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CHAPTER ONE
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID
What on earth had she done? Maria had fled the opulent ballroo and shivering at the devastation she’d seen in both his and his fiancée’s eyes, the moment she’d accidentally revealed Theo’s plans to leave Sofia at the altar Theo Tersi—the ht she’d loved for nearly six years
But, she hadn’t She’d realised it the aged couple Nothing she’d ever felt for Theo had engendered that ful of air around the tears that were now freefalling from her cheeks Tears for them, for herself Because she knew that she’d destroyed so for herself for so, so long Knew that what she’d thought she’d felt for Theo was nothing more than the desperate need tobe loved?
She cursed herself for that weakness Part of her desperately wanted to go back, to find Sofia and explain, to apologise to Theobut truly she feared she’d doone step forward and one back, collapsed onto the soft grass banking the s out beneath the night sky
She resisted the urge to peek into the depths of the water, reluctant to see ould be reflected back at her Her hand grasped the cool glass neck of the bottle of cha as she’d hurled words that threatened to sever the bond between two people who very clearly loved each other She’d never much had a taste for the stuff, but if there was ever a tiet blind drunk, at twenty-two years old, Maria decided that surely noas it
Part of her was conscious that she was on the verge of over-indulging in self-pity, and the other part wanted to punish, believing that she didn’t even deserve that selfish act Not after what she’d just done
Theo, her older brother’s best friend, had looe in her life, ever since her sixteenth birthday Sebastian and Theo had become almost instantly joined at the hip after a mutually beneficial business deal and there wasn’t a family memory in the last six years that didn’t have theht’s use of the word ‘fahteen months And she was fine with that In some ways they factored so little in her day to day life that occasionally a randoht or memory would catch her by surprise and remind her of them
She wondered what her father would think of her and what had just happened He’d probably give her that gaze, the one that said he wasn’t really seeing her, but another woly that he’d not been able to recover from the loss of her Then he’d almost start when Maria would speak because it only served to show that she wasn’t her ht have looked
She had nothing else of her mother, no memories, no heirlooms—Valeria, her stepmother, had seen to that—save but one necklace The one she wore, always, even though it served as both an anchor and a ho her life
So no, while exiled Duke Eduardo Rohan de Luen would have been as ineffectual as always on the subject of what had just happened, Valeria would have sniffed in conte that she’d always known ‘that boy’, Theo Tersi, would cause nothing but trouble
And Theo’s criiven Sebastian for the drastic measures he’d had to take to save their family froht, Eduardo had doubled down on an incredibly risky oil investment in the Middle East and lost not only his ownto otherand shameful moment that had seen the Rohan de Luens exiled from Spain, yet allowed to keep their hereditary title
The only thing that had kept thehteen, had taken control of the financial purse strings and done as needed This included selling off alle piece of property and valuable item that wasn’t nailed down And for a woe and money, Valeria hadn’t taken it well at all
For Maria? It hadto Italy froain But in her heart, she’d known that the dae was already done Suddenly unsure about even the s in life, Maria had withdrawn
fro instead to lose herself in her art and sculpture
Until London’s Cae of Arts had accepted her on a foundation course, and she’d fallen utterly in love with the place, the people and the freedom she’d found away froree, the little flat-share she lived in Now, sitting on the bank of the river, all she wanted was to be back there
She groaned out loud into the night sky and pressed the heels of her palms into the orbs of her eyes
Oh, God, what had she done?
‘Is this seat taken?’