simple truth was he didn’t want to go inside. Didn’t want to face his mother the Queen. Every instinct warned him that he wouldn’t emerge the same person.
When had that ever mattered? He’d never belonged to himself. He belonged to history. To the destiny forged by countless Mongetovan warriors who’d fought bloody battles to carve out this Western Mediterranean kingdom with their bare hands.
For as long as he drew breath he would belong to the people of Montegova. Duty and destiny. Two words branded with indelible ink into his skin.
Like twin weights they settled like a heavy cloak over his shoulders, making his next breath a torturous chore.
‘Your Highness?’ his senior aide prompted nervously but firmly from behind him. ‘Her Majesty is waiting.’
One voice in many that peppered his daily life. One that cajoled and coaxed and, when he closed himself off to that, as he’d mastered doing, prodded and pushed.
The morning’s summons, however, had been absolute.
His mother requested his presence at nine o’clock sharp. The solid gold antique clock standing proudly in one of the many marbled and hallowed hallways of the Grand Palace of Montegova solemnly announced that he was five seconds from being late.
With a resigned breath, he unfroze his fist, rapped sharply on the gold-leaf-framed doors and awaited the command to enter.
It arrived, brisk and firm, yet wrapped in a layer of unmistakable warmth.
The voice accurately reflected the woman seated in the throne-like chair beneath the grand coat of arms that spelled out her royal status in Latin, her flint-grey gaze tracking him across the vast office.
She nodded approvingly when he executed a respectful bow before taking his seat before her.
‘I was wondering how long you’d remain behind the door. Am I really so frightful?’ she mused with a trace of sadness in her eyes.
That sadness grated, but Remi refused to let it show.
He was used to people wearing that expression in his presence. He was used to several more expressions, yet sorrow and pity chafed the worst. But he supposed it was better than being treated as if he were made of fragile glass.
He ignored the emotion and searched her face for signs that, just this once, his instincts were wrong. But from her perfectly coiffed hair and flawless make-up, to the classic Chanel suit she favoured for official duties, and the diamond and emerald brooch made in the image of the Montegovan flag, Remi was left in no doubt that this meeting was exactly what he’d suspected it to be.
The axe was truly about to fall.
‘Not frightful, no. But I suspect the reason for this summoning will leave one of us less than thrilled.’
His mother’s lips pursed momentarily before she rose. A tall, striking woman, she would have commanded attention with effortless ease even if she hadn’t been the reigning Montegovan monarch. Long before she’d become Queen she’d won three beauty pageants across the world. When she deigned to bestow it on the deserving her smile could stop a grown man in his tracks—Remi had seen it first-hand. The hair that had turned silver almost overnight ten years ago, after his father’s death, had once been as dark as his own, but she’d owned that very visible sign of pain and grief with the same stalwart strength that had stopped her kingdom from descending into chaos at the sudden death of its King and the scandal that had followed. At twenty-three, Remi had been deemed too young to take the throne so his mother had taken his place as interim ruler. He was supposed to take the throne on his thirtieth birthday. But then further tragedy had struck.
His mother was the strongest woman he knew. Which was why everything inside him tightened when, after several minutes examining the spectacular view from her office window, she returned to her desk, planted her palms on the polished antique cherry wood and locked eyes with him.
‘It’s time, Remirez.’
His gut clenched tighter. She very rarely used his full first name. As a child that had never boded well for him or his hide. As a grown man of thirty-two it still commanded his attention.
Unable to remain seated in the foreboding of impending fate, he stood and paced in front of her desk. ‘How much time are we talking, here? Weeks? Months?’
It wouldn’t be years. She’d already given him two years. And lately she’d indicated, without cruelty, that it was time to set his own grief aside.
‘I would like to make the announcement that I’m stepping down at the next Solstice Festival.’
The third week in June.
‘That’s...three months away.’ The reality of it hit him like a cold wave in the face.
‘Yes,’ she replied firmly. ‘Which means time is of the essence. We must put our house in order before we begin to make the announcements.’
‘Announcements?’ he echoed. ‘Plural?’
His mother’s gaze dropped momentarily to her desk. ‘I’m not just stepping down, Remi. I’m also taking extended leave from all official duties.’
Isadora Montegova wasn’t just the ruling monarch, she was also an active member of parliament.
‘You’re resigning? Why?’
Her lips compressed—a sign that she didn’t like to admit whatever it was she was about to say. ‘The past few years have been difficult for both of us. I need a little...time away from everything.’
She wouldn’t stoop so low as to call it me time, the way others might, but if anyone had earned the right to retreat and regroup it was his mother.
Not only had she borne the unexpected death of her husband with unwavering strength, she’d weathered the subsequent scandal unleashed by the discovery of her husband’s decades-long secret with remarkable dignity and poise.
Behind closed doors, though, Remi had caught glimpses of the true toll it had taken on her. He himself had barely been able to hold back his fury at discovering that the father he’d held in such high esteem had proved to be faithless. Over the years his rage had boiled down to a simmering resentment, but it had never dissipated. Because not only had his father caused his mother untold hardship by his actions, he’d also thrown the kingdom into turmoil for years. Years which had taken a brutal toll on his mother. On him and on Zak, his younger brother.
Secrets and lies. It was a cliché until it happened on your doorstep and was played out for the world to see.
He tamped down on his fury as his mother reached out.
‘Which brings me to the next housekeeping problem.’ She opened a slim folder and slid it across the desk.
And there, displayed in full Technicolor, was the latest source of his mother’s angst.
Jules Montegova.
The surly half-brother who’d been presented to them moments after his father’s burial. The twenty-eight-year-old whose paternity had been proven via a discreet DNA test, to be royal, courtesy of an illicit affair his father had indulged in when he had briefly been stationed in Paris on diplomatic duty.
Jules was the scandal that had nearly unsettled the kingdom. The paparazzi had gone on a feeding frenzy for months, prising open every closet they could find in the hope of unearthing more skeletons.
It would have been easier to stomach had Jules not proved to be nothing but a thorn in their sides from the moment he’d arrived in Montegova ten years ago.
Remi scanned the picture, his jaw clenching as he noted the glassy eyes, the dishevelment, the slurred expression of drunkenness. ‘What has he done now?’ he bit out.
Queen Isadora’s mouth twisted. ‘A less aggravating question would be what hasn’t he done? Three weeks ago it was reckless gambling in Monte Carlo, then he flew to Paris and carried on gambling