They ate delectable seafood and their fingers met in the fragrant bowls and they flirted a little but more than that they talked and they celebrated her win.
‘Pedro’s happy,’ Matteo said.
‘For now.’ Abby nodded. ‘I’ve been watching him for years, since he was about sixteen. I know he’s good and that he’s thrilled with the win but he’s not going to hang around for long and I can’t blame him for that.’
‘Is that why it has to be this year that you win the Henley Cup?’
That being Hunter.
Abby hesitated and then nodded.
‘He retires this year. I want my revenge,’ she admitted. ‘I know it’s supposed to be healthier to forgive...’
Matteo snorted, which told her what he thought of that!
‘You’re going to do it,’ he said. ‘But if not this year, there’s still next. Don’t make your life about him.’
‘I know.’
‘Concentrate on keeping Pedro sweet,’ Matteo said. ‘Spoil him. You’ve got winnings now.’
‘He placed fifth here last year,’ Abby said. ‘It was our first race and he should have been way back but, like today, something happened. He’s a genius and now everyone really knows it.’ She told Matteo something. ‘The next night, after he placed fifth, he took me out for dinner. He was just twenty then and I’m his manager and yet he got the bill and I knew that I was being served notice. He told me that he’d already been approached by the Lachance team. We came to a deal and I asked for this year, for the Henley Cup.’
‘Things are different now,’ Matteo said. ‘He’s part of a winning team and it is a team—a progressive one. The Lachance mob are sticking to the same old formulas. Remind him of that.’
‘I shall,’ Abby agreed. ‘Pedro wants to take you for a spin when we get to Milan.’
‘No, thank you,’ Matteo said, and Abby raised her eyes in surprise. She had thought, given his daredevil nature, that he would jump at the chance, but he’d shaken his head at the offer.
‘Thanks for today.’ Abby addressed what she had to, glad that it was getting darker and so he hopefully couldn’t see that her face was on fire.
‘For what?’
‘I’ve never had a panic attack before, not a full-blown one. I thought I was going to die.’
‘I told you that you wouldn’t.’
‘You said that your sister got them?’
Matteo nodded but said no more.
‘I didn’t expect to react like that. I’ve seen him around before, of course.’
Matteo didn’t like that and he frowned.
‘We’re on tour at the same time,’ Abby pointed out. ‘I always make sure that we’re in separate hotels. I only really see him trackside and usually I’m fine. Well, not fine exactly but I’ve never had that happen to me.’
‘He was angry today,’ Matteo said. ‘Even if he was trying to hide it.’
‘Yes.’
‘And I would expect that brought some stuff up for you.’
‘I guess,’ Abby said. ‘I hate how he’s messed me up.’
‘Messed up?’ Matteo checked. ‘Hardly! Your team just won—you’re coming into your own.’
‘You know what I mean.’ She had said way more than she had wanted to today but she had said it—there had been no one since Hunter.
‘It’s just a matter of time,’ Matteo said.
‘It’s been nine years!’
He actually grinned. ‘How the hell do you sleep?’ he asked. ‘I need a drink or sex, preferably both.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You’re not frigid. Had there not been one hundred thousand people watching on, I could have had you this afternoon.’
‘Exceptional circumstances!’ Abby said.
He just spoke about it in such a matter-of-fact way that it made the world a bit nicer but she shook her head at the impossibility. ‘He seriously messed with my head.’
‘We’re all messed up, Abby.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Of course I am. My whole family are.’
‘Because your parents died?’ Abby asked.
‘Because of how they lived.’
It was Abby who didn’t know what to say now.
Matteo never opened up to anyone. He could talk for hours and still reveal little about himself but with all she had told him today, well, it seemed wrong to hold back. He looked at her, so stunning on the outside and so churned up within, and it felt unfair to let her think that the polished, carefree man who sat before her didn’t have dark memories of his own.
‘Do you know why I said no to Pedro taking me for a spin?’
She shook her head.
‘Because the thought of having someone drive me around at high speed makes me ill.’
‘But riding a thoroughbred racehorse doesn’t?’ Abby frowned.
‘When I was five my father woke me up in the middle of the night. Now, when I look back, he was high on cocaine but I didn’t know about drugs then. I just knew there were times we avoided him and that this was one of those times. He’d won a car.’ Matteo sat there for a moment and remembered his bewilderment at being woken up. ‘We had loads of cars, but no, he had to show me this one. He took me into the garage and I remember that the car was silver. He told me how fast it went and just all this stuff and then he told me to climb in. I did...’ He looked at Abby, and Matteo was probably more confused in hindsight than he had been at the time. ‘Do you know, he didn’t even check if I was belted in? He just revved that engine and took off.’
‘To where?’ Abby asked.
‘Everywhere,’ Matteo said. ‘It was the longest night of my life, changing lanes, swerving, all the lights blurring. I wet myself,’ Matteo admitted. ‘He just kept going faster. He was laughing and shouting. I swear I knew we were going to die that night but somehow we made it home. A few weeks later there was a huge fight and my father got loaded. My mother got in the car, apparently to sort things out once and for all. They say the car skidded out of control but I always wonder...’
‘If she was as scared as you had been?’
‘Yep,’ Matteo said. ‘She’d got clean by then, well, apart from spending...’ He saw her slight frown. ‘Believe me, I almost wish she hadn’t though. I can’t stand the thought that she might have been as sober and as scared as I was that night.’
‘What do your brothers and sisters say?’
‘There are some things that you just don’t discuss. We talk about other things, but the past is there—we all know it. I’m sure they have their own memories and issues. I’ve never told anyone about that night.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘So, no—tell Pedro thanks but no thanks. I shan’t be taking him up on his offer.’
He tipped the last of the champagne into her glass.
‘Enough of the sad stuff,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating.’
They danced on the beach, a lovely long, slow dance, and Abby was celebrating not just the win, nor that she was out in her sexy silver dress and necklace, drinking champagne and relaxed, but turned on in his arms. But that this emotionally elusive man