Until she’d met Kjell.
Humiliation scoured her stomach. Not only had she proved herself to be anything but the perfect princess—she’d done it with the very man who had been sent to spy on her.
The man now sitting opposite her in the helicopter.
A tear rolled down her cheek. For the months of their secret relationship she’d fought it—the knowledge that it could never be. That neither her father nor the legislation that bound the royal family would allow her to marry a commoner. But in spite of that she’d wanted him. She’d taken a risk for him. She’d fallen for him because he’d made her feel loved for who she was, not what.
Freya battled the sob rising in her chest because the one thing that had become more precious to her than any other was based on a lie. And how could you love a lie?
She tensed her body to keep it from betraying the shivers that racked her heart. The betrayal she felt was like a bell being struck over and over again in the deepest part of her heart, vibrating outwards and causing her whole body to tremble.
‘Freya.’
His voice made her clamp her eyes shut tighter.
‘Bergqvist,’ came the warning response from the senior CPO.
It was clear that while none of them knew anything specific, her reaction to the revelation of his identity had been extreme.
Humiliation painted her cheeks bright red. If they didn’t know, they must suspect that something had happened between them.
‘Freya,’ he tried again.
When she ignored him, he ripped off the headset and released the belt holding him in place. He reached across the distance between them and took her face in his hands.
‘Bergqvist!’
‘We need to talk about this.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ she whispered harshly, trying to wrench herself from his hold.
Oh, God. It hurt so much.
‘I wanted to tell you so many times.’
‘Back in your seat, Bergqvist—that’s an order!’
He stared at her, his eyes full of need and yearning, and all she saw was betrayal.
‘It was real for me,’ he said.
She tried to shake her head, but his warm hands held her firm.
‘It was real for me,’ he insisted.
She stared him deep in the eyes, the pain in her heart like nothing she’d ever felt before. She thought she heard it break.
‘I never want to see you again.’
In shock, he released her, and she turned to look out of the window.
For the entire flight back to Svardia she didn’t once take her gaze from the small plastic circle.
She waited for all the men to file out of the cabin before she moved, and when she did she kept her gaze on the floor until she could look ahead without even catching so much as a glimpse of him.
She cut him from her life and her heart that day, swearing never to think of him again.
‘Your Highness? We’re coming in to land,’ she was warned through the earpiece in the headphones, jolting her back from a memory that left a fresh bruise on her heart.