answered it there and then.
‘Ever.’
There wasn’t even a sound as that little flame died; she just silently acknowledged its passing.
‘My father had a lot of affairs,’ Matteo said. ‘I don’t even know if you could call them affairs. Just one-night stands, parties, drugs, alcohol...’ He closed his eyes as he had to the drama all those years ago, but then he had been lying in bed listening to the fights; now he was doing his best to block out thoughts of a beautiful future with Abby. ‘You never knew what you were going to get,’ Matteo explained. ‘I never knew who would be there in the morning—Mom, Dad, neither. Sometimes, for days on end it was just the nanny. Really, the older ones looked out for the younger...’ He wasn’t explaining this very well. ‘I always knew that in the morning they might not be there. One morning they weren’t but this time it was different. My grandfather was there as well as other relatives and outside there were reporters. But I knew already—I used to sleep with the radio on, I liked the voices and the music—I’d heard it on the news...’
Abby sat there.
She could remember the shock of her mother’s death. It had been expected. She had been older but she could still remember the shock and finality of it.
Imagine losing both at five and to hear it read out as a headline on the news?
She tried to but couldn’t quite grasp it.
‘There was a huge funeral. The press were everywhere and it was on the television constantly, as I expected it to be,’ Matteo said. ‘It was the biggest news in my life and because I was five I actually thought that it should be everywhere...’ He gave a wry smile. ‘You know how small your world is when you’re a child?’
Abby nodded.
‘But then we went to live at my grandfather’s and life went on but it had changed. The older ones all went off to boarding school and Allegra looked after my little sisters.’
‘You?’
‘I just did what I wanted and I was always getting into trouble but never really told off. I never got why my grandfather could hardly bear to look at me. No matter what I did, no matter how much trouble I got into, he hardly addressed me.’
‘I thought you two were close.’
‘We’re not close, but we’re closer now than we were.’ Matteo nodded. ‘While I was growing up he just stayed back. I started studying and after a year I realised I already knew how to make money. I had my start-up from my parents’ estate, but I didn’t need to sit in a lecture and be taught what I already knew and so I dropped out.’ He looked up at Abby and he told her about a row that repeated in his head to this very moment. ‘For the first time my grandfather got angry with me. We had a huge row. He told me I was wasting my life, I was heading for trouble and that he’d seen the signs, should have stepped in earlier...’
Abby swallowed.
‘“But you didn’t,” I said to him. I told him he had never cared about me so why start to worry now? I told him that I knew he couldn’t stand to be near me. I just didn’t know why.’
Abby sat quietly, remembering Matteo’s patience when she had told him what had happened in her past.
‘My grandfather said, “Every time I look at you I see Benito.”’
‘Your father?’
Matteo nodded. ‘He told me that I was just like him. A gambler, a liar, a risk-taker. He said that I was on track for disaster and he was tired of sitting back and watching history repeat...’
‘Matteo.’ Abby wouldn’t buy it. ‘Just because...’
‘Abby,’ Matteo interrupted her. ‘I am all of those things. When my grandfather said what he did, it just confirmed what I already knew. I decided then that I would never let myself be like my father. Yes, I might have his traits but I won’t get so involved with another that I’m capable of coming close to the damage that he did.’
‘Matteo...’ Abby started but then she halted herself. Matteo had let her speak; he had let her work out what she wanted for herself. It wasn’t her place to tell him how he felt, even if she thought he was wrong to be so down on himself, but she did say a little. ‘Your father had children and a wife—you don’t.’
‘And I intend to keep it that way,’ Matteo said. ‘He killed my mother. She had straightened herself out and his depravity and temper took her to an early grave.’ And then Matteo did what he never had; he exposed his fear. ‘I can’t take that risk, Abby...’
‘You’re the biggest risk-taker I know.’
‘Not with love.’ Matteo shook his head. ‘The stakes are too high. I’m sorry I can’t give you what you deserve. I never set out for us to get involved, but then, on sight I did. For the past couple of months, since the day we met...’
She waited.
‘It’s been you,’ Matteo said.
‘Just me?’
‘Abby, I might not be marriage material but it doesn’t mean that I’m not crazy about you. I’m just here to explain why it could never last. I don’t want to sleep with you tonight and for you to expect things to have changed tomorrow. They shan’t have. I’m flying back and the next time I see you...’ He shrugged, but it was a desperate one and Abby looked at a man who dealt in hours rather than days.
‘Do you see why I had them pull up such a watertight contract? I’m good for business, not much else...’
‘Matteo, I’m not holding out for a ring.’ She wasn’t sure at first what she was saying, but then Abby looked into the dark eyes of the man who had stayed loyal, who had listened, who had helped her work through dark, dark times to a point where a future seemed possible.
Even if it might not be with him.
And she was sure.
Very.
‘I’m going to go,’ Matteo said and he stood.
‘Please don’t.’ Abby looked up at him. ‘I heard the lecture...’ Their eyes met. ‘And I get it. I just want it to mean something...for us to mean something...’
‘You know that we do.’
‘And that’s all I need to know.’
It was.
Whatever they had amounted to more than a timeframe, what they felt for the other might not ripen with age but could be celebrated now.
They kissed in a way they had both tried not to, slow, precise and affirming. A kiss that was so tender that the only place it could possibly bruise was your heart. And it punctured his because never, not once, had Matteo allowed himself to even glimpse what another with heart exposed might taste like.
‘Sure?’ Matteo checked but Abby had already jumped.
The haste in his breathing as her hands stripped him of his shirt had
