Pulling her identity card from around her neck and stuffing it in her pocket, she walked into the main museum, hurrying through the crowds of visitors until she found Claudia.
‘I’ve got a migraine coming,’ she said. ‘I need to rest—can you give my apologies to Pedro?’
‘Sure.’ Claudia looked at her with concern Amy knew she didn’t deserve. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, thank you. Please, I just need to get some sleep in a darkened room.’
Not waiting for a response, Amy wove her way through the remaining people to the private staff entrance to the palace, then hurried up the stairs to her apartment, kicked off her shoes and threw herself onto the bed.
She might not really have a migraine, but her head pounded as if a dozen church bells were ringing inside it. Let it pound. Let the bells clang as loudly as they could and the decibels increase.
She deserved nothing less.
* * *
Helios stood in the green stateroom, holding discussions with a group of German business people who wanted to invest considerable sums in Agon’s infrastructure and, naturally, recoup their investment with considerable profit. With them was Agon’s Transport Minister.
Agon had its own senate, and committees which decided on issues such as outside investors, but an endorsement from one of the royal Princes meant this would be as good as a done deal. Helios knew his opinions carried a great deal of weight and did his utmost to use his influence wisely.
When his phone rang he was tempted to ignore it, but it was his personal phone and only the most important people in his life had been given the number. He frowned when he saw Amy’s name on the screen.
He hadn’t had a chance to call her and let her know he was back from his trip to the US. In any case he’d assumed she would be busy at the museum... She hardly ever called him and never out of the blue.
‘Excuse me,’ he murmured to the delegation, stepping away from the group with an apologetic smile. He swiped the screen to answer. ‘Amy?’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ she said, her usual soft tones sounding strangely muffled. ‘I know you’re busy, but I wondered if you’re coming to me tonight.’
Not only did she never call him, she never questioned his movements either. A dark sense of foreboding snaked up his spine. ‘Is something the matter?’
He heard her hesitation.
‘I just need to see you.’
He looked at his watch. ‘Where are you?’
‘In my apartment.’
‘Are you ill?’
‘No. Not really. Not ill, ill.’
He wanted to pump her for information but, aware of the delegation, Talia and all the courtiers eyeing him with curiosity, he resisted.
‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can,’ he said, before hanging up.
He’d be with her as soon as he could politely extricate himself. Something was wrong. The cold dread wedged in the marrow of his bones told him that.
It was half an hour before he was able to extract himself from the group, saying he had some personal business to catch up with and that he would see them at the dinner being held in their honour. He then told Talia that she could leave early. Talia didn’t argue the matter—in fact he would swear she left so quickly she left a trail of dust in her wake. He didn’t blame her. It had been a long few weeks and she must be exhausted.
When he reached his office he cut through to his apartment and slipped through the passageway into Amy’s apartment. She answered his knock quickly, with a startled expression on her face.
‘I didn’t think I would see you until much later,’ she said wanly. ‘I hope I haven’t put you out.’
‘You could never put me out.’ He studied her carefully. Her face was grey, her eyes were bloodshot and her hair looked unkempt. ‘Have you been crying?’
She bit her lip and took a shuddery breath. Closing the door, she rested her hand on the handle. ‘The Princess knows.’
‘Catalina? What does she know?’
‘About us.’ She met his gaze. ‘She came to the museum. She wanted me, personally, to give her a tour of the exhibition.’
‘You’re the exhibition’s curator,’ he pointed out.
She shook her head. ‘It was more than that. She knows, Helios. I think... I think she’s heard rumours about us. Maybe someone saw me walking Benedict... I think she was looking for confirmation. Whatever I did, I don’t know, but I’m sure something confirmed her suspicions.’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Even assuming you’re right, there is nothing for you to worry about. Catalina isn’t stupid. She knows there will be other women.’
It was the wrong thing to say. Amy looked as if he’d slapped her.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he added hastily. ‘All I meant was that Catalina has no illusions of fidelity. You know there is no love between us.’
There was nothing between them. Not the smallest twinge.
Shaking her head again, Amy sidestepped past him and went through to her kitchen. ‘You’re a fool if you believe that. She wants it to be a love match.’
‘No...’
‘Yes,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘She does. Whatever you think you know about her, you’ve got it wrong.’
‘She does not love me.’
‘Not yet.’
Her eyes bored into his as her words hung in the air between them, then she turned sharply and pulled a bottle of white wine out of the fridge.
‘Glass?’ she asked.
‘You’re drinking already?’ A trace of his bemusement cut through the darkening atmosphere.
‘Right now I need it.’
She leant against the work surface and closed her eyes briefly, then poured them both some wine. When she passed his glass to him she snatched her hand away before there was any chance of their fingers brushing.
She went to take a sip from her own, but as she brought it to her mouth her face crumpled.
Stepping quickly to her, Helios took the glass from her shaking hand and placed it with his own on the counter, then wrapped his arms around her.
At first she resisted, but then she gave in to it, almost burying her head in his chest. Within seconds his shirt was wet with her tears.
‘Don’t cry, matakia mou,’ he whispered, stroking her hair. ‘It will all work out. I promise.’
‘How?’ she asked between sobs. ‘How can it ever work out? We’re breaking her heart.’
‘No, we’re not.’
‘We are. Maybe she doesn’t love you yet, but she wants to. She wants your marriage to work. Have you even seen her since you got back from America?’
‘I’ve been busy.’
Disentangling herself from his hold, Amy grabbed a handful of tissues from a box. The tears kept falling.
‘Helios, the Princess is your fiancée. She’s come all this way to see you. You should be with her. This time before your marriage should be spent getting to know each other...’
‘We do know each other.’
‘Do you?’ She raised her shoulders. ‘Then tell me this—what are her dreams? What are her fears? Can you answer any of that? You’re going to be spending the rest of your life with her.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed tightly. ‘The rest of my life. But the rest of my life hasn’t started yet.’
‘It started the minute you put an engagement ring on her finger.’
The engagement ring. He’d told Catalina to choose her own, with the excuse that she would be the one wearing it and so she should have something that was to her own taste. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to do the deed himself.
He knew she coveted his mother’s sapphire ring. Growing up, he’d always known that ring would be given to the woman he made his wife. He’d had the ready-made excuse that it was a feature of the exhibition to stop him sliding it onto Catalina’s finger yet, but he’d promised that when the exhibition was over it would be hers.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ Amy said, her voice choking on the words. ‘What we’re doing to the Princess is abhorrent. She’s a princess but she’s real, not a fairy-tale creation. She’s human, and the guilt is eating me alive.’
He moved to take her back into his arms but she held up a hand to him and shook her head.
‘We can’t. I can’t. I won’t be the cause of someone else’s misery. How can I when I’ve seen first-hand the damage it causes?’ Wiping away a fresh batch of tears, she swallowed before saying, ‘When I came to Agon and I wanted to find my birth mother, it wasn’t because I wanted to form a relationship with her. I wanted to know my other family and my roots, yes, and I was desperate to see what she looked like. But what I really wanted from her was to know why.’
‘Why she abandoned you?’ She had told him on the phone about the meeting. How she had left within minutes, abandoning the mother who’d abandoned her.
‘Partly. What I really wanted to know was how she could have done what she did to my mum. She was her au pair—Mum had trusted her with her child and welcomed her into her home. My mum is the most loving woman in the world. There is no way she would have treated Neysa with anything but kindness. How could she sneak around behind her back with her husband? What kind of evil selfishness makes a person act like that?’