Chapter 30
Thirty
‘Mateo, wait,’ I call out, trying to keep up with his strides as I follow him in my heels out of the club and onto the road.
He finally stops, burying his face in his hands and letting out a cry of frustration.
He runs his hands through his hair before dropping them despondently to his sides.
The pause gives me time to catch up and step round to face him, my breath coming thick and fast as my heart pounds hard against my chest, shock and adrenaline pumping through my veins.
‘I shouldn’t have punched him,’ he says, looking pained and glancing down at his knuckles, flushed pink from the contact with Basilio’s jaw. ‘There were important people in that party. I should have walked away.’
‘Just… take a moment to calm down,’ I advise as he shakes his head, pacing back and forth.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Clearly, you’re not.’
‘I’m fine.’
Unable to keep still, he walks about, agitated, shaking out his hand and muttering in Spanish under his breath. I watch him, wondering what to say.
‘Basilio was out of line,’ I reason. ‘He was trying to—’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were thinking of moving to DQ? Why didn’t you tell me they’d offered you a position there?’ he asks gruffly, barely looking at me.
‘They haven’t! He’s screwing with you, Mateo. He’s drunk.’
‘But you had talked about it.’
‘No!’
‘But he offered you a job,’ he seethes, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Again.’
‘Nothing formal. Mateo, trust me, you’re blowing this out of proportion.
Basilio said that to hurt you. He’d literally just mentioned that if I was worried about my future at Maycourt, then maybe I could consider other stables like DQ which might have all-round positions. It was barely a conversation.’
‘You’re thinking of leaving Maycourt.’
‘I… I don’t know. I don’t want to, but I might have to. This was only meant to be temporary and Lady M never discussed anything further.’ I put a hand on my hip. ‘But this isn’t about me.’
‘Of course it’s about you,’ he contends, coming to a halt in front of me, his eyes flaring with anger and pain. ‘He won’t leave you alone! He knows how to hurt me and he doesn’t fucking hold back, does he? What was he saying to you?’
‘Nothing important.’
‘I saw him touching you. He was all over you.’
‘He was drunk,’ I repeat, exasperated.
‘Any chance to fuck with me, he’ll take it.’ He shakes his head dismally. ‘If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have argued this morning and I wouldn’t have lost my temper during our match today. I played right into his plan.’
I frown at him. ‘What?’
‘He knew what he was doing,’ he tells me eagerly, as though Basilio is some great evil mastermind and we’ve foiled his plotting together.
‘He knows that there are two ways he can fuck with my head.’ He counts them out on his fingers.
‘My mother and you. My only weaknesses.’ He throws his hands in the air. ‘And I let him. I fucking let him.’
He picks up his pacing and muttering in Spanish again. I watch him in silence for a few moments as he does so, my brain trying to get my thoughts into a sensible order, a task not helped by those delicious summer-in-a-glass cocktails I helped myself to earlier.
‘You think Basilio is the reason we argued?’ I say eventually.
‘Yes! It’s always him.’
‘We didn’t argue because of Basilio,’ I state, my brow creasing in confusion that he would have been labouring under this impression. ‘We argued because of us.’
He stops, lifting his head to look at me.
‘Is that how you really see me, Mateo?’ I ask calmly. ‘As a weakness?’
He sighs heavily.
‘Am I a problem for you?’ I continue, narrowing my eyes at him. ‘A threat that your enemies can prey on to hurt your career?’
‘That’s not what I…’
My stomach twists as he trails off.
‘I think it is what you meant,’ I say quietly, before taking a deep breath. ‘We didn’t argue because of anything Basilio said. We argued because you’re oblivious to me being angry at you for not coming to see me yesterday.’
‘I tried! How was I supposed to know that you wanted the opposite of what you said? I’m not a mind-reader! You told me you wanted to be alone!’
‘Because by then, I felt too upset to talk to you,’ I erupt.
‘I needed you, Mateo. My ex had just announced to the world that he was releasing a book that details our relationship and, unsurprisingly, apparently, I’m the villain in his story.
Do you think anyone is fine when that happens?
I needed you to take a moment out of your job to come find me and tell me that everything was going to be all right.
I know that your career is incredibly important, but I also know that you could have made the time to do that if you wanted to. ’
‘Ash—’
‘For Christ’s sake, Mateo, you didn’t even come to say hello to me at the party tonight until you thought someone else was hitting on me.
Do you know how that makes me feel? Small,’ I answer before he can try.
‘And it’s not the first time you’ve made me feel that way recently.
When this thing between us first started, you put on a good show of making me feel like I was important to you—’
‘You are important to me!’ he croaks, pained.
‘No, Basilio was right. Polo is the most important thing to you and no one will ever compare. Ever since your team told you I was a distraction, you’ve been distancing yourself.’
‘We’ve talked about this. It was only while—’
‘The season was going, yeah, except the season is over and I feel more distanced from you than ever. That’s the British season done, right?
But then there’s always the next one you need to be signed for.
Europe, Australia, the US, Dubai, and, of course, let’s not forget the big one: Argentina.
What’s your plan, Mateo? Keep me at arm’s length until you retire?
Then we’re all good! Then you can have as many distractions as you like! ’
‘No! You don’t understand. Please.’ He takes a step towards me, but I recoil. ‘I had to focus on polo; I had to try to get back on form the last few matches.’
‘And how’s that gone for you, Mateo?’ I snap.
His jaw tenses. It was a bit of a low blow and probably a sore point right now, but I don’t care.
The frustration from the last few weeks is violently bubbling in my stomach and ready to boil over.
The hurt I’ve been trying to suppress at being made to feel second best, cast aside until he’s fucking ready, is spilling out in resentful, bitter arguments.
I don’t want him to give up his dreams for me.
I’d never want that. But I want to share in them.
I want to feel like I’m on the ride with him to get there.
I can’t pretend that I’m okay being benched.
‘I wanted to prove I was good enough to play in Argentina,’ he begins through gritted teeth, ‘and then I—’
‘Oh my God, please stop with Argentina,’ I beg, lifting my eyes to the night sky glittering with stars overhead, a fanciful romantic canopy at jarring odds with the scene taking place below it. ‘It’s one tournament, Mateo; it’s not all there is.’
‘It is for me!’ he cries, confusion flitting across his expression as though he can’t comprehend why I’m not getting this. ‘You want me to tell you why I’m this way, Ash? Why Basilio takes pleasure in telling you that polo comes first for me? Why I have to play in Argentina?’
‘Please!’
‘My mother sacrificed everything so I could play polo,’ he tells me, his eyes brimming with tears, and the sudden overwhelming emotion in his voice making my heart lurch and body ache to hold him.
‘She left my father and took me to the Rossi estate. Her family never forgave her for that. They were strict Catholics and disapproved of her actions so much, they cut off all ties. She didn’t just lose her husband that day, she lost everyone. ’
I stare at him, too stunned at this outburst of unchecked feeling to speak.
‘She gave up her career for me and got a shitty job on the Rossi estate so I could be around horses every day, so I could work at the yard and get the chance to learn with a pro. That was the deal. She’d work for Rossi, I’d help out at the yard and in return, he would train me to play polo like Basilio and all those other boys.
’ He pauses to take a breath, hands on hips, his eyes misted with painful memories.
‘She sacrificed everything for me because she knew I’d repay her by being a great polo player. She believed in me that much.’
I swallow.
‘I’d catch her crying sometimes,’ he continues, his voice hoarse.
‘She would brush it off if I asked. Make up some bullshit excuse. I asked once if she was sad about her family and she told me she was, but that they would be the ones to regret it. They would see me win the Argentine Open and they would finally know that she was right. That she’d made all the right decisions.
I think that’s what drove her every day. Knowing that was in her future.’
‘But… but surely you’ve proven you’re good enough,’ I say, confused. ‘You’ve already played in the Argentine Open.’
‘My worst performance in a tournament. It was humiliating. The pressure… it was too much. I was too young. Basilio and his friends made sure I never forgot where I came from, that I wasn’t one of them.
If any of her family saw or heard of my appearance that year, it only would have served to confirm their feelings: that my mother had turned her back on everyone and everything she knew for a… failure of a son.’
It’s taking everything in him not to crack. I can see it in his face, how he’s fighting the urge to break and crumble. I wonder if he’s ever spoken this out loud to anyone before.
‘You are not a failure. You’re a great polo player,’ I tell him truthfully, blinking back the hot tears pricking my eyes.
‘You know, she died a year after we moved to the Rossi estate,’ he says, tipping his head back and looking up at the sky. ‘She didn’t even get to see me turn pro.’
‘She didn’t have to. She knew you would.’
‘I promised her I would dedicate my life to this sport. I had the opportunity to honour her memory in Argentina, where it matters most, and I let her down. Now, I have grown as a person, as a player; I am more focused, calmer, braver, more experienced. It has taken time, but I have built up my reputation and I promised myself I would go back to Argentina and make her proud.’ He looks at me earnestly, his eyes glistening with regret.
‘This was supposed to be my year. Our Maycourt team was good enough to get everyone’s attention. I knew I was finally ready.’
‘You’re talking as though all hope is lost. You can still get to Argentina. It’s not over just because of a few local matches and a bust-up at a cocktail party.’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s going to be harder to persuade a patron I’m worth the trouble.
But I know I can do this.’ He clenches his sore fist. ‘I will do whatever it takes to win in Argentina for her. Nothing will get in my way. All I need is someone to recognise that and give me one chance. Just one more chance.’
Fighting back tears, I mutter under my breath, ‘You mean no one.’
‘What?’
I clear my throat and force myself to look at him.
‘You said, “nothing” will get in your way, but I think you mean no one. That’s why you’ve always kept everyone at a distance.
You never let them down; no one lets you down.
You don’t have to walk on the pitch worrying about an argument you had the day before or how you’re going to make time for anyone else.
All you had to do was focus on scoring the next goal. Easier that way.’
His gaze locks with mine, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. ‘But then you came along,’ he says quietly.
‘But then I came along.’ I nod slowly. ‘So what happens next?’
I watch his throat bob as he swallows audibly.
‘I don’t know,’ he whispers.
It’s strange. I didn’t know it could hurt like this. Like the sadness is so heavy, you feel you can’t stand upright. Like your heart is being squeezed so tightly in your chest, all the blood has stopped running through your limbs so your body becomes numb. And you feel so fucking stupid.
‘I guess that’s our answer, then,’ I manage to say, the brain cells left functioning doing a much better job than I expected them to.
‘Ash,’ Mateo croaks, panic in his eyes, ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
‘I’m not going to beg you to love me, Mateo. I’m done feeling like a burden. And I don’t want to continue like this only to face more disappointment down the line.’
Desperately trying to retain composure, I turn to look for a taxi, spotting one waiting and flagging it over.
‘Wait, Ash, let’s… let’s talk about this,’ he says, his eyes darting at the car in panic.
‘I think it’s best for me to go,’ I say earnestly, opening the door to the taxi and hovering there a moment. ‘You have more networking to do.’
‘I don’t want you to go.’
‘You need to give your all to polo. That’s the only way you’ll be happy. And I can’t stay with you, Mateo, knowing that I’ll never be enough and you’ll only grow to resent me if you don’t achieve the sporting greatness you crave. I deserve more than that.’
He stares at me, speechless.
‘Please don’t follow me. I don’t want to talk more tonight. Go back to the party. It’s important for the team,’ I conclude sternly.
Then, sliding into the back seat of the car and slamming the door shut behind me, I ask the driver to go, refusing to look back at Mateo as we pull away.