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A knock sounded on his door. He ignored it; the knock came again.
‘What?’
His valet Niko entered, holding a brown envelope. ‘Today’s security memo.’ Niko placed the envelope on the desk and turned to leave.
Matthias grunted by way of acknowledgement, turning his gaze to the large envelope.
They’d been gone four weeks and in that time he hadn’t called her once. He’d resisted every single urge to pick up the phone and speak to her. Any time he’d thought of so much as dialling Mare Visum palace to see how she was, to speak to Leo, he’d recalled the sight of Frankie trying to pull her hand free from their ceremonial wedding bind; he’d sensed her panic and despair and he’d known that to call her would be selfish. To speak to her might improve his spirits, might reassure him that she was making sense of their new lives, but it would hurt her, he was sure of that.
And so he’d ordered security packets. Daily. It was a way to stay informed of her movements. To see her life unfurl.
He crossed to the desk now, his stride long, his fingers moving deftly as they tore the top off the envelope.
Usually the envelope included a single A4 piece of paper with a typewritten, lacklustre report of Frankie and Leo’s movements. But when he reached into the envelope for the memo, he pulled out a newspaper article as well. With a frown, his eyes ran over the words, a sense of disbelief scrambling through him.
Eggs for the Prince! the headline screamed.
Matthias read the short article, describing the delight of a local café operator who’d discovered that the beautiful blonde woman and adorable dark-haired boy who’d wandered in for breakfast the day before were, in fact, Her Majesty the Queen and the young Crown Prince.
The photos, snapped on cell phones by nearby diners, obviously, showed Frankie and Leo doing nothing more exciting than eating breakfast. Nor did it show a single security guard anywhere nearby. She wore a baseball cap low on her brow, her ponytail pulled through the back, and Leo was wearing sunglasses.
So far as disguises went, it was pretty simple.
Matthias could tell it was his wife and son.
His wife.
He glared at the picture and his chest ached as though it were being scraped out and emptied completely of contents.
She’d wanted to be left alone, but he’d believed she would act in their child’s best interests. To take him out without any protection detail... What the hell was she playing at?
Anything could have happened! Kidnap! Murder! An accident! And she’d accused him of not caring about Leo?
He ground his teeth together and, before he could realise what he was doing, he pulled Frankie’s painting off the wall and hurled it across the room, satisfied when the frame cracked upon landing. He stared at it, broken and damaged, something that had once been so beautiful and pleasing, and tried not to draw a comparison to Frankie. He told himself he was glad. The painting was nothing but a damned distraction and he was done being distracted by this.
But the longer he stared at it, the more his gut twisted, until he felt only shame.
Shame, and a deep, profound sense of grief.
He swore in his native tongue and scooped down, picking the pieces up, trying to shape it back together, almost as though a madness of sorts had descended upon him. ‘Damn it,’ he cursed again, when it wouldn’t comply. He’d broken something beautiful. He’d broken it beyond repair.
Carefully, slowly, he placed the painting down on the desk, his powerful hands reverent with the frame where only a minute ago he’d lashed out, acting in anger.
Without thought, purely on instinct, he reached out, pressing a button on his phone; Niko answered almost immediately.
‘Have the helicopter readied.’
‘Yes, sir. What is your destination?’
He pressed a finger to the painting, feeling the ridges made by the layers she’d added, each with care, each with love, and his eyes closed of their own accord. He tilted his dark head back, his expression held tight.
‘Mare Visum.’
* * *
The colours weren’t right. She ran her brush over the top of the canvas, streaking a fine line of grey over the black, so fine it was almost translucent, giving it a pearlescent sheen. Better. But still not quite right.
She took a step back to study the painting, her frown deepening. There was a kind of magic about the moonlit nights here, on the southern tip of Tolmirós. She’d watched the moon coming over the ocean each night since coming to live in Mare Visum, and she’d tried to capture the ethereal quality on her canvas but, again and again, she’d failed.
