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CHAPTER TWELVE
‘THANKS,MISSEDWARDS.’
‘You’re welcome. And it’s Professor,’ she called with a smile after the last of her students left Lecture Room Four. She looked around the dimly lit room and wondered which poor professor they would house in here next. She’d heard that Humanities were in the doghouse at the moment, so maybe it was their turn. In the meantime, her students were to be transferred to Professor Baldick, who was, if somewhat eccentric, an incredible teacher.
Carol and Alan had handled the news surprisingly well. It had never sat happily with them that their adopted daughter was teaching at a south-east London university, and apparently any possible future plans were better than that. She had left them in their townhouse being looked after by their staff and felt that actually very little would change between them, no matter where her future lay. She would most likely continue to see them once every couple of months and, as they had little to no attachment to festive periods, Evie would be able to come and go as she pleased.
A lot had changed in the last four weeks. She’d made decisions that she’d never have imagined making the day the Queen had come to visit her here in this lecture theatre, and she’d done things she’d never dreamed of, she thought, smiling at the adventure she had taken with Mateo.
Yes, his words that last day had devastated her. She’d reeled from his rejection, questioned herself and her belief that he’d wanted more in spite of what he’d said to her, and come out of it alone. But she had survived. And that was the thing she clung to. Because even though his words had been cruel, they had forced her to confront some painful truths.
Shehadlet her reputation become damaged by working with the Professor and shehadwillingly followed the Queen’s request without thought to the impact it would have on her. And in some ways that showed a reckless disregard for herself which was untenable and would not continue. So now she was putting her wants and needs first. Fear had held her back for so long from too many things and she was done hiding.
She had shied away from the search for her birth parents because she feared another rejection from them. But Mateo had shown her that she was as strong and fierce as a pirate queen and nothing, not even his rejection of what they had shared that night and what they could have had in the future, could take that from her. So, she had begun to look at her adoption paperwork and was considering using her DNA to see if she had any more family out there. But that was a slow process that she wanted to think through and she felt no need to rush it. She might have lost her heart that day with Mateo on the plane, but it certainly helped her find her strength.
A strength that had been pivotal in the decision to leave USEL. Evie looked around the quiet, empty hall, a small smile curving her lips at the affection she felt towards what had been a safe place for her in the last two years. But as she had learned, safe wasn’t everything. It was time to push herself, to make waves and be a little more...pirate.
It hadn’t taken long after returning to London from Iondorra for her to realise that everything about her life that had once given her peace and contentment feltlacking. So she had handed in her notice and was using some of her savings to take some time and consider her options. While she did that, she was taking Queen Sofia up on a rather interesting proposition from a friend of hers.
And in her down time, she would work on the book that she would publish only when the Queen gave her permission to do so. Evie wasn’t looking for fame or money and was in no rush, she just wanted people to know of Isabella’s incredible story.
She had moved her things out of her flat and into storage, using a hotel for these last few days before she left for Iondorra. It had been a naïve attempt to avoid the Mateo-shaped figure she imagined haunting her. She’d thought, wrongly as it turned out, that if she left her flat she would no longer imagine him lingering in a doorway, or taking up space in her living room. She hoped to never again turn at a shadow in her kitchen, small and ephemeral in ways that Mateo Marin probably had never been in his life. No, leaving her flat hadn’t solved anything. She would see him in hallways, corridors and on the streets, but although her mind played tricks on her, she knew in her heart that it wasn’t him.
She closed the clasp on her leather briefcase and turned to find, once again, her imagination playing tricks on her. Illuminated by an open door was a figure standing at the back of the room.
She closed her eyes, holding her breath, but when she opened them again he was still there. And then, slowly, step by step, casually almost, Mateo Marin made his way towards her. It gave her the time she desperately needed, not to compose herself, but to consume the sight of him as if she were starving; hungrily and greedily. His suit jacket was open to reveal a waistcoat that hugged his torso snugly, the open-necked white shirt that indicated laziness or frustration, either of which Mateo had always worn well.
His hair, thick and carelessly tousled, made her want to feel those silken strands between her fingers and she could barely think of anything other than pressing her hand against his chest, to feel the beat of his heart, hoping to feel his own hand pressed against hers as if he’d wanted to keep her there.
She bit her lip, a sharp nip that pulled her out of the daydream.
By the time he reached her, she had pulled hurt around her like a cloak, refusing to be the same weak-willed woman she’d been the last time she had seen him. Just the memory of how she’d nearly begged him to love her cut her off at the knees. He stopped as if reading the change in her expression, his own gaze softening and offering a reflection of her hurt.
Mateo drank in the sight of her as if he were dying of thirst; great big gulps he wanted to gorge himself on. In that moment the constant sense of urgency, the anxiety driving him forward in the last four weeks, began to disappear, just from the sight of her.
He’d worried that it had been a waste of time, that he should have gone to her immediately, but he’d needed that time to get his head on straight. He’d chosen to take a sabbatical from his company. It had taken a while to convince the CFO and the board that he really did only mean six months and that it would not be for ever, but he’d had Henri’s support. Henri, who was thrilled that Mateo had finally got his priorities in the right order.
Mateo had worked his fingers to the bone from the moment he’d started his company, and when most people would have stepped back after the IPO, he’d only pushed on further. He’d hidden himself, he now realised, in flings that could go no further and that wouldn’t threaten the iron hold he’d had on his emotions—the iron hold he’d felt hehadto have. All to protect himself from bearing more emotional responsibility than he could take because of the misguided belief that he had to make up for his father’s mistakes and absence.
Evelyn had been, without question, absolutely right. Mateohadbehaved exactly like his father, hiding from his fears and hurts by burying himself in his work. Too scared to confront what it was that he was hiding from. And in those last few weeks, he’d realised that he’d been hiding from himself. From the hurt that he’d never confronted at his parents’ divorce. He’d found coping mechanisms that threated only to make him repeat the mistakes of the past and they no longer worked. And now he wanted more. And while those realisations had lifted so much darkness from his life, Mateo had known that there was still something missing.Someone.
‘I missed you,’ he confessed before he could engage his brain.
Her eyes flared with a hope that dimmed far too soon and it was something that he never wanted to see again, the extinguishing of that light.
Unable to help himself, he cupped her cheek and held his breath until she relented and leant into his palm. This was where he was supposed to be. He just had to hope that she felt that too. She turned so that her lips pressed against his skin, but less in a kiss and more as if to hide her thoughts or her words. He hated that, that she thought she could not be anything but honest with him. It hurt, but it was a pain he’d earned.
He slid his other hand to the side of her face so that he held her in his hands and gently drew her chin up so that her gaze met his.
‘How did I get it all so wrong?’ he asked her as if she had the answer.
Tears glistened in her eyes, long lashes slowly trying to blink them back, and it hurt to bear witness to the pain he’d caused, but it was also right, earned and deserved.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered, wanting to kiss the path of the tear that fell. Content to sweep it aside with the pad of his thumb, he needed to tell her, needed for her to know how much he cherished her. How much she had shown him and given him.
‘There is so much I want to say to you, but nothing is as important as my sincere and heartfelt apology. I should never have said such an awful thing to you. It came from a place of cowardice so deep and so unnatural that I lashed out in self-defence, and still that isn’t an excuse.
‘I belittled what we shared—not only that night, but also what we had come to mean to each other. I dismissed it and I will never stop regretting that and the hurt I caused. And more than that, I undermined your relationship with my father and your relationship with Iondorra, and I hope to God that you didn’t listen to me, because I had no right and no reason to do it.
