Gunnar disconnected the call his end, leaving Kjell standing halfway between his cabin and the outbuilding where he housed his snowmobile, seriously considering just jumping on and getting as far away from Her Royal Highness Princess Freya of Svardia as possible.
‘Well?’ she asked, the flush on her cheeks and hope in her eyes brighter than the north star.
He took one last longing look at the outbuilding.
‘Sorry, Princess,’ he said without the faintest trace of sympathy. Stalking back to the cabin, he threw his next words over his shoulder. ‘Looks like you’re stuck here.’
CHAPTER THREE
FREYASTAREDAThim as he disappeared into the white froth twisting and turning before her in gusts of wind that pulled at her hair and her clothes. Stuck? Here?
No!
For how long? What would she do? Where would she—
She shook her head, trying to lessen the cascade of questions falling on top of each other. She had meetings back at the palace.Oh, God.Fingers pressed against lips in shock. She was due to meet Stellan Stormare in three days’ time. It was an appointment she could not miss. She looked back up to where she should have been able to see the cabins, but they were gone, hidden deep within the maelstrom of the storm.
The dull beat of fear joined her pulse as she hurried forward, her steps difficult and ungainly from where the snow hit her at her calves. Everything in her wanted to call to Kjell, but she wouldn’t. She could just make out the punches his shoes had made in the snow and had enough sense to follow them to the cabin. She was panting by the time she reached the wooden steps up to the front door, sweat awkward and slick on her back, sticking her base layers to her skin. She pushed open the door, expecting to find the cabin empty, but Kjell was standing there with his back to her and—
‘I can’t stay here.’
She hadn’t meant it to be the first thing she said. She knew how it sounded. Pampered and spoiled and demanding. But that wasn’t why the words had rushed out of her mouth the moment she had caught sight of him.
He’d taken off his T-shirt for a reason Freya simply couldn’t fathom and was standing there with his fingers on the top button of his trousers. He cast her a look over his shoulder, but she didn’t catch it because she was too busy running her eyes over his back, the corded muscles and dips and...and scars.
‘Don’t look at me like that, unless you intend to do something about it.’
Distracted by the blatant sensual challenge, her head snapped up, her gaze clashing with the arctic fire in his. Anger, yes, a taunt, absolutely, but there was something else hidden beneath the boldness.
She looked away. She didn’t have any more right to his secrets than he did hers. She doubted he would respect the retreat but she didn’t know the rules with him. This wasn’t the Kjell she had once known, who would tease her reasoning and thoughts out gently, with kindness and encouragement. This was a hard, unrelenting challenge and attack from a man with no reason for patience and she was owed no kindness.
He had been exiled? For eight years?
She opened her mouth to speak, but his words struck out like bullets.
‘Boots off. Clothes off.’
She squeaked in shock. ‘No.’
‘Wet kills around here, Princess. If your clothing is wet, it’s not coming into the cabin.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ she exclaimed, looking for a joke, or the hint of one.
He simply levelled her with that glacial gaze. ‘You might want to turn around.’
She felt distinctly as if the cold was affecting her brain function. Why would she want to—
The moment his hands went to his hips she spun on her heel, squeezing her eyes shut. Not that it stopped the images exploding to life on the backs of her eyelids. In her mind’s eye she saw the full length of his naked body as she heard the slide of material against his skin and falling to the floor. Heat stung her cheeks as she imagined him plunging one leg and then the other into the dry pair of trousers she’d seen on the shelf unit by the door.
‘You can look now, Princess.’
‘Stop calling me that,’ she said through clenched teeth. She waited an extra beat before turning around to find him looking at her with too much in his eyes.
‘Boots off, clothes off,’ he repeated tonelessly. He unhooked a white cord at the side of the room and lowered an old wooden slatted clothes pulley. He shook out his trousers and hung them up as she watched, eyes wide. He hadn’t been joking. ‘Hang your clothes here, there are dry ones there,’ he said, pointing to the shelf. ‘Boots go there.’ He indicated the bench where shoes and boots were piled next to some strange spiked contraptions. Kjell cast one last look at her and disappeared through the connecting doorway.
Freya shivered despite the intense warmth of the boot room, clenching her jaw so that her teeth didn’t chatter. Instinctively, she knew weakness wouldn’t be tolerated by this man and she felt a wave of sympathy for anyone under his command. With red fingers that felt twice their normal size, she struggled with the laces on her boots. The sweat that had stuck her clothes to her skin now felt cold and clammy and she was beginning to see the benefit in shedding the layers.
He’d not been home in eight years, her conscience prodded. The thought of not seeing Marit or Aleksander for that long was inconceivable. But Kjell was an only child. No child should be cut off from their parents. Even if that child was a six-foot three-inch man with muscles that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo and a scowl that was, cruelly, more sensual than his charm.