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‘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.’
