by Kate Hewitt
‘I’m sorry,’ Mateo said after a moment. ‘I never knew.’
‘We were happy, in our way,’ Agathe said. ‘I learned to be happy. But I want more for you...and for Rachel.’
‘So do I,’ Mateo said, his voice throbbing with the strength of his feeling. ‘That’s why...’
‘Oh, Mateo. Do you honestly think she’d be happy without you?’
‘She doesn’t know—’
‘Then tell her,’ Agathe urged, her voice full of sorrow and love. ‘For heaven’s sake, tell her.’
He found her in the gardens. The fog had finally lifted, and the day was crisp and clear, the sun surprisingly warm as it shone down on the rain-washed gardens.
Mateo had gone to her suite of rooms first, and everything in him had lurched at the sight of several blank-faced members of staff moving her things out.
‘Where are you putting those?’ he’d demanded hoarsely, and someone had told him Queen Rachel was intending to reside in the south wing, about as far from him as possible. He felt both angry and lost, and yet he couldn’t blame her.
So he’d left her rooms and gone to the south wing, but she wasn’t there either, and when Francesca had told him, a look of naked pity on her face, that Rachel had wanted some fresh air, he’d come out here, and now he’d found her, in a small octagonal-shaped rose garden, the branches now pruned back and bare.
‘Rachel.’ His voice sounded hoarse and he cleared his throat. ‘Rachel,’ he said again, and she looked up.
‘Mateo.’
‘You’re having your things moved.’ It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t manage anything else right then.
‘I told you I would.’
‘I know.’ He took a step towards her. She was sitting on a stone bench by a fountain that had filled with autumn leaves. Her hair was back in a plait and she was wearing a forest-green turtleneck in soft, snug cashmere and a grey skirt. She looked every inch the Queen, every bit his wife, and so wonderfully beautiful. His. She had to be his.
‘I don’t want you to,’ he said and she started to shake her head. ‘Please. Hear me out. I heard everything you said last night, and I’ve been thinking about nothing else since. But now...now I want a turn to tell you about what I’ve been thinking.’
A guarded expression came over her face, and she nodded. ‘All right.’
Mateo moved to sit down next to her on the bench. ‘You told me how your parents shaped how you felt about yourself. Well, in a fashion, mine did as well. I knew I was loved—I never doubted that. But I didn’t feel important.’
‘Because you weren’t the heir?’
‘My parents thought they were doing me a kindness, and I suppose in a way they were. They shielded me from all the intensity and pressure of the royal life. They gave me the freedom to pursue my own dreams—which led me to chemistry, and Cambridge, and you.’ He swallowed hard. ‘But I suppose I struggled with feeling a bit less than. I rebelled as a child, and then I turned away from all things royal. And then I met Cressida.’
Rachel’s eyes widened as she gazed at him. ‘You’re going to tell me about her?’
‘Yes, I’m going to tell you about her.’ He took a deep breath, willing himself to begin, to open the old wounds and let them bleed out. ‘Cressida was...fragile. She’d had a difficult if privileged upbringing and she liked—she needed—people to take care of her. I liked that at first. When I was with her, I felt important. I was eighteen, young and foolish, and Cressida made me feel like I was essential to her well-being. I craved that feeling of someone needing me absolutely. It stroked my ego, I’m ashamed to say.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Rachel murmured. Her gaze was still guarded.
‘But then she became unstable.’ He shook his head, impatient with himself. ‘Or, more to the point, I realised she was unstable. I should have seen it earlier. The warning signs were all there, but I thought that was just Cressida. How she was.’
‘What happened?’ Rachel asked softly.
‘Her moods swung wildly. Something I said, something seemingly insignificant, could send her into a depression for days. She wouldn’t even tell me what it was—I had to guess, and I usually got it wrong.’ He paused, the memories of so desperately trying to make Cressida feel better, and never being able to, reverberating through him. ‘I tried so hard, but it was never enough. She spiralled into severe depression on several occasions. I’ll spare you some of the more harrowing details, but she started hurting herself, or going days without speaking or even getting up from bed. Her grades started to suffer—she was studying English—and she was close to being sent down from university.’
‘That sounds so difficult,’ Rachel murmured. Mateo couldn’t tell from her tone whether she truly empathised with him or not. She looked cautious, as if she didn’t know what was coming.
‘It was incredibly complicated. I wanted to break up with her, but I was afraid to—both for her sake and mine. We’d become so caught up in one another, so dependent. It wasn’t healthy, and it didn’t make either of us happy, and I don’t think it was really love at all.’ Even though it had felt like it at the time, and made him never want to experience it again. ‘But it consumed us, in its way, and then...’ A pause while he gathered his courage. ‘In our third year, Cressida killed herself.’
Rachel let out a soft gasp. ‘Oh, Mateo...’
‘She left a note,’ he continued in a hard voice he didn’t recognise as his own. Hard and bleak. ‘I found it. I found her. She’d overdosed on antidepressants and alcohol—I rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. That’s why, I think, I acted so crazily when you were at the hospital. I was right back there, fearing Cressida was dead, and then knowing she was.’
‘I’m so sorry...’
‘But you know what the note said? It said she was killing herself because of me. Because I made her so unhappy.’ His throat had thickened but he forced himself to go on. ‘And you know what? She was right. I did make her unhappy. I must have done, because when she was gone, for a second I felt relieved.’ His voice choked as he gasped out the words, ‘How could I have felt that? What kind of man feels that?’ He’d never told anyone that before. Never dared to reveal the shameful secret at the very heart of himself, but Rachel didn’t recoil or even blink.
‘Oh, Mateo.’ Her face softened in sympathy as her arms came around him and he rested his face against her shoulder, the hot press of tears against his lids.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, one hand resting on his hair. ‘So, so sorry.’
‘I’m the one who’s sorry,’ Mateo said raggedly, swallowing down the threat of tears. He eased back, determined to look at her as he said these words. ‘You’re right, Rachel, I have been fighting you. I’m scared to love you, scared for you. I don’t want to make you unhappy, and I don’t want to feel the guilt and grief of knowing that I did.’
‘Love is a two-way street, Mateo,’ Rachel said gently. ‘You don’t bear the sole responsibility for my happiness. What you had with Cressida...’
‘I know it wasn’t really love. It was toxic and childish and incredibly dysfunctional. I know that. I’ve known that for a long time. But you can know one thing and feel something else entirely.’
‘Yes,’ Rachel agreed quietly. ‘You can.’
‘But when you left me last night—left me emotionally if not physically—I felt as if you’d died. I felt even more bereft than when I lost Cressida, and without that treacherous little flicker of relief. I was just...grief-stricken.’
Rachel stared at him, searching his face. ‘What...what are you saying?’ she finally asked.
‘That I love you. That I’ve been falling in love with you for ten years without realising it, and then fighting it for the last few weeks when I started to understand how hard I’d fallen. But I don’t want to fight any more. I know I’ll get things wrong,
and I’m terrified of hurting you, but I want to love you, Rachel. I want to live a life of loving you. If...if...you do love me.’
Rachel let out a sound, half laugh, half sob. ‘Of course I love you. I think I fell in love with you a long time ago, but I tried to stop myself. Maybe we’re not so different in that respect.’ She gave a trembling laugh as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
‘Maybe we’re not.’ Mateo took her hands in his. ‘Can you forgive me, Rachel? For fighting you for so long, and hurting you in the process? I was trying not to hurt you, but I knew I was. I’m a fool.’
‘As long as you’re a love-struck fool, I don’t mind,’ she promised him as she squeezed his hands.
‘I am,’ Mateo assured her solemnly. ‘Utterly and overwhelmingly in love with you. Now and for always. I know it doesn’t mean everything will be perfect, or that we’ll never hurt each other, but I really do love you.’
‘And I love you,’ Rachel told him. ‘More than I ever thought possible. Getting to know you these last weeks...it’s made me realise how much I love you. And if you love me back...’
‘I do.’
‘Then that’s all that matters. That’s what will get us through the ups and downs. That’s what will last.’
‘Yes, it will,’ Mateo agreed, and then leaned forward to kiss her. He settled his mouth softly on hers, and it felt as if he was finally coming home, the two of them together, now and for ever.
EPILOGUE
Three years later
‘MAMA, MAMA, LOOK at me!’
Rachel laughed and clapped her hands as her daughter, Daphne, ran towards her, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, her blue-green eyes alight with happiness and mischief.
It was a bright, sunny day, the sky picture-postcard-blue, the white sand of Kallyria’s famous beaches stretching out before them. They were holidaying at the royal summer palace on the western coast of Kallyria. In the three years since Mateo had taken the crown, he’d dealt with the insurgents, stabilised the country’s economy, and been a leader in bringing Kallyria into a modern and progressive world. It hadn’t always been easy, but Rachel had been with him every step of the way.
She’d expanded into the role of Queen with energy and grace, not in small part down to Mateo’s unwavering support and love. She’d also taken a six-week research position at the university in Athens last year, which he’d wholeheartedly supported.
But her heart was in Kallyria with her King and her family, and she knew there was nowhere else she’d rather be.
A year ago her mother had died, and Rachel had had the privilege of being with her at the end. To her surprise, although her mother hadn’t remembered who she was in months, she’d turned to her suddenly, grasping her hand with surprising vigour, and said, ‘I’m sorry. Do you know that, Rachel? That I’m sorry?’
And Rachel, with tears in her eyes, had said she had.
Now she scooped up her daughter and pressed her lips to her sun-warmed cheek, revelling in the simple joy of the moment. From behind her she heard Mateo coming through the French windows of the palace that led directly onto the beach.
‘This one’s up and ready for his mama.’
With a smile Rachel exchanged armfuls with her husband—he took Daphne and she took her three-month-old son, Kosmos, who nuzzled into her neck.
‘Come on, moraki mou,’ he said cheerfully as he tossed Daphne over his shoulder and tickled her tummy. ‘Time for lunch.’
‘And this one is ready for lunch too,’ Rachel said as she followed him inside.
Sunlight streamed across the floor and Mateo caught her eye as he settled Daphne at the table, and Rachel curled up on the sofa to feed Kosmos.
The look he gave her was lingering, full of love as well as promise. Was it possible to be this happy? This thankful? This amazed?
Meeting her husband’s loving gaze, feeling the warmth of it right down to her toes, Rachel knew it was, and with her heart full to bursting she smiled back.
Coming next month
ITALY’S MOST SCANDALOUS VIRGIN
Carol Marinelli
Dante’s want for her was perpetual, a lit fuse he was constantly stamping out, but it was getting harder and harder to keep it up. His breathing was ragged; there was a shift in the air and he desperately fought to throw petrol on the row, for his resistance was fast fading. ‘What did you think, Mia, that we were going to walk into the church together? A family united? Don’t make me laugh…’
No one was laughing.
‘Take your tea and go to bed.’ Dante dismissed her with an angry wave of his hand, but even as he did so he halted, for it was not his place to send her to bed. ‘I didn’t mean that. Do what you will. I will leave.’
‘It’s fine. I’m going up.’ She retrieved the tray.
‘We leave tomorrow at eleven,’ he said again as they headed through to the entrance.
‘Yes.’
She turned then and gave him a tight smile, and saw his black eyes meet hers, and there was that look again between them, the one they had shared at the dining table. It was a look that she dared not decipher.
His lips, which were usually plump and red, the only splash of colour in his black and white features, were for once pale. There was a muscle leaping in his cheek, and she was almost sure it was pure contempt, except her body was misreading it as something else.
She had always been aware of his potent sexuality, but now Mia was suddenly aware of her own.
Conscious that she was naked beneath the gown, her breasts felt full and heavy, aware of the lust that danced inappropriately in the air between them. The prison gates were parting further and she was terrified to step out. ‘Goodnight,’ she croaked, and climbed the stairs, almost tipping the tray and only able to breathe when she heard the door slam.
Tea forgotten, she lay on the bed, frantic and unsettled. So much for the Ice Queen! She was burning for him in a way she had never known until she’d met Dante.
Mia had thought for a long time that there was something wrong with her, something missing in her make-up, for she’d had little to no interest in sex. Even back at school she would listen in on her peers, quietly bemused by their obsessive talking about boys and the things they did that to Mia sounded filthy. Her mother’s awkward talk about the facts of life had left Mia revolted. The fact of Mia’s life: it was something she didn’t want! There was no reason she could find. There had been no trauma, nothing she could pin it to. Just for her, those feelings simply did not exist. Mia had tried to ignite the absent fire and had been on a couple of dates, but had found she couldn’t even tolerate kisses, and tongues positively revolted her. She couldn’t bear to consider anything else.
And while this marriage had given her a unique chance to heal from the appalling disaster that had befallen her family, the deeper truth was that it had given her a chance to hide from something she perhaps ought to address.
A no-sex marriage had felt like a blessing when she and Rafael had agreed to it.
Yet the ink had barely dried on the contract when she had found out that though those feelings might be buried deep, they were there after all.
Mia had been just a few days into the pretend position of Rafael’s PA, and the carefully engineered rumours had just started to fly, when Dante Romano had walked in. A mere moment with him had helped her understand all she had been missing, for with just a look she found herself reacting in a way she never had before.
His dark eyes had transfixed her, the deep growl of his voice had elicited a shiver low in her stomach, and even his scent, as it reached her, went straight to form a perfect memory. When Dante had asked who she was, his voice and his presence had alerted, startled and awoken her. So much so that she had half expected him to snap his fingers like a genie right before her scalding face.
Three wishes?
You.
You.
You.
Continue readin
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ITALY’S MOST SCANDALOUS VIRGIN
Carol Marinelli
Available next month
Copyright ©2020 by Carol Marinelli
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