I’ve been at Thornfield Hall for five days and I’m starting to lose my mind.

At first I thought it was poetic and romantic. I tried my best to fully immerse myself into the Jane Eyre atmosphere, picking up old books from the bookshelves and trying to read them by the fire until I realized I couldn’t read Norwegian, talking to Jane as if she were Mrs. Fairfax, and wandering the grounds as if they were the moors and I were awaiting Mr. Rochester’s lofty arrival.

Only there is no Mr. Rochester, and if there is he’s a lot more insufferable than the one in the book.

Magnus is everywhere I look, all the time, except when he’s not. He’s either purposely trying to annoy me or he’s gone, and I don’t really have a clue where he goes except he gets into the chauffeured car with Ottar and Einar and they disappear for a few hours. Usually this happens at night, and when Magnus comes back he’s good and drunk.

It pisses me right off. Mainly because I’m the one who is stuck in this place, and with the weather turning cold and spiteful, I feel especially imprisoned. Meanwhile Magnus is able to go out and do what he normally does. Or who he normally does, I would think.

It doesn’t bother me, that part. The fact that when he leaves at night I’m certain he’s going out in Oslo and getting laid. We don’t owe each other anything at all. He’s free to do what he wants, be who he is. Why should I stop any of that? If anything, this might be the last time he has to sow his wild oats, if wedding vows mean anything to him at all.

Except that the longer the days go by, the more I’m bothered by it.

Just a little.

The way he looks at me sometimes…

It does something to my stomach, turns it inside out and in knots.

I know he’s conscious of it. But it doesn’t stop his eyes from burning into mine, even when he doesn’t say anything.

Maybe especially when he doesn’t say anything.

That’s when I feel him the most.

But we do talk, and often it’s that fucking question time.

So far I haven’t instigated any of the sessions—it’s all been him.

And the questions for me have been all over the place.

Question: Have you ever shoplifted?

(No. But my friend did when I was seven and I didn’t stop her.)

Question: Have you ever climbed a tree?

(Yes. Weirdo. I was young, and I can’t remember the age but my brothers were there giving me the leg up.)

Question: What’s your favorite movie?

(The Princess Bride. I always wanted to be Princess Buttercup instead of Princess Isabella.)

Question: Pet peeve?

(People who have false humility.)

Question: Bucket list band or artist?

(Elton John, without a doubt.)

Question: favorite drink?

(Chai tea latte.)

Question: favorite alcoholic drink?

(Red wine—I’m not too picky about the variety.)

Question: Have you ever had a threesome?

(What do you think?)

And in return I had to volley questions back at him. Some I put little thought into because I just wanted things to be over with, others I was genuinely curious about.

I wanted to know what his worst subject in school was (math), which sister was his favorite (he didn’t hesitate, it was Mari, followed by Britt), what his favorite band was (Deftones), what his worst accident was (breaking his collarbone and arm during an ATV race), what his favorite dessert was (crème brûlée ), what his favorite vacation spot was (Azores), what his favorite thing about Norway was (the people, the history, the land…he wouldn’t shut up), who his first girlfriend was.

Interestingly enough, this question stumped him for a second. It’s not that he couldn’t remember her. It’s that I get the feeling she did a number on him. Her name was Lise and he was rather young, only twelve. He didn’t say anything more than that but it intrigued me that she might have gotten under his skin.

I’ll have a follow-up question for him later.

But today, the clouds have cleared and the sun is beaming down full-strength.

All of us—Jane, Ottar, Einar, the help, and Magnus, have all wandered outside at some point or another to soak up the morning sun and blink bleary-eyed into this clear October day.

“Fancy a game of tennis?” Magnus asks me as we stand on the stone patio at the back of the house that overlooks the fields and the distant town of Asker. Both of us are cradling cups of coffee in our hands. I’m normally a tea drinker but this place has made me up my caffeine intake.

“Fancy a game of tennis?” I repeat with a smile, making fun of his proper phrasing.

As is usual with him, he’s not wearing much. Just thin heather grey sweatpants and an old Ministry band t-shirt that he must have gotten from a thrift store. The sun may be warm but it’s not that warm and more often than not he’s barely dressed.

I know he does it to bug me.

Who knows why a half-dressed man should bug me so much but he does and he knows it.

I guess what it comes down to is the fact that I want to stare at him. He’s like the bloody sun, and while only quick glances are allowed, you wish you could just stare unabashedly and really soak it all in. Every solar flare, every dancing flame, every burning storm.

But that’s what Magnus wants so I have to constantly avert my eyes and pretend that I always see men that are built like him.

The fact is, I don’t. I haven’t. That’s pretty obvious. The only man I’ve seen naked is Malcolm and while I was madly in love with him at the time, the teenager mind didn’t care that he was skinny as a rake and freakishly smooth.

My twenty-two-year-old mind and untested hormones are being tortured by the fact that Magnus and his ridiculously toned body is everywhere I turn and I have to keep on pretending that I don’t see him. I have to keep pretending that I don’t wish for a moment that I could take my time dragging my eyes over his tattoos and his sinewy muscles. I have to pretend that he’s of no interest to me.

Sometimes I think I’m trying to fool myself of that as well.

“Yeah, you afraid?” he asks, crossing his arms. The muscles in his forearms bulge. The man is fucking built like a tank, I swear.

Don’t you ever let him know that, I chide myself. Eyes up.

I look him in the eyes. Dark, intense, always hinting at something sexual. “Afraid?” I ask. “Of tennis?”

“Yeah.”

“Is this an official question?”

“No,” he says, biting back a smile. “You think I’d waste that on tennis?”

I shrug. “I have no idea what your priorities are.”

Ain’t that the truth. Part of the reason why I spend a lot of my time trying to figure him out is because sometimes I can’t. One minute he seems super focused on something, the next it’s like it never even existed. The other day he seemed absolutely obsessed in getting a vintage billiards table for the place, spending hours online scrolling through ads and stores to get just the right one. The next morning, though, when I asked him about it, he shrugged it off like it was nothing and I haven’t heard a peep about it since.

Which explains a lot when it comes to women. He’ll be interested in one for a time and then he’ll move on to another. At least that’s what I speculate. I guess I should be somewhat flattered that it’s been almost a week now and he’s still staring at me with those wicked eyes like the day we first met.

Maybe even more so.

All in your head, I remind myself. And that’s the last thing you should want.

Well, other than the fact that wanting this is kind of my agenda for these two weeks.

Honestly, this is quite the bloody mess when you think about it.

“Sure, I’ll play,” I tell him. I haven’t played tennis in years but I figure any sort of exercise will work off the excess energy and nerves I have. I can’t tell if it’s my isolation here or Magnus’s questions or what but every morning I wake up feeling like I might run down the street and never look back.

Magnus tells me he hasn’t played tennis here since he was a teenager and though he said the court—which is located on the other side of the servants’ house—was in good enough shape, he didn’t know where the rackets were or what condition they were in. So while he looks for them, I run upstairs to my room and change into running tights, a sports bra, and a loose t-shirt, practically crashing into Jane as I leave my room.

“Sorry!” I apologize, running past her.

“Where are you going?” she calls after me.

“To play tennis with Magnus.”

“Uh huuuh,” she says after a beat and I don’t have to turn around to see the expression on her face. She’s been ogling him, stalking him, harping on about him since we moved in. You’d think she was the one who might be getting married.

I head out of the house and into the courtyard and stop dead in my tracks when I see Magnus there in front of me.

Gone are the sweatpants, which should be a relief since I have to battle with my brain to keep my eyes from staring at the ever-present outline of his dick. But now he’s shirtless and the pants have been replaced with way too small green athletic shorts, the kind you’d see on tennis players in the eighties, and instead of a mere outline, it looks like he’s smuggling an anaconda in there.

“Oh my god,” I exclaim, stopping where I am and covering my eyes. “Where did you find those?”

“In storage with the tennis rackets,” he says. “I think these were my father’s when I was little. They’re very kingly shorts, can’t you see?”

I peer through my fingers, unable to keep from smiling. It’s not just the tightness of the shorts, or the fact that they’re so short and tiny that they show off his muscled thighs, the skin pale with a tan line near the top. But he’s also found a red terry-cloth headband and has put it around his head. Combined with his wild hair, he looks exactly like Luke Wilson from the movie The Royal Tenenbaums, if he’d lost his shirt somewhere and was covered in tattoos.

I tell him this and he smiles. “I was going more for Björn Borg. He’s a famous tennis player from Sweden.” He holds out a racket for me. “In fact, I believe he’s taught my father a few lessons.”

I pause before I take the racket. If he’s had famous athletes teaching his father, there’s a good chance they’ve taught him too. “So how good at tennis are you?”

He shrugs and I can tell he’s playing it down. “I’m okay.”

“You haven’t played since you were a teenager?”

“No, I haven’t played here since I was a teenager,” he says, his eyes trailing around the surroundings. “But squash is more my game these days.”

“What isn’t your game?”

“Not much,” he says. “You afraid you’ll lose?”

I laugh. “I know I’m going to lose.”

“That’s not a very good approach to life.”

“Well, first of all,” I say, taking a step back and pointing at him with my racket. “Look at what you’re wearing. If this isn’t a tactic of distraction, then I don’t know what is.”

The grin that spreads across his face is so smug I regret saying anything. “You find my body distracting?”

My eyes tilt to the sky. “As if you haven’t been playing that game this last week. We all know why men wear sweatpants.”

A wicked gleam comes over his eyes. “Oh you do, do you? Please enlighten me. I thought I wore them because they’re comfortable.”

“You wear them because they show off your…your…” Okay. Cheeks are going red. I really need to stop talking.

“My love muscle? My middle leg? The steamin’ semen roadway?”

I burst out laughing in an extremely unladylike way, a combination of a horse snort and a hyena, and I have to turn my back to him to compose myself.

“Am I close?” he goes on. “It shows off Big Dick and the Twins?”

I thrust my palm out toward him, trying to catch my breath. “Please, stop.”

“Are you sure you want me to stop? It seems like you’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while.”

I take in a deep breath and turn back around to face him. “No more talking about your dick.”

He covers his mouth mockingly, eyes wide. “Oh my god. You said dick. Have you ever said that word out loud before?”

“You are such an asshole.”

“Drittsekk,” he says.

“What?”

“It’s Norwegian. Means asshole. Though direct translation is shitbag, which I think is more elegant. I think it’s about time you start learning the language, don’t you?”

“How about we play some tennis first?”

“Oh you want to get your losing over with? Fine by me.”

We head over to the courts and my eyes stay trained to his ass nearly the entire time. He’s got a damn good one, round and muscled and bouncy, completely showcased in those teeny weeny shorts. It’s like looking at the sun again but this time I can stare unabashedly.

He knows I’m staring too. He has eyes in the back of his head. I swear he even wiggles his butt a little.

The court is on the small size, nothing fancy, and it doesn’t look like there’s been a lot of upkeep with fallen leaves scattered all over it. I suppose the estate doesn’t always have a bunch of full-time staffers if there’s no one staying here.

Magnus goes to the opposite side of the net, pops open the canister of tennis balls and sticks all but one in his pockets. Now he looks even more ridiculous.

“Quit staring at my balls!” he yells at me.

“I can’t help it,” I tell him, heading over to center court and trying to adjust my grip on the racket. “You look lumpy.”

He glances at the tennis balls bulging out the side of his shorts like goiters. “It’s a glandular problem.” He straightens his shoulders, flexes his pecs, then throws up the ball.

Before he even hits it I know I’m in big trouble.

The look of utter focus and determination on his face is something to behold, like he’s playing against an Olympian and not me in my baggy shirt and tights.

The ball meets the racket with a satisfying thwack and then whizzes past me at the speed of light, landing right in the lines. I didn’t even have a chance.

I look back at him. “Nice shot.”

He just nods, his jaw set firmly, his brows drawn in concentration. It’s odd to see him so serious.

He serves up the ball again, and again he muscles through with a powerful swing, this time the ball nearly taking me out. I have to sidestep out of the way to save my kneecaps.

“You know you’re supposed to hit it back,” he says to me, fishing another ball out of his pocket and bouncing it up and down with such ease it makes me think he’s used to playing tennis with his eyes closed.

“You know that I’m rubbish at this game compared to you,” I tell him. “Maybe don’t try and murder me with each serve.”

“Maybe step up and try to hit it back,” he says.

I glare at him. Fine. I’ll try. But I know he’s just trying to humiliate me.

I take my stance, legs apart, butt out, and do my best to channel Serena Williams. I tense my thighs, tighten my grip on the racket, and wait, my heart beating loudly in my chest. I don’t know how but Magnus has somehow managed to turn tennis into a high adrenaline sport.

Magnus serves up the ball and once again comes down on it with a hard swing that hits the ball perfectly. It goes right for me again and this time I both try to jump out of the way and attempt to swing at it.

It doesn’t go well.

My swing comes up empty and the movement almost makes me topple over, and once again, the ball stays inside the court.

“Fuck!” I yell, tempted to ram my racket into the ground. I can see why tennis players have such anger issues. If this continues for much longer I foresee myself launching the racket at his head.

“That’s the spirit,” he says, holding up a ball. “This is the last one I have. You better make it count.”

“You’re a royal drittsekk, you know that?”

He grins proudly, though I don’t know whether it’s because I managed to speak Norwegian or that he’s actually proud of being a royal shitbag.

Either way, he’s in it to win.

The ball goes up.

The racket comes down.

And all I see is this tennis ball coming straight at me, like a neon green meteor headed right for my face.

I’m too stunned to even try to move.

The ball bops me right on my fucking nose.

The world explodes into stars and I yell, “You son of a bitch!” while my eyes pinch shut and I crumple to my knees, holding my nose with one hand, the other keeping me up off the ground.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, I tell myself even though my eyes are starting to water. Fuck, it bloody hurts!

Meanwhile I can hear Magnus leaping over the net and running toward me, throwing his racket to the ground. “Holy fuck, I am so fucking sorry!”

His hands are at my back, on my arm, and I try to wave him away but it’s hard when my whole face is on fire and I feel like I’m about to pass out.

“Let me see,” he says, placing his hand at the back of my neck and crouching beside me.

I gradually lift my head up and hear him inhale sharply.

“What?” I say, my eyes flying open. I manage to look at my hand. It’s completely covered in blood. “Ahhh!”

By the way, I don’t do well with blood.

The world starts to spin again, getting fuzzy around the edges.

“It’s okay,” he says, though there is nothing reassuring about his voice.

“It’s not okay!” I cry out. “You probably broke my nose, you asshole.”

“Drittsekk,” he corrects.

“Yeah, shitbag. Prince Shitbag.” I grab my nose again, the blood dripping onto the ground. “Oh god, I’m going to faint.”

“You’re not,” he says, grabbing my arms and trying to haul me up to my feet. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

I’m pretty much putty at this point and when I’m up, my feet seem to disappear below me. I lean right into Magnus’s chest. His very warm, very hard, very intimidating chest.

Which I’m currently getting blood all over.

I pinch my eyes closed, trying to stay conscious.

“Ugh, sorry,” I whimper, trying to pull away.

But I swear his body is a magnet to mine and then his arms go around the small of my waist, holding me against him.

I’m powerless.

And bleeding all over him.

“I’ve got you,” he says. His tone is serious, as is his grip. “Let’s just take a moment. Breathe in. Breathe out.” He pauses. “Not through your nose, of course.”

I try and take in a deep breath. Let it out. Then another and another.

“You feel better?” he asks.

I give a slight shake of my head. Honestly, I just want to collapse against him even more.

“Okay, hold on,” he says, and then before I know what’s going on, he’s bending down and scooping me up into his arms.

I let out a yelp, one arm going around his shoulder to hold on, the other still holding on to my nose, as if it’s stopping anything.

He carries me out of the court and into the house, and luckily I don’t think any of the help see us. They’d probably freak out and place a phone call to the Queen or something. Who knew tennis could go so wrong?

“Jane!” I yell for her once we’re inside, still in Magnus’s arms. “Jane!”

“She went for a walk,” Ottar says, coming around the corner. “What—” He stops dead when he sees us. “Oh, helvete. What on earth happened here?” He looks at Magnus accusingly.

“Tennis happened,” Magnus says. “Can you grab the first aid kit? I’m sure it’s somewhere.”

“Of course, sir,” he says and then scurries off.

“You can put me down now,” I tell Magnus.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “You might hurt yourself again.”

“Me hurt myself? You’re the one who treated me like target practice.”

The corner of his lips curve into a smile and it’s only now that I’m realizing how close my face is to his. I’ve never noticed the streaks of green in his mahogany eyes before, how long and dark his lashes are, the low arch of his brows. Good lord, he’s stunning.

But the feeling doesn’t last very long.

Because blood is pouring off my nose at very close range to this stunning man.

Stunning man? It’s only Magnus, I have to remind myself.

“Is it just your nose that hurts or do you think your brain was affected?” he asks after a moment.

“Huh?”

“The way you’re looking at me,” he says slowly, the pink of his tongue appearing between his lips.

“How am I looking at you?”

Wait, I don’t want to know.

“Like you might actually like me.”

I can’t help but smile. But smiling brings a sharp jolt of pain to my nose.

“Uuugh,” I moan, shutting my eyes to him, to everything. Jeez, I admire the guy in my head and his ego somehow already knows and is running with it.

“I’ve got the kit!” Ottar says, and I hear his footsteps against the wood floors as he runs over, out of breath. “And towels for the mess. I’ll put them down on the couch.”

Magnus takes me over to one of the couches and gently lowers me down on it, then gets down on his knees beside it so he’s at my level.

“Ottar I need a wet warm washcloth, stat!” he barks.

“Yes, sir!” Ottar says and runs off again.

Meanwhile Magnus is smiling to himself.

“What?” I ask.

“I just enjoy ordering him around so much.”

I roll my eyes. “Always have to be in charge, huh?”

“Something like that,” he says, placing his hand over mine and trying to pry it away. “Let me see your nose.”

Gingerly, I let him take my hand away and he leans in closer, inspecting it.

“How is it?”

“Oh it’s just awful,” he says and I have no idea if he’s pulling my leg or not.

My eyes widen at that as Ottar sticks his hand in front of us, a wet cloth dangling from his fingers. Magnus snatches it up and very gently proceeds to dab the cloth on my face.

“Let me know if it hurts,” he says.

It does hurt. Every dab makes my eyes sting, sends lightning bolts of pain into my brain. But I don’t say anything because I know it needs to be done.

And honestly, I think I like him doting on me like this. He’s surprisingly gentle and I watch him as he concentrates, dark brows furrowed together, biting his lower lip. There’s a strange tenderness and intimacy to this whole thing.

I think Ottar picks up on it too because he says, “Do you need anything else, sir?”

“I’ve got it from here, thank you.”

Ottar walks off and Magnus does a final wipe down the side of my nose. I keep my attention off the cloth which I know is soaked with my blood. Then again, so are both of us.

“There,” he says softly, tilting his head back and forth as he looks me over.

“Does it look broken?” I ask him. I would hate to have a broken nose. It already has a crooked bump in the middle of it as it is, though Jane is fairly insistent that it’s all in my head.

“It’s a bit swollen and it’s going to leave a nasty bruise, maybe even two black eyes,” he says. “Good thing you’re not going anywhere.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I’m sorry about that,” he says, reaching up and brushing a strand of hair off my face. My skin erupts with shivers from the rough feel of his fingers, the curious way he’s gazing at me.

It leaves me momentarily tongue-tied and confused. This is a side of him I haven’t seen yet and I’m not sure I like how it makes me feel.

How it scares me in ways I don’t want to articulate.

“Sorry about what?” I eventually say.

“That my body is so amazing,” he says, straight-faced. “It really wasn’t fair. How can you concentrate on tennis balls when you’ve got my own balls on your mind?”

“Magnus,” I warn, not letting myself smile again. It will hurt way too much. “Not now. Please.”

“I mean, I shouldn’t have been showing off my yogurt slinger like that,” he says.

“Your…what?”

And then it’s over. I burst out laughing, crying out in pain at the same time. “Ow, ow, ow. Damn it, Magnus. You need to get your head checked.”

“Which head?”

“Stop!” I’m alternating between crying and laughing. “This isn’t fair. Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

He grins at me, a softness coming over his eyes. “I’ve been wanting to make you laugh like that. You’re so fucking beautiful, Ella.”

Oh.

Oh.

Did he seriously just say that? Was it a joke?

I stare at him, my smile faltering slightly.

He shrugs. “Too bad you have to deal with Prince Shitbag here.” He pauses and sits back a bit. “Honestly, though, I am sorry for that. I don’t know what came over me out there. I didn’t mean to get all aggressive and hit it so hard, and I certainly didn’t want to hurt you. I guess I get a bit too competitive.”

He could say that again. The look that came over his face when he was serving is probably the same one he gets before he jumps off a cliff or gets behind the wheel of a rally car. I have no idea what goes on in his head and it seems that neither does he.

Or maybe that’s not true.

“Question time,” I tell him.

“You have to sing it,” he says, but his words falter when he sees the fire in my eyes.

“I am not singing it in my condition,” I snap at him, but the burst of anger just makes my nose hurt. I take in a deep, calming breath. “But seriously. What is your obsession with high adrenaline and risky sports? Why do you do it?”

He raises his brow but his amusement is forced. “Tennis is hardly a risky sport. Except maybe for you.”

“Magnus.”

He runs his hand through his hair and sits on the edge of the couch, staring out the windows that overlook the fields below the estate. “I don’t know. I like it.”

“Yeah, but why do you like it? You know that BASE jumping is one of the most dangerous sports in the world and by definition there must be something wrong with you if you actively seek it out.”

He eyes me sharply. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” Now it’s his turn to turn all snappish. I’ve hit a nerve. “I like it because I like it.”

“That’s the honest truth? That’s why you risk your life to do it?”

“I’m not risking my life. I do things by the book. I’m not…reckless.”

“Some would beg to differ,” I tell him. “I’m sure your family wouldn’t agree with that.”

He sighs. “Yeah, well, they don’t agree with a lot of things I do.” He presses his lips together for a long moment. “Look. It gives me something that I don’t often have. When I jump, when I’m taking a sharp turn, when I’m flying over a ski hill…when I’m having hot, crazy sex...”

I swallow hard at the mention of hot, crazy sex, my mind briefly inundated with images of him sweaty and moving on top of me. I push that out of my head, ignore the flush of heat between my legs.

He goes on. “When I’m doing those things, the world just seems to fit me for once. I can focus. I can think. It’s like the constantly changing TV channels of my brain finally come to a stop on one station and I can actually concentrate for once.”

What he said actually makes a lot of sense and I have a feeling it’s something he doesn’t talk about often. Or ever.

He gets up to his feet, seemingly agitated. “Anyway, that’s just the way I am. No point getting all deep and philosophical about it.” He glances down at me. “Want me to take you to your room?”

I shake my head gently and hold the damp rag to my nose. “No. I’ll be fine. I just want to lie here for a bit.”

He nods. “Okay. Let Ottar know if you need anything.”

Then he walks off.

Clearly my question bothered him but I have a feeling he doesn’t even know why.