Vows to Save His Crown

And even more watching the live video stream, but Mateo chose not to enlighten her.

‘Let’s do this,’ he said, echoing her words from before. She gave him a small smile of recognition, and then he drew her out onto the balcony, the applause crashing over them in a deafening wave as they appeared. He turned to Rachel, his mouth curving in pleasure and pride as she offered the crowds below a radiant smile and a decidedly royal wave.

After a few moments of cheering and clapping, Mateo made his announcement, which was met with even more applause and excited calls. Then a cry rose up: ‘Fili! Fili!’

Rachel’s forehead wrinkled slightly as she gave him a questioning look. She didn’t know what they were calling for, but Mateo did.

Kiss.

And it seemed like the most natural thing to do, to take her in his arms, her curves fitting snugly against him, and kiss her on the lips.

CHAPTER NINE

RACHEL GAZED DOWN at the list of potential charities to support and marvelled for about the hundredth time that this was now her life.

The last three days had felt like a dream. She had, quite deliberately, chosen to enjoy all the good and ignore the worrisome or flat-out terrifying. And there was a lot of good—not least the people who surrounded her, who were determined to help her to succeed.

The day after her arrival and the announcement on the balcony, Agathe had invited Rachel to her private rooms for breakfast. Eighteen hours later, Rachel’s lips had been practically still buzzing from the quick yet thorough kiss Mateo had given her, to the uproarious approval of the crowds below. He’d given her a fleeting, self-satisfied smile afterwards, his eyes glinting with both knowledge and possession, while Rachel had tottered back into the palace on unsteady legs that had had nothing to do with her heels.

She and Agathe had chatted easily over croissants and Greek yogurt withsweet golden honey and slices of succulent melon.

‘I can see now more than ever that my son has made a good choice,’ Agathe said with a little smile and Rachel blushed as she recalled that kiss yet again.

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‘It’s not like that,’ she felt compelled to protest. ‘We’re only friends. What I mean is, that’s all we’ve been.’

‘And it is a good, strong foundation for a marriage. Much better than—’ She stopped abruptly, making Rachel frown in confusion.

‘Much better than what?’ she prompted.

‘Oh, you know.’ Agathe laughed lightly as she poured them both more of the strong Greek coffee. ‘The usual fleeting attraction or empty charm.’

Yet as Agathe dazzled her with a determinedly bright smile, Rachel couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been about to say something else, something she’d decided not to.

Despite that brief moment of awkwardness, the rest of the conversation was easy and comfortable, and Rachel’s initial concerns about being intimidated by Mateo’s elegant mother proved to be as ill-founded as she might have hoped.

After breakfast, the over-the-top unreality of her situation continued as her personal assistant Monica—a neatly efficient woman in her late twenties—introduced herself and put herself entirely at Rachel’s disposal.

Then came another session with Francesca, who was becoming a firm friend. Rachel knew, despite Mateo’s outrage, that the stylist had been merely pragmatic in her assessment of Rachel’s looks, although she apologised yet again when they met to discuss her wardrobe, and in particular her evening gown for the ball in a few days’ time, and also for her wedding in less than a week.

Rachel’s head continued to spin as she was outfitted beyond her wildest imaginings—yet with an eye to what she liked and felt comfortable in. Instead of shapeless trouser suits, she had chic separates in jewel-toned colours that Francesca assured her highlighted her ‘flawless skin’ and ‘gorgeous eyes and hair’. Rachel had never heard herself described in such glowing terms, and some battered part of her that she hadn’t let herself acknowledge began to heal...just as it had when Mateo told her she was gorgeous and sexy.

But surely he couldn’t have meant that...?

Whether he did or not was not something Rachel let herself dwell on for too long, because either way they were getting married. She’d already told herself she could manage without love, and that included desire, too. At least the kind of head-over-heels, can’t-live-without-you desire she knew Mateo didn’t feel for her, no matter what he had said.

The trouble was, she felt a little of it for him. Looking at him was starting to send shivery sparks racing along her nerve-endings, and sometimes when she was watching him she had an almost irresistible urge to touch him. Run her hand along the smooth-shaven sleekness of his jaw, or trail her fingertips along the defined pecs she saw beneath the crisp cotton of his shirt.

She didn’t, of course, not that she had any opportunity. In the three days since she’d arrived on Kallyria, she’d barely seen Mateo at all. Which was fine, she reminded herself more than once, because he had a country to run and she had a wedding—a whole life—to prepare for.

Rachel made a few ticks next to charities she was interested in supporting before laying the paper aside. She was in her private study, on the ground floor of the palace, a spacious and elegant room with long, sashed windows open to the fragrant gardens outside. Even though it was autumn, the air was still warm, far balmier than the best British summer.

Despite all the beauty and opulence surrounding her, Rachel felt a little flicker of homesickness that she did her best to banish. As wonderful as all this was, as kind as people were, it was still all incredibly unfamiliar. She kept feeling as if she were living someone else’s life, and as small as her own had been, at least it had been hers.

At least she’d been able to email her friends and have regular updates about her mother. Her friends had been amazed and thrilled by her change in circumstances; apparently her and Mateo’s kiss had been on the cover of several British tabloids. Rachel hadn’t felt brave enough to look at any of it online. The thought of seeing herself splashed on the covers of national magazines was both too surreal and scary even to contemplate, much less actually inspect.

Several of her friends and former colleagues from Cambridge were coming to the wedding, all at Mateo’s expense, a prospect that lifted her spirits a bit. She wasn’t completely cut off from her old life, even if sometimes she felt as if she were.