Page 24 of The Brat and the Bodyguard

“Slow down, sweetheart. I know the last couple weeks have been terrible, but this isn’t how I saw my marriage proposal going.”

“I know and I love you so much, Karl!” she gasp-cries, her eyes bloodshot as she drips snot. “This isn’t how I want it to end either, but I have to do this. For you. You deserve better.”

I hold her close as my heart thumps painfully in my chest. I adore this woman more than life itself, and Ainsley’s been going through a lot lately. The thought of leaving her pains me to my core. Literally, my heart squeezes with sorrow, but I make myself hold her tight while pressing soothing kisses to her head.

“Let me be the judge of that, sweetheart,” I murmur. “I’m a grown man. I think I can figure out what I’m ready to deal with and what I can’t handle.”

She sits up abruptly, red splotches on her cheeks.

“But I’ve been branded as a Nazi sympathizer, Karl,” she sobs. “I’ll never be able to lose the taint, which means that I might never be able to work again. I’d be a lodestone around your neck, dragging you down.”

“Who says I don’t want a lodestone?” I ask with a wink. “Particularly if you’re swollen and heavy with my child. I’d love that kind of weight around my neck, sweetheart. A baby in your belly, or maybe even two or three? It sounds perfect.”

Ainsley blinks and stares at me.

“What?”

“Don’t act so surprised,” I say in a droll tone. “You think I wasn’t going to knock you up? I believe that goes hand in hand with marriage, sweetheart. I put the ring on your finger, we say our I do’s, and then you start getting pregnant. I’m looking forward to it, Ains. I’d love to have a little girl with red hair just like her mama.”

To my chagrin, Ainsley starts crying again.

“I’d love that too, Karl, but I don’t want our children branded as the spawn of a Nazi sympathizer. It’s too much,” she hiccups. “I can’t do that to an unborn baby.”

I shake my head, ready to pull out the big guns.

“Trust me, sweetheart. No one’s going to call you a Nazi sympathizer after we’re married.”

“No, theywill!” she wails. “A diamond ring on my finger isn’t going to stop it.”

“No, they won’t,” I state in a firm voice. “Because I’m Jewish, sweetheart, and that’ll stop the rumor in its tracks. I know we haven’t talked about my religion because I’m not very devout. Hell, since my bar mitzvah thirty years ago, I haven’t been to temple much. But Iamculturally, and familialy, Jewish.”

Ainsley stares at me.

“But you’re from Sweden,” she whispers. “I didn’t now there were Jewish people in Sweden.”

“There aren’t a lot,” I acknowledge. “But there are some. And I’m not actually Swedish either. My family is Danish, and during World War 2, we were smuggled into Sweden by the Danes in order to escape the reach of the German Gestapo. Because of the Danish resistance, many of whom were ordinary citizens, 99% of Denmark’s Jewish citizens survived the Holocaust. My grandparents were part of that 99%.”

“But why would Sweden be a safe place?” Ainsley asks, confused. “Wasn’t Sweden embroiled in the war too?”

“Yes, but officially, they were a neutral country. You know that Sweden and Finland only joined NATO recently, right? It’s because they always positioned themselves as neutral territories. But now, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two countries decided they could no longer remain neutral and submitted papers to become the newest members of NATO.”

She nods slowly.

“Yes, I remember seeing that in the news. So your family is actually Danish, and you’re Jewish.”

“Yes, but we’re Swedish now,” I say in a low tone. “We decided to stay in our adoptive country, although we kept the Danish spelling of our last name. “Andersen” spelled “s-e-n” is the Danish spelling. If we were Swedish, it would be spelled “Andersson” with two s’s and an o.”

Ainsley nods slowly.

“Yes, I was wondering about that. Each country has its own naming conventions, although populations have become so mixed now that you can’t really tell where someone is from by their name alone.”

I nod.

“But get this, sweetheart. “Andersen” isn’t our real name either. My family is originally from Bohemia, and our original last name is Arnstein. We’re a Jewish family through and through, and I don’t know how or why we changed our name over the centuries, but it was probably to blend in. It hasn’t been safe to be Jewish in Europe for a long time, and I’m not sure that it’s safe even now. So you see? You’re marrying a man of the tribe, and I’m proud of my culture and my religion. Let the internet sleuths get a taste of that. They’ll be issuing retractions so fast it’ll be funny.”

I stare at him.

“Yes, but you know these internet trolls will never admit they’re wrong. They’ll just find some way to twist the truth.”

---