Freja gives a wry smile. “I couldn’t wait anymore.”
I nod slowly. “Yeah. I get it. You’ve been waiting for months.”
“You’re not angry?” She sags with relief, searching my expression.
“With you? No.” I shake my head and give her a half smile. It’s not anger. More like the wind’s been knocked out of me and then some. It feels like this is happening to someone else. “I don’t think so. I honestly don’t know what I am. In shock, I guess.”
“You’ll need to come home very soon. As in: tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Also, there are security arrangements. Please check in. Mads is waiting.”
I nod, feeling bittersweet. “Can we talk later tonight? Gotta abdicate, be right back.”
“You’re not funny.” But Freja smiles anyway as we hang up.
“I guess it’s real, then,” I announce to James and Ethan, who have settled at the broad table with the tea and whisky and pastries. Putting my phone away in my pocket, I sit to join my friends at my last day of my old life.
Chapter Fifty-One
Amid the many, many messages of congratulations, there are a few other messages of note, aside from seemingly everyone I’ve ever met. Mamma. Eddie. A refreshingly normal reminder for a dental appointment. And, most significantly, Stef, who asks if I’m okay. I stand in my kitchen with the charger plugged in, juicing up my phone.
I don’t want to see anyone tonight. Miles is here, and as promised, security services are outside my building and presumably up and down my street. My life—as I know it—is effectively over.
It’s late by the time I work up the guts to pull out my suitcase and my duffel bag and start dropping clothes and toiletries into them. And in the midst of this, I sit on the edge of my bed and cold-call Stef. Then, I belatedly realize as the phone rings, he’s meant to be in Greece and not Edinburgh, which means he’s two hours ahead. And it’s after 1:00 a.m.
“H’llo?” Stef mumbles into the phone.
“Hey. I’m so sorry—I didn’t realize the time…”
“No, no. It’s fine. I’m awake,” he says thickly. “I swear.”
“Well, now you are.” Fuck, why is it such a relief to hear his voice on the phone? I feel a hell of a lot calmer than I have all afternoon. Today’s been a lot. And then some. But hearing Stef cheers me. Otherwise, I feel like I aged ten years in a day.
“I saw the news,” Stef says.
“Yeah. Me too. That’s how I found out. No, actually, James showed up and told me the news, then we watched the announcement.”
“Wait. Your family didn’t tell you?” Stef’s voice rises with incredulity. He’s very much awake now. “Ahead of the announcement?”
“Kind of my fault, actually. Kind of ignored my sister.”
“Wow. That’s hardball of her,” Stef marvels.
“Yeah, well. It’s a family trait.”
“What, denial? Noted.”
“No. I mean, I was thinking, err, hard balls. Never mind.” I swallow hard as Stef laughs, looking around my room. “I mean, very technically, she’s newly abdicated. Unofficially. And I will be proclaimed as the new King as soon as possible.”
“Wow.”
“And… I’m flying home tomorrow. To Copenhagen. To get ready.”
“Okay. That makes sense.”
There’s a low mumbling in the background on the call. The indistinct—but specific—sounds of another man. And then Stef says something in Greek I don’t follow. Instantly, I doom spiral. Another man? With Stefanos? How much did this other man overhear, and oh my God, I think I might die for real right now, mortified?—
