Vows to Save His Crown

‘Then you will meet with your stylist and hairdresser,’ Mateo answered. ‘They are temporary only, as I am sure you will like to select your own staff when the times comes.’

‘I’ve never had staff before,’ Rachel said with a nervous laugh. She took a gulp of champagne to steady her nerves.

‘You do now.’ Mateo nodded towards the stewards in the front cabin of the aircraft. ‘Everyone who works for me works for you.’

‘Right.’ Something else she could not get her head around.

‘When you have finished with the stylists, you will be introduced to Kallyria.’

‘Introduced to a country? How is that meant to happen?’ Already her mouth was drying, her heart beginning to hammer at the thought.

‘There is a balcony from where royalty has traditionally made all such announcements. I shall introduce you, we will wave, and then retire into the palace. Some time in the next week we will hold an engagement ball where you will meet all the dignitaries and statesmen you need to, and then we will marry next Saturday.’

‘Wait, what? That’s only a week from now.’

Mateo’s brows snapped together as he regarded her evenly, his flute of champagne held between two long, lean fingers. ‘Is that a problem? You are aware of the urgency of the situation.’

Rachel swallowed dryly. ‘It’s not a problem. Just...give me a moment to get my head around it.’

‘Very well.’ Mateo turned back to his laptop, and Rachel sipped the last of her champagne, her mind feeling like so much buzzing noise. After a few moments she excused herself with a murmur and went to the back of the plane, where there was a sumptuous bedroom with a king-sized bed and an en suite bathroom all in marble.

Rachel sank onto the bed and looked around her in as much of a daze as ever, if not more. What was she doing here, really?

* * *

Mateo straightened the cuffs of his suit as he waited for Rachel to emerge from the bedroom where she was changing into a fresh outfit to exit the plane.

He’d spent the majority of the flight working, grabbing an hour of sleep in his seat while Rachel had retired to the bedroom as soon as she’d drunk her champagne, and she hadn’t come out again until an hour before landing.

Mateo had checked in on her halfway through the flight, and seen her still in her clothes, curled up on top of the covers, fast asleep. Her hair was spread across the pillow just as he’d once imagined, and as he gazed at her he realised he’d never seen her sleep before, and yet from now on he would many times over.

The thought had brought a shaft of—something—to him. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted to name, because he couldn’t discern how it made him feel.

He’d rushed into marriage because he’d had to, and he’d done it with Rachel because at least he knew and trusted her. But watching her sleep, he was accosted by the realisation of how intimate their lives together would have to be, no matter how much he kept a certain part of himself closed off, a part that he hadn’t accessed in fifteen years, since Cressida.

No matter how physically intimate they might be, no matter how clos

e they might become, Mateo knew there was only so much he could ever offer Rachel. Only so much he knew how to give, and he had to trust that it would be enough. It certainly would be for him, and it had better be for her, because he didn’t have anything else.

Straightening his tie, he gave his reflection one last glance before he went to knock on the bedroom door.

‘We’re landing in twenty minutes, Rachel. We need to take our seats.’

‘All right.’ She opened the door, throwing her shoulders back as she gave him a smile that bordered on terrified. ‘Do I look all right?’

‘You look fine,’ Mateo assured her, because the media wouldn’t be there and so it didn’t matter. In truth he acknowledged that she would benefit from the help of a stylist. The shapeless trouser suit and plain ponytail that had served her so well for over ten years in academia were not exactly the right look for a queen, something he suspected Rachel was completely aware of. She certainly seemed aware of any potential deficiencies in her persona, and Mateo was determined to assuage her concerns.

‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked as he took her elbow and escorted her to the front of the plane. She gave him a strange look, and he realised it wasn’t something he would have normally done...touch her. Yet he acknowledged he needed to start acting like a husband, not a colleague, and in any case he found he wanted to do it, his fingers light on her elbow, her breast brushing his arm as they walked. Was she aware of it? She didn’t seem to be, but he most certainly was.

‘Better than I expected,’ Rachel answered with a little laugh. ‘I think I was so exhausted because I didn’t sleep a wink the night before!’

‘Didn’t you?’

She gave him a wry, laughing look. ‘No, I most certainly did not. I stayed up the entire night wondering if I was going to marry you, and trying to imagine what that would look like, because frankly I still find it impossible.’

‘Yet very soon you will find out.’

‘I know.’ She fiddled with the seat buckle, her gaze lowered so her ponytail fell forward onto her shoulder, like a curling ribbon of chocolate-brown silk. For some reason he couldn’t quite understand, Mateo reached forward and flicked it back. Rachel glanced at him, startled. He smiled blandly.