“We’ve ordered lots of food,” Bea informed her.
“It’s okay, I had something at home and ...”
“Just eat,” Maryam said, pushing a plate of Skagen toast toward her. “It’s on us.” Nora inhaled her perfume. She was the principal of a junior high school, but as soon as she left work for the day, she sprayed herself with the latest scent. Her collection was almost as impressive as Tess’s wine cellar.
“They have oysters,” Tess announced. She was the bon vivant of the group. Her impressive manor house had a pool and a fantastic sea view, as well as several stables and a huge wine cellar. When Nora needed to rest, she stayed over with Tess, enjoying the food, wine, and tranquility of her home. She had a feeling it would soon be time for another visit.
The waiter arrived with a tray of oysters on ice, and a bottle of Tabasco.
Nora couldn’t resist. She picked up an oyster, added a few drops of Tabasco, closed her eyes, and savored the saltiness and the heat.
When she had turned thirty a couple of years ago (God—almostthreeyears ago!) the girls had surprised her with a weekend in London. It was late spring, warm and sunny. They drank beer in gastropubs, shopped for Marc Jacobs purses, accompanied Maryam to various perfumeries, and ate oysters in the sunshine at a bar on the Portobello Road. They ordered oysters with Tabasco whenever they got the chance, and even if the feeling wasn’t quite the same in late fall in Sweden, those flavors took her straight back to that wonderful weekend.
Then she took a bite of the Skagen toast, a heavenly crispy bread fried in butter, topped with creamy but fresh-tasting shrimp, crème fraîche, lemon, and dill. Followed by another sip of Chablis. She looked at her friends. “Thank you so much—I’ll repay you one day.”
They protested loudly.
“Forget it,” Bea said. “We know how hard you’ve been working lately—well, for the last few years—and you deserve a treat.”
What would she do without them?
“If anyone deserves a special night out for hard work, it’s you,” Nora said to Bea. “You haven’t exactly been taking it easy.” Bea had recently been promoted. “The only thing I don’t like about it is that you always have to put yourself at risk.”
“That’s because I’m a police officer.”
“I don’t know how you do it.” Nora shook her head. “I liked it so much better when you were pregnant with Svea and confined to desk duties.”
Bea laughed. “I nearly died of boredom—it definitely wasn’t my thing.” She looked at Nora, smiling but with a seriousness in her eyes. She had been there through every family loss Nora had suffered, and knew how much sorrow she carried within her. It wasn’t easy to be best friends with someone who was paranoid and overprotective, but Nora did her best not to show how anxious she was when Bea was working.
“Okay, we want to hear all about the TV show,” Tess said, leaning across the table. “What’s Henrik Eklund really like?” Her green eyes sparkled at the thought of him.
“Where do I start?” A purely rhetorical question. Nora took the wineglass that Tess had refilled, looked down into it as if the words might be swimming around in the ice-cold Chablis, which in a way they were, and took a generous sip. “Henrik Eklund is repulsive, every bit as vile as he is on TV.” Tess suddenly looked shocked; she seemed to be staring at something behind Nora.
“But good-looking?” Maryam asked. She was sitting next to Nora, who rolled her eyes.
“What’s with thebut? There’s no contradiction—good-looking men are usually smug shits, in my experience.”
Tess quickly shook her head, her red curls bobbing. She looked almost panic-stricken. What was her problem?
“What? Henrik Eklund is a smug shit,” Nora reiterated.
Now Bea was smiling at a point beyond Nora’s shoulder. The smile was broad and entirely insincere, and Tess was shaking her head again. What the hell was wrong with them?
“He’s awful, a real diva,” Nora continued blithely. “He showed up late this morning on the first day of filming. And he’s incompetent to boot.”
“Nora,” Bea said tentatively.
“What?” Nora spread her hands wide. “It’s true. He complained about my cheese rolls and the size of the cinnamon buns, just because he’s a raw-food-munching idiot.” She let out a snort. “I’d like to bet that he never even eats real bread.”
“Nora,” Bea said, louder this time, looking meaningly at Nora, then beyond her shoulder.
Nora heard someone clear their throat. Right behind her.
It couldn’t be . . . no . . . could it?
She turned around.
Yes indeed, His Highness Henrik Eklund was standing behind her.
