“It’s… nice, I guess?” I say, tilting my head to take it in from another angle.
Her lips curve upward. “I recognize the painting. It’s calledWheat Field With Reaper. Look, look how everything is yellow, yellow-green, orange-yellow, gold… There is a man working over here. And he is just surrounded by these dry,thirstycolors. I look at all that and I wonder at how hot it is… I can’t quite make out the detail of the man’s face, but I see him laboring all alone. It’s sort of serene, I think.”
I nod slowly, glancing down at her. “I can see that.”
She gives me a half smile. “It’s by Van Gogh, for what it’s worth. He said it was about death and how he wasn’t scared of dying.”
“Ah! For some reason, I find that sort of worrisome.”
Margot shrugs a slender shoulder. “I think the next painting is a Van Gogh too. I don’t know what it’s called, though.”
We walk over to look at the painting, which is several trees painted against a field of little white flowers. In the back, a river or a road meanders past.
“Hm.” I study the painting.
“What does it make you feel?” she asks delicately. “The mishmash of colors on the trees. The oddly… sort of curvy and pointy bark of the trees. The white and yellow and green of this field of flowers… Back here, you see some blue flowers as well.”
She gestures, wiggling her fingers over the painting. I make a face.
“I’m really terrible at this game.”
“Just look for another minute. Let that particular bright shade of green soak into your senses. What does it make you think?”
I give her a long look, then glance at the painting. “I don’t know. The green is… fresh? Sort of… it has an energy?”
She lights up. “Yes! It definitely does.”
Scrunching half my face up, I sigh. “It’s spring, obviously. So it kind of makes me wonder what the same place would be like in other seasons.”
“It most certainly does.” She grins. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She looks up at me, her eyes so deep blue, her hair so perfectly pink. Grabbing her by the waist, I pull her against my body and kiss her. I pull in deep lungfuls of her scent, making me horny as fuck and plastering a stupid smile over my face.
When I release her, she turns pink and bites her lip. “Thanks.” She giggles. “For the kiss, I mean.”
“Oh, that was strictly for my personal pleasure.”
Margot rolls her eyes but she has a grin on her lips. “Should we get back?”
I let her go, following her back into the darkened hallway. But as I go, there’s something in the pit of my stomach… a sensation I can’t quite name.
It sticks with me for the rest of the night, floating around in my head. I don’t want to name it, so I pretend it isn’t there.
But it definitely is…
Chapter Twenty-Five
Margot
Ihave a long week. At the newspaper, I have to explain to Anna why I’m not almost done with my article… I haven’t even started writing it, but she doesn’t need to know that.
Add that to the monotony of the royal routine finally setting in. I arrive in the morning. I spend an hour with Stellan at the palace, more likely than not having intense, gymnastic sex. And then we spend a full day visiting factories, schools, children’s hospitals…
It’s fun for a few days. And then… it’swork. By the time I get home at night, I’m dead on my feet.
I can see Stellan getting tired as the week winds down. To myself, I can admit that I’m fairly exhausted too. And yet this is only my third full week of keeping pace with the royal schedule.
I have no idea how all the Løve family do it forever.
