Not so Zoe, he suspected.
She’d lost her whole family when disaster had hit from nowhere. No wonder she was frightened. He wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her that there was a low statistical risk of any more serious danger. But he sensed she wouldn’t welcome it. He sensed a ‘hands off’ shield around her.
‘Y’know, I’m not really that hungry,’ she said in a diminished voice.
She twisted her hands together. To stop them trembling, he guessed.
‘You do realise it’s highly unlikely anything else is going to happen?’ he said gently.
Her chin rose. ‘I know that.’
‘There’s no need to be frightened.’
‘Who said I was frightened?’
‘I thought that was why you’d lost your appetite?’
‘No. I...’ She met his gaze. ‘Maybe I am a little frightened,’ she admitted.
‘Let’s order for you anyway. You might get hungry later.’ He scanned the menu. ‘I’m hungry right now.’
‘You were always hungry,’ she said, with a weak smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth.
Her lovely, lovely mouth.
‘Back then, I mean.’
‘Your granny mightn’t have been so nice, but she made good cookies.’
Zoe nodded. ‘Baking cookies with her is one of the few nice memories I have of her. She liked having a boy to cook for. I realise that now.’
‘Is she still around?’
Her lips tightened. ‘I guess so. I don’t know and I don’t care.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ he said. Not after the way she’d been treated by someone who should have cared for her. Hearing about the old woman’s pregnancy fear for Zoe had given him the creeps.
She nodded and quickly changed the subject. ‘Anything on the menu appeal?’
This was the first time he’d eaten at the hotel apart from breakfast. He’d spent most evenings with friends who owned the most fashionable beachfront nightclub in Seminyak. ‘I’m going for the Balinese mixed seafood.’
Zoe had to shift a little closer to him to read the menu. Her scent was fresh, tangy, with an underlying sweetness. Much like her personality, he suspected.
‘That looks good,’ she said. ‘Healthy.’ She looked up at him. ‘I guess you have to watch everything you eat?’
‘All the time. When I’m training or before a game I carb-load. On vacation I stick with lean protein and vegetables.’
‘I eat healthily too,’ she said. ‘But as I’m far from a professional athlete I also make room for chocolate.’
‘I can’t remember when I last ate chocolate.’
From the time when he’d first started playing for Sydney soccer clubs his diet had been overseen by a nutritionist. It was all about discipline. Discipline and constant self-denial.
‘You want to order dessert?’ he said, flipping the menu to the appropriate page.
‘Why not? The mini chocolate lava pudding with lychee ice cream might be good for my nerves.’
He liked her self-deprecating attitude to her fears. ‘That’s as good an excuse as any,’ he said. ‘Fruit salad for me. I’ve spent a season on the sidelines. I have to be at my peak when I start intense training again.’
She glanced at his right knee. So she knew about the incident when two opposing players had slammed into him and his anterior cruciate ligament had snapped.
‘Australia’s most famous knee...’ she said.
Mitch found it disconcerting that Zoe was so aware of the details of his life while he knew so little about hers. He doubted he’d ever get used to the scrutiny he endured as a celebrity athlete. Even his knee had become public property.
‘I wouldn’t say “most famous knee”,’ he said, laughing it off.
‘How about most notorious knee?’ she said, her head tilted to one side, teasing.
‘Notorious knee? I like that.’
Most painful knee was more like it. Both in terms of the actual injury and also in the way it had lost him a season of play. The memory of being carried off the field came flooding back. The agony. The terror that he wouldn’t be able to play again. The months of rehabilitation and physiotherapy that had followed. The effort to get himself back to peak fitness after the weeks on crutches.
‘I don’t see a scar,’ she said, her eyes narrowed.
‘No scar,’ he said. ‘Three small incisions for keyhole surgery have left tiny marks. That’s all.’
For a moment he was tempted to place Zoe’s hand on his knee and let her feel the punctures. Not a good idea. He found her way too attractive to be able to trust himself.
‘Is it healed now?’ she asked.
‘Good as new.’ He wouldn’t admit to anyone his niggling fear that once he was back in the game his knee would betray him again. His sporting life would be over if it did.
‘There was talk that your injury might force you to retire,’ she said.
‘No way,’ he said vehemently.
This exact injury had brought other great players’ careers to a skidding halt. He wasn’t going to let it end his.
It would take something more catastrophic than a cruciate ligament repair for his manager, his fans or himself to allow him to consider giving up. At the age of twenty-seven he was in his football prime. He cursed the six months it had taken him to achieve full recovery. Now he had to get back out there on the field and prove he could play better than ever.
Soccer was his life.
Zoe drew her dark brows together. ‘So, why are you in Bali?’
‘I was visiting family in Sydney, then decided to have a break here on the way back to Madrid. I met up with a mate who has a surf gear business. Another runs a big nightclub.’
‘When do you go back?’
‘Who knows how the earthquake has affected the airlines? But I’m scheduled to fly to Singapore then back to Madrid the day after tomorrow.’
It was May. He would hurl himself into intense training immediately he got back. Pre-season games started at the end of June. He needed those ‘friendly’ games to test his knee and get back into top form before the season proper commenced. The first games for La Liga—the Spanish league—started at the end of August.
‘What
