Chapter Ten
For the second night in a row, Livia truly slept in a way she hadn’t since the days when her worries were limited to overcooked cafeteria peas and dentist appointments.
It was a quiet, dreamless sleep, and when she drifted toward waking, Gustav was there.
Dreams and reality wove together until he pulled her against the solid, warm muscles of his chest and his hard and very real length pressed against her rear.
She lost count of how many times they came together during the night with breathy, half-awake sighs.
She teased his thick length until he rolled on another condom and slid inside her, taking her to the brink of ecstasy, stoking her pleasure until he made sure she was fully awake and responsive.
Only then did he drive her over the edge, bringing her to shattering bliss as he came with a low groan, his face buried in her neck.
He whispered her name, something between a curse and a prayer.
But by the time she had fully awakened in the morning, Gustav was gone.
She pushed the mess of hair from her face and stretched lazily, enjoying the delicious ache between her legs, echoes of pleasure that lingered.
Against all good sense, she let the wispy tendrils of hope gather inside her, the hope that she and Gustav could be… something. Something more.
She wanted so much to believe they could find their own path out of the complicated maze of power and status. Could he possibly want that, too, more than he wanted revenge?
She had insisted the night before that he knew her. Did the same apply to herself? Could she trust that at his core, he was still the teenager who had comforted her and tried, in his own way, to show her his most vulnerable parts?
Livia slipped on a pale pink dress and white sandals before heading through the wood and brass of the cabin and up to the deck.
The previous morning, she had walked up this staircase, wondering if she was headed for her metaphorical beheading, but today, for the first time, she knew she wasn’t.
Not after last night. At least, the hope was growing stronger than the doubt. Maybe this was the start of trust.
She found Gustav on the deck, lounging like the god of indulgence, not the god of war.
His long legs were stretched out, and he was wearing a white shirt and a pair of light summer trousers.
His laptop was open, and he was staring intently at it.
But when he saw her, he rose to his feet, set the computer aside and crossed the deck.
He stopped in front of her, his hands brushing over her arms, filling her vision with him.
Then he bent down and brushed his lips over hers, letting them linger.
“I’ve been thinking about everything you told me last night,” he said.
She nodded. This was a good sign.
“You don’t have to worry anymore,” he said roughly. “You are in no danger. Now that you’re married to me, you are out of reach of both Edvin and your parents.”
Livia stiffened, and he pulled back a little and studied her, as if he was filing away this reaction in the same place he filed every calculated nuance, to later examine and strategize around.
“You have insisted that you do not care about titles, so risking ours being removed shouldn’t be a problem.” He raised his hand to her hair. His caress was so gentle, and yet she couldn’t escape the feeling that it was calculated. “I do not see why this would matter to you.”
This was her opening. She could tell him about Adele. About her plans to take her sister away from the life that their parents controlled and give Adele space to start over. Except the plan was for Livia to be there, too. For the sisters to start over together.
You are mine.
The memory of Gustav’s words rumbled through her, hot and possessive.
How would he react to a plan to leave him?
Livia swallowed as a new ache settled inside her, one that felt too much like longing.
It wasn’t just his reaction she was worried about.
Her own body seemed to physically reject the idea of leaving him.
And yet she could never abandon Adele to be sacrificed to her parents’ ambition if Livia lost the royal title they had fixed their hopes on.
Her sister might be driven to desperation once again, the way she had when she was younger.
The rational choice was to talk this out, and yet nothing about the last few days leaned toward rational. Gustav’s solutions were both dramatic and unilateral. Would he do something equally unilateral and dramatic if she told him of her plans?
A fear rose inside her. She couldn’t risk it.
Livia’s heart thumped in her chest as the impossibility of their situation took shape.
She closed her eyes, and he urged her against him.
She wanted to stay here, suspended forever in this moment, with that never-ending heat between them building stronger.
She needed to believe there was a solution before their lives came crumbling down around her.
“What is it, ?lskling?” he murmured. “Whatever it is, I can protect you.”
How she wanted to believe this. But what if the protection she needed was from him—and herself?
“It’s complicated. I need to think.”
He soothed her, his big hand running over her hair. Gustav gave a grumble of satisfaction.
“While you think your complicated thoughts, maybe we could go onshore for the day?” He gestured toward land, where brightly colored houses and storefronts peeked out from behind boat masts and trees. She hadn’t fully registered they were this close to civilization.
After a breakfast and coffee, the small tender was lowered to the water, and Livia climbed in ahead of Gustav. As the royal guard drove them to shore, Livia closed her eyes and enjoyed the wind blowing through her hair as they skimmed over the quiet sea.
“Are you going to reveal where you’re taking me?” she asked. “I’d like to assume we’re having dinner, but with you, I never know when there’s an unexpected wedding or another surprise around the corner.”
He smiled at her pointed little jab. “I’m afraid there will be no more weddings for you, Livia. Ever.” And she heard the satisfaction in his voice.
“Yes, yes. Now I am yours to keep,” she said, waving a dismissive hand.
He laughed, and she found herself smiling, too.
The guard steered the boat toward what appeared to be a series of small docks, lined with planters overflowing with flowers.
A car was waiting for them just beyond on the dock, and they drove along the waterfront, passing restaurants and cafés with large sections of outdoor seating, filled with mid-morning coffee drinkers and unruly families.
The car turned in down one narrow street, then another, weaving its way through the town’s small center until they came out on the other side of it, where the forest began.
She turned to Gustav to ask where they were going, but through the window she could see the answer.
The forest gave way to a high stone wall, and rising up behind it among the trees, she could see the roof of a house peeking through, one that looked far bigger than anything one would expect to find in a sleepy seaside town.
They came to a gate of carved wood that opened slowly, revealing a stone driveway into the property and enough trees to obscure everything else.
The driveway wound through endless pine trees on all sides.
The forest floor was lined with small bushy plants and the rolling flat rocks that she had seen all along the shoreline.
Livia shifted for a better view out the front window as more of the house appeared.
She might have described it as a farmhouse, but its size fit more into the category of a manor hall.
It was painted white with a bronze roof that had long ago turned green, and there were windows three stories high, the top one with dormers that poked out of the roof.
“What is this place?” she whispered.
“This was my home,” said Gustav, and there was a strange quality to his voice that she couldn’t read.
“The home where you grew up?”
He glanced at her with wry smile. “Before I was sent to boarding school. Then it was just the summers.”
“Just you and your mother lived here?”
He nodded.
Too late, she wondered if she should not have mentioned his mother.
Maybe he didn’t want to talk about her, her death had been just over a year ago.
Then again, if he had brought her here, he had opened the door to his past for her.
She knew not to take this lightly. So she reached across the black leather seat and found his hand, and she laced her fingers with his.
He looked down at their joined hands with that same unreadable expression on his face, then closed his fingers tightly around hers.
The car came to a stop at the top of the circular driveway, and a royal guardsman offered a hand to help her out. She let go of Gustav’s hand and climbed out, under the moody sky.
The house in front of her felt like a step back in time, its old wooden siding diligently kept up with paint, its copper roof weathering. Ivy scaled the sides and wrapped around the second-floor balcony that hung over the entryway, and the sharp scent of fresh grass was everywhere.
A second guardsman walked up the stone steps ahead of them and opened the front door.
Inside, an older woman with cropped gray hair, wearing a black shirt and trousers, waited for them in a large, open hallway, with whitewashed walls and an old wooden staircase with a banister that curved theatrically at the base.
The woman greeted them in Swedish with a nod toward Livia, but her smile was brighter, approaching something almost indulgent, for Gustav.
He hugged the woman and spoke to her for a moment, and after introductions, she disappeared into the house.
“This is lovely,” said Livia as they slowly walked through the hallways.