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 makeup is already done, and I straightened my hair, wearing it down to make up for the fact that it was stuffed in a braid and bonnet all afternoon, when he appears in the other doorway to the hall.
“Sorry I’m so late,” Henrik says, breathless. In his hands he’s holding a huge garment bag. “But I got the dress. I may have consulted with my wife on this one, so if you don’t like it, it’s all her fault.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I tell him, and I’m a bit relieved since I’ve met his wife once and she seemed to have good fashion sense. Then again, most people in this city are effortlessly stylish.
When we’re done scarfing down the bread and cheese, I wrangle the girls back up to my room since I don’t dare trust them alone when there’s party prep going on. I place them on the bed and tell them they can be my fashion show judges.
“Make sure you smize,” Clara calls out as I take the dress into the bathroom.
How on earth this girl knows about “smizing” and America’s Next Top Model is beyond me.
I close the door and unzip the garment bag.
Well, the first impression is good.
It’s a bronzy, nude color with glitter and sequins and…
I wrestle it out of the bag and then it expands to five times its size.
Holy shit.
This is an actual ball gown.
Like, a princess kind of ball gown.
From a Disney film.
I hold it up, trying to see if it will even fit but thankfully it seems to be my size.
I manage to get it on and look in the mirror.
The bustier top is full-on sequins, low-cut, pushing up my breasts while nipping in my stomach. The rest of the gown poufs out majorly, all glitter and tulle and magic.
Wow.
“Let us see,” I hear Clara cry out.
I open the door and make a dramatic entrance, shifting my hips to the side and throwing out my arms. “Ta-da!”
“You’re a princess!” Clara yells, jumping off the bed and running over to me. “You’re more princess than I am!”
“Du ser smuk ud,” Freja says, following her sister and running her hands down the side of my dress.
“Thank you,” I tell her. She said I look gorgeous.
I feel gorgeous.
For once I don’t think that my ears stick out a little or that my teeth and smile are oversized or that my brows are too strong and bold for my face. For once I think it all comes together, making me beautiful.
But let’s face it, Aksel has been making me feel beautiful every single night that I’m in his bed.
“Sleeping Beauty,” Clara says, looking me over. “That’s who you are.”
“Princess Aurora,” Freja clarifies.
Clara grabs her sister by the arm and starts twirling her around my bedroom. “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream,” she sings one of the songs from the cartoon. It’s terribly off-key and she shrieks more than she sings, but there’s something so utterly charming about the scene in front of me that I feel my heart breaking into a million pieces. It’s so strange how something can make you feel so happy, so good, it makes you painfully sad at the same time.
“You’re crying,” Freja says, once Clara has twirled her toward me.
“Am I?” I say, carefully running the edge of my fingers under my eye. “Probably just dust in the air.”
I head to the bathroom and look in the mirror again, making sure that my makeup isn’t ruined. I don’t know if it was the compliments that Maja was giving me earlier, or seeing Aksel give that rousing speech, or feeling like a princess, like I actually belong here for once, but my emotions all seem to be at the surface today.
As long as I don’t drink too much, I’ll be able to hold it together.
At about 7:30 p.m., after I get the girls into dresses of their own, shiny pink and green numbers with bows, I get a text from Aksel.
Where are you?
I breathe a sigh of giddy relief. I thought he’d forgotten about me.
I text back: Just got the girls ready.
He says: Come down. I need you here.
I need you.
Such simple words and they’re setting my heart on fire.
Be right there.
“Okay girls,” I say, putting my phone on the desk. I don’t have a clutch and the dress doesn’t have pockets so it’s better off in my room. “Let’s go.”
I take them by the hands and we head off to the ball.
The ballroom is located at the far wing of the palace on the first floor and other than playing with the girls and Snarf Snarf in there, I don’t go there much.
But tonight, it’s like entering another world.
You know those royal balls you see in the movies, people in fancy dresses dancing beneath glittering chandeliers, while butlers walk around with appetizers and champagne and a violin orchestra plays in the corner.