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‘Kosmos was a risk-taker. He loved living dangerously. He took a boat out during dangerous conditions, and sailed through a storm.’ Mateo remembered the shock of hearing the news, the sudden fury that his older brother, more of a distant, admired figure than someone he’d felt truly close to, could be so careless.
‘That was right when we started working together.’ Rachel frowned. ‘You never told me.’
‘We barely knew each other then.’
‘It’s more than that, Mateo.’ She paused, seeming to weigh her words. ‘Why did you never confide in me? I don’t mean about the royalty thing, which I actually do understand keeping to yourself. But other things. Your brother’s death. Your father’s death.’
Mateo considered the question for a moment, rather than dismiss it out of hand, as he normally would have, saying, I never talk about myself. Or, There was never a good time.
‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘I suppose because, in doing so, I would have revealed something about myself.’ As soon as he said the words, he felt weirdly vulnerable, and yet also relieved.
Rachel kept her soft gaze steady on him. ‘Something you didn’t want others to see?’
He shrugged. ‘I was never that close to Kosmos or Leo. I looked up to them, but they were both older than me and they were very close themselves. They had a similar set of experiences—the heir and spare preparing for a life in the royal spotlight, while I was left to do more or less as I pleased.’
‘That sounds lonely.’
‘Like I said before, it had its benefits.’
‘Even so.’ Her quietly compassionate tone was nearly the undoing of him. Emotions he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding onto, buried deep, started to bubble up. Mateo took a sip of champagne in an effort to keep it all at bay. ‘It must have been a shock, when you were told you had to be King.’
‘It was,’ he agreed. He thought his voice was neutral but something must have given him away because Rachel leaned forward and laid her hand over his.
‘You’re doing an amazing job, Mateo. You’re amazing. I know I don’t even know a tenth of what you do, and with the talk of insurgency and this economic thing...’ She laughed softly. ‘I don’t know much about it, but I know you are doing the best job you can, giving two hundred per cent all the time.’
‘As a scientist, you should know better than to use the erroneous phrase two hundred per cent,’ he quipped, because to take her seriously would be to very nearly weep.
‘I’m a scientist, not a mathematician,’ she retorted with a smile. ‘And I’m not taking back any of it.’
He shook his head, smiling to cover how much her words meant, how thankful he was for her. He wanted to tell her as much, but he couldn’t manage it because he felt too much and he wasn’t used to it.
For fifteen years he’d kept himself from deep relationships, from love, because he was afraid of being hurt the way he’d been before, but more importantly, more deeply, because he was afraid of hurting another person. He couldn’t live with that kind of guilt and grief again, and yet here he was, treading on the thinnest of ice, in telling Rachel these things. In starting to care, and letting her care about him.
He shou
ld stop it right now, but the truth was he didn’t want to. It felt too much, but part of that was good. It was wonderful.
‘I know you don’t want to hear anything soppy,’ she continued with an uncertain smile, ‘but I’m going to tell you anyway.’
‘I consider myself warned,’ he said lightly, although his heart gave an unpleasant little lurch. Was she going to tell him she loved him? He would not know how to handle that.
‘You’ve given me such confidence, Mateo,’ Rachel said quietly. ‘I haven’t told you much about Josh except that he didn’t break my heart. And he really didn’t. But he broke my confidence—not that I had that much to begin with.’
‘How...?’ Mateo asked, although from what Rachel had already told him, he thought he could guess. She sighed.
‘He was older than me, worldly and sophisticated. I had a crush on him. I suppose it was obvious.’
‘So what happened, exactly?’ Mateo asked, although judging by Rachel’s tone, the look of resignation and remembrance in her eyes, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
‘I suppose if it had been a romance novel, I would have said he seduced me. But if it was a romance, he wasn’t the hero.’
‘The one time?’ Mateo surmised.
She nodded. ‘And the worst part was, afterwards he acted as if he didn’t know me. I bounced into class the next day, full of hope, of certainty. I thought we were a couple. He acted as if he couldn’t remember my name. Literally.’ She tried to laugh but didn’t quite manage it. ‘And then I overheard him joking to his friends, about how it would have to be a really desperate guy who was willing to...you know...with me.’
‘Oh, Rachel.’ Mateo couldn’t get any other words out. He hated the bastard Josh for what he’d done—the careless, callous disregard he’d shown for someone as lovely and genuine and pure as Rachel.
‘Anyway, I was telling you all this not to throw myself a pity party, but because you’ve changed that, Mateo. You’ve changed me. I used to always feel about myself—my body, my looks—the way he did. As if I was beneath notice. Easily forgettable. But when you look at me...’ Her voice trailed off and blush pinked her cheeks as she tremulously met his gaze. ‘I feel different. I feel...desirable. For the first time in my life. And that’s been wonderful.’ She gave an uncertain little laugh and Mateo did the only thing he could do, the only thing he wanted to do. He leaned forward and kissed her.
