Chapter 22 #2
‘I think you can relax, Mateo. You’ve been playing so brilliantly, every team is going to be begging you to join them next season.’
‘I didn’t play well yesterday. I let my emotions get the better of me,’ he says, troubled.
I feel a stab of guilt. ‘I’m so sorry you lost.’
He brings his eyes up to meet mine. ‘I’m not sure I did.’
As I blush furiously, he offers me the plate of pastries and I select a croissant.
‘If I’m on a team for Argentina, I’ll be happy,’ he adds.
‘Is Argentina the big one?’
He nods slowly. ‘It’s the big one. It’s nerve-racking. Very fast, very aggressive – the best players in the world. There’s a lot of pressure.’
‘Uh-huh, I know how that feels,’ I say, liberally buttering my croissant with a solid silver knife. ‘I mean, the grooms’ match is on the horizon. Talk about high stakes.’
My sarcasm makes him chuckle. Satisfied, I bite into the pastry. It’s so delicious and warm and buttery, I suddenly feel more devoted to this croissant than anything else.
‘Oh. My. God,’ I cry as I chew, holding the rest of the pastry in my hand aloft.
He quirks a brow. ‘Good croissant?’
I swallow the mouthful in disbelief. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of bullshit croissants have they been feeding us back home?’
He bursts out laughing.
‘I’m serious!’ I insist, my lips curving into a smug smile at his reaction.
He’s so calm and serious a lot of the time that I love making him laugh.
It’s like a shell exterior cracking and revealing the gooey centre beneath.
‘This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever tasted.
It’s so warm and soft and buttery. Mateo, we’re going to need to snaffle a bunch of these.
How many do you reckon you can fit in your bag?
I don’t even have a jacket, so you’re going to have to shoulder a lot of the work. ’
‘You want us to steal pastries from the Ritz Paris?’
‘Yes. Have you tried one of these? I can’t casually eat this croissant now and be expected to simply walk away knowing that they exist in this magical hotel while I’m going about my life across the sea. I’m not asking much. Just sweep that platter into one of your bags and we’re golden.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he begins, his eyes twinkling at me, ‘how about we come back here to Paris together whenever you want and we can stay here and you can eat all the croissants you like? I think that’s a better plan than stuffing pastries in my bag.’
I swallow my mouthful. ‘We can come back to Paris whenever I want, huh?’
‘Whenever you want,’ he repeats, gazing at me. ‘Although I’d rather avoid the weekends of the big tournaments. Otherwise, you say the word and we’re right back here.’
‘That’s quite the offer. One craving for croissants and you’d whisk me away to Paris.’
‘Ash,’ he says, inhaling deeply, ‘I’d whisk you away anywhere you want to go.’
Wiping my hands with a cloth napkin, I smile bashfully at the sentiment, but the memory of Chris flashes across my brain, and apparently, I don’t do a very good job at hiding the stab of worry that accompanies it. Mateo’s expression falls and he frowns in concern.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’
He wiggles a finger at my face. ‘The line in between your eyebrows. There it is. If something has upset you, I’d like to know if you’d like to tell me.’
‘This conversation reminded me of a similar one I had a while ago, that’s all.’
His frown deepens. ‘Chris Courtney?’
‘Sorry. I don’t want to ruin this amazing moment talking about him.’
‘You wouldn’t ruin anything by telling me what you’re thinking or how you’re feeling,’ Mateo urges, reaching over to take my hand in his and bring it to his mouth, his lips grazing across my knuckles, warm flutters erupting in my stomach as I watch him.
‘I want to know if you want to talk about it.’
‘Not really,’ I say with a nervous laugh. ‘He promised to take me to Paris, but it was only meaningless words. It was hard to tell.’
Mateo listens and then sighs as I finish. ‘If I ever see that boy…’
I snort. ‘What? You’ll beat him up?’
‘If I have the chance, yes,’ he growls so darkly, my smirk vanishes. I believe him.
‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to,’ I say, squeezing his fingers and pulling my hand away to pick up my coffee again. ‘He’s nothing to me now, so none of it matters.’
Mateo’s whole face changes at my words. He goes from vengeful warrior to hopeful golden retriever in a split second and it’s mind-blowingly cute. It makes me want to jump on him and kiss him until our lips bleed.
‘Good,’ he says, reaching for his own coffee. ‘I’m pleased you feel that way. And if you have any doubts, I understand, but you will soon see that I don’t want anyone but you. Give me a chance to prove myself with actions. Not just words.’
‘You did a good job at erasing most of my doubts last night. And this morning,’ I add, smiling into my cup, trying to hide my furious blushing at his statement.
‘I think I see a doubt or two still left in you, though, so we should probably stay here all day working on them.’
‘Probably. In fact, now that I think about it, I have quite a few doubts left.’
‘That sounds serious. Better make it a couple of days.’
‘Maybe a week.’
‘Maybe a month. You know what, make it a year. Let’s just move in here.’
We smile mischievously at each other until he breaks into a laugh. I sip my coffee triumphantly. He sighs.
‘I can’t believe how much you went through because of him. All those things that were written in the press. You are so resilient and strong. I’m in awe of you.’
‘Surely not at the beginning. You didn’t want me in the stables.’
‘I was worried you didn’t know what you were doing, but I still thought you were the most extraordinary woman I’d ever met,’ he says casually whilst ladling some fruit into a bowl, as though he hasn’t just said something so wonderful, it’s winded me.
‘You didn’t care what people thought. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever had to suffer.
I couldn’t take my eyes off you, so I had to force myself to.
Otherwise you’d have thought I was creepy, staring at you all day.
Christ, when you were half-naked in the tack room on the first day, I didn’t know what I was going to do. ’
‘It was so embarrassing.’
‘No,’ he counters. ‘It was torture.’
I smile down at my lap, admitting quietly, ‘I did care what people thought when I started at Maycourt. I do care.’
He doesn’t say anything, waiting for me to expand.
‘I care what people think of me. I’ve had to train myself to put up a shield to it.
I wouldn’t have survived the fashion industry without it.
My mum’s always been good at that and I admire that about her; I think I’ve tried to emulate it.
But it still hurts, feeling like an outsider.
I’ve felt like that a lot, especially this year.
The truth is, I act tough but everyone wants to be liked. ’
His eyes are glistening as he watches me, his jaw set.
‘I know how it feels to see yourself as an outsider,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry, Ash.’
‘Actually, it’s reassuring to know that you were thinking nice things about me when I started at Maycourt, when I was feeling so grim,’ I admit, ready to lighten the tone.
‘“Nice” isn’t the word I’d use,’ he says, shooting me a dangerous grin. ‘Those riding lessons were excrutiating. Being around you all the time, no idea how you felt.’
‘I obviously fancied you. Look at you. I’m not a robot.’
He laughs. ‘That’s something.’ He hesitates, a thought suddenly bothering him. ‘I’ve been good at shutting people out before, but what I’m not, Ash, is a person who goes around sneakily stealing someone’s girlfriend and breaking her heart for the hell of it.’
‘You’re talking about Emma.’
‘I did date her soon after she and Basilio broke up. Too soon, to be honest. I was young and proud and too focused on living in the moment to think about consequences. And very drunk. But I didn’t steal her. They broke up because they cheated on each other.’
‘Oh! That’s a sign of a healthy relationship,’ I remark drily.
‘She did not cheat with me either, I would like to say. But Basilio determined I did.’ He sighs heavily. ‘He hated me, anyway, so why not throw that in? It didn’t matter that he’d cheated on her countless times – I was chosen to be the bad guy.’
‘Guess you shagging her so soon after they broke up didn’t help.’
‘No, it did not,’ he says, grimacing. ‘I didn’t break her heart, though. We only had one night together and she graciously told me the next morning it was a huge mistake.’
‘Ouch.’
‘She didn’t hesitate to tell Basilio that she’d had her revenge, though. She was infatuated with him and was doing everything she could to get his attention.’ He pauses, his lips curving into a playful smile. ‘I know how that feels.’
‘What?’ I scoff. ‘Are you saying you’ve been sleeping around to get my attention?’
‘The opposite!’ he exclaims, horrified. ‘Do you know how shit I felt when that actress showed up on the polo field? What I knew you must be thinking about me? I felt sick to my stomach. I was about five minutes into that date when I told her nothing was going to happen and this was all a mistake, because there was someone else, someone important to me. I couldn’t sleep thinking that you were out there believing I didn’t care. ’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Then I’d have had to admit my feelings to both of us. I wasn’t sure they were reciprocated. And the intensity of my feelings for you was scaring me. I’d never had that before. I was trying to get my head around it all myself.’
My heart somersaults at his earnestness.
‘I can’t believe you thought I was saying that I was sleeping around to get your attention,’ he adds with a laugh. ‘I meant I was trying to get your attention by scoring goals.’
‘You thought I was like the High Fives and would be impressed by a higher handicap?’
‘You do know that the handicap isn’t based on goals, yes?’
‘Yes, Mateo.’ I roll my eyes. ‘I was making a generalised statement.’
‘Just checking.’
‘I was impressed, you know, not only by the goals but your skills on a horse in general,’ I inform him, prompting him to sit up straighter. ‘I was impressed by that from the very start. The first time I saw you ride.’
‘But not impressed the first time you saw me drive.’
‘Good thing neither of us believe in sticking with our first impressions,’ I say, tearing off my next bit of croissant.
‘Hey, I was right about you,’ he claims.
‘That I was a na?ve city girl who had no idea what she was doing?’
‘That you were the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met,’ he says, casually pouring me some orange juice as though that’s the sort of thing I hear every day.