Then again, I suppose thinking about him was inevitable since we came here. It almost feels like that night I found him in the bar all over again. The only difference is now, thanks to Viktor’s mustang, I’m the one buying Annette drinks and not the other way around.
“I don’t look at those things anymore,” I tell her and it’s true. For the first month I was keeping up with all things Viktor by looking at the Swedish sites and British tabloids and Sam had gotten me hooked on Royalty Monthly (where I also became intrigued with a few of the monarchs that I knew Viktor had mentioned, such as Prince Magnus of Norway and King Aksel of Denmark).
But after a while there were too many rumors about Viktor that I didn’t want to believe, and the press was so intrusive. I also think it added to the distance between us, seeing him in his official royal garb with his hat and his sash and medals at ceremonies, or in his sharp suits at balls and galas. He looked so…untouchable. Unreal. Like I was watching a character in a film instead of the living breathing warm and generous Viktor that I knew.
“Cheer up,” she says, raising her beer to me. “Tonight is all about new beginnings. For the both of us.”
I pick up my martini and carefully tap it against hers. “Skäl,” I tell her.
“So how is it going with April?” she asks.
I sigh and give her a steady look. “It’s…going.”
“And Tito?”
“Tito, thankfully, is in prison now. Not even here. He’d gone to Las Vegas and got arrested for drug dealing and assaulting an officer or something like that so that shithead is out of our lives forever. I hope.”
“And April?”
“April on the other hand…” I shrug. “She pretty much hates me even more now. Blames me for taking him away. She can hate me all she wants at this point, I’m just glad she didn’t end up pregnant.”
“Until she finds another low-life…”
“You’re not helping, Annette.”
“I’d always told your mother that that girl was going to be trouble. Even at a young age, she wanted to rebel against everything. But you were both pretty close, weren’t you?”
“There’s a nine-year age difference between us so we were never as close as I would have liked,” I admit. “Maybe when she gets older she’ll stop hating me and figure out she can relate to me more than anyone.”
“You aren’t an old fogey like me,” Annette says, placing her hands on the side of her face and stretching back the skin. “Do you think I should get a face lift?”
I laugh. “Not if it makes you look like Lady Cassandra.”
“Lady Cassandra? Is she a royal too?”
“Never mind,” I tell her, knowing she hasn’t seen Dr. Who. “And stop touching your face like that.”
“Hi,” the perky waitress says to me, suddenly appearing at our table with a shot of something in her hand. “The gentleman over there wanted to buy you a drink.”
“Gentleman?” Annette repeats, looking impressed. “I didn’t think there were any gentlemen in this town.”
“Who?” I ask the waitress, craning my neck around the booth and looking around.
She points down at the booths by the door. “Just right there. I poured it myself, so you can trust it. You don’t have to accept it either. That happens here all the time.”
I only see one person at the booths and all I see of them is a long pant leg sticking out the side.
Something about that particular long leg makes my heart pick up the pace.
I look up at the girl. “What does he look like?”
She grins at me. “Handsome like I’ve never seen the likes of. Has a bit of an accent, too. I’m very jealous,” she adds, tapping on the table for emphasis before she walks back to the bar.
A few things happen all at once.
One is that I watch as the bartender and the waitress talk behind the bar and the bartender is narrowing her eyes at the guy in the booth and then she looks over at me in surprise. Same waitress as the last time we were here, the one we did the favor for and had to deal with unconscious Viktor.
Two is that I pick up the shot and smell it and wince at the familiar pungent aroma.
Caraway seeds.
Aquavit.
And three, three is that every single cell in my body is tapdancing on fire. Every nerve is a livewire, crackling and humming and ready to ignite me.
This can’t be a coincidence.
“What is it?” Annette asks me, brow furrowed as she reaches for the drink and has a sip. “Good lord, what the hell is this?”
I can only swallow, staring at her with wide eyes. “It’s him,” I whisper.
“Who?”
“It has to be him.”
And now I’m getting up, my body light and I’m moving as if I’m in a dream.
“Maggie?” she says but I barely hear her.
I’m moving down the row of booths, past the entrance, pausing just before I’m about to walk by his.
I’m staring at his pants, how perfectly tailored they look, the shine of his shoes. This man is dressed well, no longer in the jeans and boots I’d come to know.
Maybe it’s not even the man you know?
The last thought scares me for so many reasons.
But I keep walking, just a few steps more.
Stop at the booth.
Stare at Viktor.
Viktor.
How could it be him? How could this be?
I have to be dreaming.
“Hello Maggie,” Viktor says in that beautiful rich voice, that accent, that everything that seeps right into my heart. “I told you I’d come back for you.”
I can only shake my head, staring at him in disbelief.
“How is this…how is this possible? Is that you? Are you really here?”
He smiles and I’m automatically melting at the sight of those white teeth against tanned skin, the crinkles at the corners of his warm eyes, sparkling blue, the scruff of a beard which somehow makes him both older and more handsome. I didn’t think it was possible.
He gets out of the booth and stands in front of me and I have to crane my neck back to look at him and I’m so overwhelmed, I don’t know what to do.
It’s him.
He’s here.
I start to sway on my feet. He’s giving me vertigo.
Viktor quickly reaches out and grabs my arm to keep me steady and then seems to hesitate a moment before he reaches out with his other hand, slides it behind my waist and pulls me right to him.
“I’ve got you,” he says, cupping my face in my hands. “I’m here.”
“How? How?” I whisper, fighting to keep staring at him because I’m afraid if I close my eyes he’ll be gone when I open them. At the same time, the feel of his hands on my skin, the warmth of his body pressed against mine, and my eyes want to close, to let him sink in.
I finally feel at peace.
I stare at him. “How did you know I was here? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call?”
He gives me a wary smile, his hands dropping away from my face. “I didn’t know if you’d even want to speak to me. When you didn’t answer my letters, when you didn’t mention them…I thought it was best if I saw you in person and I didn’t want you to have a chance to say no.”
“Letters? I got your letters.”
“This last month?”
“Well, no. The last one I got was in September?”
“There’s been more.”
“I never got them.”
“Fuck,” he swears, running his hand through his thick hair. “Magnus was right. That bastard.”
“What?” My mind is tripping back, trying to figure out where his letters could have gone. I was the one going to the mail box on the street every day and checking for them.
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m here now.”
“How did you find me at the bar?”
He looks sheepish. “I went to your house first. It was dark. Threw pebbles up at your room but…I got April yelling at me instead.”
“Oh jeez.”
“She told me you were here.”
“Well at least she didn’t give you directions off a cliff or something.” I close my eyes, rubbing my forehead. It still doesn’t feel real. When I open my eyes though, he’s still there, still staring at me, maybe with the same amount of anxiety as he did before we walked into that lavender-covered hotel room. “You’re here,” I say again. “I’m not sure when I’ll believe it.”
He bites his lip for a moment, his eyes searching mine and then he leans in, kissing me. His mouth is soft and familiar and safe and I find myself melting into him, into this sweet, rich kiss I feel all the way in my toes.
“Do you believe it now,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Or do you need more proof?”
His hand disappears into my hair.
He’s here.
He’s here!
I’m his.
“So we meet again,” Annette says from behind us, her voice giving me a jolt and causing us to break apart.
I can’t be annoyed though. Not with her, not with anything anymore. “Annette!” I practically yell. “This is Viktor.”
“Viktor,” she says in a posh voice and she gives him her hand. Like, actually gives him her hand.
And being the god damn prince that he is, he takes her hand and kisses the top of it. “The pleasure is all mine, Annette.”
Even she seems to swoon, just a little. “I suppose I should call you Your Royal Highness, shouldn’t I? Maybe curtsey, too?”
“You could,” he says, giving her hand back. “Except we’ve already met once, under rather messy circumstances, being unconscious and all. I think we’re past all the formalities now.”
“Now that you’re back with Miss Maggie here, you could say that.”
“He’s not back for good,” I find myself saying to Annette. “He’s got a country to be all…princely over.”