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‘Okay, I’ll clear my schedule. You’re okay to fly?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’ll take the jet,’ he said, and although another mouthful of ice cream was the last thing he ever wanted to see again in his life, he pushed another spoonful in his mouth. He’d been deadly serious about his declaration.
‘You...you don’t mind?’ she asked tentatively and Matthieu hated the thought that she was afraid to ask. Not just in this, but afraid to ask something that was so clearly important to her.
‘Not at all. Not if you don’t mind telling me what’s really going on here,’ he said as his stomach began to freeze from the inside out from all the ice cream. He nearly laughed as he watched her eyes lock onto the spoon he was about to put into his mouth. ‘Would you like some?’
She clenched her jaw and seemingly tried to hold herself back, until he finally watched her give in. Her shoulders dropped and she closed the distance to the island counter.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes you mind? Yes you want some?’
‘Yes to both?’ she asked, not quite meeting his gaze.
* * *
Maria sighed. From the moment Matthieu had returned home, her mouth had run away with her and her mind was hurling everything and anything into her thoughts to prevent her from facing the one thing she didn’t want to face, but in reality probably really needed to.
‘When did you get so wise?’ she asked Matthieu.
‘Probably around the time my wife said, “You need this. I need this. We need this.”’
In an instant she was plunged back into the sensations he had wrought to her body that night. The need, the passion...
‘Mind out of the gutter, wife.’
‘My hormones have a lot to answer for.’
‘And I promise, when we’ve had this discussion, your hormones can feast on my body until they’re sated,’ he growled, the dark promise in his eyes almost too much to bear.
‘Really?’ she said uncertainly. ‘Because you haven’t...we haven’t...since that night.’
He sighed and she felt the gentle puff of air against her skin, sweet with the taste of ice cream.
He placed the spoon down on the counter and she reached for it, even though her stomach had finally revolted and given up any desire for food—or at least that kind of feasting.
He ran his hands through his hair and finally leaned on one elbow, resting his chin in his palm and looking at her as if he’d given up some kind of internal fight. ‘Honestly, I wasn’t sure that was something you wanted. I didn’t want you to feel that because of that night, I automatically assumed that...’
‘My husband could demand his nightly conjugal rights?’ she finished with a small sad smile. When had things got so complicated that they couldn’t simply act on their desires, or feelings? Perhaps when they had rushed into a wedding because of a child. ‘Matthieu, no one has a right to my body except me. But I have, and do willingly choose to share my body with you.’
‘Your body, yes. Perhaps. But...you?’
She bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. He wanted to know why she was so upset about seeing Sebastian.
The last time she had seen her brother was at Theo and Sofia’s wedding. In the short space of time since the night of the charity gala in Iondorra and the wedding between Princess Sofia and Theo, Maria had realised quite a number of things about herself, some of them harsh and hard to bear, and others more...empowering. The determination to focus on herself had been in some ways both wondrous and liberating. Until she had discovered she was pregnant and suddenly the thought of facing Sebastian with the consequences of her reckless actions had felt awfully like a betrayal.
‘My brother has always looked out for me. Been there for me when...when it became clear that my father was not going to be.’ Maria sighed, hating how the well of emotion catching at the back of her throat shuddered through her breath. ‘After my mother died, my father just...he seemed to give up on everything. He went through the motions for a few years, marrying Valeria, seeking one failed business deal after another, but as I got older he seemed to look at me differently. Seeing not me, but my mother looking back at him. I could tell how painful it was for him, how it was tearing at him. I don’t know which one of us started it first, but each in our own ways began to avoid each other, to ease the constant hurt that hovered between us when we met.’
Maria shivered at the memories from her childhood, hiding in various rooms within the house when she knew her father was home. She’d spent hours staring at the pictures in the family photo albums, obsessively consuming the images of the mother she had never known. Each time, Seb would come and find her. Take her out into the garden, try to distract her. Even then, all those years ago Seb had protected her.
‘When my father lost nearly everything in one last investment deal, I was about eight years old. Seb was barely eighteen and was forced to act—or we would have been declared bankrupt. He took over the decision-making, finding ways to save what little was left of the family’s finances. Everything was sold. Our home, estates, almost all the belongings in the houses, paintings, antiques and antiquities, all just enough to pay off the millions owed because of my father’s stupidity and negligence. The shame my father had brought on the Rohan de Luen name and title was enough to get us exiled from Spain.’
Across the years, Maria could hear the echoes of the arguments, the bitter accusations, Valeria’s tears and recriminations, and through it all was the almost deadly determination of her brother. To be the man her father couldn’t be, the protector, the decision-maker...
‘What Seb did at the age of eighteen was incredible. He moved us to Italy, found a school for me, started a hotel business from the one property we had left in Europe, which managed to provide enough to keep Valeria and my father if not happy, then at least within some semblance of the life they were accustomed to. But they lived elsewhere. So it was just us. An eighteen-year-old looking after an eight-year-old.’
