in concentration, she started to write a P. And then an A. She had to think carefully about each stroke, knowing she was taking far too long, sensing the backup of kids restlessly waiting for their tags. Prickly heat burst all over her body and she knew she was going blotchy again. Fabulous. She bit down hard on her lip, willed that all-too-telling flush to fade. Finally she finished and passed the tag over to Paulo. He took it with murmured thanks, and Natalia saw it looked like it had been written by a child younger than he was.
The next child came forward. ‘Gabriella.’
So many letters. Natalia started again. She could do this. She wasn’t normally this slow, but the panic of performing in public, of knowing that any moment Ben might come over and demand why the princess was taking so long and couldn’t she even write made her fingers tremble and the letters dance before her eyes.
She glanced up at Gabriella, a solemn-eyed little girl with a cloud of dark hair. ‘You know what? I’m sure it would be faster if you did this.’ She grabbed a handful of pens and started passing them out to each child, who gladly took them and began to write their own names on the tags.
Natalia slumped back in her chair in trembling relief. That had been a close one. Too close. She’d hid her disability for so long, first out of confusion and then from shame, and finally on command. She wasn’t about to have it ripped out in the open now. Not by Ben. Not by anyone.
The kids had started to trickle away from the table, and she straightened, glancing over at Ben, who was organising the children into lines. She watched him covertly, noticing how confidently he strode across the pitch, how much he seemed to be enjoying this. She had never seen him look so relaxed or so … happy. She’d seen him look amused, or entertained, or interested, but he’d never actually seemed happy.
And neither had she.
‘Natalia?’ She started at the sound of her name. Ben was calling to her, and she stood, smoothing her T-shirt and shorts as if she could magically turn them into a silk blouse and tailored skirt. ‘Would you help me show the kids how to dribble?’
Dribble? As if she had any idea what he was even talking about. She didn’t even like watching football. ‘Of course,’ she said, giving him her gracious princess smile, and strode up to the pitch where Ben stood, the children all lined up neatly on one side. Ben explained to the children, in careful Italian which both surprised and touched her, how to dribble the ball, which, Natalia discovered, meant just kicking it with your feet. Then Ben punted the ball upwards off his foot and bounced it off his head, garnering a giggle from the crowd. He turned to Natalia, smiling, yet with the steel of challenge in his eyes. He could have chosen any of the other volunteers for this little exercise, but he’d chosen her. Of course. The children weren’t the only ones Ben wanted to learn a lesson.
‘Simple, right?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Natalia assured him. ‘Simple.’ Simpler, in any case, than writing name tags. She straightened, ready to show Ben just how well she could kick. Or dribble. Or whatever.
Ben dribbled the ball neatly between his feet and then sent a kick over to her. Natalia tensed, tried to kick it back, but the ball rolled right past her while her foot arced widely through the air, connecting with nothing. She heard a few snickers from the crowd of children, and felt her face burn.
She hated being laughed at. Hated, hated, hated it. It made her feel twelve years old again, her first year of boarding school, standing in front of her entire class while the teacher proclaimed in ringing tones, Natalia Santina is the slowest girl in this school! She writes like a six-year-old!
She still felt the shame. Slow. Stupid.
Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and marched over to where the ball had come to a stop. Then she gave it a satisfyingly hard kick back towards Ben. He trapped it neatly between his feet, his eyebrows raised in question as he glanced her. As usual, he was able to guess something of her mood.
‘Shall we try again?’
Natalia just shrugged. She felt unbearably tense and brittle, as if she might snap right in half. Ben kicked the ball again, slow this time, an obviously easy shot so she’d be able to kick it back.
She didn’t.
Once again the ball rolled by her and her foot swung through the air. She heard a few children giggle from behind their hands.
Tears of frustration burned beneath her lids. Couldn’t she do anything right? Ben was probably enjoying this, she thought savagely as she went to retrieve the ball. He’d probably been dreaming of this—Princess Natalia, humiliated on his football pitch! She grabbed the ball and threw it back to him, forgetting that in this wretched sport you weren’t supposed to use your hands.
Ben caught the ball easily, giving her a quick, frowning look of concern before he turned back to the crowd of children. ‘You get the idea?’ he asked in his careful Italian. ‘Why don’t you pair up and practise dribbling and then kicking the ball back and forth.’ He glanced back at her again, and Natalia knew he was wondering just what was going on. She folded her arms and did her best to look bored. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how that little episode had rattled her.
The children quickly paired up and Ben strolled between them, offering pointers and encouragement. After a few moments he glanced back at her again and she could tell he wanted her to do something. But what? What could she do? She was so bloody useless. She’d never minded so much before.
Then she saw Ben’s glance move to a little girl standing off to the side, one long dark strand of hair twirled around a finger. She was watching the kids all in pairs, happily dribbling and kicking away, and nobody noticed she was all alone. Natalia knew how that felt. She might be the party princess now, but she’d been the big loser in school.
Without even thinking about what she was doing, she jogged over to her and crouched down so she was eye-level. ‘Gabriella, sì?’ The girl nodded solemnly. ‘You want to practice dribbling?’ She shrugged, trying to act like she didn’t care, but Natalia saw the eagerness in her eyes. She knew all about that too. Pretending you didn’t care when you were dying inside. ‘I don’t have a partner,’ Natalia said. ‘Will you be my partner?’ The girl shrugged again, clearly not wanting her pity. Another thing Natalia understood. ‘Because,’ she continued, ‘you saw how terrible I was, didn’t you? I can’t even kick the ball, never mind this dribbling.’ She was rewarded with a tiny smile. ‘I think I’m the worst player on the pitch, so I hope you don’t mind being my partner.’
A long moment passed where Gabriella just gazed at her with those sad, dark eyes. ‘I don’t mind,’ she finally whispered, and she followed Natalia out onto the pitch. Natalia forced her own self-consciousness back as she attempted to dribble the ball between her feet before passing it to Gabriella. It really was harder than it looked. A lot harder. They managed a tentative back and forth for a few minutes and then Natalia went to give a big kick, missed the ball completely and fell flat on her back.
She lay there for a moment, the wind knocked right out of her, and blinked slowly up at the cloudless blue sky. Then she heard someone jogging towards her, and suddenly she was looking into Ben’s face, close enough so she could see the sunlight glinting off the faint stubble on his chin. He gazed down at her, and Natalia saw a shadow of anxious concern in his eyes. He touched her cheek once, gently, before pulling his hand quickly away. He’d surprised them both by touching her. Staring up at him, Natalia suddenly felt breathless for an entirely different reason.
Ben
