The Introvert's Prince

by Caroline Lee

  Johan’s smile was faint, but knowing. “Yeah. Now that Aunt Marina is planning the wedding, she’s been keeping Mother busy with preparations. Like, a lot more than any of us thought possible, considering she’s the queen.” He shrugged. “Aunt Marina has given her a million tasks—personally, I think it’s so she doesn’t have time to freak out about getting married—so Mother wants one last private, quiet moment with all of us before the wedding craziness starts.”

  “Well…” Viggo flipped his phone once more. “I’m not real good at ‘quiet’, you know that, right?”

  His brother’s smile grew. “I do know that. Perhaps there’s something you could do to liven it up. Some kind of announcement…”

  “Yeah.” Viggo’s smile was identical to his twin’s. “Maybe.”

  And when he left his brother’s study to stroll out towards the cliffs where he’d meet his son, Viggo Magnusson was whistling.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lord help her, she really was in love with the man.

  Marcia sat cross-legged on the thick blanket Stefan had carried up from one of the sheds behind the estate. He always spread it out under this oak tree beside the row of loganberry bushes, because he knew she liked the way the sunlight made fun shadows through the leaves. Her mother used to bring Marcia here to read when she was young, and it was her favorite place on Earth. Probably because it had meant so much to her mother—Anna Lindqvist had been walking along these cliffs one afternoon many years ago when she’d fallen to her death. But Marcia chose to remember the good times they’d had here. It was a special place where she could go and be with her mother again, in a way.

  And now it was special to Stefan, too.

  When it was just the two of them, Stefan would sit here with her and she’d read to him, or they’d fly kites together, or see who could weave the longest clover chain.

  But on the days when Viggo was with them, Marcia would sit quietly on this blanket, pretending to read her Kindle. In reality, Prince Viggo was the only person besides Stefan in the whole world who could drag her away from one of her books. He was handsome and fun and knew exactly how to charm a person, man or woman. Of course, countless women had been charmed by him over the years, including her older sister Rebecca. The result of Viggo’s charm was running around the field with him right now, thrilled to be playing with the man he didn’t realize was his father.

  Rebecca had died when Stefan was barely a year old, the result of a drug overdose at an underground club. Father had been mortified, and had been quoted in the papers saying, “It was a bad end to a bad life.” Marcia, on the other hand, had been almost relieved. From the moment Rebecca had decided to keep the baby—“A prince’s bastard, can you believe it?”—Marcia had been the voice of reason; trying to keep Rebecca’s pregnancy healthy hadn’t been easy with a mother so intent on drugs and risky behavior. Marcia had been the baby’s primary caregiver, even before Rebecca’s death, and since then she’d had Elsie’s help.

  Viggo hadn’t become a consistent part of Stefan’s life until he was about eighteen months old. She’d always had the impression he’d stayed away because of Rebecca, and their nasty public break-up. But once he began to visit regularly, he requested that she keep the truth of his relationship with Stefan a secret. That’s why the boy had grown up calling his own father “Viggo”…and why Marcia would never allow her feelings for the prince to show.

  Any man who was so ashamed of a son he insisted on remaining a secret was not a man she wanted to love.

  But sitting here, watching them play together…it was difficult to remember.

  “Mara! Mara!” Stefan’s toddler nickname always burst easily from his lips. “Viggo’s gunna let me fly it next!” He was waving and jumping in excitement.

  “Hold on, buddy!” Viggo laughed as he patted the air to get the seven year old to relax a bit. “You’ve gotta show me you remember the controls first. Come sit down.”

  Viggo held the little device out of Stefan’s reach—what was that?—as he headed towards the blanket. When he sprawled out beside Marcia, he clicked a button, and with a whining sound a small black drone hovered to a stop beside them.

  “Look! Look!” Stefan was dancing around the drone. “Isn’t it awesome? It’s the latest model!”

  Marcia chuckled in excitement along with the boy. “I can see that. It looks like something out of a movie—be careful!” He’d almost stepped on it. “I don’t think your—I think Viggo would be disappointed if you smooshed it.”

  “Awww, I wouldn’t hurt it.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his khakis. “I promise, I’ll be extra careful with it.”

  “Come here, buddy,” Viggo said, “We’ll practice a little.”

  When Viggo smiled at the boy, Marcia’s chest tightened in a familiar way. Why couldn’t he be as honorable and kind as his brothers? Why did she have to fall in love with the playboy who didn’t have a responsible bone in his body?

  The two of them had their heads together over the controller. Viggo was still stretched out on the ground, so Stefan was on his hands and knees, his forehead only inches from Viggo’s. The boy had light brown hair—a few shades darker than Viggo’s—but his grey eyes were undeniably Magnusson.

  “No, this is the lift here. This model will stay in the air, but you’ve gotta keep an eye on the elevation with—hey, are you paying attention?”

  “What’s this one do?” Stefan asked, pointing.

  “That’s thrust, we’re not gonna mess with that today. Keep your finger on this one though, okay?” He tapped something and the drone shuddered. “It’s going to be pretty complex, to handle all these controls at once. Think you can?”

  He was so patient with the boy, Marcia felt her heart clenching once more. This was her ideal. This experience was what she wanted from life; sharing a quiet afternoon with a wonderful boy and his caring father, just watching them interact. Falling more in love with each passing minute.

  Stefan exhaled loudly and sat back on his heels, slapping his hands down on his thighs. “I don’t know.”

  Viggo frowned and raised himself up on one arm. “Nah, it’s okay. Even if you get confused or overwhelmed, the drone won’t crash. And I’ll be here to help you.”

  “But…” Stefan lifted his hands and stared at them. “What if I can’t? What if…”

  A pit opened in Marcia’s stomach just as Viggo frowned and said, “What?”

  “What if I can’t press all the buttons? I don’t have enough fingers.” His left hand was normal, but he wiggled the thumb and two thick fingers on his right hand. “They’re kinda alien, right?”

  Viggo glanced at her, and Marcia assumed her stricken expression wasn’t any help. She’d spent Stefan’s whole life telling him he was good enough, he was perfect just the way he was…and now she was going to have to watch his father explain why he was just as ashamed as her father was.

  But Viggo didn’t look away. He didn’t cringe. Instead, he surprised her when his expression softened and he reached out and took the boy’s right hand.

  “Hey, buddy.” He squeezed. “Your hands are perfectly fine. They can do anything my hands can do, honest.”

  When the boy looked up at him, hope in his expression, Marcia felt tears forming in her eyes.

  “My hands don’t look like yours, Viggo.”

  “They don’t have to. Everybody’s different, right? I’ve got a twin brother, he’s sitting right over there in that estate, our home.” He jerked his chin towards the distant property the crown owned. “And we’re like night and day, how we act, what we think. But he’s still my best friend and knows me better than anyone. Our brains work differently, but we’re both people.”

  “Some people have bodies that work differently though. Like aliens,” Stefan said in a near-whisper.

  Maybe I should’ve steered him away from those scifi books after all…

  Viggo just snorted and turned the boy’s thick fingers over in his hand. “You think this looks lik
e an alien’s hand, huh?” Without waiting for Stefan to answer, he continued, “Well, alien hands work just as well as mine. Better, probably. How do you think they got to Earth, huh? Their spaceships have plenty of little buttons, and their fingers work just fine on them.”

  Stefan was staring down at their joined hands, and made a little thoughtful noise. “My hand doesn’t look like the aliens in X-Men though.”

  “No, buddy,” Viggo said gently as he squeezed the fingers in his hand. “Your hands are all your own. Special. You’re the only person like you in the whole world, and you’re the only person who can do the things you do. And you’re the only person who can make me and your Mara feel the way you make us feel.”

  “Mara says that she loves me and I love her. I love you too, especially when you let me play with your drone.”

  Viggo’s smile was crooked when he replied. “And I love you, especially when you play with my toys with me.”

  It wasn’t until Marcia felt lightheaded that she realized she’d forgotten to breathe, she’d been so busy concentrating on the wonderful things Viggo was saying to his son. But when she allowed herself to suck in a great lungful of air, the tears finally escaped her eyes, and she had to turn away from the pair and pretend to rummage in the basket while they talked about which button did what.

  She let her tears run unchecked for a few moments, careful to not make any sound, before reaching for a napkin and pretending to sneeze while she wiped her cheeks. When Viggo said, “Okay, you try it now,” Marcia knew she had to put on a happy face once more.

  But from the way Viggo was watching her—concern in his beautiful grey eyes—she hadn’t fooled him.

  “Is everything alright?” he murmured under his breath, as Stefan stepped off the blanket to focus on the drone. “A pretty girl shouldn’t cry on her birthday. Unless it’s because her friend didn’t buy her a present.”

  “I’m fine,” she lied brightly. “And I definitely don’t need any presents.” Viggo hadn’t even known today was her birthday, not until Stefan had told him. She had to change the subject. “Thank you for letting him play with your new toy.”

  Viggo snorted and waited until the boy had moved a little farther away, following the low-flying drone, before saying, “I bought the thing for him.”

  I know. “Thank you for that, too.”

  “He’s my son. I wanted to do it for him.”

  This was the opening she needed. After what she just saw, after the way she watched Viggo interact with Stefan, she wasn’t sure what to think. All this time she’d assumed he was like her father, and wanted Stefan hidden from the public because of his differences—his “disability”. But Viggo had just defended Stefan’s abilities and bolstered the boy’s confidence as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And he’d said he wanted to buy the toy for Stefan…

  “Why don’t you do more—”

  When he turned those intense eyes on her, Marcia bit off what she was going to ask, and dropped her gaze to the Kindle in her lap.

  The silence seemed to stretch indefinitely, until Viggo made a little noise—a scoff? A laugh? She could feel the moment his gaze left her face, and she breathed a little sigh of relief.

  When she peeked at him from her lashes, he was watching Stefan chase the drone around, holding the control up in the air as if it would help.

  “My brother gave me an earful a little while ago,” Viggo said quietly.

  “About what?”

  “About Stefan. And why I haven’t publicly acknowledged him.”

  Marcia held her breath, torn between wanting to ask him the same thing, and dreading having the full force of his attention again.

  Viggo sighed again and called out a correction to Stefan, who responded to the advice immediately and laughed when the drone did the loop he was trying to get it to do.

  “Johan says I’m doing Stefan a disservice,” he said quietly once the boy was busy again. “He says my family at least deserves to know about him.”

  Her heart felt as if it would climb out of her throat when she asked, “And you? What do you think?”

  His attention stayed on Stefan when he answered. “I asked you to keep my relationship with him a secret all those years ago because I wanted to protect him. I didn’t want him to grow up the way I did, under scrutiny. Besides…Stefan was mine. He was my secret and that was something special no one else in my family knew about. No one but you.”

  When he turned to her once more, Marcia forgot how to breathe again. He was unbelievably handsome, and he’d just taken away her last reason not to fall head over heels in love with the man she’d admired for years.

  “Thank you for keeping him safe for so long, Marcia. I’m still not ready to share him with the world, but I think I’d like my family to meet him.”

  “And what about Stefan? Would you explain why he’s meeting your family?” she managed to choke out. Years ago Viggo had explained he didn’t want Stefan to call him “father” in case he one day forgot and did it in front of the Earl or someone else. But if Viggo was sharing this secret with his family…?

  “I don’t know.” He exhaled and turned his attention back to Stefan. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “You know the boy better than anyone in the world. Do you think he’s ready to know they’re his family too? Do you think it’s for the best?”

  Knowing any answer she gave would have selfish intentions behind it, Marcia carefully considered. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know either. He loves you, and you’ve said you love him. He lives such a sheltered life, with no real friends. You’re his best friend, really. That should count for something. I suppose it’s up to you, and what you want.”

  “I think what I want should wait for a bit.”

  And she forgot to breathe again when he turned the full force of his charm on her again.

  “But what about you, Marcia? What do you want?”

  “You,” she blurted before she could think better of it. And then she wondered if it were possible to die of embarrassment.

  Marcia had the prettiest strawberry-blonde hair. When she wore black, like her silk blouse today, the color contrast made her glow from the inside. But when she blushed, when her normally pale skin turned such a bright shade of pink, her hair almost blended in.

  Had she just said she wanted him? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a woman had said something similar—everyone from Duchesses to schoolgirls had swooned at his smile, one time or another. But Marcia…Marcia was different. He hadn’t thought her the type to want him—to want any man.

  But he liked that he was her choice. Liked it a lot.

  She was turning so red he thought she might be in danger of passing out, so he hurried to distract her. “I mean when it comes to Stefan. What do you want for him?”

  Her eyes stayed glued to the Kindle in her lap, but he wasn’t fooled into thinking she was reading it—it was upside down and the screensaver was on. Besides, she was taking big gulps of air as if she was in danger of drowning, so it was pretty obvious she needed a distraction.

  “Marcia?” He placed his hand over hers, where it rested on her knee, and she jerked. He tightened his hold, and when she flinched, he repeated her name. “Marcia, look at me,” he commanded softly.

  When those pale blue eyes turned towards him, he smiled. Not the smile he usually reserved for pretty women, but a real one. An encouraging smile.

  “What’re your goals for Stefan, Marcia?”

  The boy was playing happily with his new toy, and Marcia turned her attention towards him. She watched him quietly for a few moments, before suddenly drawing in a deep breath, as if for fortification.

  “I want custody of him. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I know he’s your son, and the grandson of the queen, but if you can’t claim him, I want him. I’ve always wanted him.” Her voice began to quiver with the strength of her emotion. “He’s been my baby for so long, and I hate that I can’t leave and take him with me. I ca
n’t protect him from my father.”

  Viggo knew that Herman Lindqvist wasn’t a nice man—had heard it often enough from Stefan. But this was the first time Marcia’s words made him wonder if the man was dangerous. He’d left his son in the man’s care—or at least, in his household—for years, never guessing he might be a danger to the boy.

  Leaning forward, his voice low and intense, Viggo asked, “Does Stefan—do you—need protecting from your father?”

  Marcia still wasn’t looking at him. “He’s not a very nice man,” she said quietly.

  He squeezed her hand. “Tell me, Marcia.”

  She sighed. “He’s ashamed of Stefan. It’s not just that his daughter—his beautiful, vivacious daughter whom he had grand plans for—had him outside of marriage,” she said, her voice thick with bitterness, “but that he’s ‘crippled’.” She scoffed. “My father refuses to see Stefan’s humor or quick mind or any of his talents…he just sees imperfection and he’s embarrassed by it. That’s why Stefan isn’t allowed out much, and it’s why I’m still living with him.”

  It all came together. She was well into adulthood, still living with her father, and why? Because if she moved away, she’d have to leave Stefan behind. As the boy’s grandfather, Lindqvist had custody.

  “Why hasn’t he granted you custody? I’d think he would want Stefan gone, so he didn’t have to think about his embarrassment.”

  She snorted softly, her attention still on Stefan. Viggo liked that she hadn’t pulled her hand away from his. It felt right, to be holding her hand like this.

  “I asked him that this morning,” she said softly. “He’ll grant me custody if and when I marry, to a man he would approve of.”

  “What?” he blurted in surprise. Surely Lindqvist wasn’t that archaic?

  Her eyes stayed fixed on his son, following him as he darted around the field. “Apparently it would be terribly embarrassing for him if I were to go off on my own and support myself with something as tasteless as a job, but he can’t stop me because I’m an adult. But if I were to take Stefan like that, it would be obvious to him and his social circle that he wasn’t fulfilling his responsibility. So I can’t. The only way I can is if I’m married, because then Stefan would become some other man’s responsibility, and that’s fine as far as his social standing goes. I just have to find a man he would approve of.”