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‘Surprise!’ a chorus of voices shouted out.
Her little office was packed full of people—so many that they were overflowing into the adjacent office through the open connected door. A banner had been hung across her desk and paper streamers thrown about, little plates of food were being shared and when a glass was thrust into her hand by Freya and she found herself pushed back into a chair in the centre of the room she couldn’t help but allow a wobbly smile to pull at her lips.
‘You thought we’d just let you go without throwing you a goodbye party?’ Freya teased.
‘Well, I thought that most of you would be preparing forsomeone else’sparty,’ she teased. Most of the staff members groaned and then laughed when Freya said, ‘Hey, I haven’t been that bad!’
This was what Henna loved about working at the Palace. It wasn’t the prestige. It wasn’t the access to some of the world’s most influential people. It was the family that they had created. The work was long hours, intense and incredibly locked down due to the sensitive information they had access to. But the core staff, they were more than friends, and Henna realised for the first time that it wasn’t just Freya and Marit and their brother she would be leaving. It was Anita Bergqvist, who had been one of the first people to congratulate her, it was Jean and Ella from Admin, it was Mikael, Anders and Birgit from Security, it was all the people who had come together today, happy for her, and sad to see her go.
‘No,youhaven’t been that bad,’ someone groused, clearly thinking of how difficult Aleksander had been recently.
‘I heard that,’ said a voice from the back of the room.
While good-humoured apologies were given, the soft centre of Henna’s core began to shake a little and goosebumps raised on her skin. Not that anyone would have noticed—she had become expert at hiding her reaction to Aleksander.
‘Speech! Speech!’
She let out a purposely audible groan. ‘No, no,’ she said, shaking her head, but the cries were insistent. She looked around at the sea of faces, all bright-eyed and so thrilled for her. She felt the heat of Aleksander’s focus on her back, torn between being pleased that he’d come and sad at the distance between them.
‘Not many people know what we do,’ she began, ‘which is, admittedly, thepointof what we do,’ she stressed to their laughter, ‘but itisimportant. Important that the people of Svardia have faith in our...our family.’ She looked to Freya, her heart warm with love for a woman more sister than friend. ‘Faith in our Princesses and our King,’ she said, angling her head to the side, acknowledging him but unable to meet the gaze she felt burning into her skin. ‘Often this requires sacrifice, and almost always that sacrifice is unseen, and unknown. Butweknow.Wesee. We understand and we...thank you for it,’ she said, her words shivering with emotion.
Although tears glistened in Freya’s eyes and many of her colleagues’, she knew that Aleksander had heard her words, her message to him. She wanted him,neededhim, to know that, no matter how much it hurt, she understood. Understood the sacrifice that had been made for him in the past and the one he was making now, so that Svardia would have the incredible King that he would be.
‘We’re supposed to be thanking you!’ cried Freya, pulling her into a fierce hug that Henna honestly needed in that moment. Especially when she felt the King slip from the room in the middle of the fuss. And even though she shouldn’t, even though she knew it was wrong, she excused herself for a moment and hurried into the corridor.
The sound of the door opening stopped Aleksander mid-stride. He pulled up short, his pulse pounding in his chest. He was too close to a line he wanted to burn. He didn’t want to let her go.
Even though he shouldn’t, he couldn’t not turn. Hehadto see her. Because he knew that once she left, that would be it. There would be no more teasing, no more understanding. There would be no more gentle smiles easing into pleasure-filled sighs. There would be no more shivers to soothe beneath the palm of his hand. He would return to a world where he kept secrets and trust behind locked doors. So right now, here, he would take in as much as he could of her. Slowly, his body moving from his heart not his head, he turned, and immediately wished he hadn’t.
She was so utterly beautiful and she had no earthly idea of it. Her eyes gleamed with a knowing sorrow, but she wasn’t cowed by it. It had made her strong, stronger than he ever would be, he thought as, step by step, they closed the distance between them until he felt the heat of her through their clothes and there was but an inch between them.
There were so many things he wanted to say, but nothing came to his lips. Instead, his eyes ravished her features, committing them to a memory he was already pushing deep within him. He teetered on the brink, fighting himself and the roaring in his ears that demanded he kiss her, pull her to him and never let go. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t risk it. He would burn it all down for her if she asked him to, and what would that make of him as a man? As a king? What would that make of the sacrifice Kristine had made so that he could be the King Svardia needed? It would make it worthless and he couldneverallow that.
He felt her gaze across his face, as if she too was taking this moment, memorising it, locking it away for some unimaginable future apart. His heart ached even as it was soothed by her presence and in that silent shared moment he passed through every possible feeling. He shared it with her in the silence as it couldn’t be shared out loud, he shared and took until there was nothing left. Because he was her King and she was the only woman he could never marry, for the simple reason that she was too much of a threat to him.
Something shattered in him then. He felt it, an actual loss deep within him. Henna took the smallest step back, as if she’d realised it too. He’d been about to follow, to reach out for her like the drowning man he was, when the door to her office opened and Freya emerged into the corridor.
Aleksander pulled back but it was too late. He knew his sister had seen too much, even without taking his eyes from the woman in front of him.
‘Henna, is everything okay?’
It said something that his sister’s first thought was for Henna.
This was it, he knew. The last time that he would see her as she was. The last time he would let himself near her without the barriers his heart was already looking to hide behind. He drank in one last sight of her, Henna doing the same. The curve of her cheek and the little dark mole in the hollow beneath her earlobe, the gold and green shards in her eyes, the fringe he wanted to push back from her forehead, the lips he had not nearly kissed enough... His hand fisted at his side and, without another word, he turned on his heel and left.
Henna watched him go, her heart breaking into a thousand pieces as Freya came to stand beside her, looking between her brother’s retreating form and Henna, a worried look in her eyes.
‘Henna—’
Whatever Freya had been about to say was stopped by the bright smile Henna pasted on her lips. She took her friend’s hands in her own, pulling them to her chest, and willed Freya not to ask. Because she would want to seek solace with her friend, to tell her everything, all the things that she could never take back, but she would never betray Aleksander like that. So if Freya asked she would have to lie, and Henna really didn’t want to lie.
As if understanding, Freya freed her hand and rubbed a gentle circle against her back, the soothing gesture one she remembered from years before her father passed, and it made her want to cry all over again.
‘Are you ready for the engagement party tomorrow night?’ Freya asked.
Henna let out a teary laugh. ‘It’syourparty, Freya.’
‘Yes,’ she replied, unable to hide the love and joy that shone from her like a lamp in the darkness. It hurt Henna to want to shy from it, aching that she couldn’t feel that same sense of light, but she wouldn’t turn from her friend’s happiness. She deserved it so, so much.
