The King

by Tiffany Reisz

  “Søren’s father was a baron,” Kingsley said.

  “Yes, he told me that.”

  “The ancestral home is in the north. It’s a beautiful crumbling estate called Edenfell. It was sold twenty years ago to developers who did nothing with it. It’s been sitting empty for years. It belongs in his family. So now it’s Fionn’s.”

  Grace slowly sat down in a chair.

  “Edenfell,” Grace repeated, reading over the deed.

  “It’s in Fionn’s name,” Kingsley said. “It’s his, not yours or Zachary’s. When he’s old enough, he can keep it or sell it or burn it to the ground. I don’t care. But that’s for him to decide.”

  “I’m going to be sick,” Grace said, looking paler than usual. And then Kingsley did laugh at her.

  “My sincerest apologies for playing God with your lives,” Kingsley said. “I trust you and Zachary will do the right thing by your son.”

  “We’ll try, of course. But—”

  “No buts,” he said. “Say merci, and love your son. That’s all there is to do or say.”

  Grace took a deep breath, gave a long exhale. She looked up at Kingsley with eyes edged by tears.

  “Merci,” she said in a small voice.

  “I should go. I have another f light to catch.”

  “Leaving already? But—”

  “I’ll visit again,” Kingsley said. “If you’ll have me.”

  Grace stood up and walked to him. She threw her arms around him, and he held her close.

  “Your son is blessed to have had two wonderful fathers,” she said. “And so is mine.”

  He kissed her cheek and let her go.

  “Make sure Zachary doesn’t neglect the French lessons,” Kingsley said, nodding toward Fionn sleeping in his crib.

  “I will. I promise. I’ve already started with Danish, too.” “You have?”

  “Søren and I spoke on the phone after we told him about Fionn. He taught me ‘Jeg elsker dig, min søn, og Gud elsker dig også.’ He asked me to say it to Fionn every night.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘I love you, my son, and God loves you, too.’ It’s the last thing I tell him every night before I put him in his crib. He said…” Grace stopped and smiled. She looked on the verge of tears, but whatever tears there were she kept to herself. “He said that’s how his mother told him good-night when he was a little boy.”

  “Jeg elskar dig. He told me that was Danish for good luck.”

  “It’s Danish for ‘I love you.’”

  “He’s a bastard, that blond monster.”

  “You know you love him.”

  “Entirely against my will,” Kingsley said, “and with all my heart.”

  Grace kissed her fingertips and pressed them lightly to Fionn’s head. She straightened his blanket and whispered her Danish prayer to her son.

  They stepped out of the nursery, and Grace noiselessly closed the door behind her.

  “You’ll call me if you need me,” Kingsley said, an order, not a request. “If anything happens, anything at all, you’ll come to me first.”

  “Of course,” Grace said as they stood by her front door.

  “You don’t have to work any more if you don’t wish to. You or Zachary. You can work from home, buy a new house in the country, travel. I don’t care. The money is yours and your son’s. I know you’ll put it to good use.”

  “We will, yes. I can’t… Give me a few days to wrap my mind around all this.”

  “You have plenty of time.”

  “If Zachary has a heart attack tomorrow morning, I’m blaming you.”

  “Have an ambulance on standby.”

  “My God, Kingsley. I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” Kingsley said. “After all that’s happened, we should be able to believe anything by now.”

  Grace laughed, and he embraced her again.

  “You’ll tell him Fionn’s well?” she asked.

  “I will.”

  “Do you think he’ll come visit his son?”

  “When he’s ready. Give him time. He doesn’t want to interfere.”

  “It wouldn’t be interfering. Tell him that.”

  “I will,” Kingsley said. “He’ll be jealous I held him.”

  “Kiss your beautiful girl for me,” Grace said.

  “With pleasure. Both of them.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “Paying a visit to an old friend,” Kingsley said. “That’s all.”

  “Speaking of old friends, what happened to your Sam?”

  “What happened to Sam? Four years after she came to work for me the worst thing possible happened. She fell in love.”

  “That’s terrible,” Grace said. “Happens to the best of us, though.”

  “She moved out to California with her girlfriend. They got married a few years ago.”

  “Did you go to the wedding?”

  “I was her best man. We wore matching tuxedos.”

  “Sexy penguins?”

  “That was us.” Kingsley threw his bag over his shoulder, crossed his arms over his chest. “I haven’t thought about that year in a long time. Blaise and Lachlan are married now.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “He stole her from me. Not that I blame him or her. She always had a weakness for accents. Australian beat French, apparently. They live in Sydney. Felicia moved back to London a few years after the club opened. Justin runs a home for gay runaways.”

  “Quite a crew you assembled.”

  “I was always a good talent scout,” Kingsley said. “I knew what Nora would be the moment I saw her.”

  “You did. You were right.”

  “Twenty years ago… It feels like yesterday. Yesterday and a lifetime.”

  “I imagine it does.”

  “Twenty years,” Kingsley said again. “All that time, Søren’s been the constant. Him and her.”

  “Nora?”

  “Twenty years ago she got arrested and that brought Søren back to me. Twenty years later she gets kidnapped and that brought my son back to me. I’m almost looking forward to the next time she gets herself into trouble. I always benefit.”

  “Nora get herself into trouble? I doubt you’ll be waiting for very long.”

  Kingsley gave Grace a kiss on both cheeks and pressed his forehead to hers a moment.

  “We’re family,” Kingsley said. “Søren is my family, and that means Fionn is, too. You understand?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “If Nora’s his godmother, you can be his godfather. Then he’ll have four wonderful fathers who love him.”

  “Four?”

  Grace glanced skyward. Four. Of course.

  He let her go and walked from her home with a light step, buoyed by a deep contentment that left him feeling half his forty-eight years. It was good to finally tell someone the story of what Søren had done for him and why. He felt unburdened now by the telling of his tale, like a man walking from confession with his soul lighter and cleaner. But his confession hadn’t been to a priest but about a priest, the priest he loved not despite all the sins they’d committed against each other but because of them, because the sins were what bound them together.

  And the love. Of course the love. Always the love.

  At dawn Kingsley boarded his plane. A short f light but the hour of sleep he caught was enough to refresh him. And when he emerged from the airport, he closed his eyes and for the first time in two decades, breathed in French air.

  France, yes, but not home. Home was Juliette. Home was Céleste. Home was Søren. But even if it wasn’t home, it was part of him. His parents were buried in French soil. His life had begun here, and when the time came, he, too, would be buried in the same Paris cemetery where they had laid his parents to rest. He’d already told Juliette those were his wishes. And because she loved him and knew how to obey an order and give one at the same time, she’d answered, “Oui, mon roi. But you’re never allowed to die.”<
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  And he’d promised her he’d do his best to never let something like that happen.

  He was tempting fate by coming back to France. He’d made enemies here, important ones. And certain people he’d known once had likely not forgotten his name. But he wasn’t afraid. Twenty years had passed. He was a low priority now. He didn’t plan to stay long anyway. Just long enough to do what had to be done.

  He hired a car in Paris and drove into the countryside. The country had changed in twenty years, but not the beauty. The beauty remained. The rolling hills, the ancient churches, the crumbling castles on the roadsides, the farms, the cottages, old Europe, old magic… He would bring Céleste here someday.

  By late afternoon he arrived as his destination. He parked the car at the end of a long dirt road and walked barefoot on the French soil all the way to the door.

  He knocked and waited. A few moments later he heard footsteps.

  The door opened.

  Nora looked at him across the threshold of his son Nico’s house.

  She didn’t look shocked to see him. She didn’t look surprised. In fact, she looked as if she’d been expecting him. Maybe she had.

  “Before you say anything else,” Nora said without any trace of remorse on her lovely face. “Just answer one question for me. How much trouble am I in right now?”

  Kingsley smiled.

  “All of it.”

  * * * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  WRITING IS A SOLITARY PROFESSION, BUT EDITING takes a village. Thank you, Karen Stivali, Alyssa Palmer, Miranda Baker, Robin Becht, Melanie Fletcher, Cyndy Aleo and Andrew Shaffer who help me beat The King into shape. Thank you, Gitte Doherty for your help with Søren’s Danish. Thank you to Susan Swinwood, editor extraordinaire, who has claimed Søren as her book boyfriend (sorry, ladies, I can’t fight my own editor for him). And thank you to Sara Megibow, my dream agent who is a dream agent because she’s helped me make all my dreams come true. Thank you, Andrew Shaffer, my fiancé, for being my best friend and toughest critic. Special kisses and pets to Buckley Cat and sad little Honeytoast Kitteh for keeping me entertained during long writing hours. Thank you to the good people at the Jesuit Spiritual Retreat Center in Milford, Ohio, for giving me an internet-free sanctuary in which to write The King. Apologies if I gave any Jesuits a heart attack when I honestly answered the question, “So what do you do for a living?”