Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Stellan
Acouple of days later, it is clear that word of my relationship with Margot has gotten to the press.
Normally I am not bothered by a few reporters that might turn up here and there.
But they’ve been growing in number over the last few days, showing up at every event I have, elbowing each other in order to get to within earshot of me.
“Prince Stellan! Is Margot your lover?”
“Stellan! Stellan! Will you marry her?”
“Will the wedding be soon?”
I ignore them as I get out of the back of the limo and hurry into the palace. Looking back at the swarm of reporters and paparazzi, I’m nearly blinded by a flashbulb going off to the right of the palace doorway.
Shaking my head to clear my vision, I turn and trot inside the darkened palace. Running up the grand staircase, I make my way down the echoing hallway to my living room.
When I open the door to find Margot wiping away a tear and trying to hide that she’s been crying, I feel my heart twist in my chest. She sniffles and sits up straighter in the hard backed chair by the table, running her hand over her black cotton dress.
“Haj,” she greets me.
My heart twists again. She’s trying to learn Danish for me.
“Haj,” I say, walking over and giving her a hug. “I am guessing that you saw the reporters?”
Margot wipes at her face bashfully. “Yeah. I was going to go out to meet the personal shopper you suggested for me… but I couldn’t even manage to leave the palace.”
She sucks in a deep breath. “It’s especially hard because I don’t even have any answers for them.”
I pull away, shaking my head. “That isn’t anything I can help with, Margot.”
Pulling out the chair opposite her, I sit down and glance out the window. She wrinkles her nose delicately.
“I know,” she says. “I was just… telling you how I feel.”
I drum my fingertips on the table. When I speak, my words come out sharper than I intended. “The prime minister came to see me today. He asked about you. How do you think I felt, telling him I don’t have any more answers about our current predicament than you?”
I can actually hear her inhale. She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m sorry that you are feeling the pressure. It must be terrible to feel like you don’t have much control of things.”
I shoot her a glare. “It’s not that hard to make up your mind, Margot. You either want me, and can accept all that comes along with me… or you can’t.”
She ducks her head, her jaw tensing. “You make it sound so easy.”
I grind my teeth. “It might not be easy for you. For me, there was never a choice. I didn’t get that kind of freedom.”
She shoots to her feet, pacing over to the window. “Yes. I know that you had a hard childhood, Stellan. Just like you know that mine wasn’t any easier.” She hisses out a breath. “I feel like we could go around and around in circles over this for a thousand more years.”
I try to take a calming breath. “We’re out of time, Margot. I think you know that.”
She leans against the window, scrunching up her face. “I just need more time.”
“Time for what?” I ask, raising my hands. “What will a few more days get you that you don’t already have?”
“I don’t know,” she says mournfully, her gaze still fixed on something out the window. “Clarity?”
I try a different tack. “When I came in here, you were crying.”
Margot glances at me, uncertain. “So?”
“So… you had one run in with the press. And you… you cracked under the pressure! Not even very much pressure, I might add.” I pin her with my gaze.
“If that’s the way you handle a tense moment, I worry about you being able to handle the everyday scrutinies that accompany royal life.
Like… if you can’t cope with this, how are you going to handle it when the paparazzi find out that we’re engaged?
How are you going to deal with being pregnant? ”
Margot’s eyes go wide. Her retort is immediate and biting. “I don’t know, Stellan! This is all new to me! I can’t fathom how I’ll deal with anything, let alone being pregnant with your child!”
There has been a tenuous thread between her and me. But her outraged tone, her angry gestures… they cause me to pull on that thread until it snaps.
I get to my feet, my voice gone to gravel. “Maybe we should both do ourselves a favor and stop trying. Maybe we are just not suited.”
She stares at me for a second, her mouth opening. “What are you saying, Stellan? Are you saying that this…” She gestures to the air between us both. “Isn’t worth it?”
“Maybe I am,” I say, my gut twisting.
A fresh sheen of tears in her eyes tells me that I’ve hit her in a soft spot.
“I’ve been daydreaming. I’ve been living a lie.
Pretending… pretending that if I tried hard enough, I could make people forget that I’m a foreigner.
Make them forget that I come from nothing.
” She looks deathly serious, her little hands forming fists.
When she speaks again, her voice is watery and rough.
“I thought that I could make you forget. But that’s not quite possible, is it? ”
I spread my hands wide. “Maybe not, Margot. Maybe we are just… two people that should have been together. Maybe in another life, if we were a little more similar…”
A tear breaks loose and runs down her face. She swipes at it angrily. “We are fundamentally different, Stellan. That’s what makes us… us.”
I close my eyes for a second. “So… what? We’re different. I’m still a royal. I’ll always be a royal.”
She crosses her arms. “And I’ll always be common, no matter if you marry me or not. You could bestow a thousand titles on me and I’ll still be…”
She trails off, unable to finish her thought. She looks down, ducking her head and wiping at her face.
My fingers itch to touch her. I ball my hands into fists. “All you have to do is leave,” I grate out. “All you have to say is that you can’t do it. If you don’t want me to chase after you, I won’t. I love you, but…”
Margot looks up at me, her dark blue eyes agonized. Her words leave her in a huff of breath. “But maybe love isn’t enough.”
Her words ring out, settling between us like shattered glass. I suck in a breath.
“Margot— “
“No!” she says, shaking her head fiercely. “No. I won’t ever be the perfect, quiet, submissive little wife you all expect me to be! You want me to quit my job… and be just… completely dependent on you…”
She breaks down in tears, a silent sob rippling through her whole body.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to make this better. My heart is frozen in my chest; my lungs feel brittle when I draw a breath.
“So go then,” I utter. Margot looks up at me, tears running down her face. “Go!” I yell.
A final twist of the knife, cutting both of us to the bone. Her face goes white.
“If I leave—“ she whispers.
“Fucking go. Be done with it already,” I toss the words out, turning away from her. “This is over.”
I start to walk away. Behind me, I hear her gasped breath. And then she lets a sob escape her as she turns and runs away, out the door faster than I can draw a breath.
When I turn back to look, all I see is an empty doorframe.
“Fuck!” I shout, reaching out blindly to overturn a plain wooden chair. Then I angrily tip the whole table on its side, making a noise that isn’t half of the fury that I feel.
I storm toward the bedroom, needing to brood in silence.