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‘A good reference?’ he bit out in frustration.
Her eyebrows skyrocketed. ‘You would give me abadreference?’ She held his gaze until he felt the air in his lungs press against his ribs.
‘No. No, I wouldn’t,’ he said.
A large window dominated the space, a small table right in front of it. He could so easily picture her there in the mornings, hair twirled up in a messy bun, flicking her fringe from her eyes like she did when it irritated her. A fist formed in his stomach when he realised Henna wouldn’t be at that table for many more mornings.
‘When do you start?’
He watched her unfold and fold the jumper in her hands. ‘A month,’ she replied.
‘So soon?’ he couldn’t help but ask. He was worried for Freya, of course.
It was strange to be in her living quarters, the space enclosed and intimate in ways that were unexpected and undesirable. He looked around, realising that it was the first time he’d seen any staff member’s suite. The entire surface area was perhaps half the size of his private living room and it didn’t make him feel much better.
‘What is it that you need?’ she asked, and he wondered if it were too much to hope for that she would relent.
‘I have to attend an event that needs to be completely off the radar. No press, no schedule, no travel plans, no trace whatsoever.’
‘An event?’ she demanded, bright red slashes marking her cheeks. ‘If you think,’ she said, impassioned and outraged, ‘even forone minutethat I am going to arrange for you to have some... some...assignation—’
‘Oh, God, no!’ he said, horrified that she would think him capable of asking her to do such a thing after... And then he remembered that he had left the palace with the taste of her still on his tongue and met with Tuva. He bit back the impulse to groan. He was making such a mess of this.
He gestured to the table. ‘Can we sit and I’ll explain?’
Reluctantly, she sat at the table and he took the chair opposite, but she still looked as if she might bolt at any minute. The only way he could get her on side was to tell her the truth. And everything in him warned him against it. Nothing good ever came of trusting someone. But he had no other choice.
‘I have an important meeting with several people who must not be seen with me for various reasons, none of which are illegal,’ he said when he read the question in her eyes. ‘And I need you to run interference for me during what will most likely be, at least, two full days of intense discussions.’
‘What kind of interference?’
‘I’ll need you to create a cover story and to answer and field emails and messages during that time.’
Her eyes widened. He knew he was asking a lot of her, and he knew it was ridiculously last-minute. ‘We’d fly out this evening.’
‘Aleksander!’
He held up his hand to ward off any more admonishment. ‘I know, I know.’
‘I need more information than that.’
‘You don’t. And I won’t give you more than what I’ve told you.’
That he’d told her this much was more than he’d ever told anyone, even Lars, and it was costing him. The meeting in Öström was the only thing outside of the kingdom of Svardia that meant something to him. It gave him the chance to do good in a way that would not be manipulated or misinterpreted by the world’s press and he valued that chance and the responsibility that came with it. He would never betray the organisation’s secrets.
‘It is definitely not illegal?’
‘Definitely not.’
She levelled him with a gaze that could only mean trouble. ‘I’ll do it on one condition.’
‘Anything,’ he said, truly that desperate.
She bit her lip, and it curled his stomach, but not in a good way; it was a warning and he braced for impact.
‘I need to know what happened. What made you so incapable of trust that you cannot find a secretary, and so resistant to love that you would cut it from your marriage?’
‘You don’t,’ he said, his heart turning hard.
