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Not a second of his waking day was spent without him wondering where she was and what she was doing.
After his grandfather’s death had been announced he’d kept staring at his phone, willing it to ring. Knowing it wouldn’t. Knowing she was right not to call him.
But his intellectual acceptance that she was gone and that it was all for the best wasn’t something his heart had any intention of agreeing with.
He’d long trusted Amy with his confidences. Now he understood that he’d also trusted her with his heart, and that a relationship with any other woman was doomed to failure because he belonged to Amy. All of him.
When the day of his own death came the last thing his conscious mind would see would be her face.
Three weeks without her.
The time had dragged like a decade.
How could he think straight without her?
How could he breathe without her when she was as necessary to him as air?
He loved her.
He cast his eyes around the room until he found Theseus, deep in conversation with his fiancée, Jo, and a Swedish politician the three Princes had been at school with. Theseus was settled. He had a child. His marriage would be taking place in a week.
Helios took a deep breath. Before he spoke to his brother there was someone else who needed to be spoken to first.
He looked at her, still by his side, the silence between them stark.
‘Catalina...’
‘We need to talk, don’t we?’ she said quietly.
‘Yes.’
Weaving their way through the crowd, they walked through a corridor, and then another, and then stepped out into the palace gardens.
‘Catalina, I’m sorry but I can’t marry you.’
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
‘I’ve been grossly unfair to you. I’m not...’ It was his turn to take a breath. ‘I’m in love with someone else.’
She bowed her head and eventually met his gaze. ‘Thank you for finally being honest with me—and with yourself.’
‘I never meant to hurt you.’
Her smile was stoical. ‘All you have hurt is my pride.’
He opened his mouth to speak further but she raised a hand to stop him.
‘It would never have worked between us. I’ve known it for a while now, but I didn’t want to add to the burden you’ve carried with your grandfather’s illness.’ She sighed. ‘I will get my people to issue a press release in a couple of days, saying I have called the engagement off due to an incompatibility between us.’
It was the least he could let her do. ‘Catalina, I am sorry. I never wanted...’
‘No. Do not say anything else.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Let me leave here with some dignity.’
For a moment Helios did nothing but stare at the woman he had intended to spend the rest of his life with. Then, taking her shoulders, he pulled her into his embrace. It warmed his heart to feel her arms wrap around his waist.
‘You will find a better man than me,’ he whispered.
‘I doubt that,’ she answered drily. ‘But perhaps I will find a man whose heart is free to love me.’
‘I hope that for you too.’
Pulling apart, they kissed each other on both cheeks and smiled.
The weight he carried on his shoulders lifted a fraction.
‘I expect an invitation,’ she said as she walked away.
‘An invitation to what?’
‘To your wedding to your English curator. Your mother’s ring will look wonderful on her finger.’
With one final wink she sashayed into the palace, not looking back.
Alone in the gardens Helios did a slow turn, taking in the verdant lawns, the sweet-scented flowers in bloom, the distant maze. It was a paradise of nature and life. Whether he became custodian of it all, as he’d spent his entire life believing he would, or not, the flowers would continue to bloom. That he knew with absolute certainty.
His heart beating loudly, echoing through every chamber of his body, he took his phone out of his pocket and dialled the number he had spent the past three weeks fighting not to call.
It went straight to voicemail.
He tried again.
The same thing happened.
Back in the palace, he entered the stateroom and found the person he was looking for.
‘I need to borrow you,’ he said to Pedro, interrupting his Head of Museum’s conversation with a person he did not recognise.
‘Where are we going?’ Pedro asked.
‘To the museum. I need to get something.’
The museum was closed out of respect for his grandfather and to allow all the staff to pay their respects too.
With long strides they followed the corridors into the museum’s private entrance and cut through the large exhibition rooms until they reached the rooms that mattered to Helios at that moment. The Kalliakis Family exhibition rooms.
