He led them back into the house through the door from the garden and stalked into the open-plan kitchen and living room, but this time when Matthieu turned towards his office, the doorway she never breached, she couldn’t take it any more. She knew he was angry, furious even, but she would not live in silence, she would not allow herself to avoid this any longer.
‘Ask me why I went to the gala tonight,’ she called out to him.
He halted, his hand outstretched towards the door handle. She could tell he was warring within himself, to push on forwards into the room he would close himself off in, or to turn and give into her demand. She only exhaled as she saw the tense outline of his shoulders turn and she finally locked eyes with her husband.
‘Why did you go to the gala tonight, Maria?’ His tone was droll and mechanical. Purposely so and it made her mad. Seething frustration and anger that she just couldn’t get through to him. Couldn’t get past the barriers he had built between them.
‘I went because Mrs Montcour had been invited to a gala and I wanted to see her.’
He frowned. ‘You’re not making sense.’
She practically growled out loud, only just managing to resist the urge to stamp her foot. ‘I went because I didn’t know who I was as your wife. Maria Rohan de Luen? Yes, I was actually just getting to know her before this. She was just beginning to find her freedom. Just beginning to make her own decisions and choices,’ she said, desperate to explain, to reach him, to make a connection. ‘But Maria Montcour? She’s new to me. I went to the gala because I wanted to see who she was, to see if she was different perhaps, more confident...more powerful even? And maybe, just maybe, going to a gala organised by a charity founded by my husband, whether he was present or not, would help me see a little more about who he is, what makes him tick, other than that he has a penchant for concrete!’ She hadn’t meant to shout, but that was where her little speech had ended. Her shouting at him. She didn’t think she’d ever shouted at anyone before in her life.
For a moment, she thought that her words had no effect. None at all. He might as well have been made of the concrete he’d made his house from. His phone pinged another few times, cutting through the silence between them.
‘Well, you certainly got to see that. And so did the press,’ he growled. ‘Did you not think?’ he demanded, spinning around to turn on her. ‘About how tonight was everything I had wanted to avoid for nearly ten years? I tried to warn you about the press, about what vultures they are and how they would do anything to get even just a glimpse of the beast and the innocent now tied to him.’
Maria’s heart broke just a little at his words. Was that truly how he saw them?
‘The moment you stepped out on the red carpet the entire world knew that you were married to me and pregnant with my child.’
‘I’ll concede that perhaps I hadn’t quite thought it through.’
‘We don’t have the luxury of not thinking it through. Not now.’
‘Matthieu, the press were always going to find out,’ she said gently but persistently.
‘At a time of our choosing. Not one that would impact upon the charity!’
‘Matthieu—’ Yet another ping emitted from his phone, cutting through her words. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, what is wrong with your phone?’ she demanded.
‘Do you really have no idea?’ he returned, seemingly incredulous. ‘Here,’ he said, sweeping a thumb across his phone before passing it to her. ‘Take a look.’
As she held the phone in her hand, scrolling down through page after page of social media headlines about the beast showing his colours, the beast wedding an innocent, the beast’s secret violence, some questioning if Maria was safe, the more ridiculous pondering whether she had been kidnapped, her fingers began to shake. Yes, there were a few positive ones, about how Matthieu Montcour had found his happy-ever-after, about the resounding success of the charity gala’s event, the joy at the future heir to the Montcour dynasty, but her thumb stalled over the last image captured on his phone. The image of Matthieu standing behind Maria, her hand over her mouth in shock, the glistening of tears in her eyes as they both took in the painting of Matthieu and his parents. And the violation of that moment devastated her because in all her attempts of finding herself, she had brought the wolf directly to Matthieu’s door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MATTHIEU WAS FURIOUS. With the press, with Maria, with himself. For the first time in his life he couldn’t blame someone else. He was the one who had truly lived up to his reputation as a beast the moment he had pushed the photographer up against the wall. It was his actions, his loss of control that had furthered the obscene attention-grabbing headlines.
Before the gala he had set his phone to notify him of any social media posts relating to him or Maria. And the phone gripped tight in Maria’s slightly shaking hands was still pinging away.
Because he had lost control. Because that damn photographer had caught them, caught him, with his defences down and it had allowed all the anger and the violence out.
He closed his eyes, but the family portrait his father had commissioned months before the night of the fire was imprinted on his mind. He conceded that the artistry was perfect. Because the hours that must have gone into creating such a masterpiece had truly caught the truth of his family. The joy and love shining from their eyes, made so much more invaluable by the events that followed, had been too much. Too much and not enough. He’d barely remembered it being done because he rarely allowed memories of before to pass beyond the steel door he’d shut upon them once he’d left hospital. Because if he hadn’t, he truly wasn’t sure he’d have survived.
And now that he had seen it, now that memories were beginning to seep through the small gap that had been opened just a few hours ago, Matthieu slammed the vault door shut, hoping that it would be enough, hoping that he’d done so in time.
‘Matthieu—’
‘I warned you. I warned you what would happen but you went anyway!’ He hated that he was shouting. Hated that he was still trying to wrestle his control back into place.
‘I didn’t... I’m sorry.’
‘Your apology means nothing,’ he bit out
cruelly. ‘I need you to understand. Understand that this is what it is like for me. Understand that this is what it is like to be married to me and what it is and will be like for you and for our child. That always the paparazzi will be stalking us, following our every move. Our every moment. They always have, ever since...’
He flinched the moment she laid a hand on his arm, trying to turn him to face her, and it took everything in him not to shake it off. Because she did need to understand. He needed to make her. That the world would never tire of the tragedy that was his past, never tire of the beast that was his present.