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“How is your wife, Maria?” my mother asked.
“She is…not well.”
“Her only child is suffering. I can only imagine how hard that must be on her.”
There was something behind my mother’s questions. Later, I would find out what exactly.
When the Queen stood, all others in the room did as well. She walked over to von Habsburg and took his hand. “I know how difficult this has been for you, Karl. I appreciate your honesty and willingness to share the plight of your family.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he responded, bowing.
The Queen turned to me. “Do you have any further questions, Cortez?”
“Not at this time, Your Majesty.”
When she nodded, the two palace security team members standing closest to von Habsburg stepped forward and ushered him from the room. When the door closed behind them, the Queen took her seat.
“I have requested the prime minister look into the situation at Broadmoor. However, I cannot promise he will be able to sway the opinions of the doctors.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said.
When she invited us to stay on for that evening’s dinner, I excused myself to make a call to Decker.
“Whoever you can get, I want on constant surveillance at Broadmoor Hospital. I don’t want Konstantine von Habsburg as much as looking out the window.”
“Roger that.”
When I rang off, my first inclination was to call Kensington. It was a habit I had to break. Instead, I asked Smoke to brief Angel on what we’d learned this afternoon. “Do it with minimal detail,” I told him. “Do not divulge the House of Habsburg Family Statute.”
He responded the same way Decker had.
“Siren, you will be the point person for the team on hospital detail,” I said when she turned to follow Smoke. “Make contact with Decker Ashford.”
I stayed outside the room, attempting to compose myself before rejoining my family. What I learned today meant that Kensington was not in as much danger as we believed she had been. However, until I was certain Konstantine had been moved into maximum security, I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting her go back to the way her life had been prior to her trip to Budapest. The decision wasn’t entirely mine, though. It would be up to the Queen to determine the level of protection Kensington required moving forward.
I rubbed my chest where the pain sat, knowing I would soon say goodbye to the woman who had taken up temporary residence in my heart. My love for her would not end. Instead, it drove me to do what was best for her, and that did not include spending her life with me.
The door to the courtyard where I stood opened, and my mother joined me. She put her arms around me without speaking.
“I am sorry, Cortez. I wish you could see this differently.”
“I cannot, Mother.”
She cupped my cheek with her hand. “I feel your pain as if it were my own.”
Rather than return to Madrid, I stayed on at the flat I kept in London. Like Kensington’s, my residence was in the Knightsbridge neighborhood. The house she’d inherited from her grandparents was on Exhibition Road, steps from Hyde Park. My building was slightly farther away, closer to Brompton Oratory.
Unable to sleep, I rode the lift from the penthouse to street-level and walked the distance between the two; it was a little over a mile.
To think that all the years I lived in London, the beguiling woman who’d made me believe in love again was so close.
I continued walking until dawn, through the park, over to Kensington Gardens. I took the long way around back to my flat, returning just as the sun began to rise.
As much as I wanted to sleep, I couldn’t. My pain sat too heavy on my chest. I closed my eyes, though, and imagined holding Kensington in my arms one last time—joining our bodies together in a way that I knew they never could be again.
25
Kensington
