We start jogging across the grass to the boat and throw our stuff on board, then wade into the ice-cold water up to our knees before climbing in. Einar is at the wheel, frowning beneath his aviator glasses that glint violet and blue like they’ve been polarized a million times over.

I step beside him, shouldering the brute out of the way and taking over the controls.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll drive,” I tell him, glancing over my shoulder at their speedboat which is zooming off, before shoving the gear into reverse and gunning it away backward from the shore.

Ottar nearly falls overboard, holding on to the rail for dear life as Einar grabs the console to steady himself.

“I’m pretty sure your mother would file this under reckless driving!” Ottar yells, trying to straighten back up, only for me to whip the boat forward and take off after the Russian’s boat.

“Pretty sure my mother wouldn’t want me to be paparazzi fodder either,” I tell him with a wink.

“Just let it go,” Ottar says with a sigh that’s squeezed out of his lungs as he falls into the railing again.

But even though I’m pretty fucking good at escaping from my problems, the fact that they’ve followed me here says I’ve got to face them. Head on. Mad Magnus style.

“Let it go?” I repeat. “You’re the one who told me I fucked up just moments before I jumped. I fucked up, so now I have to fix it.”

“Sir,” Einar says, clearing his throat. Even if his psychedelic sunglasses weren’t covering his eyes, I wouldn’t be able to read them. Sometimes I think Einar is built in the same robot factory as the Russians, but his maker decided to give him extra muscle.

“I’ve got it, Einar,” I tell him. “Why don’t you make sure Ottar doesn’t fall overboard?”

Einar doesn’t move, and from the way his mouth is pressed into a firm line, I don’t think he likes it when I tell him what to do. I know he doesn’t. I can order Ottar around, but Einar is just a bodyguard, there to protect me, not anyone else.

I don’t need his protection, but that doesn’t stop him from going everywhere I go. Even when I go on a date with a lady, he’s somewhere lurking in the background. The only privacy I get is when I’m fucking them and I have to hope he’s not spying through a window. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of being watched while having sex excites me to no end, but seeing Einar’s grave, pockmarked face would totally kill the vibe.

That said, in some ways I wish he had been watching the other week when I’d gone into Heidi’s house.

When I’d gone into Heidi’s room.

Not necessarily when I proceeded to screw her senseless that first time.

But the second time, when she propped up her phone and said she wanted to record us having sex as a keepsake, a memento.

I’d agreed to it, because, well why the fuck wouldn’t I want to be filmed sticking my dick in her? Usually I don’t even bring it up with the ladies because their adventurous sides only involve doggy-style and maybe some light choking or spanking. Filming us having sex? Forget it.

And I was feeling bad since earlier that evening I broke it off with her. Not that Heidi and I were anything serious, but we’d been on a few dates we somehow managed to hide from the public—and her father—and I could tell she wanted a lot more from me. As in, she wanted to become the next princess of Norway.

Naturally, I had to nip that in the bud, even though apparently when I break up with someone I still think it’s cool to film a sex tape afterward. Just another example of my impulsiveness getting me in trouble.

God, did I ever fuck up.

But that’s all out of my control and who knows what’s going to happen to me now. Since the news broke yesterday, I’ve yet to speak to my parents about it, though I could feel their anger simmering all the way from their palace in downtown Oslo.

I’m feeling that same anger simmer through me right now with only one place for it to go.

I increase the throttle on the boat, and now we’re steadily catching up to the paparazzi speedboat. Soon we’ll overtake them.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Einar says quietly, his eyes focused on the boat as it gets closer and closer.

“Do I ever know what I’m doing?” I repeat, biting back a smile.

And even if this doesn’t work, who cares? They deserve it and more.

“Hey!” I yell at the photographers as we pull up alongside their boat. “Get any good pics?”

My voice is carried by the wind but they both look over and in unison raise their cameras.

I proceed to give them the finger and a big fucking smile.

Then I swiftly grab the wheel and yank our boat to the side, creating a giant wake and ensuring a wave of water flows over the side of their boat, soaking them from head to toe.

I burst out laughing and then gun our boat in the opposite direction toward our boat launch at the end of the fjord, leaving the two fuckfaces yelling at us in Russian, sopping wet and shaking out their cameras which are no doubt ruined.

Serves them right.

“Nice maneuver, sir,” Einar says after a moment, and I glance at him to see the hint of what could be called a smile pulling at his mouth.

“Thank you, my good man.”

“You know they’re going to try and sue you for that,” Ottar pipes up, slowly staggering up the side of the deck, never letting go of the railing.

“You’re a killjoy, Ottar,” I tell him. “Let me have my fun.”

I know it’s the only fun I’m going to have for a while.

Even though I’ve always had my pick of where I wanted to live, including various royal palaces throughout Norway, I’m rather fond of my tiny apartment. Okay, maybe it’s not tiny by normal standards. It does take up the entire top floor of a corner building in Majorstuen, one of the city’s “hip” neighborhoods, and I have more room than I know what to do with, but it makes me feel a lot more normal to live this way rather than in a palace.

Ignoring the fact that the floor below me is where Einar and Ottar and various rotating guards live, the floor below that is an H&M. On the street, trams trundle on by, a sound I find soothing, and people hurry to and fro, shopping and hitting up the bars.

The paparazzi know I live in the neighborhood but aren’t exactly sure where. The windows that face the street are tinted, obscuring me from people and when I need sun, I head up to the roof where I have a whole private deck free from prying eyes. And there are more than a few entrances into the building, including a tunnel that pops up a block away in a small gated courtyard.

That’s how my mother will be getting here tonight. I feel bad having her go through the tunnel since it was built in the 1800s and it can get pretty dank in there, but she was insistent that she come visit me as soon as possible.

It’s all bad news. The fact that she wants to discuss something with me here instead of at the palace where my father and youngest sister, Mari, are says a lot. Like there are less witnesses in case she wants to murder me.

I’m looking around the apartment, wondering if I should hide my knives, or, at the very least, the large Viking axe I have on display on the wall, when there’s a knock.

I stride over to the door, running my hand through my hair to make sure it’s all in order (my hair is usually messy and longer than she thinks is appropriate), take in a deep breath, and open it.

My mother and her bodyguard, Per, are standing in the hall. I catch a glimpse of Einar in the background, heading down the stairs.

“Magnus,” my mother says to me in a curt voice, which is her default voice at any given moment.

“Mother,” I say right back. I flash her a smile which used to charm her but doesn’t seem to have that effect anymore. I meet Per’s eyes, but just like Einar, they give me nothing. More robots in fine suits.

I clear my throat and gesture to the apartment. “Well. Come in, then.”

She nods and glances at her bodyguards with an internal message for them to stay where they are. Then she steps inside and I close the door after her.

“You cleaned up,” she says, stopping in the middle of the living room and looking around. It’s an open plan apartment which means you can see most of it from any location, and normally it’s a mess. Even though I have a housecleaner who comes in here every other day, it doesn’t take long for the place to look like a tornado ripped through it. Let’s just add Messy Magnus to my list of nicknames.

“I tried to make it fit for a queen,” I tell her.

“Bullshit,” she swears, shaking her head and eyeing me sharply.

That’s my mother for you. She might be the Queen, but she can be as crude and blunt as I can be. While my father is easygoing and gregarious, if not a little loopy, my mother says what she wants, when she wants. She’s fearless.

At least she normally is. As sharp as her gaze is tonight as it cuts into me, I can see the sparks of fear behind her eyes, which in turn brings out the fear in me.

My heart starts to speed up and she nods at the two armchairs by the fireplace, an heirloom bearskin rug between them. “Sit down. I have something I need to talk to you about, and for once, I need you to listen.”

I swallow hard. “You don’t want coffee or?” I glance at the kitchen as if making her an espresso will buy me some time.

“Magnus,” she says sternly. “Sit.”

So I sit, and she sits across from me. She’s a petite woman, only about five feet, two inches tall, but even in a casual silk pantsuit that borders on pajamas, she’s formidable.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment which ratchets up the tension in the room to an unbearable amount. I finally have to say, “Look, I am so sorry about what happened—”

“Stop,” she says, raising her palm. “Just stop. You don’t need to apologize. Though I do wonder if you are ever truly sorry about anything.”

That was a cheap shot.

“What happened, happened,” she goes on. “There’s no stopping it. All we can do is damage control, if we can even do that.”