Chapter Eight
Matteo
I exhale slowly, rolling my shoulders to shake off the stiffness that’s settled in.
Another day, another press obligation.
I know it’s part of the job - smiling, answering the same recycled questions and dodging the ones I don’t like.
It’s second nature by now, but I still hate wasting time sitting in a stuffy room when I could be training.
Could be doing something useful .
We’re having one of our best seasons in years, and I refuse to be the reason that momentum slows.
I spot my agent across the room, deep in conversation with one of the team’s PR gurus. He’ll give me the all-clear when I can leave, but for now, I have to wait.
With a sigh, I make my way over to some of the guys lingering near the drinks table. A few of them already have champagne flutes in their hands, looking far more relaxed than I feel.
"Where’s the afterparty, Rossi?" Diego, one of our midfielders, grins at me.
"Not interested," I reply, reaching for a water instead of the alcohol being passed around.
"Liar," he laughs. "You always say that, and then we find out you were out at some exclusive place we couldn’t even get into."
I smirk but don’t confirm or deny.
Let them think whatever they want.
One of the younger guys, Nico, is scrolling through his phone and snickers before flipping his screen in my direction.
"Have you seen this? There’s already pictures of you from today.”
Sure enough, there’s an article with a blurry shot of me entering the hotel, paired with some nonsense headline speculating about my contract situation.
I roll my eyes.
"You think I care?"
"You should," Diego says, nudging my arm. "People are obsessed with your life, man. Just embrace it."
Before I can respond, a voice cuts through my thoughts.
"You still planning on training tomorrow?"
I glance over at Luca, one of my teammates.
He’s been around long enough to understand that I don’t do downtime well. That even after a win, even after a long night, I’ll still be up at the crack of dawn, putting in extra hours at the gym.
"You already know the answer," I say, taking a sip of my water.
Luca shakes his head, amused.
"You need to loosen up, man. We won . Relax a little. "
But I don’t want to relax.
I want to push myself harder.
I want to keep going.
I want to make sure that we get to the final, and that when the final comes, I’m at my absolute best.
I barely hear the rest of their conversation as I scan the room -
And that’s when I see her .
Auburn hair, big green eyes, and an expression that tells me she’s not enjoying herself.
She’s standing slightly off to the side, arms crossed, clearly unimpressed with whatever Mark Chapman - the journalist beside her - is saying. He leans in slightly, smirking as he talks, but she doesn’t laugh, doesn’t lean back towards him.
If anything, she looks like she’s barely tolerating his presence.
I can’t hear their conversation, but I don’t need to. I’ve been in enough of these rooms to recognise the dynamic.
He’s talking at her, not with her.
I study her for a moment, intrigued.
I’d noticed her earlier, of course - it would be near impossible not to. She’s stunning, but it’s more than that.
It’s the way she held herself in that press conference.
The way she pushed back when I expected her to back down.
Women don’t usually look at me like that - don't usually talk to me like that, either.
They usually look at me with interest and hunger combined with some desperate need for attention. They preen under my gaze, eager for any scrap of interest I throw their way.
But her ?
She just narrowed her eyes, like she already knew exactly who I was, and didn’t care.
No - worse .
Like she was annoyed by me.
That caught my attention more than anything.
I tilt my head slightly, watching her with amusement.
Truthfully, I look at her for longer than I should, but there’s a part of me that’s curious to know what she’ll do if she catches my eye, a part of me that’s curious to know how she’ll react .
After a long moment of waiting, her eyes finally flicker in my direction, and for a second, I swear I see something there - something sharp, something assessing.
Instead of looking away, she raises an eyebrow - like she’s challenging me.
I can’t help but smirk.
Interesting.
I have half a mind to walk over there, to see just how much of that attitude is real and how much is just an act.
But before I can really consider it, Mark leans in and says something else, and she exhales sharply, looking away.
For now, I let it go.
But I make a mental note of it.
Because something about this woman - the way she carries herself, the way she didn’t hesitate to push back, the way she doesn’t look at me or speak to me the way most women do - has me intrigued.
And I don’t do intrigued .
Not by women.
And certainly not by beautiful, sharp-tongued English journalists who seem like they’d rather be anywhere but here.
Toxic? Maybe.
But I’ve always loved a challenge.