Destined for the Star (Starstruck) (3 page)

She glanced at him. He truly was a gorgeous creature. Surely he must be taken already? But there was no wedding ring, she’d checked twice already. Still, he probably had a live-in girlfriend back home. Even if he by some miracle happened to be single, he would never choose her. He was way out of her league. She tried to comfort herself with the fact that there really was no room in her life for a man anyway. She wasn’t ready to let anyone that close. Maybe she never would be. She forced herself back from the painful route her thoughts inevitably wanted to take, and answered him.
 

”This way, I’ll show you the narrowest alley in all of Stockholm. One of the oldest too, I think.” She smiled at him and told herself she would enjoy these precious, few hours with him. He was going to leave and she would never see him again, but she would always have this one, magical afternoon with him.
 

”So, what did you think of the sandwich I tricked you into buying this morning?” she asked after a little while.

He chuckled at that.
 

”You can trick me into buying sandwiches anytime you feel like it,” he said. ”But this one was actually surprisingly tasty. The meatballs were amazing, I’ve never had cold Swedish meatballs before. I’m not sure about the beetroot salad, though,” he confessed.

She laughed.

”No, it takes some getting used to. Glad you liked the meatballs though,” she smiled up at him. ”What’s the national dish of Oklahoma? Not Swedish meatballs, I’m guessing?”

”I don’t know,” he seemed to consider her question very seriously. ”Corn-dogs, perhaps?”

She started giggling then.

”I don’t even know what that is,” she admitted. ”Dogs made out of corn?”

He laughed too, at that.

”No, not exactly. Corn-dogs are hotdogs wrapped in deep-fried cornbread, on a stick,” he explained. ”I loved those when I was a kid. Who am I kidding?” He winked at her. ”I still love corn-dogs.”

She giggled again. She felt like a silly fourteen-year-old, but she was so happy walking next to him, she really didn’t care. He looked pleased at making her laugh, his face soft with some emotion she felt too shy to name, even to herself.

She decided to change the subject.

”Did you find anything you liked at the bookstore?”

”Yes, I did,” he said. ”Actually, I bought a little too many books. They had a really good selection of English fiction so I went a bit crazy, I’m afraid. I had to ask them to send them over to the hotel for me.” He seemed a little embarrassed by that.

”So you like to read, I take it?” she asked, thinking it was too good to be true, that he was a reader besides being a demigod.
 

”Yes, I do,” he said, looking over at her. ”I love stories of any kind. It doesn’t matter how they’re packaged - in literature, films, plays, or any other art form. I’m just hooked on stories, always have been. My parents read a lot to me when I was little, and once I learnt how to read, I just kept going.”
 

”Really?” she asked, feeling a strange, tender yearning at the thought of the boy he must have been, with his nose stuck in a book.

”Do you like to read?” he asked her, his eyes resting for a moment on her lips.

”I do,” she said. ”Well, that’s a bit of an understatement, I’m a total bookworm. It’s pathetic really. If there was some way I could make a living just reading books, I would.”

”What kind of books do you read?”

”Oh, just about anything I can get my hands on, but I love historical novels a lot. Like ’The Crimson Petal and the White’ by Michel Faber. Have you read it?” she asked, getting a little carried away with her favorite topic.

”Nope, afraid not. What’s it about?”

”Well,” she hesitated, suddenly realizing he might think her taste in books odd once she described the story-line, ”it’s about a prostitute named Sugar, and how she makes her way up in the world with the help of her sugar-daddy, I guess you could say. It’s set in the second half of the nineteenth century.” She suddenly blushed. ”God, you must think I’m so weird!”

He laughed.

”No, actually I’m thinking I’ve never met anyone as intriguing as you before.” His voice caressed her and she felt a curious tingling in the pit of her stomach.

”Anyway, enough about my strange taste in literature. What kind of books do you like the most?”

”I’m a lot like you, I think. I read pretty much anything that takes my fancy,” he confided. ”I love guy’s stuff, like fantasy and science fiction. Lately I’ve read several Dresden-files novels. They’re hilarious. Ever heard of them?” he asked, his eyes lingering on her face.

”Yes, my brother Markus loves those.”

”Really? Have they been translated into Swedish?”

”I don’t know. Markus reads them in English. Both of my brothers love visiting the Sci-fi-bookstore, by the way. So, did you get any of those Dresden-files-books there today?”

”Yes, the latest one, actually. And then I got several books by authors I haven’t read before.”

”Like who?”

”Well, one of them is a Swedish author, Karin Tidbeck. The guy in the store recommended that one. It’s a collection of short stories, called ’Jagannath’. He said it’s unlike anything he’d ever read before, so I’m really looking forward to checking it out.”

”Sounds interesting. I’ve never heard of her. I’ll have to check it out, too.” She smiled at him. It was so easy to talk to him. She wasn’t usually like this at all with people she didn’t know. But he felt so oddly familiar to her, like a kindred spirit. She had obviously read ’Anne of Green Gables’ too
 
many times as a child, she thought, exasperated with herself.
 

”Do you like reading fantasy?”

”No, I’m not really a fantasy or sci-fi kind of girl. Although, I am obsessed with ’The Lord of the Rings’. I’ve read that trilogy like twelve times. Pathetic, huh?” She looked up at him, forever on her guard as to when she would see that look on his face that said: ”You’re such a boring nerd!” She always expected that look from people when she talked about her interests. But that expression was still nowhere near his face. Instead he grinned at her, his beautiful smile stunning her once again.

”Seriously? I love Tolkien! I’m like his biggest fan. My brothers tease me so much about it, because they outgrew his writing in Junior High. Or so they claim. They can’t understand why I still read him.”

”Really? Outgrow Tolkien? What a strange notion!” she joked and grinned back at him. ”Lord of the Rings is my all-time favorite saga. I cry every time I reach the end and have to say goodbye to Frodo and Sam and all the others. I get total separation anxiety. That’s probably why I keep re-reading the books.”

He smiled at her.

”I never thought I’d meet a girl who loves those books as much as I do,” he said, and looked at her with a strange, almost tender yearning in his eyes. She longed to reach out and touch him, just once feel his skin against her fingers. Instead she kept walking.

”So, what are you reading right now?” she asked.

 
”I just finished re-reading ’Grapes of Wrath’.”

”Steinbeck?”

”Yep. It starts out in Oklahoma, but that’s not why I love it so much. I love the scale of his writing, it’s so epic and universal. Not to mention beautiful. I always find something new in his books, something I didn’t see before. What are you reading right now?”
 

She blushed a little.
 

”Oh, I’m so predictably girlish. I’m deep into a Jane Austen-binge right now. I go through those every now and then.”

He smiled at her. Then he bent down and murmured in her ear,

”I would have to kill you if you ever told anyone this, but ’Persuasion’ is one of my all-time favorites.”

She stopped and stared at him.

”No way! ’Persuasion’?”

”Shh,” he said, ”don’t out me on the streets of Stockholm! I have my image as a cowboy to protect!”

She giggled and started walking again.

”’Persuasion’ is my favorite too,” she said. ”The quiet agony of Anne’s regrets and the yearning between them - it’s so beautiful. Of course Wentworth can never forget Anne, she’s the One! You find the One, and there will never be a number Two, right?” she joked.

”My sentiments exactly. True love is rare and worth fighting for, to the bitter end,” he declared, and grinned at her. She wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not.

They walked and talked and she showed him all of her favorite spots in the Old Town. He asked her about her life, her family and her plans for the future. She told him about her brothers; their names, how old they were and that she was looking after them since their parents’ death four years earlier. She talked about working at the café, and how she didn’t feel comfortable working as a waitress in a restaurant, because of the alcohol served at night and how that affected some customers. Although she would probably have made more money if she had. She even told him about her dream of becoming a writer, and that she had recently started sending around manuscripts, of a novel she’d written, to several different publishers in Stockholm. He seemed so interested in everything she had to say, that she almost forgot that she was monopolizing the conversation.
 

”I’m sorry I talk so much,” she apologized, feeling embarrassed at telling him so much about herself. She feared he must be bored out of his mind by now. ”I’m not usually this talkative. It’s just so easy to talk to you - I feel strangely at ease with you,” she confessed, blushing a little.

He smiled down at her.

”I’m so glad you feel that way, because I feel the same. But I should be the one apologizing for being so nosy! I’m not usually this curious, I promise,” he said. ”I just can’t seem to help it with you, Olivia.”
 

Hearing him say her name sent a thrill through her. Everything about him was so beautiful; his voice, his thoughts, the way he looked… He was like an angel suddenly descended to walk the streets of Stockholm. Oh, she had to get a grip on herself - she was being so pathetically melodramatic today.

As the sun was setting, throwing pink and gold tints on the remaining clouds, they finally arrived at Bondeska Palatset. She invited him to sit down on the massive stone stairs leading up to it.
 

”Where are we now?” he asked her, sitting down so close to her she could feel the heat from his body against her right side. It made her tingle all over in unfamiliar ways.

”This is an old palace, Bondeska Palatset,” she explained. ”Nowadays it’s the seat of the Swedish Supreme Court, but originally it was the residence of the Bonde family, hence the name. For many years, after that family couldn’t afford to live here anymore, the city used it as the town hall.” She glanced at him - it was so hard to contain herself. If she hadn’t tried so hard not to, she’d be staring like a fool at him the whole time and make him uncomfortable. She forced herself to look out onto the courtyard instead.

”I’m going to tell you the tragic tale of Axel von Fersen’s demise, now,” she said. ”If you want me to. It is a gruesome story, so if you don’t want to hear it, that’s okay.”

”No, I do want to hear it. Please, go ahead,” he said, resting his eyes on her mouth.
 

She blushed a little and hoped he would think it was from the cold. She returned her gaze to the cobble stones in front of them and began telling the story.

”On these very steps, more than two hundred years ago, a very accomplished and handsome nobleman named Axel von Fersen, was brutally beaten to death by an out of control mob.”

She met his gaze to gauge his reaction.

”How horrific. Poor guy. What on earth had he done to deserve such a fate?”

”Well, I’m not sure he had done anything to deserve such a death, although the mob certainly believed he had.”

”You see,” she continued, ”he was a very proud man. Arrogant some might say. Maybe he had reason to be, at least to a certain degree. He had accomplished a lot in his life so far. He was an army officer, highly thought of in the military. At various points in his career he worked for the Swedes, the French and even for the Americans, during the Revolutionary War.”

”Really?” Nate said, sounding surprise. ”The man did get around quite a bit, didn’t he?”

”Yes, he did, ”she said, smiling at him. ”He fought alongside George Washington against the British and was commended for his bravery at the battle of Yorktown.”

”Impressive,” he said, his eyes still lingering on her face.

”Anyway, he was a good soldier, and highly thought of during his lifetime. But he also made a lot of enemies, perhaps due to jealousy, or perhaps because of his own arrogant demeanor. When he was killed he had returned home to Sweden and had been appointed the Marshal of the realm. As such it was his duty to accompany the casket with the remains of the Swedish Crown Prince, who had died very suddenly that summer, on its funeral procession through the city. Apparently the Crown Prince had had a stroke and fell off his horse, but at the time there was a lot of political turmoil in Sweden and people assumed he had been murdered. Poisoned or some such thing.”

”Did the people think Axel had something to do with his death?”

”How did you know?” she asked, surprised.

He shrugged.

”I don’t know, it just seemed like a strong enough reason for the crowd to want to kill him.”

”Yes,” she agreed. She shivered as she pictured what it must have been like for von Fersen to get caught in the angry mob all those years ago. ”He knew what he was being accused of, and he knew that the sentiments in the city that day were volatile, but still he insisted on carrying out his duties. He knew he was innocent and I guess he assumed the truth of that belief would protect him from the people’s wrath.”
 

”A very dangerous assumption,” Nate said quietly.

”Yes,” she said, wrapping her arms around her knees, ”but sort of beautiful too, don’t you think?” She looked at him.

”’The truth shall set you free’?”

She nodded, wondering what kind of riches of emotion he hid behind those luminous eyes.