Chapter Eleven
IT WASN’T UNTIL the end of the banquet buffet she held for her staff and their families each Christmas morning that Astrid realised something was amiss.
Out of nowhere, Anja was at her side, murmuring that it was time to move on, even when fifteen minutes were still scheduled for the buffet.
Which immediately alerted Astrid to the possibility of a problem.
She stood once more and the room fell silent as she gave a heartfelt speech thanking the people who helped the palace run so seamlessly for their dedication and devotion. She then slipped from the banquet hall into a wide, black and white tiled corridor.
Anja stopped walking and turned to face the queen, her features a study in sympathy.
‘What is it?’
Stupidly, Astrid immediately thought of Javier, of something having happened to him, and she felt as though she was about to drop to the floor.
‘Please, tell me quickly,’ she whispered, her whole body shaking as she imagined his body destroyed, as her brother and father’s had been, by a car accident. The snow had fallen all night, the roads would be slippery…
Memories slammed into her. Unwelcome and ferocious. The car accident. The sound of steel on steel, shattering glass, distant, shouted voices. Groans, breaths—hard-fought-for, desperate, diminishing. Life leaving bodies right before her eyes.
Powerlessness.
She could hardly breathe herself now. It was as if she were back in that car again, trapped by a locked seatbelt and the angle of the vehicle, watching everyone she loved die. Only this time, Javier was there, too, his perfect body lifeless, his skin darkening in a slow-spreading bruise.
A feral, animalistic noise, unlike any other she’d ever made, garbled in her throat as she lifted her hands and pressed them to her lips. ‘Oh God, what’s happened,’ she pleaded, as the heart she’d sworn was safe, under lock and key, palpated with its own dark, desperate pain.
Anja held her phone out wordlessly, and Astrid took a second to steal herself to look at the screen.
Javier was a well-known billionaire, a global business powerhouse.
An accident would be newsworthy. But how could she bare to look?
How could she bare not to? She glanced at the screen and felt as though reality was distorting completely.
As though their bubble had been violated.
As though she’d been violated in the worst possible way.
The relief she might have felt at knowing he was okay was very short lived.
She couldn’t rejoice in his safety, when their privacy had been laid bare—and the repercussions were immediate and inescapable.
Nor could she be grateful, when those moments of sheer, blinding terror had been so incredibly evocative of a time she never wanted to relive.
There, on Anja’s phone screen, was a photograph of her and Javier on his balcony, taken hours earlier.
‘How on earth could they have known?’ she asked, looking at Anja then quickly back to the screen.
She moved her finger swiftly to see another image, this time, with Astrid looking out, directly at the camera, and Javier standing behind her, his chin resting on her shoulder.
Their faces were unmistakable. Though the image must have been taken from a long way away, those camera lenses were powerful. Even the star earrings were visible.
She thrust the phone back at Anja with a pit forming in her stomach.
It wasn’t the end of the world. She was allowed to date.
In truth, the desire to keep things private had really been because she didn’t want to have to go through the speculation, the gossip, but she’d wanted that as much for his sake as she had her own.
She’d have the palace release a statement and that would be the end of it.
No further comment. But even as she thought of that clinical solution, she knew it was the beginning of the end.
How could he come to the New Year’s Eve ball under these circumstances?
All eyes would be on them. And how could she move quickly towards the marriage she knew she had to make, the fiancée she had to find, when the media would undoubtedly be talking about this for months to come?
All her plans had been meticulously made.
She knew she had to marry and soon. The risk of anything happening to her without an heir was truly a worrying idea.
But Javier would be all anyone spoke of and thought of…
including her would-be king. Whomever that might be.
For the moment, she couldn’t even contemplate marrying, though she knew it was inevitable.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, pushing all of her own feelings deep down inside of herself, including a sense of panic. ‘This isn’t a big deal.’
Anja’s brows drew together. ‘It’s not?’
‘I’m twenty-five. I’m allowed to date.’
Anja looked far from convinced. ‘I’m so sorry, Your Majesty.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ Though Anja and Enrique were the only people to know about her and Javier, she didn’t doubt either of them for even a second.
‘Palace security has reviewed footage. There was a bike at the gates last night. The photographer must have seen you get into the car and followed you to Mr Diamandi’s home.’
‘Yes,’ Astrid said softly. ‘That was always a risk.’
‘It should have been safe. You deserved this. A small amount of privacy. Your own life.’
Astrid felt Anja’s consternation and disapproval. She understood it. ‘I don’t have my own life,’ Astrid said simply. ‘You and I both know that.’
What was this, if not the perfect proof of that?
* * *
For the first time in a long time, the sight of Juanita’s name on his phone screen didn’t raise even a hint of feeling in Javier. Somehow, he was free of the ghost of her too. The damage her treatment had wrought was no longer a part of him.
He contemplated ignoring the call, but then, why? If she no longer held the power to hurt him, what was the point in ignoring her? He swiped and lifted the phone to his ear in one motion.
‘You fucking bastard.’
He almost laughed. ‘Well, Merry Christmas to you, too.’
‘Don’t you dare. You’re sleeping with the Queen of Norvenheim? Is that to get back at me, because I married a count?’
His gut clenched in fierce, instant rejection of Juanita knowing anything about him and Astrid. ‘What?’
‘There’s no point denying it. The whole world has seen the photographs.’
Photographs?
He shook his head, knowing that to be impossible. They’d been so careful. He quickly moved the phone, putting the call on speaker and loading up a browser. A quick type of his name brought up the photos in question and there was no mistaking the intimacy of their pose.
He swallowed a curse of his own as he began to stride through the apartment, gathering his things.
Only one thought was moving through him, like a godawful hammer.
This photo could ruin everything. Astrid would hate this.
If she saw the picture, she would panic.
She’d push him away, hard. It would be over and he wasn’t sure he could bear that.
Even though he’d known it was the only logical outcome, now that it loomed in front of him, a strong sense of desperate, aching need forced him to rail against reality.
‘You told me nothing was going on—’
‘Juanita, listen to me.’ Determination made his voice dark. ‘This is none of your business. My life is none of your business. Whatever hold you think you have over me, you don’t. I’ve moved on. You should, too.’ Until that moment, until he spoke the words, he didn’t realise how true they were.
‘But—’
He disconnected the call and immediately contacted Enrique instead. ‘We need to leave, right now.’
* * *
Purely by virtue of the fact that a visit to the war memorial on Christmas day was not a time for media intrusion, she was saved from the necessity of answering any questions directly.
She performed the role as she’d been schooled to, greeting military families, standing throughout the solemn service, before placing a special wreath made of holly, ivy and pine branches at the base of the memorial.
Anja whisked her into the limousine before any errant reporter could quiz her on the photos. It wouldn’t last, though. She would need to face the music and soon.
Sure enough, as the car slid into the palace gates and pulled to a stop at the east doors, Prime Minister Skarsgard was standing in wait, his expression showing a mask of concern.
‘Well, Your Majesty,’ he said, bowing slightly as she stepped out of the car. ‘This is a mess.’
Her brows lifted in surprise at the rudeness to his tone. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘An engagement announcement should have preceded anything like this. Those photos are not particularly palatable, you know.’
She stared at him with a sense of surprise. ‘An engagement? Sir, I’m not marrying Javier Diamandi.’
The look of confusion grew. ‘Your Majesty, surely you must see, the necessity of marriage—’
‘Yes, but I’m not marrying him.’
‘But the photos—’
‘Tell me you don’t think I have to marry every man I date?’
His lips moved as he tried to formulate a response. ‘Are you planning to date many men, Your Majesty?’
‘I wasn’t planning to date this man,’ she said.
Anja, beside her, shifted. ‘Perhaps we should take this inside,’ she suggested, reminding Astrid that they were visible to the crowds on the street, albeit at a distance.
‘Of course,’ the prime minister agreed with a nod. They stepped into the palace, Astrid’s temper only rising as they walked in silence. Once ensconced in the privacy of her office, she felt the emotions of the last few days take hold, threatening the equilibrium she prided herself on.
‘I am not intending—and never intended—to marry Javier Diamandi. And, yes, I am very aware that I must marry soon. He’s leaving after the New Year’s Eve ball, at which point I shall turn my attention to finding someone suitable to share my life with.
Not that I require it, but I presume this meets with your approval? ’