Of course, I don’t have an appointment with the prime minister, but I use my status and smile to get the secretary to send me on through, Ottar at my side.

“Your Highness,” he says as we step into his office. He gets to his feet and gives me a slight bow, which already makes me feel like I have the upper hand. “To what do I owe the honor? I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I have something I need to discuss with you,” I tell him, leaning against the edge of his desk. “It’s rather personal and sensitive.”

He nods slowly and eyes Ottar. “Should he be here then?”

“He’s here for backup,” I tell him. “You see, this concerns you. To be more specific, it concerns your daughter.”

Oh, it’s so hard not to call her the “psycho-hose-beast, stage-five-clinger, batshit barnacle of a daughter” but I manage to bite my tongue.

“What about her?”

Uh oh. His eyes are already narrowed. This won’t be easy.

But hopefully it will be satisfying.

“First of all, I want to apologize yet again for that video that leaked out into the world. It was never meant for anyone else’s eyes and I’m still very mad at myself that I let it happen,” I say.

His eyes soften, just slightly. “Oh. Okay. Well that never hurts to hear again.”

“I should have never put myself in that situation. I never should have gone out with her and I never should have let her film us. It was a bad idea and being a prince, being the older one, being the man, I should have put a stop to it. I didn’t, and I accept that as a lack of responsibility and control. It’s something I will forever aim to make better.”

He was nodding during this but now he’s stopped. “You make it sound like it was her idea. She would never…”

I try not to smile. “Yeah, well, here’s the thing. It was her idea. I should have said no, I should have known better, but it was her idea. And I think she leaked the whole thing as well. There was no hacker. It was just her, sharing it with the world.”

His eyes spark as he looks to Ottar and back to me. “That’s insane. More than that, it’s terribly inappropriate, horrific even, to accuse my girl of that. How dare you!”

“Once you know what else she’s done, I think you’ll come to the same conclusion,” I say, jerking my head toward Ottar.

Ottar comes forward and places the paternity test papers on the desk, sliding them toward the prime minister.

He eyes them but makes no move to pick them up. “What are these?”

“This is a paternity test. Your daughter borrowed your car yesterday and came to see me at Skaugum Estate. Did you know that?”

Now he looks completely taken aback. “Oh, well I. Uh, no. She said she needed it but…”

“She came to see me and Ella and gave me this. A paternity test that says she’s pregnant and I’m the father.”

“What?” he barks, his beady eyes flashing. He snatches up the paper, his hand starting to shake as he reads it over.

“Yes, that was my reaction. Said it must have happened back in September. Maybe that tape was supposed to have captured it all for proof, I don’t know.”

“She can’t be pregnant,” he says softly. “Especially with you.” He glares at me, his words turning harsh at that.

I shrug. “That’s the game she was running. Until Ottar, wonderful, suspicious Ottar, who was further removed from the situation and able to look at it unemotionally, decided to examine it further. First of all, all those doctors who signed it are dead Vikings. So, that’s weird right? Second of all, she said you personally have my DNA on file somewhere and that’s how she obtained it.”

“I don’t,” he says, his voice now breaking a bit, like he’s losing it.

About time.

“That’s what we figured. Look, I understand it’s a lot to take. But you have to know that even though I have royally fucked up before, many times, that is all in the past. I learned my lesson. And I found love. I’m not saying I won’t fuck up again, but you can be damned sure it won’t be like this. I am the future king and from this moment forward, I will be behaving as one.” I pause and stand up straighter. “I think it’s only fair you treat me as one.”

He stares at me for a few long, awkward seconds and I have no clue what he’s going to say. Finally, he says, “I’ll treat you like a king when you act like it.”

“Fair enough,” I tell him. “I didn’t expect much otherwise. But just so you know, I don’t take being threatened lightly. The fact that she told me she would extort me and slander our family name is something we all take very seriously. I don’t know what she’s going to say and given that she’s probably not pregnant with anyone’s baby, I don’t know how far the charade was going to go on for. But she meant to do as much damage as possible with that document.” I clear my throat. “I should probably take legal action against her. And perhaps you, for allowing this to happen.”

Now I’ve got him.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

“Come now, Your Highness,” he starts babbling, wiping sweat off his greasy brow. “I had nothing to do with this, I don’t know what goes on with her. I mean, you can’t be serious. We can talk this out. There is no reason to take it to that level.”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Considering the mess she aimed to cause, I think it should be. This is an offense I’m sure, forging something like this, and it’s a greater one to threaten royalty. If this got out into the public, why I’m sure your entire reputation would come crashing down in a hot second.”

“Magnus, Your Highness, please. Just sit down. Let’s talk.”

“I don’t need to talk,” I tell him. “And I won’t say a word of this. I’ll sweep it under the rug.” I pause, pointing my finger at him. “Just promise me that you’ll deal with your daughter. Honestly, and I mean this from a good place, but she’s not right in the head. She needs help. Professional help and lots of it. I think she’s lost and lonely and feels ignored when it comes to you. She feels victimized and forgotten. You need to start being there for her more and you can start by getting her the help she needs before she goes off the rails for good.”

He just nods, staring into space. “Yes. Yes. Of course.”

“Are we good, sir?” Ottar says to me.

I give him an appreciative, triumphant smile as we start toward the door.

“Oh yes. We’re good.”

I’m staring down at my phone, willing for Ella to call me, when my father beside me stirs. I’ve been sitting next to him for nearly an hour now, patiently waiting for him to wake up. I know I shouldn’t unload anything on him, I know he needs his rest and, as my mother has been saying, only happy thoughts and happy things are to be discussed with the King, but of course that doesn’t seem to apply to her since she’s still the number one complainer in this royal household.

But I digress. I need to talk to him. In the past I would have kept my father out of whatever messy thing was going on in my life. When it came to the whole sex tape thing and marriage, well that was him reeling me in, not the other way around. If I could have, I would have pretended nothing happened.

But I don’t want to live like that anymore.

Today, talking to the prime minister, I felt more like a king than anything else. Emboldened and authentic and real. For the first time, I really felt like I owned up to my title of heir, that I was worthy of it.

And kings don’t shrink from the hard conversations.

My father never did.

And I won’t with him. I have to speak with him, I have to let him know what happened. Pretending it never existed won’t do me any good. I need to own it before it’s swept under a rug.

He groans lightly and opens his eyes, blinking at me. “Magnus?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“It’s me,” I tell him, grabbing his hand softly. “I just wanted to say hello.”

His eyes close but he smiles. “Well hello to you too. How long have you been there, watching me snore away?”

“Long enough.”

“I have to say, with your condition, that must have been very boring for you.” He opens one eye and spears me with it. “What brings you here today?”

I take in a deep breath. Suddenly I’m afraid. I’m afraid that he’ll lose respect for me. I’m afraid that he’ll think I’ve regressed in some way.

“What is it, Son?” he asks. “I can tell it’s something big. Do I need to call for a nurse?”

I shake my head. “No. No, I think it’s okay. It’s okay because everything turned out okay in the end. Just, uh, remember that. That everything is fine now.”

He sighs, his chest rising and falling. “Well that’s good. Fine is good. They say greed is good, but fine is good too.”

Hmmm. He may be a little loopy.

“Ella left me.”

Boom.

There it is.

“She what?” he says, moving around to get a good look at me. “What are you talking about? I thought you guys were writing up your thank-you cards just yesterday. Oh, and by the way, don’t bother with Prince Hans of the Netherlands, I didn’t care for the way he way he looked at your mother at the wedding.”

I ignore that. “We were doing that yesterday. After that, well…a bomb went off. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Well what was it?” He pauses, watching my face carefully. “Magnus, what did you do?”

“Heidi Lundström came to our door.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah. Oh fuck was more like it, but yeah, oh dear works. She told me she was pregnant with my child and had a paternity test to prove it.”

His eyes widen. “Oh, fuck,” he says after a beat.

“There you go.”

“I can see why Ella might have left,” he surmises. “What did you do?”