the nanny. Bjorn is on medication for ADHD, which helps with his impulsivity, and Laila does a lot of focus work with him. It takes patience, but she’s more than up for it, and as a result she and Bjorn have grown a lot closer. Tor too has become a great kid, more sensitive than we thought he’d be, but he’s a good foil to Bjorn.
Then there’s everyone else at the estate: Ottar, Lady Jane, Einar, Olaf, Sigrid. After Laila lost her grandmother they really stepped up in giving her a sense of community, and in the end, they did the same for me. Though both Laila and I may not have any close relatives left, we’ve learned not only to become each other’s family but also that found family is as valid and as important. It just happens to be that our family is now a royal one (and a bunch of zany motherfuckers at that).
That said, we don’t spend all our time there anymore. No, we spend our weekends at the house in Todalen.
Every Friday night, unless there is an event, we fly in the royal private jet up to Todalen and stay the weekend. We have a car we leave at the airstrip, and then we just drive down and have a real, proper weekend together. Just the two of us. Most of the time we don’t even leave the bedroom, let alone the house (Skaugum Estate still lacks a certain amount of privacy). But some days we have coffee with the neighbors, or we go kayaking on the fjord, or we go hiking. Just spending the time with each other doing the simple things.
It’s my favorite part of my life at the moment. And I can only hope and pray that it’s a part of our life that will grow. I want these quiet days with her forever.
It’s May, so the sun is out late these days, but even so, we want to get up to Todalen before dinner. The drive back to Skaugum from the skydiving place is about an hour, and I’m a nervous wreck. I was nervous before, but now that the adrenaline from jumping out of the plane is running through my veins, I’m nearly bouncing in my seat. I can kind of understand why Magnus is addicted to doing this kind of wild shit.
Then again, I’ve been nervous every Friday for the last six weeks, since I first bought the ring, wondering when I’d find the right moment on the weekend to pop the question. I’ve been trying to think of something romantic, and elaborate, and memorable, but I’m not that good at that sort of thing, and I’m definitely not the type of guy who would do the kind of proposal that people film or tell stories about.
But while I’ve been waiting for the right moment, the right moment hasn’t really come. I’m starting to think I need to borrow a page from Magnus’s rule book and just do it on pure impulse. The proposal itself isn’t going to get Laila to say yes. She already knows her answer.
We get back to the estate in just enough time, and Laila is already waiting on the steps with our bags. Magnus and Ottar get out of the car, both of them giving me knowing looks that I hope Laila doesn’t pick up on, and then we’re being taken to the airfield.
“I’d ask you to tell me all about your adventure,” Laila says to me as we wave goodbye to Einar and board the narrow steps onto the plane, “but I think I’d rather wait until the plane has landed.”
“Fair enough,” I tell her.
She looks me up and down. “But I can definitely tell you that you’re buzzing pretty good. You better keep that energy up for later,” she adds with a wink.
Oh, she has no idea.
The plane ride is quick as always, which helps with the guilt. Magnus and his family have been more than generous in providing transportation for us like this when it’s available. We have no illusions of who we are on the social ladder. They’re the royals upstairs; we’re the staff downstairs. But because we’ve been folded in like family, and because the royals go out of their way to help us, we really do live this strange life of being normal commoners with a lot of special perks. I don’t think Laila and I will ever get used to having a private jet at our disposal, and the moment we do, then we need to reevaluate who we are. We’re both very adamant about not losing touch with where we came from, even all the ugly bits.
For Laila, though, as the plane touches down, as we drive through the winding roads toward the long, dark slice of water that is Todalsfjorden, every weekend reminds her where she comes from and why it’s so important to her. Now she has a sense of home in two places—one being here, the physical house where her soul feels most at peace, and the other at Skaugum, not quite within the physical walls, but with the actual people.
I’m starting to feel the same way.
And that’s when it hits me.
I yank the car over onto the tiny pullout on the side of the road, right along the fjord.
“What happened?” Laila asks, looking up from her phone in surprise. “Did we run out of gas?”
I shake my head, my hands trembling as I turn off the ignition. “No,” I say. “There’s something…I need to show you.”
I mean, I can’t propose to her in the car—not when there’s this lovely, deep fjord beside us, the water calm, reflecting the towering, craggy mountains on the other side. Suddenly it all seems so perfect.
I unbuckle my seat belt and get out of the car, walking to the water’s edge. There are two large rocks there, artfully balancing against each other.
“What are you doing?” Laila asks, walking over to me.
I’m not sure. Suddenly I have the notion that maybe I am one of those people who would film a proposal.
“Uh, go stand on that rock over there,” I say to her. “I want to pose for a picture.”
“Okay,” she says warily, but she still walks over. “Which rock?”
“The taller one,” I tell her. I set up my iPhone on the hood of the car, balancing it in the windshield wipers as I hit record.
Then I walk over to her.
“You’re doing a self-timer?” she asks, incredulous. She’s always the one taking a million photos of us. I think I have one photo of us together on my phone, and it was one that she took.
“Why not,” I tell her.
I step up onto the shorter rock. It’s not very steady, and it wobbles back and forth under my boots, but at least I’m a little bit shorter than her this way. Beats having to get down on one knee.
“Are we posing?” she asks me, eyes bright and curious as I take both her hands in mine. “How long did you set that self-timer for?”
But I ignore her. I barely hear her. All I can think about is that ring burning a hole in my pocket and the words I want her to hear but I’m not sure how to say.
Just say it , I tell myself. Be the blunt bastard that you are.
“Laila,” I tell her, trying to smooth out my voice.
I squeeze her hands, staring into her eyes. And all it takes is that because suddenly her whole demeanor changes. She’s not scared, but she’s…waiting, eyes already going wet.
“Laila love,” I tell her, taking in a deep breath. “We’ve known each other quite a while now. We’ve loved each other for quite a while. And I think we’ve found a home in each other too. I’ve always said that the reason we connect so well is because we both know what it’s like to lose family, lose our loved ones, feel alone in the world. Our upbringings were very different from each other’s, but we’re both bound by that searching for family.”
I let go of her one hand and stick mine in my jacket pocket, closing it around the velvet box.
She brings her free hand up to her mouth, already gasping.
“Laila, I’ve found my family in you. Everything I’ve spent my life looking for, I’ve found in you. In your big heart, in your beautiful soul, you’ve made room for me, and I’ve made room for you. And I think we’re at the point now where there’s nothing holding us back. No fear, no regret, nothing but the future. And I need you to be a part of mine forever.”
She’s crying now, tears streaming down her face, so fucking beautiful, but at least they seem to be tears of joy.
I let go of her other hand and pull out the box, opening it for her to see. It’s actually a vintage ring that was combined with an opal gemstone for her birthday, and it practically shines in her face.
“James,” she says through a choked whisper, staring down at the ring, hands shaking.
“Laila Bruset,” I say to her, having to blink back the heat behind my eyes. “Will you marry me?”
She nods, crying. “Yes, yes, yes,” she says, gasping.
The adrenaline from earlier is nothing compared to what I’m feeling right now. Because I also have joy. Joy that I never knew I was capable of feeling.
Before I drown in it, I take the ring and slip it on her finger.
It sits there like it’s meant to be there, like it will stay there forever. One can only hope it will.
She holds her hand out, admiring the ring, crying some more, and then she throws her arms around me, kissing me. “James, James, I love you.”
But while I’m about to answer her back, that I love her more than anything in the world, my future wife, her movement knocks me off-balance.
I teeter on the rock, and I don’t know if it’s because of the emotions of the proposal itself, because she said fucking YES, or because I jumped out of an airplane earlier today, but my balance is shot.
I go falling off the rock, trying to break my fall, but instead I go tumbling down into the water.
SPLASH.
I land in the fjord face-first, the water shockingly cold. I immediately find my footing, trying to stand on slippery rocks.
Meanwhile Laila is yelling, trying to run down the slope after me, except she loses her footing and can’t slow down. She ends up falling into the water right beside me.
Thank god it’s shallow, and she’s already on her feet, laughing her head off, trying to help me up to mine. Eventually we both stagger out of the water, freezing cold, soaking wet, collapsing on the ground in each other’s arms.
“You didn’t change your mind, did you?” I ask, wiping the wet hair off my forehead. “Because that was probably the most ungraceful move I’ve ever made.”
She laughs, kissing me happily, her lips tasting like salt. “I’ve told you before, I like it when you seem like a mere mortal.”
“So I guess that means you’ll take me for better or for worse.”
“I’ll take you for everything, James,” she says to me, cupping my face. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I tell her, pressing my lips to hers, feeling the happiness bubble up between us.
That and the shivers.
“Come on,” I tell her, getting to my feet and helping her up to hers. “Let’s go home and celebrate. I may have stashed a bottle of champagne somewhere for whenever I got the courage to pop the question.”
“You’ve been planning this awhile?” she asks as we head toward the car.
And that’s when I remember I filmed the whole damn proposal.
“Oh shit,” I swear, running over to the phone. I quickly turn to stop the video and slip the phone into my coat. “You have to promise me that no one ever sees this footage.”
She claps happily. “Oh that is going up on YouTube right away. We’ll get a million hits!”
“No, Laila,” I tell her as we get in the car.
“You at least have to show me.”
“We can watch it at home with the champagne.”
“Then we’ll put it on YouTube,” she says with a devious smile. “Can you imagine it? Bodyguard to the Norwegian prince falls in a fjord during proposal to royal nanny.”
“I can imagine it, actually.” Magnus would never let me hear the end of it. I narrow my eyes at her playfully, even though I’m still grinning like a fool. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t know me at all,” she says, waving her hand at me. “We’re getting married now. For better or for worse, remember?”
I shake my head, but I’m laughing.
For better and for worse and for everything else in between.
That’s us.