A Muse Her

Chapter 37

Mateo pressed a kiss to Maia's head watching her sleep. She was so exhausted after they had lunch that instead of the afternoon of erotic indulgence he'd planned, he ended up giving her a massage and she'd been fast asleep ever since which was probably for the best. Maia clearly needed to rest and he had some business he still needed to take care of.

Getting out of the bed, Mateo tucked the blanket around her and pressed another kiss to her cheek before he slipped out of their room to his study down the hall. He sighed, sitting at his desk and opened a secure folder on his computer to read over the intel Willem and Lars hacked from his brother's not so secret server he shares with his council loyalists.

Things were far worse than he expected with Jorien and his ties with Arnaud Haro's conglomerate weren't a recent development like he thought. Jorien had been planning to sell out Oost den Burg to Arnaud behind their father's back and under Mateo's nose for nearly five years.

And to make matters worse, Jorien and Gesina had been planning this together. Their father had it all wrong, Gesina wasn't Jorien's trophy wife and they're very much in love. So, Mateo's plan to help Jorien see the value of love to be a better king and get him out of the deals he was making with Arnaud was utterly pointless.

Jorien and Gesina knew exactly what they were doing and they were happy to use Saskia to get Mateo out of the way for their take over of the kingdom.

Mateo dragged a hand over his face. Now he truly had to decide if he wanted to leave them to it or stay and fight for his country.

"How bad is it?"

Mateo looked over his computer at Eline leaning against the doorframe with a worried look in her bright blue eyes. "How bad is what?"

"Don't do that, Mateo," she said, walking into the room. "You know what I'm talking about. I'm not stupid." She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "How bad is Jorien about to mess up this country?"

"Well." He sighed. "It won't be bad for you or any of the wealthy Burgonians, but the majority of our people will be forced to leave or live in the slums."

Eline raised an eyebrow. "The slums that don't exist and haven't existed since the eighteen hundreds?"

"Yes."

Eline scoffed, shaking her head. "And what are you and father going to do about this?"

"Father is leaving it up to me and I...I don't know what I'm going to do, Eline," he said, dragging his hands through his hair. "I thought it was a case of saving Jorien from this, but he and Gesina want this and they planted Saskia in my life to get me out of the picture."

Eline slid a hand over her mouth. "Oh fuck," she whispered, plopping down in the chair in front of his desk. "That rumor was true?"

"Mm-hm. I still don't know who started it, but that's besides the point."

"I did."

Mateo's eyes grew wide. "What?"

"I just wanted everyone to stop talking shit about you and I was pissed that Jorien was so happy you were gone," Eline said, hanging her head. "So, I started the rumor about him sabotaging you, but I never thought Jorien would do something like that."

"Neither did I, but Eline," Mateo said laughing softly as he reached across the desk to take her hand. "If you didn't start that rumor, I don't think we ever would've found out what Jorien and Gesina were up to."

"You're welcome I guess, but what are you going to do?" Eline said, squeezing his hand. "You've never wanted to be king and I know you don't want to drag Maia into our family's mess, but can you really leave the people to suffer under Jorien and Gesina?"