‘Okay,’ Angelique said finally as if, too, sensing there was no going back. ‘So, would you like the motivational speech now, Your Highness?’
Sofia couldn’t help but smile at the gentle humour in Angelique’s tone. It felt like years since someone had laughed with her. It had been years.
‘What would you like? Braveheart-style, Beyoncé Run the World, or something à la Churchill?’
Sofia let a small, sad laugh escape from her lips. ‘I’ll forgo the attempt at a Scottish accent, I think. I don’t suppose you have anything just for me?’ she asked, instantly hating the sense of vulnerability her words evoked.
‘I do,’ Angelique said, locking serious eyes with hers. ‘You will be a great queen. You will care for Iondorra with as great a sense of purpose as any who have gone before you. You will rule her with love and duty and sacrifice, but all of that will ensure Iondorra’s longevity amongst the world’s greatest nations. And you will do it with a man at your side who will love, honour and protect you in a way that allows you to protect your country. You, Your Highness, are a force to be reckoned with and my wish for you is that you find a man worthy of that. These three suitors are perfect candidates. They understand your duty, your role in life, and are willing and able to support you in that. And now it is time.’
‘To go to the ball, Fairy Godmother?’
‘No, Sofia,’ Angelique said gently. ‘To remove Antoine’s ring.’
Sofia’s fingers flew to the wedding band around her fourth finger. It felt as sacrilegious to remove it, as much as it was easy for her to do so. Antoine would have understood. She placed the simple wedding band she had worn for eight years on the dressing table and felt a little bit of her past slip away from her grasp.
As Angelique left the room, Sofia returned her watchful gaze to the Parisian rooftops. For just a moment, she had fallen under the spell of the other woman’s words, grateful for them, thankful. But that positive determination she had felt fizzing in her veins had disappeared with Angelique’s departure. And for the first time in a while, she let the façade drop and allowed the feel of exhaustion to sweep over her. Her father’s deterioration had increased in the last few months and propelled the need for the one thing she’d been putting off for several years. The cost of keeping her father’s illness a secret had been a great one to pay, but one that she would do again and again. Because the people of Iondorra needed security.
She thought of her little European principality, cradled in between France, Switzerland and northern Italy. The country that she was to rule, protect as if it were her child. The country that, ever since she was seventeen and had been whisked away from her boarding school, she had been trained to protect, ruthlessly sculpted to become the perfect princess.
And then, as always following these moments of weakness, came the inner strength that saw her match even the strongest heads of state at the tables of European negotiations. She, and Iondorra, had no time for selfish, moping thoughts. She’d put those things aside a long time ago. Just as she’d put aside the thoughts of her own happy-ever-after.
Poor little princess, an inner voice mocked, sounding very much like that of a young man she’d long ago loved. A young man she’d been forced to leave behind, lie to, and a man she very much refused to think of now.
She glanced at the embossed invitation, smiling at how the gold detail of the lettering matched the soft golden yellows of the corseted Victorian-era dress she wore, the crinoline underskirt as heavy as a crown.
For so long she’d been cast as the Widow Princess, it had begun to feel as if she’d lost herself. Not that it mattered. The only thing of true importance was Iondorra. And attending the masquerade ball was just the next step towards the throne.
Each of the three men had been carefully vetted and would, in their own ways, be perfectly acceptable candidates for their role as husband. So there she was, in Paris, dressed up and ready to find the man she would spend the rest of her life with. And if she’d once thought she already had, then it didn’t matter. Such fanciful daydreams were for others. Real princesses didn’t have the luxury of Prince Charmings.
Theo Tersi scanned the expanse of the large Parisian ballroom, took a breath and instantly regretted it. Where he had expected to taste the hint of satisfaction at the thought of what tonight would bring, the only thing on his tongue was the cloying and competing scents of the perfume adorning the many women in the room. It was an assault on his olfactory system and he was half tempted to retreat and preserve that much-needed function. When he would think back to this moment in the months to come, he would wonder if it had been some kind of cosmic sign to turn back. To think again.
But right now, there was no turning back for Theo.
‘All right, I’m here,’ grouched the exiled Duke of Gaeten.
‘You don’t need to sound so pleased about it,’ Theo said absently, still scanning the faces in the ballroom for the one that he wanted. No, needed. ‘Surely the great Sebastian Rohan de Luen is not bored in the face of all this as yet untouched potential?’
‘Hah,’ his friend almost spat. ‘You think me jaded?’
‘No, as I said. Bored. You need someone to challenge you.’
‘And you need to walk away from this madness before it gets us all into trouble.’
Theo turned and cast a look over his closest friend, the only person who had been there for him when his world came crashing down for the second time. They had been in the middle of a business meeting—Theo soliciting a deal that would see the wine from his vineyard served at Sebastian’s Michelin-starred hotels scattered across the globe—when he had received the call from the hospital informing him of his mother’s admittance and diagnosis. The bottom had literally dropped out of his world, and Sebastian? Had chartered a private plane to return him to Greece and, rather than simply letting that be the end of it, had contracted Theo’s vineyard to his hotels. It had been the only thing that had saved Theo and his business from the wolves—but more importantly it had provided him with enough capital to pay for his mother’s healthcare. Without that contract, he would have lost the vineyard, would have lost the roof over his and his mother’s heads, and possibly would have lost his mother. And Theo had never forgotten it, and would never. Their relationship had quickly grown from business to brotherhood and, despite the awful foundation of its start, he wouldn’t regret it. It had been his salvation in the years since.
But, throughout that dark time, Theo had only seen one face, one person to blame, one person who had lied to him, set him up to take full blame for her actions, and had singlehandedly ruined his life. Had it not been for her, he would have finished his education—would have attended one of the finest universities the world had to offer, and would have been able to provide his mother with more, with better. He would never have been in a position where he could have lost it all. And that fear, the fear of nearly losing his mother, had changed him, had transformed his DNA. Never again would he be the naïve youth he had once been. Never again would he be that innocent.
Sofia was the origin point of the change in the course of his life, one that had only exacerbated his mother’s later illness. He hadn’t been surprised when the doctor had explained that the stresses of the last few years had taken their toll on his mother’s already weak heart. The shock of losing her job after his expulsion, the struggle of the following years… Had he not met Sofia, he would never have lost everything he’d held within his grasp—the opportunities, the chances he had been given to be and do better than either he or his mother could have ever expected. Naïve and foolish, he had believed every single one of Sofia’s lies before she disappeared, making a mockery of all those words of love, of a future she would never give him—could never have been able to give—when he finally discovered the truth about her.
Oh,