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‘Matt?’ In that tired, half-fogged state, she called him by the name he’d given her in New York. ‘Is it Leo? What’s wrong?’
Slowly, his breathing returned to normal. He looked at her for several seconds, reassuring himself that she was fine, and then he shook his head. ‘Go back to sleep, Frankie. Everything’s fine.’
* * *
Frankie stared at the little white bandage on her son’s arm with a growing sense of rage and impotence. ‘Liana—’ she spoke slowly, in contrast to the way her temper was firing out of control ‘—what’s this?’
Liana’s eyes didn’t quite meet Frankie’s. ‘From the doctor.’
‘I see.’ Frankie nodded, her chest heaving. She was getting married in the morning, and the last week had been both exhausting and distracting. She’d had less time for Leo than she would have liked, but she’d promised herself it would all go back to normal after the wedding. A new kind of normal, but normal nonetheless.
‘Ouchie,’ Leo said, looking up at his mother with big grey eyes and pointing to his arm. ‘Big ouchie.’
Frankie’s heart cracked. ‘Yes, I’ll bet.’ She bent down and kissed her son on his cheek. He returned to his drawing. Frankie straightened and looked at Liana. ‘Excuse me.’
She spun away from the older woman, striding out of the room and moving until she reached a guard. ‘Where is Matthias? Where is the King?’
The guard looked somewhat surprised; she suspected her temper was showing.
‘Ah, he is...occupied,’ the guard apologised.
She pulled herself up to her full, not ver
y imposing height and stared down her nose at him. ‘Where. Is. My. Fiancé?’
The guard flinched and spoke into the little device at his wrist. Crackly words came back and then he nodded. ‘He is in the west garden. I’ll show you.’
Frankie didn’t smile. She was seething. How dared Matthias take Leo’s blood without so much as telling her? How dared he take her son’s blood at all? Damn him and his DNA test!
Her anger seethed the entire way, through the palace and out of enormous glass doors, into a garden that was overgrown with oak trees and flowers. It was very beautiful. At the bottom there was a tennis court and Matthias stood down one end, hitting balls that were being served to him by a machine. As she approached, her eyes swept the surroundings—she had become adept at seeking out security guards now.
‘Have us left in privacy,’ she said curtly, not much caring who heard her dress down the King, but knowing on some level that the words she wanted to spit at him would be more satisfying if she could give full vent to her rage and that spectators would hold her back. Slightly.
‘Ah, yes, madam.’ The guard bowed and spoke into his wrist once more. Two guards stepped out of the periphery of the tennis court, moving towards their location.
Here, in the inner sanctum of the palace, security was lessened. No one could reach these parts without high-level clearance.
Frankie waited until the guards had moved back to the palace and then she closed her eyes and saw her son’s little arm, imagined a needle going into his flesh, sucking blood into vials for the purpose of confirming something that any idiot with eyes in their head could easily see. And rage flooded her once more. She stormed across the lawn and slammed open the wire gate to the tennis court.
A tennis ball flew from the machine and Matthias whacked it hard, landing it with speed in the opposing side’s corner.
‘I need a word with you,’ she snapped, crossing to the machine and staring at it. ‘How do I turn this damned thing off?’ She looked towards him expectantly. His eyes were watchful, his expression bland. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small device and pressed a button. The machine went quiet.
‘Yes?’ he asked, still so damned calm; she wanted to shake that nonchalance from his shoulders.
‘You had my son’s blood taken without even telling me?’
He walked across the tennis court, his stride lithe, wearing only a pair of white shorts and a white shirt that clung to his broadly muscled chest. He was perspiring, the heat of the day intense, the tennis court in the full baking sun.
‘I did tell you,’ he said as he placed the racket down against the net and then came to stand in front of Frankie. His eyes skimmed her face, then dropped lower, before lifting to her eyes once more.
‘When? When did you tell me you were going to get some doctor to do something so—so—invasive?’
His frown was infinitesimal. ‘It is not invasive. Just a prick of a needle. The skin was numbed first and Liana was with him the whole time. She said he felt not a thing...’
‘My God!’ She stared at him as though he were some kind of alien. ‘You didn’t even go with him?’
His laugh was a short bark. ‘My schedule is rather busy, deliciae.’
