Chapter 20
ELIZABETH
Matteo doesn't believe me.
I don't sound ill, because I don't have a cold or a fever, but it's that time of the month again when I always get period cramps, and they're awful. So debilitating. So painful. Sometimes I can't even get out of bed.
I’ve tried taking magnesium. I’ve tried ibuprofen, naproxen, hot baths and heating pads, but so far nothing has helped apart from having a hot water bottle and lying in bed. Or on the couch, as I am this morning.
It's so unfair that men never have to suffer like women do.
There was no point in telling Matteo. I wouldn't want to tell my boss something like that, and even though I don't see him as my boss, this is too much information given that we’re not especially close. Not even after last night. Our dynamics have shifted a little, but not enough that I feel settled. It’s so rocky, and uncertain.
I shouldn’t be in this situation, but I can’t pull myself away.
My attraction to this man was sealed before I knew who he was, and I can’t pretend I don’t feel anything for him, when I so badly do.
I’ve been lying curled on the couch all morning, tucked into myself and clutching my hot water bottle for comfort. The TV is on but I'm not watching it. I just have it on for the background noise so that it's not dead silent in here.
My stomach cramps come, sharp and stabbing, making me curl more into myself and clutch the water bottle as I ride out the wave of pain. It only dulls it a little.
My skin feels clammy one moment, then too hot the next.
I'm fidgety and restless, my thoughts chaotic.
I keep thinking of Matteo.
The look on his face last night. The look on Joel's. And how I didn’t know where to put myself after that.
I feel bad that he saw because I think he likes me, a lot.
I just don’t feel that way about him. And if I were at work today, I’d be hyper-aware of everything.
Every glance, every pause, every moment I might misread.
That thought alone makes my chest tighten more than the cramps do.
I turn onto my other side, pulling the blanket up, trying not to think too hard about anything at all. That’s when I hear a notification ping on my cell phone. I check to see. Vlad has texted me again.
Vlad: You haven’t RSVP’d. I expect you to be at my wedding. No excuses.
Of course I’m going, and now I can because I have the money, but I need to let him know because he wants numbers.
Elizabeth: I will do. Been busy. Sorry! New job
I’ll need to take time off. It’s in a couple of weeks’ time. In Dubrovnik. I have to go because he'll never forgive me if I don’t. That’s never going to happen. I won’t ever let Vlad down. Because I’m being paid so well, I can comfortably afford a trip to Europe.
I put off thinking about the trip because I needed to settle in at work. I wanted to get the security audit out of the way, and while it's almost done now, the tech issues are taking up my time.
I’m about to text and reply that I will be coming when I hear a knock at the door. I get up to answer it, looking forward to seeing Arthur, but my eyes nearly bug out of my head when I see Matteo instead, carrying what looks like a gift bag.
I'm speechless. In shock, barefoot, in my pajamas and holding a hot water bottle, my mouth hanging open.
“Hey.” His voice is soft and low, sending an entirely inappropriate flutter through my stomach.
Matteo Knight is standing on my doorstep.
He’s here.
Wearing his signature dark jeans, and a fitted black T-shirt, over which he’s thrown a corduroy shirt that hangs open. His hair is slightly tousled. His gaze dark and penetrating.
He looks unfairly good, and also completely unexpected.
It suddenly dawns on me, the reason why he’s on my doorstep. “You’re checking up on me?”
From our phone conversation I sensed he was fishing for information. This, however, is something else, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
“Checking up on you?” He frowns, like he hadn’t even considered this option. “Nah.” He stops there, not offering any further enlightenment.
I don’t believe him, but he’s hovering around the door, and in my shock I’ve forgotten how to be civil.
“Come in.” I open the door wider, and hug my hot water bottle closer as he steps inside.
“You cold?” he asks.
“I’m … not well. I told you. What are you doing here?”
“Yeah, so …” He rakes a hand through his hair again. “I got this for you. Hope you feel better.” He hands me a gift bag.
I blink, a few times, confusion meshing with quiet surprise. “What’s this?”
“Something … I think they call it a care package.”
He glances around. I feel anxious as he surveys my tiny apartment with its worn couch facing a TV balanced on a narrow stand, and a small coffee table on the side. He eyes the compact kitchenette and the two-seater wooden table tucked into the corner by the window.
It’s not much, and nothing fancy, nothing like what he’s used to, I imagine, but it’s clean and tidy, and it’s mine.
“A care package?”
I shove my hot water bottle at him, and rifle through the bag to find a few bags of the mixed nuts that I like.
He noticed. There’s also a big bar of my favorite dark chocolate with hazelnuts.
Another one of my favorites. Also, two red apples.
I stare at everything for a moment. An unfamiliar warm feeling spreads through my chest, and it has nothing to do with the lingering heat of the hot water bottle.
This is what it must feel like to have someone care for you.
Most people don’t notice the little things about me. What I eat. The snacks I grab when I’m working through lunch.
Matteo did. He’s surprisingly observant for a man. He pays attention to me, and he cares enough to remember.
Aware I’m being watched, I slip my hand into the bag and pull out a bunch of magazines. There’s a glossy celebrity magazine, a geeky coding magazine and one about home baking.
Even as I’m in awe of all the gifts he touchingly brought for me, I also can’t stop thinking that he even bought a gift bag.
My fingers trace over it and I'm touched because it means so much, that he thought about me enough to buy this for me.
Who would have thought Matteo Knight would do such a thing?
I almost don't recognize the brooding guy I met in the elevator. The man I've now come to know is so kind and thoughtful.
I stare up at him, feeling so utterly blessed and insanely happy that I want to lunge forward and throw my arms around him in gratitude, but I manage to restrain myself. “Aw … Matteo … that’s … that’s so sweet of you. You shouldn’t have, but thank you,” is what I manage to say.
He shrugs, still standing. Hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “I don’t know enough about you, yet, so I didn’t know what kind of stuff you read. Also, let’s just get one thing clear, I’m not stalking.”
I laugh. A real heartfelt laugh. “I don’t mind you stalking me.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “That’s probably not a sentence you should be saying to a cybersecurity professional.”
I laugh even more, but I know that I will hold onto this moment forever. Matteo runs an entire division. His calendar is packed full, and he’s dealing with so many issues, yet he somehow found the time to come here.
To check on me and to make sure that I was okay. My heart does that fluttery thing again.
“Also,” he says, offering a sexy grin. “I don’t need to stalk you. You keep showing up in my office.”
I laugh loudly at that. “Is this an admission, that you could stalk if you wanted to? Was Joel right?”
I shouldn’t have mentioned Joel’s name, because Matteo’s smile disappears. “I wouldn’t do shit like that. Don’t know why Joel made such a stupid comment. Asshole.” He swipes a hand over his face. “There was an old guy across from you. He gave me the evil eye as I stood here knocking on your door.”
“White hair? Spectacles, and smartly dressed?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Arthur.” I can imagine Arthur staring Matteo down, not quite trusting him, or knowing what to make of him. “He must have thought you were some rough drug dealing dude coming to see me.”
Matteo folds his arms and examines me carefully. “You buy drugs from dealers?”
“Don’t know where else to get them from.”
His eyes open, ever so slightly. “I can hook you up with my supplier, if you want.”
My breath hitches. I don’t know if he’s being serious or not. “If I go with your supplier, mine might shoot me.”
“I can provide you with protection, so you can get your drugs from someone who can get them for less.”
We stare each other down.
I’ve never done drugs before. I’ve not even been tempted. I’ve slept in abandoned buildings where used needles littered the floor. I’ve sat on stained mattresses while people got high around me. I’ve watched kids no older than fifteen disappear into addictions that sucked the life out of them.
But I’ve never had any interest in taking drugs myself, even when friends said it would take the edge off things.
That it would help me forget. That it would make the world seem nicer, better, and that it was easier to be high and see the world through a different lens.
But I always knew that wasn’t the answer to my problems.
I learned a long time ago that escaping your problems isn’t the same as solving them.
Matteo lifts a hand, and my gaze catches on the leather bracelets wrapped around his wrist before he rubs the back of his neck.
“Sorry to burst that tattooed-janitor-villain persona you have me pegged for,” he says, “but I've never touched drugs. Never have, never want to.” His expression turns serious.
“I always want to be in control of my mind and my feelings.”
Something inside me stills, because I understand exactly what he means. “Same,” I say.
“People look at me sometimes, like they expect me to, but I’ve never been tempted,” he adds.
“Same.” I can see how most people would look at Matteo and see tattoos, the leather, the messy hair, and attitude.
They make assumptions.
Just like people who look at me do.
He grins. “Guess you and I are just a pair of rebellious nerds.”