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“Well, you shouldn’t be. It’s not like my mother hasn’t raised a child before.” He makes a face at me, and I shake my head backat him. “Just because it was complicated with me doesn’t mean she’s going to screw our daughter up too.”
“You’re not screwed-up,” he says. I raise my eyebrows hard at him for that but decide not to comment further.
The last thing I want to do is argue while we’re supposed to be on a romantic vacation.
“It’ll be good for her to spend some time with her grandma,” I say. “Besides, my mom loves getting treated like she’s royalty. It will all be working perfectly.”
In reality, the nanny is probably going to help out plenty during my mom’s stay at the palace while we’re away. I feel so lucky to be able to keep traveling like this even with our daughter being so young. We’re not doing trips for as long as I used to because I don’t want to miss too much time with her, but knowing that Icanmakes me feel so free.
I also can’t risk too much time away because I’m taking a part-time course to get a degree in conservation and ecology. It’s hard work, but it’s so worth it — and I would never have been able to do any of it without Jensen. He’s been so supportive of me this whole time.
He hasn’t rushed me into doing anything, hasn’t made any demands. We didn’t even move in together until Hannah was nearly ready to be born, and he’s taken his fair share of the dirty diapers without even being asked.
I haven’t felt quite ready to give up my life in Philadelphia, either, so we have a house there now. I can visit my mom whenever I want and keep in touch with Ella.
But otherwise I’m living my life as a full-time princess of Sólveigr. Sometimes I remember that and it makes me dizzy with disbelief.
Jensen’s been busy too; he’s sat in on a few of my lectures with me, trying to learn more about what I’m doing. He claims he’s not smart enough to learn any more about conservation than he already knows, but I know that’s not true. I’m hoping that, after I graduate, I can persuade him to take some classes to learn more about this subject that he clearly loves.
He’s done everything to support me. All I want now is for him to thrive too.
“Maybe we should call tomorrow,” he says. “We’ll be halfway through our vacation. It won’t feel like we’re being pushy.”
“Jens,” I say, “you’re so cute when you worry.” I reach over to take his hand, and he brings my knuckles to his lips and kisses them gently.
“I love you,” he says, smiling.
“I love you too.”
With that he sits up, gesturing for me to do the same. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Okay,” I giggle, not quite sure what’s gotten into him. He can be so ridiculous sometimes.
“Let’s go to the waterfall. We haven’t been there in a while.”
I don’t complain, and the walk is beautiful. He can even navigate there all by himself now. He’s still not exactly an outdoorsy type, but looks like he belongs here more than ever now.
He lets go of my hand as we reach the water, and I frown at him. “You okay?”
Biting his lip, he takes a sharp breath and shakes his whole body like he’s preparing for something. “I wanted to do it here, but…”
“But what? Jens, what’s going on?”
“I love you,” he starts, and I just frown back at him. “Please don’t make this weird.”
“Make what weird?” I sigh, exasperated by his ramblings.
Then he drops to one knee and pulls out a ring. “Marry me,” he says simply, and I get the sense that he went through an entire awkward monologue in his head just now to reach this point.
And even if he’d said it all out loud, I wouldn’t have cared.
The first thing I do is wrap my arms around him and kiss him, and he pulls me down to the ground beside him. “Yes! Of course I’ll marry you,” I grin, pulling away for a second.
“It can be however you want it — I don’t care. My parents will want a whole celebration, and it’ll probably have to happen, but I don’t care if it doesn’t. I just wantyou. I want you forever.”
I cut off his words with a kiss. The truth is, we probablywillhave to have a royal wedding.
And the thing is, he’s right. I don’t care at all either, as long as I’ve got him.
The End