doorway, looking rather the worse for wear, was Matteo.
‘I know you hate violence...’ he started.
Abby did.
‘But he had to pay.’
Matteo had a black eye and bruised knuckles and a chipped front tooth. It would have been some fight; Abby knew how hard Hunter worked to stay in shape and she also knew, firsthand, how violent his temper could be.
‘Come in,’ Abby said and she held the door open but Matteo shook his head.
‘Nope, I’m just here to tell you one thing. Two actually.’
‘Well, can we at least do that inside?’ Abby asked and finally Matteo nodded and in he came. She spoke first. ‘I tried to call you.’
‘I threw my phone out the car.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I didn’t want you to talk me down,’ Matteo said, ‘which you would have tried to and then you’d have worried all night.’ Then he was more direct. ‘And I was cross with you.’
She’d thought that he might be.
‘What Hunter did to you was despicable. What he’s still doing to you, you shouldn’t allow. Stop wasting your life exacting revenge.’
‘I know that now.’ Abby was trying not to cry. ‘Even when we won the cup, I kept wanting to explain that I was happy, just that we’d won, not because of beating him.’
‘Good,’ Matteo said and then he gave in standing and went and took a seat on a large dark sofa.
He looked around her apartment and, after the night he had had, it was nice and relaxing just to sit in silence. There must be a huge tree outside because the only view he could see as he stared out was green leaves.
‘I’ll get to the second thing in a moment,’ Matteo said and rested his head back for a while.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Abby offered.
‘A drink.’
She guessed he didn’t mean coffee.
‘I don’t think you should be drinking,’ Abby said but then went and poured him a very nice cognac.
‘I thought you didn’t drink,’ Matteo said, taking a long, slow sip.
‘I run a motor team,’ Abby said. ‘They get tired of lemonade. Actually, my friend Bella gave it to me when we came fifth last year. I’ve been hiding it from them since then.’
‘Good.’
But the small talk didn’t last for very long.
‘Second thing,’ Matteo said and he watched as her cheeks went pink and her eyes, which were still red from crying all night, blinked a few times. ‘Don’t ever again compare me to him.’
‘I’m really sorry for what I said.’
‘And so you should be,’ Matteo responded, ‘because I would never treat any woman that way.’
‘I get that, Matteo. I was cross, I was upset...’
‘No excuse!’ he said and he pointed his finger at her. ‘Because I love a good row but if you ever hurl that at me again I’ll be straight out of the door.’
He served her a very serious warning but even as he did there was this little thing called hope flickering in her heart because...did that mean that they might, just might, have a future?
Oh, not a big one, he’d made that very clear, but he’d lived in her heart for three months yet and she didn’t want it all to end on a row.
‘And you’re never to compare me to your father either.’
‘I won’t,’ Abby said.
‘He knows what happened?’ Matteo checked. He still couldn’t believe it but Abby nodded.
‘He just carries on as if it didn’t. I hate how he has that photo still on his wall.’
‘It isn’t any more. I smashed it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And I tore it up into a million pieces and it still wasn’t enough and so I went and found him and I don’t regret it.’ Matteo stood. ‘I’m going to go.’
He wanted a bath and to tidy up; this wasn’t how today was supposed to be.
‘Don’t go yet.’
‘I’m a mess. I want to sleep.’
‘I’ll run you a bath,’ Abby said. ‘And you can sleep here.’
She just could not stand another twelve or twenty-four hours’, or even, knowing Matteo, several weeks’ delay in proceedings.
Abby ran him a bath and he stripped off as easily as he always did and got in and then she sat on the edge in her gown.
‘Why are you still wearing it?’ Matteo asked.
‘I fell asleep with it on.’
‘That’s very un-Abby.’
‘Yes, lately I am.’
He had the loveliest body and she got a very nice view of the best of it as he lay back and ducked his head under the water for a moment and then came up again.
‘I know you don’t want to hear it,’ Matteo said, ‘but I am going to explain my version of things.’
‘I do want to hear it.’
‘Then get my jacket.’
She did and he half drenched it as he went through the pockets and took out the necklace and then dropped his jacket back on the floor.
‘You know my grandfather brought us up?’
Abby nodded.
‘And I told you about the fight. How, since then, we’ve worked at things. We don’t talk about much, but we do talk. I take him out and I care very much for him. In April he asked me to come and see him and told me that he was very ill.’
She knew that much from his conversation with Allegra.
‘When we were growing up he used to tell us this tale about the Lost Mistresses. I never really paid much attention. He’d just say it all the time...’
‘Tell me.’
‘Oh, no...’ Matteo rolled his eyes and put on an old man’s voice. ‘“Don’t ask me how I came by them...an old man must have his secrets...”’
Abby laughed.
‘Well,
