Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
My head wants to explode.
Everything comes back to me.
I gasp for air, feeling trapped like a wild animal.
I fumble for my seatbelt and unclick it. My body drops, freefalls, slams against the car’s ceiling that’s now the floor and nearly knocks me out again. The SUV landed upside down.
Helena.
That image of her moving past me, like a darkened ghost in the night, a spirit trying to flee the world I live in for another. That was no dream. This is no nightmare.
I raise my head, glancing up to see Nicklas unconscious and upside down.
I should check on him. I will check on him, even though I want to do anything but.
But first I have to find Helena.
Helena.
I crawl out of the SUV, the broken windows cutting my arms and legs.
We’ve landed on a slope, far beneath the road. My flashlight is swallowed by oak trees that surround us on either side, the car nestled in a patch of low foliage and rock.
“Helena?” I cry out, stumbling through the rocks, trying not to fall. It feels like my knees will give out at any second. “Helena!”
There is nothing. There is nothing here except the rain and soft warmth running down my arms and legs and head. Blood, maybe.
I hear a groan and try to run, nearly falling a few times. I see her, about twenty feet from the SUV. She’s lying on her stomach, pressed up against a rock. Her face is covered in blood, she wears it like a veil.
“Helena,” I cry out, dropping to my knees, ignoring the pain that rips through me. “I’m here.”
“Nicklas,” she manages to say, her eye fixed on me with such intensity that I know not to doubt what she’s saying. “Where is Nicklas?”
I swallow but it’s impossible. There are rocks in my throat. “I’m here,” I say again. “Aksel. I am here.”
But that is no comfort to her gaze. If anything, she shrinks from fear.
And then she shrinks from life.
I’m on my knees beside my wife, bleeding, maybe dying, and in the end just asking her to still see me for who I am, see me for me.
But she only sees him.
She only wants him.
And I can’t even fault her for it anymore. Because she should have whatever she deserves.
Because you don’t realize how precious and fickle life is until you see it drain right before your eyes. You don’t know how petty and trivial your stupid feelings are until someone is gone.
In the moments before, I wanted nothing but revenge and love and a million things that Helena could never give me.
Now, as she dies in front of me, I want nothing more than for her to be happy.
I want nothing more than for her to live.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her, holding her hand tight, so tight, as the tears start to roll down my face.
They mingle with the rain.
Soaking my heart.
She dies.
I die.
I live and yet I die with the last breath she takes.
Once my lover. Once my wife.
My world has changed forever.
Chapter 1
Aurora
Present Day - September
When I first applied for the job I didn’t think much of it. If anything, I hesitated to fill out the application to begin with. I’d just come off being a nanny for Etienne Beauregard for two years and after that little French tyrant did everything in his power to defeat me, I started to think that maybe I ought to give being a nanny a break. I’d been an au pair, then a nanny, for various families across Europe for the last seven years. Even someone as optimistic and resilient as I can get a little burned out, and yearning for something new was what led me overseas to begin with.
But even though I gave myself permission to look at other options I could do instead (Teaching English? Being a private tutor? Busking on a street corner dressed as Marie Antoinette?), the moment I went into my recruitment agency to tell them I needed a change of pace, my advisor, Amelie, promptly told me about the position.
“It’s in Copenhagen,” she said with a waggle of her brows, as if Copenhagen was more alluring than the fact that we were currently in Paris.
“Listen, Amelie,” I told her, switching from my still rusty (by their standards) French to English. I blame it on my Australian accent. “I was actually thinking we could try something else.”
She stared at me blankly.
I went on. “Not being a nanny. Or a governess. Or anything like that.”
She chewed on her lip for a moment, brows furrowed. “Pourquoi?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Etienne was…”
“Yes, he was a brat and his father was a creep. But you did well and left when you could. They aren’t all like him. You know this.”
“I know, but maybe I could do something … different.”
She shook her head and put her attention back to her computer screen. “No. You can’t. You came here asking for work and we’ve placed you with four families since then. This is what’s allowed you to stay and work in the EU. You’re a good nanny, Aurora. Your energy is how you say, infectious. And that’s why this position is so appealing.” She punctuated her sentence by clicking on her mouse.