Chapter 4 Matilda
“What time do we finish today?” Luca asked his agent as I approached their table in the café.
“It shouldn’t be a late one—” His agent paused when he spotted me and beamed. My cheeks warmed as I took in the two gorgeous men sitting at the table and fought the urge to break eye contact with them.
Fake it till you make it, Matilda. I set my shoulders back and held my head high, summoning every ounce of confidence I could find.
These days, Luca was renowned for his stoic expressions and frowns.
His lightly tanned skin, tousled dark hair, and deep brown eyes made me wonder if one of his parents was Mediterranean.
The man on his left was his opposite; he exuded charisma and smiles, making his presence known within a five-hundred-yard vicinity.
He had dark green eyes that almost glowed against his dark, wavy hair.
Even in an empty, open café, their presence seemed too large for the room. I felt like a garden gnome in comparison.
“Hey,” I said, a bit too loudly, making me wince.
I decided to pretend we hadn’t met. At least that way, if he hadn’t mentioned it to his agent, it wouldn’t put him in an awkward position.
“Nice to meet you both! I’m Matilda.” I offered my hand to the agent as he stood to greet me. Large, warm hands enveloped mine, and perfectly straight teeth flashed a smile.
“Lovely to meet you too, Matilda. I’m Jack, Luca’s agent and bestie.” He gestured to Luca, before offering me a wink.
Luca rolled his eyes but wore the same stoic expression from the bathroom earlier, not even cracking a closed-mouth smile.
I extended my hand to him. He grimaced, looking from my hand back to my face with a bored scowl crossing his features.
“We’ve already met,” he stated, taking my hand in his. Jack whirled around to him.
“Oh yeah, sorry.” I laughed it off and ignored the heat spreading up my arm from where our palms had touched. “I didn’t know if you wanted to ignore the whole hitting-me-with-a-door incident.” I smiled and shrugged, hopefully portraying that I wasn’t angry about the whole ordeal.
“You what?” Jack said in a high-pitched tone. He crossed his arms and watched Luca with narrowed eyes.
“Calm down, Mother Hen.” A tiny quirk of his lips was the first sign of anything other than stoicism. “It was an accident.”
“Really? Care to elaborate?”
“Do you honestly think I’d purposefully hit a woman with a door?”
Jack scoffed, raising a brow at his friend. “Your need to clarify that you wouldn’t hit a woman with a door only highlights your prior door assaults on men.”
His what?
“That was different; that dickhead deserved it.” Luca crossed his arms over his broad chest.
This was not how I’d expected this conversation to go.
“It was an accident,” I said, wanting to resolve the issue ASAP. “I should have been looking where I was going. The door opened out of nowhere, and—boom—bloody nose.” I laughed it off as I took a seat. Jack followed suit.
“A bloody nose?” His eyes widened, head swinging back to Luca again.
“Only a tiny bit. I’m an easy bleeder,” I offered with a half-smile, attempting to downplay the situation.
“Tell that to my shirt,” Luca murmured, and I winced.
A burst of laughter erupted from Jack. “You got blood on his shirt?” I nodded, cringing as he clapped, his laughter filling the empty café before he continued.
“Fucking brilliant. That has made my whole day.” He patted Luca on the shoulder.
“So, other than the bloody nose, how has your day been, Matilda?”
“It’s all good, thanks. It’s great to be back in the studio. I’ve missed it a lot.” Yeah, right.
“What do you do when you’re not skating for the show?”
“I teach skating to adults, mostly one-on-one. I love it,” I lied, sparing him the details of how I hated teaching adults and found it incredibly unrewarding.
Although Stars on Ice paid decently, it wasn’t enough to cover my bills in the off-season.
Living by myself was expensive, so having another job was essential.
But the last thing they wanted to hear was me moaning on—keeping it light was the best way to combat whatever surly mood Luca seemed to be in.
“Oh, nice—that must go hand in hand with training celebrities for the show, too. Hopefully, you’ll be able to teach Luca a few things about skating. He might be worse than Bambi on ice.” Jack laughed.
Luca answered the insult with another eye roll.
Watching their bickering—though silent on Luca’s end—made me smile. “Have you both watched the show before?”
“No,” Luca answered, while Jack said, “Of course.”
Jack tilted his head, scoffing at Luca’s response.
“I’ve seen it a few times over the years.
My sister loves it.” A smile stretched across his lips as if he were reminiscing.
“But neither Luca nor I had seen a professional figure skater in person before.” He gestured to me across the table. “You were breathtaking on the ice.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s so kind,” I said, cheeks warming.
I hadn’t noticed them watching me skating earlier.
My gaze involuntarily flicked to Luca, who was raising a brow at his agent.
Their roles were ironed out well: Luca the brooding, grumpy actor, and Jack the charismatic agent who smoothed over any rough edges left by his client.
I continued. “It’s years of training. To be honest, my older sister used to laugh at me for my first three years of skating. I was so bad.” I left out the fact that her laugh had often been malicious.
“I doubt that. It looked like you were born to skate.”
I laughed off the compliment. Turning to Luca, I asked him, “Have you skated before?”
“A bit.”
Like blood from a stone with this one, ladies and gentlemen.
“That’s OK. Most people have only done their pre-show training anyway.
” Celebrities had an intensive three-week training course to familiarize themselves with the ice before coming to us.
I waited for him to add anything, but he didn’t, so I tried again.
“Danced at all, then?” Previous dance experience would help our chances of winning.
“Yes. What was on the curriculum at LaGuardia.” My brows shot up, a smile tugging at my slightly parted lips. Jackpot. He attended one of the world’s most prestigious performing arts schools. He would definitely have had extensive dance training, then.
“Wow, that’s impressive. LaGuardia must be incredible. What was going to school there like?”
“It’s not impressive. I got in, so I went.”
If I hadn’t still had a throbbing nose, I’d have assumed, based on his attitude, that I’d hit him with the door and not the other way around.
He wasn’t being rude per se, just very…direct.
His complete candor about everything was sort of shocking—most celebrities starring on the show had been PR-trained within an inch of their life. None of them were anything like Luca.
I ignored his attitude, determined not to be thrown. We need to be friendly for this to work, for us to have a chance at winning.
“Either way, it’s impressive.” I settled back in my chair, and Jack nodded in silent agreement. “So, you have dance training—that’s great. What’s your fitness like?”
I felt like an imbecile asking Luca Vasvault this question. He was in incredible shape. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick, and I had certainly noticed how well his jeans hugged his legs and arse when he’d exited the bathroom earlier.
“Good.”
“Luca,” Jack warned, but my smile didn’t falter.
“What sort of exercise do you do?”
He released an exasperated breath and leaned forward in his chair.
“I do a mixture of weight training and cardio around six times a week with an active rest day. The physicality of our performances won’t be a problem.” Luca’s lips pressed into a thin line as he sat back in his chair.
Hallelujah. Finally, more than three words.
“That’s great. We should also watch some dances from the show to get a feel for it.”
He offered a simple nod.
“Do you have time this week to review some recordings outside of our training schedule?”
It was pretty full-on: We had six weeks of intense practice until the first live show, which would take place the following Saturday. And from there on, it was one performance a week. If we made it to the final, it would be just over sixteen weeks of training and performing.
“Definitely. Right, Luca?” Jack prompted.
“Right.” Sarcasm dripped from his tone as he looked around the room, disinterested.
“We could go over them on Friday evening; it might be nice to grab some dinner and watch the tapes.”
“We only need to do the dinner if the cameras are present. If they aren’t, there’s no point.” Luca’s voice was clipped.
I quickly weighed up my options. Should I let it go to avoid pissing him off even more?
That was my first instinct, yet I could almost hear my mother’s resigned disappointment if I didn’t win another season.
Sharing a dinner wasn’t going to make or break our performance, but it did have the potential to help.
“I get what you mean, but if you look back at the previous winners, they’ve all been genuine friends and actually got to know each other beyond just skating on the show.”
His brow furrowed deeper.
“Do you want to win?” I offered, hoping to hide the impatience in my tone. “Most of my other partners haven’t been bothered, but we need to decide what our goal is so we can plan how we move forward.”
“I need to win.”
“Then I can’t stress enough how important it is for us to show a united front. The public love to have people to root for.”
“Why does that matter? Surely, they’re just judging us based on our skating.”
“A huge part of the vote is popularity, not just skill, and it can be the difference between making it to the finals or not. The more we know each other outside the rink, the better our chemistry will be on the rink and in the cutaways.”
“We don’t need chemistry.” He spoke with disdain. “It’s a two-minute dance where we skate around each other and pretend to get along. We don’t need anything more than that.”
Fire burned in my chest and up my neck, but I doused it quickly.
I would not let my hurt feelings get in the way of our winning.
He just obviously didn’t like the idea of pretending we had chemistry.
So what if he belittled figure skating or my expertise?
I knew its worth, and starting an argument about it would only make matters worse.
“Winning the show is more than that.” I brushed off his insult, which, judging by his clenched jaw, angered him more.
“You didn’t mention this was part of the deal,” he accused Jack, who held up his hands in surrender.
“It doesn’t have to be part of the deal,” I reassured him, not wanting to cause an argument. “We don’t have to do this, but if you want to win the show, it’s important.”
“I’m only on this show to win. I won’t accept anything less.”
He spoke with such determination that I couldn’t help but wonder what was driving him to want to win the show when he seemed so unhappy to be there.
“Then we need to consider publicity. It’s no different to when you’re acting in a film and need on-screen chemistry.”
I tapped my fingers on the side of my coffee cup, searching for anything to break the quiet stretched between us. I flicked my gaze to Jack leaning back in his chair, watching Luca with an unreadable expression.
Obviously, they were comfortable with awkward silences.
I was not.
“Look, I am fine with just meeting for training,” I added quickly, though inside I screamed at myself for even offering it. “But if we were at least friendly with each other—”
“No. I want to win the show, but we don’t have to be ‘friends’ to do it. Surely people have won from skill alone before.” The rejection stung even though his voice had lost its sharp edge.
He was within his rights to not want to be friends, and it hadn’t bothered me in other seasons when I’d been kept at a distance.
But this is the first season you’ve actually got a shot at winning the bonus.
As an incentive, the winning professional skater received a juicy bonus. It ensured that we put everything into making it to the final—and didn’t take the easy route by being voted off in the first week.
I’d never stood a chance of winning the bonus before, but this year it didn’t feel so out of reach.
Winning the money would mean that I could afford to quit the show, which I’d been even more desperate to do since the mess with Mark last season.
My mother would probably disown me if I did leave, but it would be nice to have the option.
Luca’s attitude was already complicating matters.
I wasn’t losing all hope yet, though. His celebrity status might be enough to help us win without the added publicity. Using the media would just make our job so much easier.
And to be honest, my ego couldn’t take any more rejection at that point, either.
“That’s fine, Luca. We’ll meet for training and then watch the videos. That’s all.”
That seemed to placate him long enough to wrap up our meeting civilly.
After agreeing to meet back at the studio tomorrow for our first “official” meeting in front of the cameras, Jack and Luca headed out.
And I was left wondering how on earth I was going to get us to the final.