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‘We’ll be landing shortly,’ the flight attendant announced, and Evie felt a sense of panic.
She hadn’t been able to bring her thoughts together enough for herself, let alone for the Queen of Iondorra. Everything was happening so quickly and she couldn’t help but feel she was a step behind. She wanted to tell Isabella’s incredible story, wanted to do the woman she’d researched for almost her entire academic career justice, because she wasn’t just a figurehead to the Queen of Iondorra. She was family. And Evie knew how important knowing about family was, more than anyone.
But at the same time, Evie couldn’t stop herself from thinking of Mateo.
She looked across the cabin to where he was speaking to the flight attendant. His words were lost beneath the hum of the plane’s engine, but she heard the air staff offer to ask the pilot. She told herself off and instead once again tried to gather her thoughts, but they felt as scattered as sand. She reached into her bag for the Professor’s notebook and remembered that she had given it back to Mateo. It was the right thing to have done, but just for a moment there it had felt as if...she had lost something so very precious to her.
The flight attendant returned and nodded to Mateo’s waiting gaze. The confirmation of whatever his request had been didn’t seem to make him happy though. His firm, powerful lips flattened into a line that spoke only of grim determination. And then he cast his gaze on her and inexplicably her heart dropped.
‘Evelyn, when the plane lands—’
‘The Queen will probably want to see us quite quickly. It will be about six in the evening when we arrive and I’m sure that she’s busy—’
‘Evelyn...’
‘We might even have to meet her father, after all he is the one—’
‘Evie.’
She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t know exactly what he was going to say, but it would break her. It would break her in places she was already broken. She marvelled at that. At how, in this moment, she didn’t need words or explanations, that what was being communicated to her she felt in her soul. It defied speech or language and her body was reacting more quickly than her mind. Tears pressed against the backs of her eyes. One even escaped and she hastily wiped it away, hoping that he wouldn’t have seen it, but he had.
And she wished she hadn’t seen the way his eyes turned from hard to soft, to hurt, to determined, all in a heartbeat.
‘I’ll not be at the meeting with the Queen.’
‘Mateo, you have to be there. They will want to thank you for all you’ve done.’
‘I did nothing but follow you,’ he said and for a moment she believed him. Believed his words.
‘Your father would want you there.’
‘Don’t,’ he said, holding his hand up, a hint of the anger and frustration she had felt simmering in the air between them since they’d been found in the sea. ‘Don’t use my father against me like that.’
Shame crawled up her neck, heated her cheeks at the truth of his accusation. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, regretting the words that desperation had made her use.
‘After we land, I’m taking the plane back to Spain. I’ve already pushed back the meeting with Léi Chen too many times.’
‘Is that really what’s important right now?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Yes. It’s a meeting that has been years in the making. It’s very important to my company,’ he tried to explain. ‘It’s important to me.’
Evie couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t that she’d expected him to suddenly drop everything, but...
It’s important to me.
And she wasn’t, she realised with a heart that suddenly felt as heavy as a rock.
Had she been that stupid? Again? To think that someone wanted her when they didn’t? Her hand shook as she pressed her fingers against her lips.
No. She had seen the way he had looked at her. Felt the way he had made her feel. Knew that kind of feeling, that kind oflove, had to be two-sided. It had to be.
He crossed the cabin and came to sit opposite her, leaning forward to snatch her hands into his, and even she wanted to hide from him, hide from what it was he was trying to tell her.
‘Please don’t make me,’ she pleaded, her voice quiet and her throat thick.
‘Make you what?’
‘Beg,’ she whispered as a hot tear rolled down her cheek, her soul aching and her heart breaking.
