Stockholm Diaries, Melanie Read online

  “If she didn’t love him, even when you were younger, why didn’t she leave him? I mean, beyond the church thing.”

  Henrik’s face tightened at her question. His hand, which was gently stroking her hip, stopped.

  “Because of me.”

  Oh.

  “She thought she was doing the right thing for me. And by the time I went to university and she moved out, I guess it was too late for her. This was her life.”

  His voice came out angrier than she had expected. It seemed to surprise him as well, and he shook his head as if to rid himself of the thought.

  “And you think it would have been better if she had left?” she asked.

  She could see this discussion was painful for Henrik, but she was having a hard time understanding the way all of these things had played out in his mind. Mel also heard a hint of bitterness slip into her voice.

  Her own father had deserted her mother and her, and she had grown up with the ghost of his presence in her house, endlessly reminding her that he was missing. Though Henrik’s parents’ marriage didn’t sound very satisfying, she would have gladly traded it for the ache of a parent who didn’t care enough to stick around.

  Henrik seemed to hear the connection she made in her comment, and his look turned wary. The muscles in his body tensed against hers.

  “Melanie, I can imagine that your father leaving caused you a lot of pain. And I don’t know what that feels like. But there’s another side to this, too. I was the reason for my parents’ unhappiness. I was an accident. I ruined both their lives. If I hadn’t come along, my parents would have never married.

  “My mother grew up in a religious family, and they didn’t believe in things like premarital sex or abortion or divorce. After the disastrous consequences of rebelling against the first of those rules, she took her punishment—she married my father. And had me.”

  Mel caught her breath at the last three words. No. Henrik had spent his life feeling this way. That he was the cause of his parents’ misery. Oh, Henrik.

  She lifted her hand to his face and brushed her lips against his. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and she stroked his cheek.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, and then she kissed him again.

  He closed his eyes and let her comfort him. Slowly the tight muscles of his jaw released. He spoke again.

  “But she was happy that first summer on the island. We met your father, and he… I told you this before, but all summer I wished he was my father instead. My mother actually joked when he was around—joked. For a few months, I got a glimpse of the person my mother could have been instead. Then the summer ended, we went back to my father, and all my mother’s happiness was gone, again—maybe she was even worse, in fact. I’d ask her to play cards with me, to bake, to do all the things that had seemed to make her happy that summer, but nothing worked.

  “I just waited for the next summer. But Björn wasn’t there. She had told me he wouldn’t be, but it didn’t help.”

  “Are your parents divorced now?” asked Mel.

  “My mother doesn’t believe in divorce. Because I came along, she’s married to my father for life. Not that my parents fought. In fact, they rarely even spoke to each other.”

  Henrik paused. Mel found Henrik’s hand and held it, waiting for him to continue.

  “When I left for university, my mother moved out. I think the move surprised my father as much as me—she actually left him. I should have been happy for her, but I just felt worse. It was clear that all her miserable years with my father had been for me, for my benefit.

  “Now she lives alone in an apartment outside Stockholm. Aside from visits to the grocery store or church, she rarely leaves. She’s still repenting.”

  Henrik said those last words with the same, quiet bitterness he had betrayed when he mentioned sin earlier.

  Mel squeezed the hand she was holding and then laced her fingers through his.

  “Why is she coming to visit the cabin now?” she asked. “You said she hasn’t come in years.”

  “I don’t know,” said Henrik. “Maybe because I’m back in Stockholm, though it’s been a few years now.”

  Mel adjusted herself against the firm muscles of his chest. Their bodies fit together so that it was impossible to feel where her skin ended and his began. All she felt was the warm, welcoming pressure of him against her, as if he had always been there.

  “Please, can I talk to her?” she whispered.

  She squeezed his hand again, waiting for his answer.

  “I’m not sure I can handle it,” he finally said.

  IT WAS THE first time he had touched her since he had left her bed early that morning, and she closed her eyes as his hands moved up and down her arms. They were on top of the rocky hill again, and the wind bit into the warmth of the sun. Looking down on the island from here gave a broader perspective that she hadn’t gotten from her walks with Alice. Henrik had brought her up here to point out the cabins of the neighbors Björn had mentioned, filling her in on who had sold, passed away or passed on each place.

  Her relationship with Henrik was strange, co-workers during the day and then, at night… well, there was another type of intimacy that reached beyond the intense pleasures of sex. Why didn’t that intimacy carry over into the day? Sure, they talked and laughed as they had before, but it was almost as if he were being careful, though she wasn’t sure why. Mel tried not to think too much about it, but it was difficult when she could hear the familiar rasp of his breath near her ear, reminding her of other possibilities.

  She coaxed herself to open her eyes again. What was it that she had wanted to discuss? Yes, the end of the last journal.

  “Henrik?”

  “Mmmm?”

  Henrik’s voice was warm and easy, and Mel had to fight the urge to suggest they should find a more secluded spot in the trees.

  “Toward the end of the first book we read, didn’t it sound like my father was leaving Sweden to get away from something? Something here in Sweden?”

  His hands left her shoulders, and he leaned back against a rock. It was as if he couldn’t mix the two sides of their relationship.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “But what is it that he’s getting away from? He never mentions it directly, but it’s something he thinks about a lot. And it doesn’t sound like it’s dangerous—at least not in the obvious way.”

  Mel nodded.

  “What would he want to keep secret, even in the privacy of his own journals?”

  Henrik shrugged and looked out at the water.

  “Maybe he was depressed,” he said. “Winter is dark here, and some people have a hard time getting out from under it.”

  “Maybe,” said Mel, “but he mentions it at different times of the year, so if he’s depressed, it’s not just the winter.”

  They sat silently. Mel watched a sail boat weave between the islands, its bright spinnaker sail full.

  “It could be anything,” she said, frowning. “We’re missing something big, and I don’t think any of this will make sense until we find it.”

  Chapter 14

  “Well? What do you think?”

  Henrik’s voice broke through her daydream. Mel thought she had only tuned out for a moment, still listening out of the corner of her ear, but clearly she had missed more than she thought she had.

  She turned red. “Sorry—what did you say?”

  “How far back do you want me to go?”

  Henrik watched her with the cool distance she had grown used to, but today his eyes held a hint of irritation. Mel turned away. Sitting next to her in his chair right now, he seemed so placidly unaware of the fact that the night before they had lay together, tangled in her white sheets, holding each other.

  Henrik was waiting for her answer.

  Mel sighed. “What did you ask me?”

  Henrik held up a journal.

  “I think we should do th
is one next. We have half the book I’m reading left, and then there’s a break in the years.”

  “Okay,” she nodded. She’d barely listened the second time around, either. Henrik’s large body filled the chair, looming next to her, and even without looking at him, she could feel his restlessness.

  Mel swallowed, forcing her mind back to the subject at hand. What did he say he wanted to do? The journal. She took it from his hand and looked at the date.

  It was the first in chronological order, the one that predated her father’s marriage to her mother. The one Mel had no interest in, if she were being absolutely honest. The turning point in Björn’s life had to be after he met Mel’s mother. In all the biographies that were worth reading, something significant happened that sparked the breakthrough works of an author. She was almost sure that the significant shift in her father’s life was—or at least was connected to—his abandonment of her and her mother. So it followed that it had happened during the years he lived with them, didn’t it?

  “Why this one?” she asked, flipping through the pages. Of course, the words were still completely incomprehensible Swedish, and, yet, she couldn’t help but search the pages for some sort of clue, the piece of her father she was missing.

  Henrik didn’t answer right away. And when he finally did speak, his voice had lost its measured distance.

  “Melanie, I’ve been thinking about something, but I haven’t said it because I’m not sure how you’ll react. It might make you… angry.”

  Mel blinked. Her insides went cold. He was going to tell her something that she didn’t want to hear. Her brain immediately prepared for the worst: the new development in their relationship wasn’t working. He wanted out of the project. Or out of her life. She had been expecting it, even waiting for it all along. She just didn’t think it would come so soon.

  Mel managed a little laugh. “Me, angry?”

  This got a chuckle from him. He scooted his chair closer to hers so that their legs were touching, and he rested his hands on her thighs. Her mind told her to pull away, to not make this any harder than it already was, but her body refused.

  Henrik opened his mouth to continue, but before any words came out, she stood up.

  “Wait,” she said quietly. She wanted one, last heartbreakingly delicious kiss before he said anything more. Something good to remind herself why she had gotten into this mess in the first place.

  So she bent down and kissed him. The move clearly surprised him, and it took a moment for him to respond. Then any hesitancy disappeared. Just as he had kept his feelings turned off seconds before, she found that he could easily turn them back on, too. And he did. He tasted her, his tongue finding hers with increasingly urgent strokes. Henrik pulled her onto his lap, and his hands searched for her skin. She felt his arousal awaken under her.

  Then Mel pulled away.

  “What did you want to tell me?”

  “What?” he said, looking equally surprised as he had moments before when she had kissed him.

  “What you wanted to tell me,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “That would make me angry.”

  Mel swallowed and tried to make her voice sound calm, as if her heart weren’t pounding in her ears.

  “Are you going to tell me now that spending nights together isn’t working for you? That we need some time apart?”

  Henrik blinked.

  “W-where is this coming from?”

  “Whatever you were going to tell me before. Something I won’t like.”

  Mel could see he was beginning to understand what she was talking about, but his mouth pulled down into a deep frown. His hands no longer held her.

  “You thought I was going to tell you that I’m backing out. You think I could kiss you like that and then say I need more space.”

  These didn’t come out as questions; they were flat, dull statements. His voice was cool and controlled, but Mel felt as if some sort of emotion might burst through at any moment. He reached up and turned her head back so she met his eyes.

  “Is that what you think of me?”

  His voice was soft, but it was clear he wasn’t going to let up until she answered.

  Mel closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head.

  “It wasn’t like that. You said you’d tell me something I wouldn’t like, and I couldn’t let go of it. But I wanted to kiss you before you said it.”

  “I’m not seeing the difference,” he said. “Sometimes I’m not sure you see these things from my perspective.”

  This simple statement was a direct hit. He was right. Mel hadn’t considered this from Henrik’s perspective, and she had to admit that her assumptions weren’t very flattering. She put her hand on his cheek, and she felt him flinch, but she didn’t pull back.

  “I’m sorry, Henrik,” she said softly, “My father wrote love poems to my mother, like public love letters, and then he suddenly left her. I have to prepare myself for that possibility, no matter how good this feels.”

  “You can’t trust me.”

  Henrik didn’t make this sound like a question, and she let the statement hang in the air between them.

  “Did your mother ever tell you why he left?” he asked.

  She stared at him for moment.

  “No, she won’t talk about it.”

  He nodded, as if he’d already known the answer.

  “So you think that I could just suddenly stop showing up one day, and you might never see me again.”

  Mel wasn’t sure she wanted to take this discussion any further, but there was sadness in Henrik’s eyes. She took a deep breath and continued.

  “What is this between us? We work together, and we spend the nights together, nights unlike anything I’ve ever known. Then you come back for work, and it’s like it never happened. Everything about this feels out of my comfort zone, and I’m not even sure why.”

  The words seemed to fall out of Mel’s mouth, and until she spoke, she hadn’t realized how much they were weighing on her. Now her breaths were the only sound in the room. Henrik was still and silent. The corners of his mouth were drawn into a tight frown, and he was no longer looking at her.

  She moved to stand up, and he didn’t try to stop her. She started for the door, but Henrik stood up, too, and reached for her wrist. He turned her gently toward him. The expression on his face had changed to something Mel couldn’t read. He looked at her for a moment before he spoke.

  “I didn’t want to scare you off, Melanie. You wanted me to translate for you, nothing else. I knew that I was very attracted to you, but you’re Björn’s daughter, the last person I’d want to hurt, so I thought I could just deal with it. And I offered to work on this project for the right reasons, at least mostly,” he said with a wry smirk. “But when you fell into the water, it…”

  Henrik’s voice trailed off. He ran his hand through his hair, pushing the disheveled, wavy tufts off his forehead. His broad chest rose and fell in heavy, uneven breaths.

  “I don’t know what to say except that it provoked something in me that I couldn’t go back from. If it were just lust, I could have handled it. And God knows there’s plenty of that. Every day, before I come over to work, I go for a long swim in the cold water just so I don’t drag you into bed when I walk in.

  “But it’s more than that. I want everything about you. And that’s the problem—sooner or later, I’m going to do something stupid. I don’t handle anything that resembles a relationship well. You saw me the other day when that neighbor walked up to you. When he was looking at you I would have considered going after him if he wasn’t bigger than me. And that was before he mentioned the writing.”

  Henrik attempted a smile.

  “Now you know. You like control and a healthy dose of independence in a relationship, and those are the two things I absolutely can’t give you. And if you weren’t scared off before, you probably are now. But it’s better than having you think that this is nothin
g more than sex for me.”

  She could feel that he was watching her. The rise and fall of his chest had slowed, but Mel could still hear the quiet rasp of his breaths. He had laid himself bare for her, trying once again to warn her off. But when she looked up and saw the raw emotion in his eyes, Mel couldn’t stop herself from closing the distance between them, despite what he had told her.

  She smiled up at him and slowly ran her hands over the tense muscles of his bare arms. “You don’t think you could have taken that writer?”

  Henrik’s chuckle was filled with relief.

  “That guy was tall,” he said. He put his hand on the back of her neck, gently caressing. He whispered, “But for you, I’d be willing to try.”

  Chapter 15

  “You never told me whatever it was that I wouldn’t like,” said Mel as she opened the front door to let Henrik in.

  He blinked a couple times and then smiled.

  “I don’t know what you do over in the U.S., but in my English classes, we were taught to begin with ‘Hello.’ But it was British English, so who knows?”

  He stepped in and took Mel’s face in his hands for a kiss. She closed her eyes and put her hands around his neck, pulling him closer. His lips brushed softly over hers, lingering, as his hands settled on her sides, stroking up and down. His thumbs teased at her stomach, and her aim evolved into something more than a greeting. She licked the seam of his lips, exploring how far below the surface his hunger lay. Her mouth opened to his, coaxing him with slow strokes of her tongue until his control snapped. He buried one hand in her hair and tipped her head to angle her mouth, exploring. His other hand moved down her hip and spread over her rear, pulling her against him.

  Stop. Work.

  These reminders hovered in her consciousness. If they didn’t stop now, they’d be on her bed for the afternoon. Gently, she broke off their kiss. He stepped back and slumped against the door, panting.

  Mel raised her eyebrows.

  “Was that a better greeting?”