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“Pretty sure there is,” I tell her as we head down a path through the trees, snow falling off the branches around us like icing sugar. “There is protocol. Ella mentioned it to me when I got hired, just as an aside. The king and queen are especially sensitive about scandals since Prince Magnus is a reformed bad boy with the sex tape and all the gossip from before he met Ella.”
“Does it say anything about shagging the bodyguards?” she asks. “Because I’ve got my eye on Einar.” She wags her brows.
I burst out laughing. “I don’t think so. But even so, I know I would get in trouble.”
“Right,” she says thoughtfully, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “So I suppose that’s something to worry about.”
“Yeah. It is. I mean, we got away with it once. I don’t think we’ll get away with it again,” I say.
“You what? Where? Oh my god. You were shagging up at the Fairfaxes’, weren’t you?”
I bite back a smile, trying not to look proud, but the last few weeks of shagging must be visible on my face.
“You harlot,” she cries out, smacking me on the arm. “I knew it! I called it the day he arrived, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“So why are you telling me now?”
I shrug. “I guess I trust you. And honestly, back then, I didn’t want anything to happen. Things had ended badly between us. I wanted him to stay as far away as possible.”
“What happened?”
I run my hand over my face and sigh, looking down at the snow between us. “I did a dumb thing and blurted out how I was feeling, much like I just did with you. I told him I was falling for him, and he just freaked the fuck out and wouldn’t talk to me after that.”
“James did that?” she asks with an air of disbelief and disappointment. “Fucking men, huh?”
“Yeah. So you can see why I wasn’t happy to find out he’d be working alongside me again.”
“But now you’re sleeping together,” she says.
“That’s right.”
“And you’re not just falling for him this time, but you’re properly in love with the Scottish bastard?”
“I guess so.”
“Hmm,” she muses. “I can see why you needed to confide in someone. That’s a tough thing to deal with. On the one hand, you’re getting all the sex you want, if you want it. On the other, you’re in love with him, and if you tell him, he might end up running again.”
“Exactly. I’m fucked.”
She nods. “Yes, it appears you might be. But do you have any idea of how he feels?”
I shake my head and stop walking, looking at the snowy clearing, the tall pines around us. I take in a deep breath. “No clue.”
“Well, is he any different now with you than he was then?”
“Yes,” I say, and I don’t even have to think about it. “He’s very different. He’s more open, more vulnerable, more affectionate, more…involved. Tender. Like he doesn’t just want my body; like he wants all of me. Maybe my heart and my soul, I don’t know. It’s too much to ask for when it comes to him because I still see that fear inside him, the fear of getting hurt, of losing himself again.”
She lets out a long exhale, giving me a sympathetic look. “Well, that may be your answer there. You were falling for him before, now you’re in love with him. Isn’t it possible that this time it’s different for him too? You’re not going to know unless you tell him.”
I shake my head, my heart feeling constricted. “No. I can’t do that. I can’t go through that again.”
“Then it looks like you’re going to have to find out how he feels, one way or another,” she says. “Why not pull him aside one night and see?”
I smile. “You know that pulling him aside will only lead to sex.”
“So then at least you’re getting something out of it. Come on, let’s go back and make some tea. My toes are frozen. I’m not made for this bloody weather.”
