A tear breaks away from one of her eyes. She wipes it away angrily. “I saw your face. Everyone could see you making eyes at that dancer.”
I shake my head. “Honestly, I wasn’t. I was trying to decide if I was offended by her uniform.” I take a deep breath, looking down into her face. “I think you might be overreacting a little bit.”
She pulls out of my grasp. “Stop telling me that. Stop telling me what I’m supposed to feel. I hate that!”
I raise my hands up, backing up half a step. “Whoa. Okay.”
She wipes at her face again, looking miserable. “You asked me to be your fake fiancée. Which is a lot. It’s fine, but… a lot to ask another person. And all I asked in exchange is that you don’t make a fool out of me by fooling around behind my back.” She grows tearful. “It’s not a lot to ask, Lars.”
I don’t know what else to do, so I enfold her in a hug. “I know, Pippa. I know.” I murmur into her hair. “I’m sorry if it seemed like I was…” I pause. “Whatever you thought was going on. I assure you, there is no reason to feel jealous.”
She looks up at me, her face contorting. “I’m not jealous. I’m just… I’m trying to tell you how other people perceive you!”
I narrow my eyes on her face. I could challenge her, but I want to calm her down. And that isn’t the way, knowing Pippa as I do.
She is the only person in my entire life that demands so much of me and doesn’t treat me as if I am special; but at the same time, she doesn’t hold herself apart from me, either.
There’s no way I’m about to risk that over something so small and dumb.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “Really, I am.”
She hangs her head with a sigh. “Okay.”
My mouth twists. “You know that I will eventually have to go back to living my life though, right? You can’t be all up in arms about me making eye contact with other girls forever.”
She shoots me a glare. “I know that, thank you. I’m just trying to preserve some small amount of dignity. In two months, you can eye fuck anyone else that you want.”
I repress an eye roll. “Fine. We’ll deal with that when we get to it. For now, can we go back in the auditorium?”
She sniffs. “Fine.”
A wave a hand toward the doors. “Fine. Lead the way.”
As I follow her though, I can’t help but turn the whole situation over and over again in my mind.
15
Pippa
“Okay. Wait here for just a second. Don’t look!” Lars says.
I keep my eyes covered and shiver against the cold air. Lars has brought me somewhere an hour and a half north of Copenhagen, saying we need a break from everything. I listen as his boots crunch across the snowy ground.
“Where the hell are we?” I ask.
“You’ll know in about thirty seconds,” he says with a laugh.
Wrinkling my nose, I kick at the ground beneath my feet. I can tell it’s been freshly shoveled, but I don’t dare peek out from behind my hands just yet.
I hear something scraping the ground. Lars comes back and leads me forward a few steps, standing right behind me.
“Okay. You can look.”
I drop my hands and see an enormous modern cabin before us, the door open wide, the heat escaping it in clouds. I look at Lars, extremely surprised.
“Where are we?” I ask again.
He grins and grabs my hand, leading me up the front steps and into the foyer. “I rented us a cabin for the next few days. It’s sort of my way of saying I’m sorry for dragging you to three days of royal events.”
I look around the cabin, if it can even be called that. One of the walls is made entirely of glass. Just outside, the landscape drops dramatically away, making for a breathtakingly snowy vista.
A living room is set up immediately in front of me, all the cozy white furniture arranged around a wrought iron fireplace with a chimney going up to the ceiling. The kitchen gleams from across the space, all dark stone and stainless appliances. Between the two is a charming cedar table set for six.
“Well?” Lars prompts me. “What do you think?”
I turn to him with a slow smile. I point out the skis hanging on the wall in the entryway. “It’s amazing. But why here? As far as I know,