luti9.cc 
“If I tell you, promise you won’t laugh.”
“Promise.”
“When I seduced you last winter it was an idiotic, impulsive act. I wanted to enjoy myself, that’s all. That first night I was quite drunk, and I had no intention of starting anything long-term with you. Then it turned into something else. I want you to know that those weeks with you as my occasional lover were some of the happiest in my life.”
“I thought it was lovely too.”
“Mikael, I’ve been lying to you and to myself the whole time. I’ve never been particularly relaxed about sex. I’ve had five sex partners in my entire life. Once when I was twenty-one and a debutante. Then with my husband, whom I met when I was twenty-five and who turned out to be a bastard. And then a few times with three guys I met several years apart. But you provoked something in me. I simply couldn’t get enough. It had something to do with the fact that you’re so undemanding.”
“Cecilia, you don’t have to…”
“Shh—don’t interrupt, or I’ll never be able to tell you this.”
Blomkvist sat in silence.
“The day you left for prison I was absolutely miserable. You were gone, as though you had never existed. It was dark here in the guest house. It was cold and empty in my bed. And there I was, an old maid of fifty-six again.”
She said nothing for a while and looked Blomkvist in the eyes.
“I fell in love with you last winter. I didn’t mean to, but it happened. And then I took stock and realised that you were only here temporarily; one day you’ll be gone for good, and I’ll stay here for the rest of my life. It hurt so damn much that I decided I wasn’t going to let you in again when you came back from prison.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. When you left tonight I sat and cried. I wish I had the chance to live my life over again. Then I would decide on one thing.”
“What’s that?”
She looked down at the table.
“That I would have to be totally insane to stop seeing you just because you’re going to leave one day. Mikael, can we start again? Can you forget what happened earlier this evening?”
“It’s forgotten,” he said. “But thank you for telling me.”
She was still looking down at the table.
“If you still want me, let’s do it.”
She looked at him again. Then she got up and went over to the bedroom door. She dropped her jacket on the floor and pulled her dress over her head as she went.
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Blomkvist and Cecilia Vanger woke up when the front door opened and someone was walking through the kitchen. They heard the thud of something heavy being put down near the woodstove. Then Berger was standing in the bedroom doorway with a smile that rapidly changed to shock.
“Oh, good Lord.” She took a step back.
“Hi, Erika,” Blomkvist said.
“Hi. I’m so sorry. I apologise a thousand times for barging in like this. I should have knocked.”
“We should have locked the front door. Erika—this is Cecilia Vanger. Cecilia—Erika Berger is the editor in chief of Millennium.”
“Hi,” Cecilia said.
“Hi,” Berger said. She looked as though she could not decide whether to step forward and politely shake hands or just leave. “Uh, I…I can go for a walk…”
“What do you say to putting on some coffee instead?” Blomkvist looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Just past noon.
Berger nodded and pulled the bedroom door shut. Blomkvist and Cecilia looked at each other. Cecilia appeared embarrassed. They had made love and talked until 4:00 in the morning. Then Cecilia said she thought she’d sleep over and that in the future she wouldn’t give a tinker’s cuss who knew she was sleeping with Mikael Blomkvist. She had slept with her back to him and with his arm tucked around her breasts.
“Listen, it’s OK,” he said. “Erika’s married and she isn’t my girlfriend. We see each other now and then, but she doesn’t care at all if you and I have something…She’s probably pretty embarrassed herself right now.”
When they went into the kitchen a while later, Erika had set out coffee, juice, lemon marmalade, cheese, and toast. It smelled good. Cecilia went straight up to her and held out her hand.
“I was a little abrupt in there. Hi.”
“Dear Cecilia, I’m so sorry for stomping in like an elephant,” said a very embarrassed Erika Berger.
“Forget it, for God’s sake. And let’s have breakfast.”
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After breakfast Berger excused herself and left them alone, saying that she had to go and say hello to Vanger. Cecilia cleared the table with her back to Mikael. He went up and put his arms around her.
“What’s going to happen now?” Cecilia said.
“Nothing. This is the way it is—Erika is my best friend. She and I have been together off and on for twenty years and will probably be, on and off, together for another twenty. I hope so. But we’ve never been a couple and we never get in the way of each other’s romances.”
“Is that what we have? A romance?”
“I don’t know what we have, but apparently we get along.”
“Where’s she going to sleep tonight?”
“We’ll find her a room somewhere. One of Henrik’s spare rooms. She won’t be sleeping in my bed, anyway.”
Cecilia thought about this for a moment.
“I don’t know if I can handle this. You and she might function that way, but I don’t know…I’ve never…” She shook her head. “I’m going back to my place. I have to think about this for a while.”
“Cecilia, you asked me earlier and I told you about my relationship with Erika. Her existence can’t be any great surprise to you.”
“That’s true. But as long as she was at a comfortable distance down in Stockholm I could ignore her.”
Cecilia put on her jacket.
“This situation is ludicrous,” she said with a smile. “Come over for dinner tonight. Bring Erika. I think I’m going to like her.”
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