Mateo nodded slowly, still looking less than pleased. ‘I suppose so.’
He didn’t sound convinced and Rachel laid a hand on his arm. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, Mateo?’
He hesitated, his lowered gaze on her hand still resting on his arm. ‘The insurgents are still active,’ he admitted after a moment.
‘But in the north...’
‘Yes, but it isn’t that far away.’
Nerves fluttered in Rachel’s stomach at his grim tone. ‘Surely they’re not in the bazaar?’ she asked, trying for a light tone and almost managing it.
Mateo was silent for a long moment, his gaze still lowered. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then I’ll be fine.’ She looked at him directly, willing him to meet her gaze. When he did, the look on his face—a mixture of resolution and despair—made her want to put her arms around him. Tell him she wouldn’t go.
But then his lips curved in a quick smile and he nodded. ‘It will be fine, I’m sure. I’ll see you later today, for dinner.’
‘All right.’ He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and as Rachel watched him walk away she had a strange, tumbling sensation that she forced herself to banish. Mateo’s worries were just that—worries. Worries of a king who cared too much, who had lost people before. She was just going to the city’s bazaar; she’d be surrounded by security. And really, she should be pleased that Mateo cared so much. Another sign, she wondered, that he was coming to love her? Or just wishful thinking?
An hour later Rachel had banished all her concerns as well as Mateo’s as she entered the colourful bazaar with its rickety stalls and colourful banners. She spent an enjoyable hour meeting with the female stallholders and chatting about the goods they sold—handmade batik cloth; small honey cakes dotted with sesame seeds; hand-tooled leather wallets and purses.
She was impressed by their ingenuity and determination, and charmed by their ready smiles and cheerful demeanour. They faced far more challenges than she ever had, and yet they’d kept their heads as well as their smiles.
She was just saying goodbye when she felt the heavy hand of one of her security guards, Matthias, on her shoulder.
‘Your Royal Highness, we need to go.’
‘We’re not in a rush—’ Rachel began, only to have Matthias grip her elbow firmly and start to hustle her through the crowds and alleyways of the baza
ar.
‘There is a disturbance.’
‘A disturbance—?’ Rachel began, craning her neck to see what he meant.
In her six weeks as a royal, she’d become used to being guarded, even as she’d believed it to be unnecessary. There had never been any ‘disturbances’, and the unrest Mateo spoke of in the north was nothing more than a vague idea.
Now, as she saw Matthias with one hand on her elbow, one hand on the pistol at his hip, she felt a flicker of the kind of fear she’d never experienced before.
This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. It felt as impossible as Mateo’s proposal, as her arrival in Kallyria, as her over-the-top wedding. Just another moment that she couldn’t compute in this crazy life of hers.
‘Get her in the car,’ Matthias growled into his mouthpiece, and Rachel saw another guard emerge from behind an SUV with blacked-out windows, and Matthias started to hand her off.
Then she heard a sizzle and a crack and the next thing she knew the world had exploded.
* * *
Mateo could not ignore the tension banding his temples and tightening his gut as he tried to focus on the briefing one of his cabinet ministers was giving.
There was no reason to feel particularly anxious about Rachel’s visit to the bazaar, but he did. Maybe it was a sixth sense. Maybe it was just paranoia. Or maybe it was the fact that he was finally acknowledging to himself that he cared about Rachel. Hell, he might even love her, and this was the result. This gut-twisting fear. This sense that he could never relax, never rest, never even breathe.
Love was fear. Love was failure. Love was dealing with both for ever, and it was why, after his experience with Cressida, he’d chosen never to pursue that dangerous, deadly emotion again. Yet like the worst of enemies, it had come for him anyway.
‘Your Highness...’
Mateo blinked the minister back into focus, realising he’d stopped speaking some moments ago, and everyone was waiting for him to respond.
‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly, shuffling some papers in front of him, hating how distracted he was. How he couldn’t stop thinking of Rachel, for good or ill, for better or worse. Just like the marriage vows he’d made.