There is a vacancy that grows in your heart after someone you love leaves you. When they leave, they take everything with them. All the furnishings, all the artwork, even the flooring, until you are stripped bare. Cold. I am one big empty room that echoes with the loss of him.

At first people indulged me and my heartbreak. After I returned to Tehachapi and after everyone was done losing their mind over Viktor’s gift, the mustang, they put up with my crying and blubbering. Annette and Sam especially consoled me and my grief, letting me talk about him for hours, letting me wonder over and over again if it had been a mistake to go to LA, if it had been a mistake to not follow him to Sweden. Of course I knew I couldn’t go but it doesn’t stop me from wishing things had been different.

People like Pike would tell me that I was crazy for thinking I was in love with him. They still didn’t know he was a prince, everyone just thought he was some handsome, foreign rich dude (except for Callum, who still thinks he is the Swedish Chef). They thought I was infatuated with him because of his money, because of his promises he must have made me. They thought it was just a crush gone wild and that in time I would realize that it wasn’t love at all.

How could you love someone after a week?

It didn’t seem possible.

And yet I knew if I even tried to pretend that I didn’t feel this way, if I tried to ignore the pain in my heart, the depth of my feelings for him, that I would be hurting him in some way.

So I decided to hurt instead.

And eventually, I wasn’t allowed to talk about him anymore. If I opened my mouth about him, they’d switch the subject. Even Sam, Sam who I’ve been there for through so much drama and breakups, even she once told me, “You need to get over him right now. That was never love, it was lust and both suck to lose, but if you don’t forget about him, you never will.”

Everyone thought I would get over it and it would go away.

Everyone thought I should get over, at the very least.

But the more that time went on and the months ticked by, the more I thought about him, ached for him, needed him. The more I realized that this empty room I carried around inside me wasn’t getting filled. I hadn’t even attempted to decorate, there wasn’t any point. Nothing would do except for my prince, except for Viktor.

It wasn’t all a loss though.

We’ve stayed in touch for the most part.

I first heard from him a day after he left, when he arrived in Stockholm.

After that weekend, my body and soul felt like it had been dragged through the mud. I looked like hell too. Whatever sex-filled rosy glow I had turned to the pallor of heartbreak.

That first day back at work I’d slept in a little and rushed to get the kids to school. I took the minivan since driving the mustang felt strange (though it was hella fun to drive), then did what I could to get through the day. It wasn’t my best and I knew it, Juanita pointing out some pillow cases I forgot to change, but I got it done.

It wasn’t until I got home later and was walking past the mustang into the house that I heard ringing from the glove compartment.

Puzzled, I opened it and found an iPhone in there.

A brand new iPhone.

Ringing somehow with a Post-It note attached to it.

The note said Answer Me and my first thought was of Alice in Wonderland when she’s picking up the food and drink. What if I answer it and I’m sucked into the phone, straight to Sweden?

So I answered it.

“Hey,” he’d said and hearing his voice, even though I’d heard it twenty-four hours before, nearly brought me to my knees again. His accent, the warmth and polish of it all. I never realized how used to that voice I had got.

“Hey,” I said back, suddenly overwhelmed with everything all over again. “You’re here. And you’re on a phone that was in your car’s glove box. Did you mean to leave it in there?”

I heard him sigh patiently. “I told you that you needed a new phone.”

“Viktor, I can’t accept a fucking mustang and a new iPhone.”

“And a moose, please don’t forget that moose.”

“I can accept the moose. No one will take him after what you did to him.” I paused, rubbing my palm against my forehead. “I just…why are you doing so many nice things for me?”

“Why?” he asked, sounding both shocked and insulted. “Why would you think? You’re everything to me, Maggie. I feel like I can’t do enough. And, well, selfishly, this way I can talk to you every day. I got you a good calling plan.”

“Isn’t it late right now?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t wait. Is it okay that I called?”

I’d never talked to him on the phone before this, so it was funny how slightly awkward it was, showcasing just how new we were to each other.

But as time went on, keeping in touch became more and more difficult. Those first few days he was back in Stockholm, he was still adjusting to his new life and getting it all together. Not always easy to do when you get back from a long vacation. And because of it, I think he was given a lot more slack by his family and whoever else keeps him in line. We talked often.

Then the phone calls tapered off and the time change and his rigid schedule became more of a big deal, so we started texting. I would text him and it would be eight hours until I got a response and visa versa.

Then there were love letters.

Oh yes, the art of the love letter isn’t dead.

And even though Viktor’s never mentioned the word love, I felt it in his words so elegantly scribbled on paper I could have sworn smell like lavender.

This was my favorite way to communicate. Even though he told me he hand-delivered them to the post box and they never had a return address, so I couldn’t answer him back, I still felt like his words were reaching into my soul. I was seeing a Viktor that I wouldn’t have heard over a phone line, that wasn’t so pithy and quick as he was over text.

In these letters he took his time. He took his time writing them, took his time describing how he felt, took his time with all the details, much in the same way he took his time when we had sex. He was so thorough and in return I felt so wanted. So…loved. True, he never used the term love (though he did use the term älskling, once, which apparently means the same) but I felt it in his every word.

But slowly, as summer turned to fall and then now, as fall turns to winter, the frequency of the letters dropped off and I’ve been too scared to text him and ask why. There’s a distance between us now that seems greater than the distance between here and Sweden.

It makes that cold empty room that much lonelier.

---

***

---

“So I’ve been doing a lot of reading up on your Swedish Prince,” Annette says to me over her beer.

I look at her in surprise. After LA I confided in her that Viktor wasn’t just a pretty face but the crown prince of Sweden. Though I still haven’t told my family and probably never will, I couldn’t keep it from Annette, and I thought I owed it to her since she took care of everyone while I was gone.

She took it all in her very dry, cynical stride. Which I appreciated. Sometimes a dose of cynicism is needed when your heart is feeling things it shouldn’t.

But since it’s been months since he’s left and I’ve tried my hardest not to talk about him with anyone anymore, I’m not sure why she’s suddenly bringing him up.

Maybe it’s because we’re at the Faultline again. Annette actually moved to Bakersfield a few months ago. Got a good job, a small apartment. Started dating a guy, a dad of three kids, she calls The Dude because he’s like the king of bowling or something. She’s in town today because she met with her lawyers to finalize her divorce and we’re celebrating.

Naturally there’s only one place to do that here.

“Reading?” I question. “Like, history of the royal family?”

“No,” she says. “Like tabloids. Internet gossip sites. Swedish ones. I just use the translate app. I believe everyone thinks he’s having an affair with his butler. Assuming butler is butler in Swedish and doesn’t mean, like, farm animals.”

I frown. “Farm animals?”

She shrugs. “He’s everywhere, honey. The press can’t get enough of him. Makes me understand better why you couldn’t either.”

I really wish she hadn’t brought him up, my plan for the night was to not think of him for one second. It has been a week since we last texted and it was along the lines of “How are you doing?” and “Fine, how are you doing?” and it pains me to feel so much distance, to be reduced to just text on a screen.

Then again, I suppose thinking about him was inevitable since we came here. It almost feels like that night I found him in the bar all over again. The only difference is now, thanks to Viktor’s mustang, I’m the one buying Annette drinks and not the other way around.

“I don’t look at those things anymore,” I tell her and it’s true. For the first month I was keeping up with all things Viktor by looking at the Swedish sites and British tabloids and Sam had gotten me hooked on Royalty Monthly (where I also became intrigued with a few of the monarchs that I knew Viktor had mentioned, such as Prince Magnus of Norway and King Aksel of Denmark).

But after a while there were too many rumors about Viktor that I didn’t want to believe, and the press was so intrusive. I also think it added to the distance between us, seeing him in his official royal garb with his hat and his sash and medals at ceremonies, or in his sharp suits at balls and galas. He looked so…untouchable. Unreal. Like I was watching a character in a film instead of the living breathing warm and generous Viktor that I knew.

“Cheer up,” she says, raising her beer to me. “Tonight is all about new beginnings. For the both of us.”

I pick up my martini and carefully tap it against hers. “Skäl,” I tell her.

“So how is it going with April?” she asks.

I sigh and give her a steady look. “It’s…going.”

“And Tito?”

“Tito, thankfully, is in prison now. Not even here. He’d gone to Las Vegas and got arrested for drug dealing and assaulting an officer or something like that so that shithead is out of our lives forever. I hope.”

“And April?”

“April on the other hand…” I shrug. “She pretty much hates me even more now. Blames me for taking him away. She can hate me all she wants at this point, I’m just glad she didn’t end up pregnant.”

“Until she finds another low-life…”

“You’re not helping, Annette.”

“I’d always told your mother that that girl was going to be trouble. Even at a young age, she wanted to rebel against everything. But you were both pretty close, weren’t you?”

“There’s a nine-year age difference between us so we were never as close as I would have liked,” I admit. “Maybe when she gets older she’ll stop hating me and figure out she can relate to me more than anyone.”

“You aren’t an old fogey like me,” Annette says, placing her hands on the side of her face and stretching back the skin. “Do you think I should get a face lift?”

I laugh. “Not if it makes you look like Lady Cassandra.”

“Lady Cassandra? Is she a royal too?”

“Never mind,” I tell her, knowing she hasn’t seen Dr. Who. “And stop touching your face like that.”

“Hi,” the perky waitress says to me, suddenly appearing at our table with a shot of something in her hand. “The gentleman over there wanted to buy you a drink.”

“Gentleman?” Annette repeats, looking impressed. “I didn’t think there were any gentlemen in this town.”

“Who?” I ask the waitress, craning my neck around the booth and looking around.

She points down at the booths by the door. “Just right there. I poured it myself, so you can trust it. You don’t have to accept it either. That happens here all the time.”

I only see one person at the booths and all I see of them is a long pant leg sticking out the side.

Something about that particular long leg makes my heart pick up the pace.

I look up at the girl. “What does he look like?”

She grins at me. “Handsome like I’ve never seen the likes of. Has a bit of an accent, too. I’m very jealous,” she adds, tapping on the table for emphasis before she walks back to the bar.

A few things happen all at once.

One is that I watch as the bartender and the waitress talk behind the bar and the bartender is narrowing her eyes at the guy in the booth and then she looks over at me in surprise. Same waitress as the last time we were here, the one we did the favor for and had to deal with unconscious Viktor.

Two is that I pick up the shot and smell it and wince at the familiar pungent aroma.

Caraway seeds.

Aquavit.

And three, three is that every single cell in my body is tapdancing on fire. Every nerve is a livewire, crackling and humming and ready to ignite me.

This can’t be a coincidence.

“What is it?” Annette asks me, brow furrowed as she reaches for the drink and has a sip. “Good lord, what the hell is this?”

I can only swallow, staring at her with wide eyes. “It’s him,” I whisper.

“Who?”

“It has to be him.”

And now I’m getting up, my body light and I’m moving as if I’m in a dream.

“Maggie?” she says but I barely hear her.

I’m moving down the row of booths, past the entrance, pausing just before I’m about to walk by his.

I’m staring at his pants, how perfectly tailored they look, the shine of his shoes. This man is dressed well, no longer in the jeans and boots I’d come to know.

Maybe it’s not even the man you know?

The last thought scares me for so many reasons.

But I keep walking, just a few steps more.

Stop at the booth.

Stare at Viktor.

Viktor.

How could it be him? How could this be?

I have to be dreaming.

“Hello Maggie,” Viktor says in that beautiful rich voice, that accent, that everything that seeps right into my heart. “I told you I’d come back for you.”

I can only shake my head, staring at him in disbelief.

“How is this…how is this possible? Is that you? Are you really here?”

He smiles and I’m automatically melting at the sight of those white teeth against tanned skin, the crinkles at the corners of his warm eyes, sparkling blue, the scruff of a beard which somehow makes him both older and more handsome. I didn’t think it was possible.

He gets out of the booth and stands in front of me and I have to crane my neck back to look at him and I’m so overwhelmed, I don’t know what to do.

It’s him.

He’s here.

I start to sway on my feet. He’s giving me vertigo.

Viktor quickly reaches out and grabs my arm to keep me steady and then seems to hesitate a moment before he reaches out with his other hand, slides it behind my waist and pulls me right to him.

“I’ve got you,” he says, cupping my face in my hands. “I’m here.”

“How? How?” I whisper, fighting to keep staring at him because I’m afraid if I close my eyes he’ll be gone when I open them. At the same time, the feel of his hands on my skin, the warmth of his body pressed against mine, and my eyes want to close, to let him sink in.

I finally feel at peace.

I stare at him. “How did you know I was here? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call?”

He gives me a wary smile, his hands dropping away from my face. “I didn’t know if you’d even want to speak to me. When you didn’t answer my letters, when you didn’t mention them…I thought it was best if I saw you in person and I didn’t want you to have a chance to say no.”

“Letters? I got your letters.”

“This last month?”

“Well, no. The last one I got was in September?”

“There’s been more.”

“I never got them.”

“Fuck,” he swears, running his hand through his thick hair. “Magnus was right. That bastard.”

“What?” My mind is tripping back, trying to figure out where his letters could have gone. I was the one going to the mail box on the street every day and checking for them.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m here now.”

“How did you find me at the bar?”

He looks sheepish. “I went to your house first. It was dark. Threw pebbles up at your room but…I got April yelling at me instead.”

“Oh jeez.”

“She told me you were here.”

“Well at least she didn’t give you directions off a cliff or something.” I close my eyes, rubbing my forehead. It still doesn’t feel real. When I open my eyes though, he’s still there, still staring at me, maybe with the same amount of anxiety as he did before we walked into that lavender-covered hotel room. “You’re here,” I say again. “I’m not sure when I’ll believe it.”

He bites his lip for a moment, his eyes searching mine and then he leans in, kissing me. His mouth is soft and familiar and safe and I find myself melting into him, into this sweet, rich kiss I feel all the way in my toes.

“Do you believe it now,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Or do you need more proof?”

His hand disappears into my hair.

He’s here.

He’s here!

I’m his.

“So we meet again,” Annette says from behind us, her voice giving me a jolt and causing us to break apart.

I can’t be annoyed though. Not with her, not with anything anymore. “Annette!” I practically yell. “This is Viktor.”

“Viktor,” she says in a posh voice and she gives him her hand. Like, actually gives him her hand.

And being the god damn prince that he is, he takes her hand and kisses the top of it. “The pleasure is all mine, Annette.”

Even she seems to swoon, just a little. “I suppose I should call you Your Royal Highness, shouldn’t I? Maybe curtsey, too?”

“You could,” he says, giving her hand back. “Except we’ve already met once, under rather messy circumstances, being unconscious and all. I think we’re past all the formalities now.”

“Now that you’re back with Miss Maggie here, you could say that.”

“He’s not back for good,” I find myself saying to Annette. “He’s got a country to be all…princely over.”

“That I do,” he says, standing up straighter as if he’s suddenly remembering his role in life. “And I’m afraid I’m not here for long.”

I know I expected him to say that but there was a teensy-weensy part of me that hoped he’d counter what I said with “Actually I am here for good. I abdicated, screw the throne, I want to live in Tehachapi.”

Needless to say, there’s a cold pinch in my chest.

“I’ve been reading about you,” she says, “and I admit I’m surprised to see you here with no guards or anything. I thought you had to have secret police with you at all times.”

“I do,” he says.

“What?” I immediately start looking around the bar.

He nods at one gentleman at the bar, then another playing pool and one smoking a cigarette just outside the main doors. “They’re with me.”

I watch to see the guy at the bar glance over his shoulder at us.

I expect Viktor to wave at him and say “hey, we see you” or something but Viktor’s face remains impassive and he pretends not to notice him. No jokes. He’s already changed, already been trained.

What have I missed these past months?

So much.

“Wow,” Annette says. “So I guess I shouldn’t go hit on them and find my own Swedish hunk.”

“No,” Viktor says, giving her a small smile. “They’ve all been trained by the Swedish Security Service to be as boring and efficient as possible.”

“Efficient gets the job done though, doesn’t it?”

I reach out and smack Annette. “Hey, what about your Dude?”

“When you’re older, you’ll realize you should never pass up opportunities,” she says with a sigh. Then she looks between the two of us. “Well I think I’m going to head back to Bakersfield now that you two have found each other. Party is over. Are you going to be okay here or do you need a ride back to your house? Unless you’re staying at the La Quinta again, Viktor?”

“We have a ride,” Viktor answers for me. “There’s another efficient man in the town car waiting outside. Try not to terrorize him on your way out.”

Annette breaks out into laugher and slaps him on the shoulder. “I can see why Maggie is so head over heels in love with you. You have my blessings.” She waves at me before she leaves. “See you, kiddo.”

She obviously doesn’t see the look of absolute horror on my face.

The fact that I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

She just let the cat out of the fucking bag and that cat is running around us like crazy.

Viktor is staring at me intently and I know, I know he heard what she said.

Maggie is so head over heels in love with you.

I want to die.

I want to kill her.

I want to kill her and then die.

“She seems nice,” Viktor says with a smirk and oh my god is he just going to pretend like he didn’t hear it, like nothing happened?

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

I clear my throat. “Yeah I want to kill her. I mean, she’s a good egg.”

“A good egg?” He looks adorably puzzled.

“She’s…fine.” I look around the bar because my cheeks are flaring up and ugh everything seems so awkward suddenly.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks. “I paid your bill as well, so we can just leave.”

“Viktor,” I tell him. “You—”

“Shouldn’t have? Yes, well I did. And yes, I tipped them well. That poor bartender, I’m assuming she’s the one who had to deal with me before? I can’t quite remember.”

I nod, and he grabs my hand.

“Where should we go to be alone?”