‘After the funerals, I missed most of the press furore. Malcolm and the hospital managed to keep it away from me then. So I wasn’t prepared for what happened. But I need you to be.’
‘What happened, Matthieu?’
Matthieu blew out a breath. Resenting that he was about to open this wound for her, but knowing that it was better than the deeper hurt. Better than the hurt that he’d just locked behind the steel trap in his mind. ‘Do you know how I first earned my reputation as a beast? The scars were one thing, but I was seventeen the first time they coined that phrase.’ He turned then, because he needed her to see.
She was staring up at him, so small, so perfect, so fragile.
‘Malcolm had wanted me to have something of a normal life,’ he explained. A cynical huff of laughter escaped his lungs and bled hurt into the air between them. ‘By seventeen I was finally well enough to attend school, but it was difficult. I’d been amongst adults, nurses, doctors, and private teachers for six years by that point. I had very little experience of being around people my age. Teenagers who had already formed friend groups and cliques. So I kept to myself. Head down, studied. Because of my private education I was put ahead a year and was already an oddity, and the scars? They proved more of a curiosity amongst the students than I had ever imagined. When one of the prettiest girls in the school asked me to help her with her studies, I...’ He spared barely a sigh for the naïve young boy he’d been then. ‘I had thought she might be different. When I realised that she was flirting with me, I was astounded, eager...desperate even.’ He closed his eyes against the memories of those naïve fumblings, the sting of anger towards Clara never having gone away. Instead, turning into a lesson he revisited whenever he felt weak.
The self-recrimination, the humiliation of how innocent he had been was like a knife twisting in his gut. But he had to continue. Maria had to understand. ‘In such a short time, she’d orchestrated my feelings like a maestro. I thought myself half in love and would have given her anything. She was very clear on what she wanted from me, and I knew no better. Until that point, no one had seen my scars. I had never done any sports, worn my school jumper even in the heights of summer. I should have known,’ he said more to himself than to Maria. He turned away, casting his gaze into the night, but couldn’t avoid the reflection of her face in the glass window. He could tell that she had a sense of what he was about to say. Could see, feel even, the sympathy, the concern, passing from herself to him. He shook it off and pressed on.
‘She had a camera. I didn’t know. She and her friends had been approached by an unscrupulous journalist who had offered them an obscene amount of money for a picture of me. But that wasn’t enough for Clara. She arranged a greater pay-out for an accompanying article about how I had seduced her and tried to take advantage of her. About how I had grown angry when she wouldn’t do what I wanted. A harsh irony because I had been the one to refuse to sleep with her, wanting to take things slowly. As if being rejected by a beast like me had burned her ego. Malcolm had an injunction taken out, the article didn’t make publication, but it was too late. Rumours filled the school, reaching the parents, reaching the press...the damage had been done.’
* * *
Maria was shaking. With fury, with injustice... For the first time she felt like the beast, wanting to lash out and destroy. That such a thing had been done to him. That he had been so badly misused and betrayed, on top of the devastation that he had already experienced. Suddenly memories of their first night together crashed down upon her. It must have taken so much for him to give into her request It must have taken trust. A trust that she hadn’t earned then, but wanted to now. She wanted him to see what she saw.
‘I am truly sorry that happened to you.’
He shrugged his shoulder, as if dismissing her and the compassion she offered. But she wouldn’t be dismissed. Not this time. She turned him around to face her and waited until he met her eyes.
‘But you need to know that I did not and do not see you as a beast. And...’ She paused, hoping that Matthieu would understand, would believe her next words. ‘And I think you should also know that not all the posts on your phone, not all the press reports, do either.’
He scoffed and turned back away from her. She didn’t need his phone to remember the other headlines.
Montcour Finds Happiness.
Montcour’s Charity a Resounding Success.
Millions Raised by Montcour.
‘Matthieu—did you ever think that the reason the press are so interested in you is not because of the scars, or your reputation, or the loss of your family, but because you survived? Because you turned something truly terrible into something amazing? A charity that gives back to those that need it?’
Disbelief and something painfully like hope shone in his eyes. It gave her the strength to carry on.
‘That they aren’t horrified, but amazed by how well you’ve done for yourself?’
He frowned and in that moment she wondered whether he had even seen those particular headlines amongst the dross that had spewed onto social media.
She could see him trying to assimilate what she had said into how he had spent years of his life viewing the negative headlines about him and what he’d achieved. She could almost feel the war within him as he tried to reframe the image of himself, not through the bitter lens of the desperate press, but as how she saw him, as how others might. But before she could tell what conclusion he had come to, he shut down. She could almost hear the door closing on his thoughts.
‘I am going to bed.’
And he left her standing alone in the middle of the large open space, concrete and soft white leather, so stark in comparison to the way his entire being had become her sole focus, the large, heated breath of his body... She couldn’t leave it like that. Couldn’t just let him walk away. He was in pain, that she could see clearly. For a while she simply stood there, wanting to go to him, not sure if she had that right. But if she didn’t, she saw how their future would be—two isolated and lonely people sharing the same space, the same love for a child, but not together. If she let him go this night, she suddenly felt that she would lose Matthieu for ever.
She followed the path he had taken up the stairs to the bedrooms, the one she had been allocated all the way at the other end of the house—as if as far away from him as possible. But she would not retreat, would not hide, would not abandon him tonight.
She pushed open the door to his room, the one she had never been in or seen. For a moment she was plunged back to the night they had spent in Iondorra. His room was just as large, almost big enough to contain the entire flat she had shared with Evin and Anita in Camberwell.
It was beautiful. The bed jutted out, as if floating inches above the floor, the frame and headboard made from reclaimed oak, warming the incredible breadth of the side wall that met floor-to-ceiling windows framed in black, making the most of the stunning view of Lake Lucerne, even in the night time. It must be incredible in the morning, Maria thought. Either side of the inconceivably large bed hung a series of metal tubes, like huge wind-chimes, glowing gently with discreet lighting. Behind her the entire wall was encased in antique mirror, flooding her mind with shockingly sensual thoughts as to what might be seen from the bed, bringing an almost painful blush to her cheeks.
From the corner of the room was a corridor that must have led immediately into the bathroom, because she could hear the sounds of water streaming from a shower, traces of steam tinged with the scent of lemon grass reached where she stood.
She slipped off her shoes and made her way towards the shower, swirls and twists in the steam beckoning her forth. The long swathes of heavy silky material sweeping behind her bare feet made a gentle brushing sound that barely reached her ears.
As she rounded the corner, the sight took her breath away. Hidden lighting illuminated the space in long strips, copper taps and accents warmed the grey tones of the concrete, and the glass-fronted shower unit, large enough for more people than Maria dared to imagine in a shower, was only partially misted. Behind the glass she could see Matthieu, his head bent under the powerful jets of water, his arms outstretched against the wall as if he was bracing himself against the emotions of that night. For just a moment she allowed herself to watch as the water cascaded over the stunning breadth of his shoulders, the way it twisted over his muscles, as if it clung to his skin until it had traversed as much of the length of him as possible. Her fingers itched to follow its path across his skin, back and down to his legs and calves. She had never been so enthralled by a man—not even her naïve crush on Theo had been this devastating.
She fumbled with the fastening at the back of her dress but her fingers caught against the clasp and the urgency to go to him increased with each heartbeat to the point where she couldn’t care less about the dress. Refusing to waste any time, she reached for the handle and swept aside the glass, catching his image in the reflection and noting that Matthieu’s only reaction was a raised eyebrow, nothing else. Not even a turn of his head, not even the stiffening of his shoulders. Just a simple wry questioning gesture that barely acknowledged her presence.