“Who?” She couldn’t make the connection at all.
“We met on Twitter,” he said, drawing air quotes around the word “met.” “We were supposed to go for a coffee IRL, but I was at a poetry festival in Svalbard. Sorry I didn’t reply to your messages.”
The journalist from Dagens Nyheter, she had completely forgotten about him. She studied Henrik more closely. He seemed to be her age, maybe a couple years older, and he was neat and tidy with an easy, cheerful smile. He looked nice. Someone who went to poetry festivals couldn’t be a bad person. And his eyes seemed appreciative. Maybe it was a sign. “They really have poetry festivals on Svalbard?” she asked suspiciously.
“I guess it’s a matter of definition. Where are you going?” he asked.
She had been planning to make a run for it, but now she reconsidered. She would stay, show she didn’t care. “To the bar. Want to join me?”
Henrik grinned. “Is the Pope a Catholic?”
She liked him already. They installed themselves at the bar and ordered shots.
“Shots are just what I need,” Ambra said after her second.
“Better than antidepressants,” he said with a smile. He was flirty, but not pushy. Smart in that way cultural journalists often are, but without the self-importance they also usually have. He was, in other words, just what she needed. And finally, she started to get properly drunk. Finally, that terrible feeling in her chest started to fade. It was still there, but the alcohol dulled it.
“How did you end up here?” she asked, slurring slightly.
“No idea,” he replied cheerily. “But I’m good at partying, and I used to hang with Alexander in the past. Before he got married and became normal anyway.”
“I think I hate normal people.”
“They’re unbearable,” Henrik agreed. “Want to drink more?”
She nodded. It was an open bar, and she had lost count of how much she had drunk, only knew it wasn’t enough. There was no sign of Tom. Maybe he’d gone home with Ellinoooooor. Like she cared.
“You have a girlfriend?” she asked over a bowl of olives that had suddenly appeared. They should probably go over to the buffet, but she didn’t have the energy.
“Nah,” he said, and she suddenly couldn’t remember what they were talking about.
Henrik took her hand, the one holding an olive, raised it to his mouth, and sucked the olive from her fingers. Only a month earlier, he might have been her dream man. Kind, funny, sexy. But today, only two hours earlier, Ambra had realized she loved Tom.
“Damn it,” she said.
He nodded.
“Life is shit,” she explained.
“Absolutely.”
“If one of your exes turned up and wanted you back, would you dump me?” she asked as she tucked into a bowl of roasted peanuts. She handed him one.
He took the nut and pushed it into his mouth. “Hardly. Besides, all my exes hate me.”
“Sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter. I hate them too,” he said with indifference.
“Should we order more?”
“Sure we should.” His eyes moved over her. “Have I told you you’re shit hot?”
“Only eight times.”
“Is that all? I should be ashamed. You’re shit hot.” He handed her the next drink.
Ambra sipped it. She barely felt anything anymore. “Alcohol is great stuff,” she stated.
He laughed. “No protests here.”
* * *
Tom couldn’t help but look over to the bar where Ambra was sitting, perched on a stool, next to a man. The two of them had been there awhile now, seeming completely absorbed by one another.
Ellinor put a hand on his chest. “I really thought you’d be glad I came.”
He placed his hand on top of hers. “I am,” he said. Because he was, wasn’t he? But it had all happened so quickly. He didn’t have time to keep up.
“I mean, you moved to Kiruna for my sake. You called me. We had such good conversations. You took Freja. I thought . . . Tom, we were together so long.”
“But Nilas . . .”
“You and I have taken a break before. We always came back to one another. I let you down. But now I’m here. And I really want to give us another chance.”
Tom looked over to Ambra again. The man had his arm on the back of her stool now. Ambra leaned in to his shoulder, and they laughed. Tom looked away.
“You have no idea what it means that you fought for me all fall,” Ellinor continued.
But now Tom had dropped the thread. It was so warm, he was sweating. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“You fought for me, the whole time. Wanted me back, even though I hurt you. I would never admit it if I hadn’t drunk so much, but it made me happy.”
“Happy?” He tried to concentrate. He should be exhilarated, ecstatic. Ellinor was standing in front of him, saying she wanted to try again.
But he and Ambra had come here together. They’d just had sex, for God’s sake. Ellinor shouldn’t be here; she should be in Kiruna, far away. He pulled at the neck of his shirt.
“How’s Freja?” he asked.
“She’s fine. I left her with a neighbor.” She laid her head against his chest. Her hair tickled his nose.
He looked over at Ambra again. Jesus, she was sitting so close to that man.
“Sorry for turning up like this. I really thought you would appreciate it. I couldn’t even imagine anything else. And I didn’t know Ambra would be here. Did I do something wrong?” Ellinor looked up; she seemed distraught.
Tom glanced over to the bar again. It was as if he didn’t know anything anymore. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. It was his fault, no one else’s. But he couldn’t trust his feelings. He had loved Ellinor for so long. He had known Ambra only a few weeks. Ambra was so hot, and the sex they had was insane. Was she an infatuation? Absolutely, but was she more than that? They didn’t know one another, not the way he and Ellinor did. Ambra wasn’t the one he wanted. She couldn’t be.
Ellinor was in a state, and he needed to take care of her. He had no choice. Besides, it seemed as if Ambra was ignoring him completely. He looked over to her. She and the man were feeding one another now. They were smiling and laughing.
“Ow, Tom,” Ellinor said, pulling her hand away with a grimace. “You were squeezing my hand so hard.”
“Sorry,” he said, trying to tear his eyes away from Ambra. He couldn’t. It was like being in hell, this situation. He couldn’t breathe. Ever since he’d met Ambra, he had been impulsive and irrational, which was so unlike him. He pulled at the neck of his shirt again. Jesus, it was difficult to breathe.
“I shouldn’t have come.” Ellinor sounded close to tears. “I drank when I got here because I was so nervous, but now I feel terrible. Forgive me. I should probably go.” She looked like a wreck.
This was Ellinor, for God’s sake. The woman he had spent months trying to win back. Who had now left Nilas for his sake. She needed him. He had to take care of her; it was his responsibility. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
Her face softened in relief. “Sure? I don’t even know where I’m going to stay. I just came down. I feel so ashamed.”
“You can stay with me,” Tom said reluctantly.
“Oh, thank you!” She hugged him.
He put an arm around her. “I just need to say good-bye.”
He spoke to David. To Natalia. To Alex and Isobel. No one said anything, but he knew they were wondering. He’d come with one woman and was leaving with another. He hesitated, but it was just as well to get it over and done with. He approached the bar.
“Tom!” Ambra shouted. Her cheeks were red, her eyes glossy, but she didn’t seem especially sad. In fact, she seemed to be having a great time. That should ease his conscience a little.
It didn’t.
“Ambra, I have to go with Ellinor. She’s not feeling so great,” he said quietly, ignoring the man who was unashamedly listening in on thei
r conversation.
Ambra speared the olive in her drink, ate it, and then waved the cocktail stick in the air. “Fine.”
“Will you be okay if I go?” He didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to explain that it was just because Ellinor needed him, that he and Ellinor had so much to straighten out. That she was practically his family. He swallowed, already knew he was about to make a mistake, wanted Ambra to ask him to stay.
But she just gave him an indifferent look and a gentle shrug of her silk-covered shoulders. “Didn’t you just say you had to go?”
She glanced at the man beside her, and he nodded supportively. “Yeah, he did,” he slurred. Tom fought the urge to plant a fist in the man’s face.
Ambra looked up at him again. “If you have to go, then go. You don’t need my permission. You’re a big boy. You do what you want.” She raised a long eyebrow and gave him an impersonal smile.
“Please, Ambra. I didn’t think she would come. I’m sorry.”
She shook her hair back. “Oh, well then. If you’re sorry, everything’s fine.”
Her smile had stiffened, and her green eyes flashed. She was angry. It wasn’t that he blamed her. But on the other hand, he thought self-righteously, hadn’t she been more or less glued to her new date these past few hours while he comforted Ellinor, talked to her, worried? Did what they had mean so little to her? He could still smell her on his fingers, for God’s sake. Ellinor had been part of his life for years; he couldn’t just ignore her. Ambra had to understand that.
“Ambra . . .” he began.
“What, Tom? What do you want me to say?” She climbed down from her bar stool and stood with her face close to his, continuing in such a quiet voice that only he could hear her. “You had sex with me just hours ago. I was your date tonight, me. So if you’re saying you need to leave with your ex, go for it. But you can’t expect me to give you a medal.”
“You don’t understand. We . . .”
“No, I understand perfectly well. The love of your life turned up and fluttered her eyelashes and now you’re doing whatever she wants you to do.” She put her hand on her hip. “Have you met my new best friend Henrik, by the way?”
The man got up and held out his hand. Tom ignored him.
“Ellinor and I were together . . .” he started.
“If you tell me you were together half your lives one more time, I’ll scream.”
“Hello?” Ellinor’s voice sounded behind him.
Ambra sneered at Tom.
Henrik placed a heavy arm around her shoulders. Tom took a step forward. It was as if a red mist had clouded his eyes when he saw that arm. He couldn’t think at all.
The man held up a hand, and Tom stopped. Not because Henrik represented any kind of threat. Tom could have ripped him to shreds if he wanted to. But he managed to calm himself down.
“You’ve done enough, leave her be,” the man continued, and there was a sudden sharpness in his inebriated voice.
“Please, can we go?” It was Ellinor, pleading behind him, and it was insane, but for a brief moment Tom had completely forgotten she was even there. He gave Ambra one last look. She stared back, her chin held high, and they stood there like that for a moment. It was over now, he knew it. It was entirely his own fault, but that didn’t make it feel any better. He opened his mouth to say something, but there was nothing left to say, not really, and he closed it again. He turned around, took Ellinor by the elbow, and steered her through the room without looking back.
“Is everything okay?” Ellinor asked.
He thought about Ambra’s chalk-white face. The way she’d told him about all those times she was abandoned. The way they’d made love, what she had meant to him these past few weeks. He thought about all that. But all he said was: “Everything’s fine.”
Chapter 50
The day after the party, Ambra woke up with a hangover that went straight to the top spot on her list of Worst Hangovers I’ve Ever Had.
She would never drink again. It was undignified to feel like this.
For a while, she didn’t dare move her head, because she couldn’t remember how she got home and had a terrible feeling that she might have brought—oh God, she couldn’t even remember his name. Fredrik? Patrik? Henrik—right. She blinked and made the effort to turn her head. Thankfully, she was alone in bed. Right, she and Henrik had parted ways not long after they left the party.
Ambra took a cab home, cried the whole way from Djurgården to the Old Town, cried in the hallway, in the bedroom, and into her pillow.
She could barely even blink now. Barely breathe. Everything was swollen.
But everything was also over, so it made no difference how she looked or felt.
* * *
“How was the party?” Jill asked when she called just after lunch. By then, Ambra had been taking painkillers since she got up and was lying on the couch watching Lyxfällan—What Happened Next?
Ambra muted the sound on the TV and pulled the blanket up to her chin. She was freezing. “It was good. Aside from the fact that Tom’s ex turned up and that he dumped me and spent the whole evening with her. But apart from that, it was totally fine.”
Jill was silent. “How are you?” she eventually asked, quietly.
“You know.”
Jill sighed. “Did you sleep together again?”
Ambra thought back to the sex they had in the powder room yesterday.
The truth was, it had been magical. There was no other word for it. The way Tom looked at her in the mirror, the way he touched her, it felt like they were so close, not just physically but mentally too. Not like they were just having sex. But what was magical for her had been nothing but physical desire and release for him. Now there was nothing to do but try to be an adult about it.
“No,” she lied. Jill would be angry, and Ambra couldn’t handle any criticism today.
“He treated you like shit,” Jill said.
“Yup,” Ambra replied. Jill was right, she had duped herself.
“You want to know what I think?” Jill asked.
Ambra was fairly sure she didn’t.
“You need to meet someone else as fast as you can. That way, you’ll forget all about him.”
She should never have talked to Jill about Tom. Jill’s advice was terrible. “Can’t you see how crazy that sounds? People aren’t interchangeable like that. You’re messed up.”
“Maybe. But am I the one feeling sorry for myself at home? No, exactly. You need to toughen up a little. Men are idiots.”
“I’m an idiot,” Ambra said. It was just as well it had happened now, she told herself. Before she developed any stronger feelings. She ignored the fact that her feelings were already strong and that she wasn’t sure how many more times she could handle being abandoned.
Ambra rolled onto her back and stared listlessly up at the ceiling of her living room.
“Did you wear the dress? The shoes?”
“What the hell, Jill, it has nothing to do with what I was wearing. The love of his life turned up and looked at him with those fawning eyes and he left me without blinking.”
“Some men can’t resist a damsel in distress. Maybe he has some kind of hero complex?”
“Definitely.”
“Those macho men. They know girls love them, and they exploit it.”
Ambra pulled the blanket over her head. “No one’s been exploited. I knew what I was doing. But I don’t have the energy to talk anymore. I’m working tomorrow,” she said, and hung up. She needed to pull herself together somehow, she thought, curling up on the couch and crying beneath the blanket until she could barely breathe. Tom called her for the tenth time that day, but she rejected the call and then he stopped trying. That was good.
* * *
Early the next morning, Ambra started her new five-day shift. From today on, for eleven hours a day, Aftonbladet owned her. They could send her wherever they wanted, to practically anywhere in the world, and demand her to work overtime.
Ambra poured herself a coffee, hid yet another yawn, and tried to shake some life into herself. It felt like she was still hungover, like she was in a haze. Henrik had been in touch to see how she was feeling. He really was a good guy. She wished she could be interested in him instead of stupid Tom, that he had replied the first time she’d sent him a message, that they had met up, dated, made out. Then it might have been him she was in love with by now.
She held her head in her hand, wishing deeply she had never gone to Kiruna, never met Tom. Maybe one day, in ten or so years, she would be grateful she had met him after all. But not today. Now all she had was regret, shame, and a hollow feeling in her chest that felt far too much like unbearable sadness.
Tom had called again, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk to him.
She wrote a short piece about a dating app while she wondered what he was doing. Was he with Ellinor? Were they still in Stockholm? Had they slept together? While she scanned through the Central News Agency’s press reports, she thought about how she wanted to go and spy on them, do something, anything to stop it being so damn painful. Though of course she did nothing of the sort. She just kept working, obsessing, and internalizing her feelings as much as she could. She wanted to ask Jill to find out if Mattias knew anything. But she didn’t do that either. She just tried to cope.
Back in the saddle, Ambra.
By lunch, she had tackled the majority of her unread messages, deleted all the hate mail—Lord_Brutal9000 was in a particularly vile mood today—and replied to a few normal readers’ messages.
As she sat there, staring at her screen, a message from Karsten Lundqvist, the security expert, appeared. Jesus, she had completely forgotten about him.
The subject line read: Got new info, can we talk? She didn’t even have time to reply before she saw him striding toward her. He was wearing corduroy trousers and a wrinkled shirt, and as he came closer she noticed he sported one brown sock and one blue.
High Risk Page 44