She just about dropped in relief when she heard Matteo’s voice and wrenched open the door.
He saw her terror.
‘I thought...’
‘Sorry, sorry...’ He took her straight in his arms. ‘I should have called.’
‘I thought you were on the yacht.’
‘I couldn’t get it up.’
He was so crude and yet he made her laugh.
‘I didn’t even try,’ he admitted and then, because he was holding her, because they had missed each other, for even as his mouth moved to hers Abby was reaching for him and they kissed intensely, hurriedly, before logic moved in, before they thought of the many reasons they should not. His arm curled around her waist as he pulled her in. The fear that had gripped her turned to angry passion and as she kissed him back Abby pushed Matteo’s jacket down and it fell to the floor. She didn’t care about tomorrow when she could have tonight. ‘Abby...’ She was opening the buttons to his shirt, her mind made up, yet Matteo refused to give her even a moment to regret and he peeled his mouth away. ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘You don’t.’
They were panting, both breathless, and she didn’t need to hear now that he didn’t love her and never would.
‘Abby,’ Matteo said. ‘You do deserve better than this.’
She did, because he was hard and his hands were bunched into the gown so as not to tear it off and they could be over and done with—Abby up against the wall, he could be taking her now—but he would not allow another morning between them like the last one, where the air was awkward and the conversation wooden. He would not do that to her.
‘We need to talk.’
‘Said the playboy.’ And then she saw that he was in as much of a mess as she, Abby realised. ‘Matteo, I don’t need to hear it. I know we’re going nowhere.’
‘And I’m trying to tell you why it has to be that way.’
It was possibly the most responsible decision in his life and regrettable at that because there was so much energy and want between them that it felt almost criminal to pull back. His shirt was undone and damp from her wet hair but he took a seat beside the desk as Abby straightened out her robe and then took a seat at the desk in front of her laptop. ‘It’s like a doctor’s visit,’ he said and she smiled but they were both hurting so much that their smiles didn’t last. ‘I know you should be asleep but I needed to say this. I really do have to leave tomorrow straight after the race so if I don’t say it now...’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘A bit.’ He nodded. ‘Look, you know how everyone says, “It’s not you, it’s me”?’ he said and now Abby really smiled.
‘Well, in this case it is me,’ she said. ‘I have more baggage...’
‘No,’ Matteo interrupted. ‘It really is me.’ He took a breath before continuing. He had never fully had this conversation in his head, let alone with another. ‘I made a decision a few years ago...’
‘You don’t have to do this, Matteo,’ Abby said because she could see his discomfort and reluctance to reveal more of himself.
‘I want to though,’ Matteo admitted. ‘I know that you’ve got baggage and I don’t want you thinking that my reluctance to get involved with you had anything to do with what’s gone on between us, or that what’s happened to you in the past has any bearings on my choice. You’re right, you should hold out for someone who can give you all that you deserve and I truly can’t. I don’t want a relationship.’
‘I know,’ Abby said, yet there was this tiny part that hoped one day he might change his mind.
He answered it there and then.
‘Ever.’
There wasn’t even a sound as that little flame died; she just silently acknowledged its passing.
‘My father had a lot of affairs,’ Matteo said. ‘I don’t even know if you could call them affairs. Just one-night stands, parties, drugs, alcohol...’ He closed his eyes as he had to the drama all those years ago, but then he had been lying in bed listening to the fights; now he was doing his best to block out thoughts of a beautiful future with Abby. ‘You never knew what you were going to get,’ Matteo explained. ‘I never knew who would be there in the morning—Mom, Dad, neither. Sometimes, for days on end it was just the nanny. Really, the older ones looked out for the younger...’ He wasn’t explaining this very well. ‘I always knew that in the morning they might not be there. One morning they weren’t but this time it was different. My grandfather was there as well as other relatives and outside there were reporters. But I knew already—I used to sleep with the radio on, I liked the voices and the music—I’d heard it on the news...’
Abby sat there.
She could remember the shock of her mother’s death. It had been expected. She had been older but she could still remember the shock and finality of it.
Imagine losing both at five and to hear it read out as a headline on the news?
She tried to but couldn’t quite grasp it.
‘There was a huge funeral. The press were everywhere and it was on the television constantly, as I expected it to be,’ Matteo said. ‘It was the biggest news in my life and because I was five I actually thought that it should be everywhere...’ He gave a wry smile. ‘You know how small your world is when you’re a child?’
Abby nodded.
‘But then we went to live at my grandfather’s and life went on but it had changed. The older ones all went off to boarding school and Allegra looked after my little sisters.’
‘You?’
‘I just did what I wanted and I was always getting into trouble but never really told off. I never got why my grandfather could hardly bear to look at me. No matter what I did, no matter how much trouble I got into, he hardly addressed me.’
‘I thought you two were close.’
‘We’re not close, but we’re closer now than we were.’ Matteo nodded. ‘While I was growing up he just stayed back. I started studying and after a year I realised I already knew how to make money. I had my start-up from my parents’ estate, but I didn’t need to sit in a lecture and be taught what I already knew and so I dropped out.’ He looked up at Abby and he told her about a row that repeated in his head to this very moment. ‘For the first time my grandfather got angry with me. We had a huge row. He told me I was wasting my life, I was heading for trouble and that he’d seen the signs, should have stepped in earlier...’
Abby swallowed.
‘“But you didn’t,” I said to him. I told him he had never cared about me so why start to worry now? I told him that I knew he couldn’t stand to be near me. I just didn’t know why.’
Abby sat quietly, remembering Matteo’s patience when she had told him what had happened in her past.
‘My grandfather said, “Every time I look at you I see Benito.”’
‘Your father?’
Matteo nodded. ‘He told me that I was just like him. A gambler, a liar, a risk-taker. He said that I was on track for disaster and he was tired of sitting back and watching history repeat...’
‘Matteo.’ Abby wouldn’t buy it. ‘Just because...’
‘Abby,’ Matteo interrupted her. ‘I am all of those things. When my grandfather said what he did, it just confirmed what I already knew. I decided then that I would never let myself be like my father. Yes, I might have his traits but I won’t get so involved with another that I’m capable of coming close to the damage that