Demanding His Billion-Dollar Heir

‘There is still a little time before dinner and Mr Keant thought you might like to see a private viewing of the exhibition the museum has put on display for the gala? They have been incredibly generous with their chosen pieces.’

‘Can we?’ Maria asked, hopefully. The excitement in her eyes shone as purely as ever and he couldn’t refuse her in this.

‘Lead the way,’ he said, gesturing to Margery.

Once they were through the throng of guests, the quiet of the hallways felt oddly deafening, punctuated by the tapping of his companions’ heels on the smooth stone flooring. Through dimly lit corridors they made their way towards a series of rooms closed off for the gala’s exhibition.

‘If you have any questions about the artists, please don’t hesitate to ask,’ Margery stated before unclipping the thick red twist of rope across the entrance to the first room. She hung back as Matthieu and Maria made their way into the surprisingly large space.

White walls gave way to incredible splashes of colour as the large paintings hung strategically on the walls led the viewer through and around the space, not chronologically or by subject matter from what he could tell, but more by shape or colour.

The quiet settled a kind of peace about them that washed over him, easing away what suddenly felt like years of tension. Maria walked between the paintings, searching for something he couldn’t quite identify. He smiled, realising that she didn’t waste time hanging back with undue reverence afforded to an artist based solely on fame, but instead drew up close to certain canvasses as if trying to work out how, rather than why, it was done.

While she studied the paintings, he seemed incapable of not studying her. Her reaction, delight, the slight scrunch of her nose when she found something distasteful, the way her eyes and body lit up with joy when she discovered a masterpiece she’d never thought to see in person. He marvelled again, not only at her beauty, but at his own ability to stay away from her these last few weeks.

They moved from room to room, Margery hanging back discreetly giving them a false feeling of isolation. But Matthieu rarely took his eyes from Maria, which was why it took him a moment to see it for himself. The painting. The one he’d never seen until now.

Maria was almost overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the collection curated by the museum for the charity gala. Monet, Klee, Caillebotte, Duchamp, Renoir, Rothko, Freud—it was as if they’d gathered the greatest artists of the last two centuries. Everything from rural scenes, portraits, to sculpture and her eyes, heart and mind feasted on it. She felt overwhelmed by the beauty of these pieces, inspired to draw, to delve into her moulds, to melt down the materials to their base states and morph them into something even half as beautiful as what currently surrounded her.

They had come to the last room in the small, but exquisite exhibition and, although there was a huge Hockney taking up almost the entire length of one wall, she couldn’t help but be drawn to a much smaller canvas, which depicted a couple and a young boy, all facing each other and laughing together. It wasn’t the usual stiff, formal portrait, like others she had passed in the previous rooms. This was the kind that made you smile instantly, the artist somehow managing to include the viewer in a private joke, whilst also making them a voyeur to a family so engrossed in each other they were unaware of being watched. She frowned a little at the father, something about him snagged in her mind, and her gaze flicked to the small white placard, taking in the name of the artist and the family.

She felt as if she had been drenched in water from an ice bucket and couldn’t have prevented her gasp of shock if she’d tried. Her hand flew to her mouth, trying a little too late to bring it back as her eyes flew back to take in the details of Matthieu’s mother and father...and the young boy he had once been.

A wave of overwhelming sadness and grief covered her as she marvelled at the way the artist had managed to capture the love shining from Matthieu’s father’s eyes as he gazed at his wife and child. The way his mother only had eyes for young Matthieu, but still had her hand on his father’s arm as if their connection was and would always be inviolate. But it was the joy that rocked her. The joy they had in each other...a joy that would be cut short within a year of the painting.

For a moment she didn’t dare turn, didn’t dare look at him. Matthieu was behind her and even through the distance between them she felt it. The shock, the grief, the anger, the pain... She soaked it up like a sponge, consuming it and letting that too wash over her.

An electronic sound of a picture being taken followed only moments behind the blinding flash and Maria flinched at both. Her eyes took a second to adjust, even though she had turned her face in the direction of the photographer only feet away.

Within seconds, several flashes stuttered into the room and Matthieu had stalked past her to thrust the man up against a white wall, their dark-suited figures stark in contrast. Angry incomprehensible words echoed within the empty gallery, security guards rushing in to drag the men apart.

Matthieu pulled away from the guard, speaking so quickly, Maria could barely translate. Not that she needed to. His tone was indication enough. From behind him, the photographer was pointing and yelling at her husband and, without sparing the man another glace, Matthieu turned on his heel and stalked from the room.

With his departure, the chain holding her still lifted and she practically ran after Matthieu, chasing the sounds of his fast footsteps as he left the exhibition. She passed Margery, barely registering the woman’s distress, leaving her behind, and followed as Matthieu left the building through a discreet doorway and made his way out into the gardens of the museum, her heels plunging into the thick grass making her steps harder, as if even the ground were trying to hold her back from reaching him in that moment.

In very little time they reached a small helicopter and while the pilot frantically readied the aircraft, Matthieu held the door back to her with barely leashed emotion that had gripped his entire body in such a way that she dared not speak.

She climbed into the helicopter, quickly assuring herself that it was safe to fly at this stage of her pregnancy, and slid over to the far side to make room for Matthieu. But instead of joining her, he closed the door and slipped into the seat next to the now ready pilot.

Maria could have moved back into the middle but she didn’t. Instead, she stayed in the far corner, clinging to the edge of the seat as the helicopter jerked up from the ground before sweeping up into the night sky.

Everything around her was dark, the mood, the light, the landscape beneath her. Shadows and little dots of lights punctured the thick, midnight blanket that had enveloped her, but did nothing to soothe the guilt that wracked her from head to toe. That the photographer had caught Matthieu at such a vulnerable moment, such an exposed, raw, heartbreaking moment... It had been the first time she had seen even a glimpse of the extent of her husband’s pain.

Maria hadn’t known her mother. She had died bringing her into this world, and Maria had inherited only memories from her brother and father to guide her in shaping an impression of the woman who had given birth to her. Maria’s pain was more like that of a phantom limb, itching and aching in a way that was absent, rather than real. Yes, she had felt loss and anger and frustration, but in a slightly removed way, as if never really quite sure what she was missing.

But for Matthieu it was different. So very different.

/> * * *

It felt as if they had been flying for both an age and no time at all. Maria was pulled from her thoughts as the helicopter dropped gently on the helipad at the back of the estate in Lucerne she vaguely remembered seeing from one of her walks.

Although everything in her wanted to fling back the door and flee into the night, she wasn’t sure of the safety protocol and only then did she realise she’d had her first flight in a helicopter, so lost had she been in her thoughts. Thoughts of him, thoughts of her.

The door slid back and Matthieu’s shadowed, brooding form beckoned her forth. She picked up her skirts and hunched within the low interior, stepped out and followed his retreating form. As she followed him through the darkness, with the sounds of the helicopter’s engine receding behind her, she heard the ping of Matthieu’s phone. Once, twice. A brief pause between a third and fourth. But he ignored it in the same way that he was ignoring her.

And suddenly she was angry. Angry that he could not even bring himself to look at her, let alone speak to her. The closer and closer they got to the estate, the more furious she became, feeling a little as if she was being brought back to a prison.

A prison where her husband barely tolerated her presence. There were times in her childhood when she’d felt extreme loneliness—while her father, stepmother and brother argued about money behind closed doors, ‘adult’ business that didn’t involve her. Decisions being made about their future, her future, ones she had no say in. She had once promised herself not to ever be in that position again. And the one time she had chosen something for herself, the one time she had followed her instincts, the consequences had seen her right back behind another set of closed doors, under the control of her husband.