DANYL CLUTCHED THE glass of whisky in a death grip. He didn’t know whether he wanted to hurl it across his office or crush it between his fingers. She had gone again. Despite all that they had shared in the last day, despite everything that had passed between them...despite his love for her...she had still left.
‘You should probably put that glass down before you hurt yourself.’
‘And you should probably both stop hovering in palace doorways,’ Danyl said to Antonio and Dimitri.
He watched as they gingerly stepped over the threshold into his office.
‘Really? It’s my turn now?’ he asked, seeing their faces grim with determination. ‘Antonio, you got coffee... Dimitri, whisky. What do I get?’
‘Me.’ His mother’s voice cut into the dark swirl of emotions surrounding him.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ she said, nodding to Antonio and Dimitri.
‘Your Majesty,’ they murmured in unison as Elizabeth bestowed upon them a beautiful smile, and they retreated from the room.
Danyl was too angry to roll his eyes.
‘You shouldn’t flirt with them. They’re married men, or as good as.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ his mother said lightly, her tone serving only to aggravate him more.
He put the glass of whisky down, leaving a golden ring on the Prime Minister’s white paper.
‘She has gone?’
‘Yes, she has. Again.’ His mother opened her mouth to say something, but he pushed on, not wanting either questions or hypothetical explanations. ‘Mother, I don’t have time for this. I need to meet with the Prime Minister.’
‘I think that can wait.’
‘Don’t be silly. I won’t make the Prime Minister wait.’
‘Don’t call me silly.’ An icy edge had entered his mother’s tone. The one that always made him sit up and listen. ‘I am not just your mother. I am the Queen, and I have been doing this a lot longer than you, Danyl Nejem Al Arain. Of course you can make him wait. There are some things more important, and there are some things that can wait.’
In spite of all that Danyl felt, a streak of pride cut through him as he saw his mother as the regal, powerful woman she was.
‘Perhaps it’s been a while since I saw you as Queen and not just my mother,’ he said, allowing a small, sad smile to pull at the edges of his mouth.
‘Perhaps it’s been a while since you let me be Queen and not just your mother,’ she said, gesturing for him to take a seat as if this were her office and not his.
He chose to ignore the fact that with him seated, and her perched on the edge of his table, he felt once again like a small child.
‘I want to talk about when you came back from America.’
An ache opened up in his chest, and he was surprised to feel it keenly after all the pains of the last few hours. ‘Not now,’ he ground out.
‘I think now is absolutely the right time, after all these years. I kept my silence back then, and perhaps I shouldn’t have. When you came back from the States, you were not the same boy who had left. You weren’t just changed by age, but by experience.’
‘A lot happened there.’
‘I know,’ she said quietly, solemnly.
‘I don’t think you do.’
‘I do know, Danyl. You’re my son. I am neither blind, nor stupid. And neither are the staff we paid to take care of you and watch over you.’
Shock rippled through Danyl, and as he looked into his mother’s eyes he saw compassion, understanding and grief. ‘I am so sorry about what happened to you. I’m so sorry about what happened to you both. I can’t...’ she said, her eyes bright with the sheen of tears. ‘I can’t begin to understand it. I can imagine... I know what the fear of it feels like. But to lose a child, even so early on—’
Danyl put up a hand to ward off her words, just as Mason had done to him. The sympathy, the simple comfort that his mother was ready to offer... It was almost too much.