Matteo said and then looked back to the stallion. ‘Abby and I were just admiring him.’
At ten minutes to three, two thoughts hit and both unsettled her.
That the horse Matteo had fallen off was a thoroughbred racehorse. What the hell would have possessed him to be riding that?
But she couldn’t dwell on it because another thought was invading.
She wanted to see his shoulder.
Abby, who just pushed down all thoughts of sex, who actually felt sick at the thought of intimacy, suddenly wanted to go back to the hotel and peel off his shirt and touch that bruised skin.
With her mouth.
‘Are you okay?’ Matteo checked, picking up on the sudden tension in her.
‘Sorry?’
‘Kedah was just saying he’d love to come to the race...’
‘Oh!’
‘We’re not allowed to talk to Abby on race day though,’ Matteo warned him.
‘I’d love to be there,’ Kedah said to Abby and then addressed Matteo. ‘If the Boucher team make the podium, you get the horse,’ the sheikh said and they shook hands.
‘Do you bet on everything?’ Abby asked when Kedah had gone.
‘Not everything,’ Matteo said and then he met her eyes and again stopped what he was about to say.
He’d never have put money on enjoying today.
Usually, often, always, he’d be bored by now and would have run out of things to say.
Usually, often, always, he’d be glancing at his phone and wondering if they went back to the hotel now and slept together, then he could drop her back and hit the town with Kedah.
Usually, often, always, he’d have said hi to his sister, stayed for half an hour and then said goodbye.
Instead today felt like the best of days and there was but one reason why.
‘What the hell were you doing riding him?’ Abby asked, tearing her eyes from his gaze and looking back to the magnificent stallion. ‘Do you ride?’
‘Not really,’ Matteo admitted.
‘When you say “not really...”?’ Abby checked.
‘No.’
‘You could have been killed,’ Abby said and she was far from joking. This beast would test the limits of the most experienced rider. ‘Why would you take such a risk?’
‘Do you say the same to Pedro when he stands on the gas?’
‘Pedro’s skilled and trained,’ Abby retorted. ‘You’re a bit tall to be a jockey.’
Her cheeks were that lovely shade of turned-on pink, Matteo thought, and he was quite sure that it had nothing to do with the sun.
He wanted to turn her around and speak into her ear and put on a high voice, just to make her laugh as he told her what a fabulous jockey he was. And then Matteo wanted to be warned that public displays of affection could not happen here.
And then...
‘Come on,’ Matteo said. ‘The fashion show’s starting. You used...’ He faltered; it had been her father who had told him that she’d once studied fashion.
‘Used to what?’
‘I thought I read somewhere that you used to study fashion?’
‘I did,’ Abby said. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘I can’t remember.’ Matteo shrugged. ‘I must have come across it when I was researching the team.’
He’d lied.
Matteo sat there beside her and he knew he’d lied, only not in the same way that he had to his sister—that had been about protecting Allegra, this had been about protecting himself.
It didn’t matter, Matteo told himself.
He and Abby weren’t going anywhere.
Even if they slept together, and from the heat between them that was becoming increasingly likely, he knew that they wouldn’t last.
Matteo meant it—he would never get close to another.
Abby didn’t notice the silence. It was actually so nice to be away from cars and she had never felt like that. Cars were both her work and her hobby but it was just nice to take a day off, but more than that, she knew it was because of Matteo.
They watched the fashion show and every second model who walked out onto the runway Matteo said, ‘You’d look good in that.’
And then out came the underwear and he made no comment.
Not one.
They were both trying so hard to behave and, for Abby, to even have to try to behave was a revelation.
Finally, with the fashion show over they decided to call it a day.
‘I just want to say goodbye to Allegra...’
‘Go,’ Abby said.
‘Thanks.’
He appreciated it.
She wasn’t needy and he liked that.
He liked her.
As they sat in the car on the way back to her hotel, he handed her his phone and Abby looked at a photo of the two of them, both laughing as they sat watching the fashion show.
Neither with a care in the world, it would seem.
Business or Romance? the headline said.
‘Oh, no,’ Abby wailed. ‘Why would they jump to that?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Matteo shrugged.
‘But we want them to think...’
‘Oh, they’ll be thinking,’ he said.
The car pulled up at her hotel and Abby wondered if he’d suggest dinner and she wondered if she might accept.
But Matteo, being Matteo, skipped entrée, main and dessert and, after such a lovely day, for him the ending was inevitable.
‘We could,’ Matteo said, ‘always go to mine.’
That delicious mouth moved in for the kill and what startled Abby the most was that she wanted to accept, to just close her eyes and give in to the bliss he offered, except she jerked her head back.
