ore.
A week after Maria had left, he’d called Malcolm, who had arrived at the house within hours. The concern and shared pain on his familiar features almost a balm to Matthieu’s wounds. He had peppered his oldest friend with questions about how his parents had met, what they had been like, things that perhaps he would have learned in time, had they had the luxury of it. For hours they had talked, Matthieu relishing everything he had never wanted, never been able to bear, before.
Until finally Matthieu had talked about that night. Opening up his grief for someone other than Maria to see. To own his shame and guilt over his actions that night.
‘I never knew,’ Malcolm had said. ‘If I had... Matthieu, why didn’t you tell me you felt that way?’
‘Admit that it was my fault?’
‘But it wasn’t,’ Malcolm had said, pressing a hand on the wooden table as if to hold himself back from a stronger physical act. ‘Matthieu, do you remember how the fire started?’
He’d frowned, knowing by heart the fire marshal’s incident report he had once scoured as if it held answers. ‘Faulty electrics.’
‘Where?’ Malcolm had prompted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Where did the fire start?’
‘On the second floor.’
‘And where were you?’
‘Downstairs in the living...’
Malcolm had levelled him with a heavy gaze. ‘The fire wasn’t your fault, Matthieu, and if you’d been in bed that night, and not further down in the house, then... Then you might have been one of the first casualties of that night. Your father didn’t waste precious time, and even if he had, he would have done so because he loved you and wanted you to live. If he went back into the fire for your mother it was because he wanted the same for her. Your father might have survived, but the man I was lucky enough to call my closest friend in the world wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he had not tried.’
He wanted you to live. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he had not tried.
Long after Malcolm had left, Matthieu had sat gazing, unseeing, at Lake Lucerne. He had been shocked by the realisation that he had not been living. That he had not been trying. Maria had been right. He had hoarded his pain, hoarded the precious, sometimes painful, but more often incredible loving memories of his parents as if they had a portion of allotted time before running out, before disappearing from his mind. But the more he thought, the more he remembered. And the more he realised that he had made a terrible mistake forcing Maria from his life.
* * *
Nearly a month later, Matthieu stepped out of the limousine parked outside an estate in Siena, and knocked on the door, bracing himself for what was to happen.
It swung open and Sebastian Rohan de Luen took one look at him and swung. In truth, Matthieu had seen the punch coming from a mile away, but took the hit, feeling it was pretty much deserved at this point.
He cupped his jaw, rubbing at the small sting at the corner of his mouth with his thumb.
‘A friend would tell you to use your words,’ he said to Seb.
‘Yeah? Well. I’m more about actions. I warned you. Dammit, I bloody told you—’
‘I know. You were right. I deserved it and much more.’
Seb looked at him long and hard before stepping back and letting him pass through the door and into the dark living room of the estate Matthieu had last visited with Maria. That was when Matthieu noticed the glass of half-drunk whisky and empty bottle on the table. Seb had come to a halt in the middle of the room and was staring at a painting propped up on the mantelpiece above a large fireplace. It was only then that Matthieu really looked at the painting.
‘Wait...is that a—?’
‘Yes.’
Matthieu was struck by the image of the woman staring out at him, from one of Europe’s most famous and expensive painters.
‘Jesus, is that—?’
‘Our mother. The resemblance is remarkable, don’t you think?’
Matthieu chose not to answer, suddenly realising just how hard it must have been for Maria’s father to see the face of his wife in his child. Suddenly realising how difficult it must have been for Maria. ‘That painting must be worth at least one hundred million.’