Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“Please, don’t think too much about it. It’s all trash.”
“Yeah, it’s trashy. But there are some details that are printed that don’t really jive. Meaning, it’s easy to dig up my mug shot once you know my old name and it’s easy to find out more about Dan. But there were some personal details in the British tabloid that they shouldn’t have been able to get.”
I frown. “What do you mean? You mean your mother talked?”
She shakes her head, rubbing her lips together as she thinks it over. “No. Not that. They quote an anonymous source, but I feel like my mother would have come right out and said who she was. That’s if she even knows who I am now. I haven’t seen or heard from her in ten years.”
“So who would it be? Amelie?”
“No, not her. I don’t let people get that close to me.”
“Tell me about it.”
She nudges me in the side. “This is serious. The tabloids reported on not just facts, but feelings. My guilt over the past, my desire to become someone new. Being homeless, living under a bridge in Brisbane. No one ever knew that. I only told those things to my diary.”
My chin jerks back in surprise. “You have a diary?”
“Yes,” she hisses. “You’ve seen it.”
“I haven’t.”
“Yes, remember when you went through it at the start of my job? Bloody snoop.”
“The thing with all the nanny notes in it? That was a notebook.”
“That was also my diary. Why did you think I was so upset?”
“Because that’s the way you are?”
She grumbles. “No, Aksel. You happened to just see the notes I made about the handbook. If you kept reading more, you would have seen my thoughts and feelings. I don’t write it in every day, just when I’m feeling down or blue or angry or have a weird dream. I write about the past a lot, in order to put it behind me. What?” She’s staring at me because I’m frowning like crazy.
“Nicklas,” I spit out. I look at her with wide eyes. “It was Nicklas. He stole your diary.”
She looks disgusted. “What makes you think it was him?”
“Other than he has it in for me? Other than he knows he can get away with it? He told me once he was in your room.”
“What!?” she exclaims so loudly that the girls look this way.
“It’s nothing, go back to your games,” I tell them.
Aurora grabs me by the collar, tight. “What do you mean he was in my room?”
Right. Well I suppose I did shit the bed on that one. “He says he was looking for you. I don’t know if I believe him or not, but he saw your vase and decided to comment on how expensive it was.”
“Oh god. Oh god. What if he stole my underwear?”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“This was just after Christmas,” I explain. “I roughed him up a bit.”
“I can’t believe you have to rough up your own staff.”
“You know how he is and there was no point telling you. You would get upset and then you’d want him fired and I couldn’t tell you why I couldn’t fire him.”
“You and I are a fucking mess,” she says, releasing me and folding her arms across her chest.
“Well where is your diary now?”
“It’s in the belly of the plane. I took it with me. And the first thing I’m going to write in it is what a big fat jerk you are.”
I burst out laughing. I can’t help it.
“What? You are. Dear diary, King Asshole was an asshole again.”
“I hope you’re including all the times I made you come in there.”
Her mouth drops, and she looks over at the girls to see if they heard but they now have their earphones on. Smart girls.
“How can you be so, so trivial about all this?” she cries out. “We’re going to land into a shitstorm and it was most likely your blackmailing employee who did this, threw me under a fucking bus. How are you going to deal with him?”
I shrug and it’s like I’m shrugging off the world. It’s hard to explain.
I think it’s because there’s a press conference tomorrow and I’ll finally be able to tell our truths.
Also, “If it was him, then he’s fired.”
“But you can’t fire him.”
“I most certainly can.”
“He’ll get back at you.”
“He already has gotten back at me. Why do you think this happened? He knows how I feel about you, how you feel about me. He knew it for certain during the ball. He’s not stupid. He found your diary on one of the many days you weren’t in your room and he’s been holding this stuff to his chest for a long time, digging up all the dirt on you that he could to ruin what we have together. But it’s not going to work.”