Page 36 of Royal Rising

“You should marry me,” Kalle insists. The relief has vanished and now he looks like he did when he had the brilliant yet drunken idea to dare Gunnar to strip naked and run through the town square. “Yeah. You’d make a good queen. A great one. You said it yourself.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. The thought of a sentence including the wordsmeandqueensends a burst of laughter—a guffaw, really—bubbling up and out. Some of the guffaw heads out through my nose and I snort. “No way.”

“Seriously, Edie, think about it.”

“Youcan’t be thinking about it. Me and you, and me queen?” I stammer, searching for the right words, when there can’t be any words because this can’t be happening. “You’re kidding,” I insist. “You have to be. Plus, that’s the worst proposal I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not a proposal, it’s a—it’s you.” Kalle stares down at me from his height and all I can think is that he’s so tall and so broad. And so Kalle—and he can’t be serious.

But he looks serious. He looks like he means it.

“It’s a good idea,” he says quietly, holding my gaze like it’s my hands in his.

My hands are actually in his. I hadn’t realized Kalle had grabbed my hands andohmygod, if he goes down on one knee—

“I think you’d be perfect,” he says, still upright on two legs.

Not,I think you’re perfectbutyou’d be perfectlike I’m auditioning for a role. Interviewing for a job. Kalle thinks I’d be perfect for a position, but not for him.

If I keep that train of thought, I can overlook the position he has me in mind for would be queen. Because that just can’t happen.

That is fairytale land, and my life has never, nor will it ever exist in fairytale land.

“Are you serious?” Any humorous aspect of this conversation vanishes. “You think it’s a good idea to marry me, but you don’t want to propose?”

“I don’t need to… Okay, it was a proposal.” Kalle backtracks when he notices my expression.

I know exactly what expression I’m wearing because I’ve seen it on my mother’s face many times.

“No,” I say.

“No…?”

“No, I’m not going to marry you.”

“Edie…” I think Kalle knows he did something wrong, but I don’t let him finish.

“I can’t believe you did that. Unlike you, I value the idea of marriage. I want a love like my parents. Like your parents. I want a husband to love and respect me enough to get down on one knee and tell me all the ways he plans to make me happy for the rest of his life. Not some pity—hey, we should get hitched because I need a queen.”

“I just thought…” Kalle says miserably. “We’re friends.”

“And so you should know that is not the way to ask me anything. You may be my best friend, Kalle Erickson, and I want to marry my best friend, but not you. And not like this.”

And I yank open the office door and storm out, leaving him there, scrubbing at the back of his neck.

10

Kalle

All the air inthe office seems to be sucked out as Edie slams the door behind her.

That didn’t go how I thought it would.

It makes sense that it didn’t go well since I didn’t even think about it. That could be the problem right there.

It hit me when Edie was talking—how incredible she would be as a queen. Edie has the ability that I’ll never have to make everyone love her, even when she’s rearranging their lives in one of her organizational kicks.

And in the same breath, I realized how easy it would be to have her as my wife.

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