‘Sounds great,’ Abby said. ‘I’ll have mine well done.’
‘Philistine.’
He rang and ordered as Abby headed off to the bathroom and, yes, it was so nice to peel off filthy clothes and step into a deep, fragrant bath and know that dinner was on the way and that Matteo was here.
Abby lay there, eyes closed, just enjoying the sensation of the water and the low sound of Matteo chatting on the phone on the other side of the door.
Then she heard a knock on the door to his suite and from the sound of it dinner had arrived. Abby hauled herself out of the bath.
It had done its magic.
She was clean and scented and all the tension of the day seemed to have gone, Abby thought as she pulled on a robe and opened up one of the hotel combs and ran it through her hair.
She came out of the bathroom and saw that he wasn’t in the lounge but it didn’t take long to find him. There was Matteo lying on the top of the bed with a large silver trolley by its side and he’d taken his shirt off.
‘It had oil on it,’ Matteo said as she tried not to look at his naked top half. ‘And,’ he added, ‘I have to sleep in this bed tonight—you don’t.’
‘I’m very used to the smell of oil,’ Abby said and, as he’d more or less told her that it would be closing time in the Di Sione suite soon, she relaxed. Dinner smelled amazing and she handed him his rare steak and she couldn’t help but look at his chest. He was slender but muscular and her eyes were drawn to his ribcage and she saw an old yellowing bruise there, she presumed from the fight the other night.
God, that body took a battering.
‘How’s the shoulder?’ Abby asked.
‘I have near-full range of movement,’ Matteo said.
Even that sounded suggestive as she took her plate to the other side of the bed and climbed on.
‘I love having dinner in bed,’ Matteo said, showering his steak in pepper.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever had it.’ Abby thought for a moment. ‘Well, unless I’ve been sick.’
‘You know that full feeling when you just want to lie down?’ he asked. ‘I was going to open a restaurant once, just beds. Dante and Dario talked me out of it.’
‘Your brothers?’ Abby checked.
‘They’re far more savvy than me. They started Libertine?’
‘The app for the wealthy?’ Abby had heard of it. His family really was everywhere!
‘Yes, it provides anything for anyone, just so long as you can afford it. Anyway, I accepted their advice that my bedside restaurant chain wasn’t the best idea, though I still think it could work.’
‘Nobody would ever leave.’ Abby smiled.
She didn’t want to leave.
‘What about...’ Matteo had been about to ask about her sister but he kept having to remind himself of what Abby had told him and what her father had. ‘What about you?’ he asked instead. ‘Any brothers or sisters?’
‘An older sister,’ Abby said. ‘Annabel. We’ve never really got on.’
‘Because?’
‘Because I make things complicated apparently. She’s married to my father.’ Abby rolled her eyes. ‘Well, not my father exactly but...’
‘I get the picture.’
‘She’s pregnant,’ Abby said. ‘With her first. At the end of October I’ll be an aunt and I haven’t seen my sister in years.’
‘At all?’
Abby shook her head. ‘We talk on the phone at Christmas and things but I haven’t been home for a long time.’
‘Years?’
She nodded but didn’t elaborate.
Abby didn’t want to spoil this night with people who weren’t them.
It was just so nice to eat and then to lie there side by side and to talk.
And because it was so nice and they were both so relaxed Matteo tried to tell her some of what was on his mind.
The Origins of Them, as he called it.
‘Hey, you know your necklace...’
‘It’s not actually mine,’ Abby said. ‘It’s my father’s.’
‘Yes, but...’ He hesitated for a beat too long and Abby continued speaking.
‘My mother left it to him. He’s got a big do in July and has told me that he wants me there, looking presentable and wearing the necklace.’
Matteo swallowed.
‘I’m not going to go though.’
He breathed out a sigh of relief. ‘How come?’
‘We don’t really talk. Well, not since...’ She didn’t want to discuss it again and so she changed the subject a little. ‘There’s a huge party in LA on the same night. Anyone who placed in the Henley Cup will be there and so now I’ve got a legitimate reason not to go to my father’s function.’ She looked at him. ‘You should come.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re our sponsor...’
‘And?’
The relief that she wasn’t going to her father’s function, just the little rush of being let off the hook, had Matteo stop worrying about the problems that beset them, and he moved a little closer and started playing with the tie to her robe.
Yes, Matteo decided, he’d tell her about her father and the necklace but at a better time.
After the race, maybe?
‘Have you thought about what I said about us two?’
‘I have.’ Abby answered him as casually as she could—as if she hadn’t spent way too many hours poring over his words. Now was the time to say no, that it was perhaps the most stupid of ideas, yet, side-on facing each other, his fingers found the swell of her nipple, even through the thick robe, and he stroked it, just not enough for Abby.
‘And?’ Matteo asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Abby admitted.
‘Better than a no,’ Matteo said. ‘At least it’s something to work on.’
Which he was. She could feel his fingers at the very tip of her breast but as his lips found hers, Matteo’s hand flattened and the pressure of his warm palm was divine. It was a different
