by Kate Hewitt
Rachel pressed her hand against Mateo’s cheek and he closed his eyes. ‘It’s okay, Mateo.’
‘It isn’t.’ He opened his eyes and stared at her, imprinting her on his brain, his heart. ‘I can’t do this,’ he said, and he walked out of the room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT HAD BEEN raining for over a week. It was late November, and Kallyria was in the grip of the worst weather the island had seen in a century, or so her staff had told Rachel.
She liked the rain; it fitted her mood. It reminded her of England, and of everything she’d left behind. And while she couldn’t bring herself to regret the choice she’d made, she still felt sad about it.
Ever since the day in the bazaar, Mateo had changed. When he’d walked out of her hospital proclaiming he couldn’t do this—and Rachel was frankly terrified to ask him what ‘this’ meant—he’d kept his distance. The fledgling feeling that she’d been hoping had been growing between them seemed to have withered at the root, before it had had a chance to blossom.
And yet it had blossomed for her; she was in love with him, had been slowly and surely falling in love with him since their wedding, or, really, before then. Really, Rachel acknowledged to herself, she’d been falling in love with him since she’d first met him, when he’d introduced himself as her research partner and her breath had caught in her chest.
For ten years she’d kept herself from falling, because she knew, of course she knew, how impossible a relationship between them could be. Yet he’d asked her to marry him, and made her feel beautiful, and even though the kind of relationship she really wanted still felt impossible, she knew the truth.
She loved him. And he didn’t love her back. Worse than that, far worse, was that he was choosing not to love her. Actively. Intentionally. And it was that knowledge, rather than him not loving her at all, that was bringing her closer to true despair than she’d ever felt before.
‘So we have a round-table discussion today,’ Francesca said, bustling into Rachel’s bedroom with a briskly officious air and a quick smile. ‘And a private engagement with the head of a girls’ school tomorrow...’
‘Right.’ Rachel managed a tired smile. At least, she hoped she did. She hadn’t slept well last night, with Mateo lying so silent and stony behind her, and she wondered if she ever would again. ‘I can’t do this,’ he’d said two weeks ago. Well, neither could she.
Francesca looked at her closely. ‘Is everything all right? You’re looking a bit peaky.’
Rachel just shrugged. As close a confidante as her stylist had become, she wasn’t willing to share this particular heartache.
‘Is it PMT?’ Francesca asked sympathetically. ‘I think it’s that time of the month, isn’t it?’ Rachel stared at her blankly and she gave her an impish little smile. ‘One of the things it helps to keep track of, when considering your wardrobe choices.’
Rachel’s mind ticked over and she shook her head. ‘I don’t have PMT.’
‘No?’ Francesca was already in the enormous walk-in wardrobe that was now filled with clothes for a queen.
‘I’m late,’ Rachel said quietly. And she was never late. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise her. She and Mateo had not been using any birth control, since he’d been upfront for his need for an heir as soon as possible. And yet somehow, in the midst of all the busyness of being, Rachel had forgotten she could fall pregnant. Mateo seemed to have forgotten it as well, for he’d certainly never mentioned it.
And yet here she was, just two months into her marriage, and her period six days late. She shouldn’t be shocked, and yet she was.
‘I was thinking something bright today,’ Francesca said. ‘To make you stand out in this endless rain...’ She brandished a canary-yellow coat dress Rachel had never worn before. ‘What do you think?’
Could she really be pregnant? And how would she find out? Rachel’s mind raced. She couldn’t exactly pop out to the nearest chemist’s, at least not without a security detail and half the palace staff knowing what she was up to.
She glanced at Francesca. ‘Francesca, can you be discreet?’
Her stylist didn’t miss a beat as she answered, ‘My middle name.’
‘Could you go to the chemist for me?’
‘The chemist?’ Francesca’s eyes narrowed. ‘What for?’
Rachel swallowed dryly. ‘A pregnancy test.’
Francesca, to her credit, merely gave a swift nod. ‘Of course.’
Just twenty minutes later, Rachel knew. It felt strangely surreal to perch on the edge of the sunken marble tub in the adjoining bathroom and wait the requisite three minutes to read the test. She’d never taken one before, and she’d spent ten minutes studying the instructions before she’d done what she’d needed to do.
And now she had turned over the little stick, seen the two blazing pink lines, and knew. She was pregnant.
‘This is good news, yes?’ Francesca asked cautiously as Rachel came out of the bathroom. She knew the expression on her face wasn’t one of undiluted joy. ‘The King needs an heir...’
‘Yes, it’s good news.’ Her voice sounded a bit wooden.
‘You want to be a mother?’ the stylist pressed.
‘Yes.’ Rachel was sure of that. She might have given up on the hope of motherhood years ago, when her romantic possibilities had been nil, but one of the reasons she’d said yes to Mateo’s unconventional proposal had been for the possibility of children.
‘So...’ Francesca waited for Rachel to fill in the blanks, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to talk of something so private and sacred to anyone—but Mateo. And she didn’t know what she was going to say to him.
She spent all afternoon in a daze, going through the motions of her meetings, her mind elsewhere. Mateo was engaged on other business until the evening, so it wasn’t until dinner that she had the chance to talk to him, and by that time she was resolved.
Agathe was otherwise engaged, which meant it was just her and Mateo in one of the palace’s smaller dining rooms, the curtains drawn against the night and the rain, candles flickering on the table between them.
A member of staff served them the first course and withdrew. They were seated at opposite ends of the table that seated twelve, a dozen silver dishes between them along with all that hadn’t been said.
Rachel gazed at her husband’s face and felt an ache of longing for how she’d hoped for things to be. Oh, how she’d hoped. And yet one glance at Mateo’s set jaw forced her to acknowledge that those were all they’d ever be. Hopes. Disappointed hopes.
They ate the first course in silence, as had become their habit in recent weeks, and Rachel tried to work up the courage to say what was on her mind—and heart.
Finally, when their main course had been delivered, she forced herself to speak.
‘Mateo, I need to talk to you.’
He looked up, his expression already guarded. ‘Yes?’
‘Two weeks ago you left my room at the hospital, saying, “I can’t do this.”’ She paused, waiting for him to respond, or say anything, but he simply remained silent, his jaw tense, his eyes narrowed. ‘What was it you couldn’t do, Mateo?’
‘Why are you asking?’
‘Don’t I have a right to know?’
He sighed, the sound impatient. ‘Rachel...’
‘You’ve been shutting me out ever since then,’ Rachel stated with quiet, trembling dignity. ‘Did you expect me not to notice? Not to care?’ Her voice caught on a wavering note and she sucked in a quick breath, determined to stay composed.
Mateo laid his hands flat on the table. ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry. I know... I know I’m not being fair to you.’
‘But you’ll do it anyway?’
‘The truth is, I don’t know how to be.’ The look of naked vulnerability on his face seared her heart. ‘I don’t... I don’t know how to lo
ve someone. And if that’s what you want...’
‘Don’t know? Or don’t want to?’
He hesitated, a familiar, obdurate cast on his features. ‘Both, I suppose.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to hurt you—’
‘You already have,’ Rachel cut across him, trying to sound matter-of-fact and not bitter. ‘So if that’s your only reason...’
‘Why can’t we be happy the way we were?’ Mateo said. ‘As friends.’
‘Because you’re not acting like my friend, Mateo. You’re acting cold and stony and basically a big, fat jerk.’ He let out a huff of surprised laughter and Rachel squared her shoulders, knowing what more she needed to say, even if saying it would break her heart clean in half.
‘I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot lately,’ she said quietly. ‘About you and me, and whether I’d be happy to live without love.’
‘I do care for you—’
‘But the thing is,’ Rachel interjected sadly, ‘you don’t want to. You’re fighting it. Fighting me. Maybe it’s because you loved someone before and it hurt. I understand that, Mateo. You’ve lost a lot of people in your life. Your father, your brother.’ She paused. ‘Cressida.’ Mateo did not reply, but his eyes flashed and his jaw tightened. Even now he couldn’t bear to have her name mentioned, and that felt like the saddest thing of all.
‘What I’m saying is, I’m not going to fight you back. Part of me wants to, a large part. To fight for you, for us. But the funny thing is...’ her voice wavered and almost caught on a sob that she managed to hold back ‘... I’m not going to, because you made me feel I was worth more than that. All my life I’ve tried to make myself useful or needed, because I’d convinced myself that was almost as good as being loved. I told you my parents didn’t love me, and I made myself not mind, because it was easier that way. They weren’t bad people, really. They loved their jobs and their social life and they didn’t really want an awkward, nerdy girl messing it all up.’
Mateo opened his mouth and Rachel held up a hand to keep him from interrupting. ‘I’m not saying this to gain your pity. I really don’t want that. I’m just trying to explain. Between them and the whole thing with Josh...well, you were the first person in my life who made me feel I was worth loving.’
‘Rachel...’
‘You made me feel beautiful and lovely and lovable. And you woke me up to the reality that I shouldn’t have to settle for anything less.’
Mateo’s eyes widened as he stared at her. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said calmly. She felt empty inside, now that it was all being said. ‘I’m not going to leave you. I made vows, and I know my duty. I will stay by your side, as your Queen.’ Another breath, to buoy her. This felt like the hardest part. ‘But I’m not going to try any longer, Mateo. I’m not going to try to make you love me, and I’m going to do my best not to love you back. It’s too hard to handle the ups and downs—the days when you decide to relax enough to let me in, and then the days when you don’t.’
‘I don’t...’ Mateo began helplessly, shaking his head. He looked shell-shocked.
‘It’s not fair on me,’ Rachel stated, ‘and it wouldn’t be fair on our child. Because that is something else I’ve realised. I don’t want a child of mine growing up thinking one of their parents doesn’t love them.’
‘I would love my child,’ Mateo declared in a near growl.
‘Would you? How can I possibly believe or trust that?’
‘Because—’
‘You don’t have a great track record,’ Rachel cut across him. ‘But I accept that you will be involved in our child’s life.’
‘Of course I will—’
‘But as for us, I want us to live separately. I’ll still live in the palace, but in a separate wing. I’ll continue with my own interests and charitable causes, and I’ll appear with you in public, but privately we won’t spend time together or have a relationship.’
‘What...?’ Mateo’s mouth gaped open as he stared at her. ‘But...’
‘I think you’ll find this works best for both of us,’ Rachel said firmly, even though she felt as if her heart were being torn into little pieces and then stamped on. How could this be better? And yet how could she survive otherwise?
‘We’re married, Rachel—’
‘A marriage of convenience only.’
‘I still need an heir—’
‘That’s no longer an issue,’ Rachel told him woodenly. ‘Because I’m pregnant.’
* * *
Mateo stared at Rachel, his mind spinning uselessly, as she told him she was expecting his child and then rose from the table and walked out of the dining room with stiff, wounded dignity.
He slumped back in his chair, hardly able to take it all in. Rachel living separately from him. Trying not to love him.
Pregnant with his child...
A sound close to a moan escaped him as he raked his hands through his hair. How had this happened? And why did he not feel relieved—that Rachel was suggesting exactly the sort of arrangement that should suit him? No complications. No messy emotions. No danger, no risk, no guilt or grief.
This should be exactly what he wanted, but in that moment Mateo knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t what he wanted at all. Instead of feeling relieved, he was gutted. Eviscerated, as if the heart of him had been drawn right out, replaced by an empty shell, the wind whistling through him.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, his mind and heart both empty, but eventually a member of staff came to clear the plates, and Mateo stumbled out of the room.
He must have fallen asleep at some point in the night, although time seemed to have lost all meaning. He spent most of those endless hours simply staring into space, his mind empty of coherent thought and yet full of memories.
Memories of Rachel...ones he hadn’t even realised he’d had, and yet now held so dear. The way she’d stick a pencil in her messy bun as she was working, and then forget she had it there and search for one uselessly around her until Mateo drew the stub out of her hair and handed it to her with a laugh.
Evenings at their local pub, him with a pint and her with a shandy—such a funny, old-fashioned drink—testing each other on the periodic table. She’d come up with the game first, insisting she could name all the elements faster than he could. Even though he’d won that first time, they’d continued to play the game, finding it funnier with each playing.
And then later, far sweeter memories—Rachel in her wedding gown, her heart in her eyes, and then Rachel with nothing on at all, her hair spread out in a dark wave against the pillow as she looked up at him with so much trust and desire and love.
Yes, love. She loved him. He knew that; he felt it, just as he felt his own love for her, like a river or a force field, something that couldn’t be controlled. Why didn’t he just stop fighting it?
‘Mateo.’ His mother’s gentle voice broke into his thoughts, and Mateo looked up, surprised to see his mother in the doorway of his study. Had he gone to bed? He couldn’t even remember, but sunlight was now streaming through the windows, the fog finally breaking apart.
‘What time is it?’ he asked as he scrubbed his eyes and tried to clear the cobwebs from his mind.
‘Seven in the morning. Have you slept at all?’
‘I don’t know.’
Agathe came into the room, her smile sorrowful and sympathetic as her gaze swept over her son. ‘Is it Rachel?’ she asked quietly.
‘How did you know?’
‘I have been watching you both all this time, and seeing how you love one another. Knowing you would fight it.’
‘I made such a mess of my last relationship,’ Mateo said in a low voice. ‘My love was toxic.’ He choked the words, barely able to get them out.
‘Mateo, that wasn’t your fault.’
<
br /> ‘Wasn’t it?’ He stared at her hopelessly. ‘She said it was.’
‘Cressida was a fragile, damaged individual,’ Agathe said gently. ‘Her death was not your fault. And,’ she continued firmly, ‘Rachel is not Cressida. She’s strong, and she knows her own mind.’
‘She’s leaving me.’
‘What...?’
‘Not properly,’ he amended as he scrubbed his eyes. ‘We’ll remain married. But she wants us to live separate lives.’
‘Ah.’ Agathe nodded slowly. ‘I was afraid of something like this.’
‘Were you?’ Mateo dropped his fists from his eyes to look at his mother, the weariness and memory etched into every line of her face.
‘It’s not easy to love someone who doesn’t love you back quite as much, or even at all.’
It took Mateo a moment to make sense of his mother’s meaning. ‘Do you mean Father...?’
‘The Karavitis men are strong and stubborn. They don’t want to need anybody.’
‘But you had such a successful marriage.’
‘There are different definitions of success. I choose to believe in one that is about love and happiness, as well as duty and service.’
‘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.