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Shame filled him as he thought of how they had come together that night. As if they were combatants on a battlefield, rather than lovers on a bed of silk sheets and roses. As he reached her, she turned her face towards him as if waiting for that same kiss. But instead of doing what he so desperately wanted to do, of taking what he so desperately needed, he offered his arm and escorted her away from the reception and away from his wayward thoughts.
Theo was thankful that she made easy small talk as they walked towards the rows of vines that made up the vineyard. Questions of what types of grape, how long they took to grow, when he had first known that he wanted to develop wine... All things he had answered a million times and knew by heart. And, if she noticed that he was distracted, she was restrained enough not to mention it.
Finally, as they drew to the furthest point from the estate, he turned to her.
‘What is it?’ Sofia asked. ‘You’ve had something on your mind for a while. Ask.’
As if it were that simple. As if she would not deny him anything.
‘At the hospital, I asked Lyssandros to run every possible test he could think of. The thought...the possibility that you were hurt—’
‘I’m fine, Theo. Truly. Look,’ she said, shaking her head from side to side in a way that made him wince, even without the possibility of concussion. She laughed. The sound should have soothed him, but it didn’t.
‘Lyssandros is a very professional man, but he also has a huge heart. He was concerned by... He saw there were fractures, from a previous injury. Did someone hurt you?’ he asked, his voice drawn and gravelly to his own ears. Watching her closely, he saw the way she paled, the way her cheeks lost their rosy glow, her eyes filled with shadows and she made to turn away. Before she could, his hand snuck out and gently grasped her chin, guiding it back to him, snaring her gaze with his.
‘Please. Don’t hide from me in this. I need to know.’
She pulled a
breath into her lungs, but it seemed to get caught there, the slight stutter in her breathing enough to tell him that he really did need to know. As if unable to bear the weight of his gaze, she cut her eyes to the ground.
‘Sofia, whatever it is...whoever it was... If it was your husband—’
‘No!’ she cried, cutting him off mid-sentence. ‘No,’ she said again, more gently, more softly. ‘Antoine never raised a hand to me. Ever.’ He watched her pause and take another deep breath. ‘My father isn’t well.’
It was not what he’d expected her to say, but he silenced his inner thoughts and allowed her to continue.
‘He hasn’t been for...some time. I...we, the palace, have been sworn to secrecy, for fear of it destabilising the future of Iondorra.’
‘What is wrong with him?’
‘He was diagnosed with early onset dementia.’
She started to move away from him then and in the space between them his suspicions began to grow, like roots from somewhere deep within him, reaching towards the light, towards the truth.
‘When?’
‘When what?’
‘Don’t play games with me, Sofia—when was he diagnosed?’
‘Just before I was taken out of boarding school.’
A curse fell from his lips as he stared to rearrange the past to fit with what she was now telling him.
‘The night that I was supposed to meet you, he and my mother came. At first, I thought they’d found out somehow. About you, about the pranks... But it was worse than that. They explained what the diagnosis meant, that in time he would begin to lose more and more of his memory, of himself. I couldn’t see it. This man, this powerful, loving, larger-than-life ruler of an entire country...it wasn’t possible. Or at least that is what I thought at the time.
‘He was only fifty. There should have been years before I needed to assume the royal responsibilities I was so ready to reject. But there was no one else. I was going to have to wear the crown, I was going to have to learn to be the ruler of Iondorra, and I couldn’t do that to you.’
‘To me, or with me?’ he demanded.
‘Neither,’ she said, shaking her head helplessly. ‘We were children, Theo. You...you had your whole life ahead of you, to do what you wanted to do, to be who you wanted to be. And who you are now is incredible,’ she said, her eyes large and bright in her eyes.
Theo shook his head against her words, against the thought that she had been right. All this time he’d blamed her, hated her...
‘Why didn’t you tell me this?’ he demanded, pain and anger making his words harsh on the soft summer breeze.
‘I couldn’t. Don’t you see? No one could know of my father’s diagnosis. The risk to the country, to its finances and its people...it was just too great. So I was taken back to Iondorra, and spent the next few years cramming in as much of the knowledge of a would-be ruler in the shortest amount of time possible.
