‘That is for you to find out when you take it to him.’
Him. Her brother wasn’t usually so coy with his words. She stared at him, just as able to play the royal waiting game as he.
Aleksander sighed. ‘Kjell Bergqvist.’
Fire and ice swept in waves across her skin and her heart stuttered, forcing Freya to stifle the gasp of breath her lungs cried out for.
‘No.’ The word shot from her lips unbidden.
‘This is not up for debate.’ His voice was quiet but his eyes sparked gold and his tone was implacable. ‘If you want to step down from your duties, your title and your family, then by God don’t expect me to make it easy for you.’
‘Sander—’
‘The helicopter will be here in an hour. Be on it, or not.’
Her brother was no longer looking at her, peering down at a piece of paperwork in the same manner their father always had when he couldn’t be bothered to utter a dismissal.
No choice. No choice. No choice.
‘An hour?’ she asked, hating the weakness in her voice.
‘I believe there are weather constraints,’ he replied, still not looking up.
Freya shot a glance to the window, frowning at clear blue skies.
The helicopter jerked suddenly, Freya’s stomach lifting into her throat as she battled a swift wave of nausea, but no one in the small cabin would have known it. She had spent years perfecting serenity in the mirror and she wore it like a crown. The pilot righted the helicopter, apologising into the earpiece of her headphones, and she sent him a smile of reassurance.
Usually, she loved watching the ground roll out beneath her as the helicopter sped through the air, but all she could see was shifting shades of white as they crossed from Svardian airspace into Swedish.
‘Who is this guy anyway?’ she heard the young guardsman whisper to Gunnar, the head of her royal protection detail. Freya couldn’t help it, she turned to find Gunnar’s eyes locked onto her and she felt the burn of a blush rise to her cheeks. She turned back to the window and forced her gaze back to the shifting white shapes beyond.
‘Lieutenant Colonel Bergqvist is a highly respected and valued member of the Svardia Armén,’ Freya heard Gunnar explain behind her.
Lieutenant Colonel?
She tensed to prevent her body from betraying her reaction, trying to figure out how the tall, lean student she’d once known could have become such a powerful soldier. But then, she thought, turning back to the white static outside the small window, she hadn’t actually known anything about him at all.
She gave into the hazy memory she hadn’t revisited for eight years...
She’d been in a helicopter just like this one, shaking not from turbulence but from shock. What made it so awful was that it wasn’t just a reaction to the terrifying news that her sister had been in an accident and was being treated urgently by Svardia’s best doctors. No. It was the horror that had come from realising that her boyfriend, the person who had made her laugh, made her feel safe, wanted and desired, the man she had given her kisses to,herselfto, had been an undercover bodyguard, hired by her father.
He sat opposite her in the helicopter that was returning them from Switzerland to Svardia, staring at her as if she were an unexploded bomb. She clenched her jaw as her heart twisted, and turned away to look out of the window so that the three Close Protection Officers couldn’t see the tear that had rolled down her face.
Four. There were four CPOs with her in the helicopter.
Less than forty minutes earlier she and Kjell had been in her dorm room, laughing. Freya couldn’t remember what about now. It had taken her months to make him smile, and the first time he’d laughed she’d felt it deep in her heart. They’d been laughing, but it had petered out to a moment when happiness had settled and desire had stirred and he’d been about to kiss her...just like he had done a hundred or so times in the last few months.
She craved his kisses with a ferocity that overwhelmed her.
His phone had rung and something had passed across his eyes at the strange ringtone she’d not heard before. Three seconds later her phone had rung too. It had been her brother, telling her that Marit had been in an accident and they needed her to come home immediately. Fear had slashed through her. Her heartbeat had raced and concern had become a powerful white noise that blocked out everything but the ringing in her ears.
Kjell had looked up and seen the horror on her face, placed a hand on her arm to anchor her. And it had worked. He’d calmed the storm and soothed her pulse enough to hear what Sander had said next.
‘Marit’s going to be okay, Freya. She is. But we need you here. We have a Close Protection Officer nearby who’s going to come to you. We can argue about it later, but now he’s going to bring you home. His name is Bergqvist. Kjell Bergqvist.’
Her stomach had roiled, filling her with nausea and horror.
She’d begged her father not to give her a protection detail. She’d wanted so much to prove to him that she could be trusted. That she would be a perfect dutiful princess during her time at the Swiss university. She’d meant every word of it.