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That was the wrong thing to say.
I make sure he knows that.
I give him the death glare. I swear I see him shrink back, just a little.
“If I have a problem, it’s because you…” I stop myself abruptly, closing my eyes, trying to remember the Zen yoga training that Ella makes me and Lady Jane do every Saturday morning with her, as if that’s enough to get me through the week without losing my damn mind.
“I what?”
I exhale slowly through my mouth before opening my eyes again, fixing my gaze on him. “Nothing.”
I watch him closely for a moment, trying to see if he’s squirming. He knows what he did. He knows how he broke things off between us. He can’t possibly think any of that was okay, that he’s not at fault.
To his credit now, he does seem a little squirmy. He worries his perfect lips between his teeth, lips that I’ve had all over my body.
“Look,” he says, tilting his head as he stares down at me. He’s always been a giant next to me, even though I’m tall. “I’m serious about wanting to start over. I know I messed up in the past. I know things ended between us badly, and I know that I’m mostly at fault for it.”
“Mostly?” I question, folding my arms across my chest.
His eyes go sharp for a moment. “Aye. Mostly. But I’m here now, and you’re here, and either we bury the bloody hatchet and start again, or we make ourselves miserable for the next while. And I need this job, Laila, just as much as I assume you need yours. Who knows how long that will be, but we have to accept that we’re working together.”
I sigh, tilting my head back to the sky for a moment. The first stars are starting to appear. “Okay.”
“We already shook on it, but do you want to hug it out?” he asks, holding out his arms.
I balk, giving him an incredulous look. The nerve of this guy. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“What? Prince Magnus already gave me a hug. You can’t tell me that this is inappropriate.” He flashes me a grin.
Before I even have a chance to say anything or try to move away, James comes in and envelops me in a big bear hug.
I freeze in response, shocked and not wanting to give in either. But still, just for a moment, my eyes flutter closed and I find myself resting my head on his chest, breathing in his familiar scent of cedar and salt. My god, I can’t remember the last time a man hugged me, let alone touched me.
And it’s with that worrying thought that I abruptly rip myself out of his grasp. I didn’t want to—I would rather have stayed there for a while, just letting the comfort overtake me and smother all my problems—but it had to be done. Of course, now I feel colder without it.
“Okay, so you had your hug,” I tell him, staring at the snow between our feet. “You had your handshake. And we’ve agreed to bury the hatchet. Sounds like you’ve gotten everything you wanted.”
“Not quite,” he says, eyeing the house. “To be honest, I’m not sure I would have taken this job had I known how isolated we would be. Please tell me that you get to the city at least a few times a week.”
My left brow goes up. He hasn’t changed at all.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing. You just have the wrong impression of my job. Again. If you were Magnus’s bodyguard, Einar, then yes, you’d go at least once a week into Oslo, and not just to see the king and queen but probably to go out and do fun things. But Ella…she’s more of a homebody. She goes out only for business and royal duties. And the kids, well, we try to keep them here as much as possible.”
“But if my duty is to protect Ella and the children…”
I bite back a smile. “Then my job is pretty much your job now.” I let that smile loose once I see how crestfallen he looks. “Going from protecting the regal Prince Eddie of Fairfax in the throes of London, jet-setting around the world, to being stuck in an isolated manor watching over two zany children, their no-nonsense homebody mother, and their irritable nanny.”
“Does she have to be irritable?”
I laugh, which I immediately regret. All my life I’ve been known for having the loudest laugh. I’m surprised herds of reindeer aren’t suddenly flushed out of the forest from the noise.
He’s smiling at me now. Not so much that shit-eating smirk he wears so well, but something gentler, something that softens his eyes.
It makes me want to be…nice to him.
What a ridiculous idea.
