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For weeks, she avoided going outside at all. For why should she? She had lived outdoors for years. She was tired of it. She could stay inside where the man-made air could flow over her skin at whatever temperature she wished. Her room had its own controls.
Yes. She was bathing in luxury and loving it. The food that the staff at the palace ate was divine. It was the same thing that the King ate. She didn’t mind that they were the leftovers off his table, not at all.
For the first time in her memory she went to bed, and her stomach was full. She was comfortable for the first time in years. She had forgotten what comfortable felt like. She was nearly oppressed by it. Because there wasn’t a moment that went by that she didn’t feel aware, that the fabric against her skin felt good; that she was not shivering; that she was not sweating.
And then there was the King. His presence. She felt it everywhere. Like a silken robe that she wore on top of everything else. She was simply aware of him, was in full wonder of him at all times. And she knew that the other maids—for they were maids, as easy as it was to try and think of her position as something a bit less servile—found her silly, that she was quite so in awe of the man.
But they didn’t know what it was like to live as she had. And King Matteo was her savior.
“Are you finding everything here to your satisfaction?”
One day he stopped her in the ballroom, where she was shining the golden tiles of the floor on her knees, going over and over them until she could see her reflection in the brilliant surface.
“Yes,” she said. “I find that I very much enjoy the work.”
“My head of staff says that you always do more than is asked of you. But you spend a bit too much time on details for her liking. That you do not see the big picture.”
Terror rang through Livia. “Oh. Well, I... The details make up the big picture, Your Majesty, with all due respect. You cannot have a glistening vista if the pieces that make it up do not sing.”
“I agree with you, Livia,” he said, the usage of her name sending a whisper of sensation over her body.
“But I can work differently if Mrs. Fernandez wishes.”
“No. I wish for you to do whatever it is seems best. What sort of details interest you?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I suppose it’s just... The small ways the world is put together. I’ve always had an eye for detail. I’ve a very good memory. I’m quite fascinated by the way things come together, and I never forget. It has been useful to me in my life, living on the streets. I can remember faces, I can remember people, and avoid them if need be. I can picture an object in my mind, and try to figure out how I might re-create it with the things I have available to me. For I can simply see the way something comes together.”
“Interesting. And when it comes to events? If you were to fill this ballroom with people, can you see how they would fill the space?”
“Yes.” She looked around the room, this room that she had learned from top to bottom in her time here. This room she had labored over. Every ornate piece of molding, every pane of crystal on the windows. Every tile. “Yes. I can see how you might furnish it for a function.”
“Fascinating.” He looked at her, with those too-keen eyes that made her feel seen. “What a strange little brain you have.”
She looked away. “I’ve had nothing to do really but focus on the small moments for years. Thinking too far ahead when you live on the streets is only ever depressing. A long life of the same sort of thing looms ahead of you. So you must reduce it. You must take it down to small moments. If you don’t, you’ll go crazy. You have to find joy in small things because small things are all there is.”
“Well,” he said. “I can use someone to focus on such small things. For I must keep mine larger. I might find a captain of small things to be useful.”
She brought herself forward to the present. It did no good to think about such things. Of those days, when she’d been his Captain of Small Things.
Her eyes filled with tears. It did no good to mourn Matteo. He had only ever found her useful. And that was it. He was scarred. Too scarred by his past to love. She knew that. And she was...
What was she?
She was a sad girl who had never truly grown out of her hero worship. Who had been given an extraordinary gift, and had focused on the wrong bit.
This was the takeaway. The ability to have this life. The ability to make something of herself. The ability to live in Paris if she chose. To be all that she could be. This was her life and all that she carried inside of her. Matteo should never have been her focus.
Matteo.
She didn’t even think of him as King Matteo. Hadn’t for years.
Well, now she wouldn’t think of him at all. She was free of him. Finally.
She took a resolute breath and turned, and then her heart stopped.
She had heard nothing. Not a sound. But there he was, as if spirited there by magic. Standing in her doorway, broad, imposing and angry.
He was wearing a black suit, cut perfectly to outline the muscular lines of his physique. Expertly tailored, practically sewn on to ensure that it fell along the perfect lines. She knew, because she had been in the room when he’d been fitted. Had watched as he stood there, bare chested with measuring tape going over each part of his perfect form.
