could hear the boys howling down the phone as they all raised their glasses in a fake toast. At least someone found it funny, he thought as he hauled his third-best tux out of the wardrobe and laid it out on the bed.
He’d been looking forward to this night for ages. A chance to really blow off steam after the disastrous media circus he’d lived through with Faye. And learning of the juicy prospect of tucking Arturo Finance into the back pocket of the bank was going to be the icing on the cake.
He felt he was almost on the home straight already.
But all that would have to wait while he went to the ballet.
He dragged the towel across his damp shoulders and chuckled, realising he wasn’t nearly as down about it as he’d been half an hour ago. And it didn’t have anything to do with a new desire to watch people flounce about the stage. All the charm of the evening was wrapped up in one beautiful little package called Ruby.
She might well have designs on his mother, but he wasn’t getting that feeling from her—he wasn’t picking up that sycophantic thing that most people had about them when they met him for the first time.
She was refreshing, and he was in the mood to be refreshed, and since there was no choice in the matter for the next couple of hours he might as well enjoy what he could.
He stepped into his trousers just as there was a knock on the door. He listened. It came again. Two tiny little raps—one-two. Quiet, but determined. Business not pleasure, he thought, registering with interest a slight sense of disappointment.
He fastened his flies and lifted his shirt, then opened the door and there she was. All eyes, lips and lily-white slender limbs.
‘Hello, there,’ he said, stretching his arms inside his shirt. ‘Everything OK?’
By the look on her face everything was not OK. Her eyes had widened to coal-black circles and her mouth was in a shocked red ‘O’ as she gawped at his chest. He stifled a smile as he turned to spare her blushes and started to button his shirt.
‘I’m so sorry to bother you,’ she said, tucking her eyes down, ‘but I was meant to give you this to wear.’ She held out a little parcel, kept her head turned away. ‘From your mum.’
He continued to fasten his buttons and stared at the little parcel.
‘Want to open it for me?’ he said, now walking to the table for his cufflinks.
Her eyes flicked up, then down, but not before she took a good long look. He couldn’t help but smile broadly. Game on.
She pulled open the package and held out a red bow tie and pocket square.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘What?’ she said. ‘Yes, of course everything is OK. I was just wondering why you bother with those things.’
He paused, his collar up, considering her carefully. That was not what he’d expected to hear.
‘Pardon?’
‘Cufflinks. What are they even for? Why not just use buttons? I don’t get it.’
‘Has anyone ever told you you’re quite forward?’ he said, clicking the cufflinks together.
‘I say what’s on my mind. I’m not trying to cause offence, but I’ve never seen anyone use them.’
He finished and tugged at his cuffs, checking that his sleeves were perfectly straight, watching her watching him carefully. He was warming to her more by the minute.
‘They make my cuffs sit nicely. I like the look. A beautiful shirt deserves beautiful cuffs. And, since you’re looking unconvinced by that answer, I’ll also add that these were a gift from an ex-girlfriend. After we split up.’
He turned them in the light and smiled.
‘I’m not all Mr Bad Guy, despite what you might have read in the press.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Right...’ with a tone that was flat and disbelieving.
He raised an eyebrow and tied the bowtie in place.
Well, what did he expect? he thought, turning away to get his jacket while his mind ran to the stupid pictures his friends had texted him and those quotes about being emotionally stunted.
He hadn’t bothered to read them properly. Anyone who knew him well knew the truth. And anyone who knew him well knew that all his stunted emotions sat with Sophie. The only thing he was sure of in his life was that there would never be another Sophie...
They had been the Golden Couple all through university—she with her long blonde hair and he a rising star of the rugby scene. He’d never been happier. The whole world had been spread out before him. His degree in sports science, his imminent career as a rugby player, playing for his country... Would it be Italy or England? When would he ask Sophie to marry him? Where would they live?
Those were the kinds of decisions he’d faced. Until the night he’d got the news that his father had died. Like a great oak being ripped up from the roots, his strength, his confidence had been sapped. He’d felt the world crumble under his feet, felt himself spinning in space. He’d thought his father sure and solid and strong. He’d had all the answers. He’d been wise and clever and honourable and he’d loved his mother—and Claudio had been his best friend.
They had been almost inseparable—closer than brothers. The only thing that had ever came between his parents had been Claudio’s suffocating presence in their lives—until something had happened and everything had changed.
Matteo had once suspected that Claudio had made a move on his mother and his father had found out. It had to be something like that for the schism between them to have been so deep. How wrong he had been.
His father’s fight to save the family bank had been epic. He had worked tirelessly for weeks, but so much of it had gone. People with lots of money wanted lots more. Loyalty was too expensive. Especially when Claudio had offered a fast dividend and people had been too greedy to care how it was made.
But it had been his father’s death more than the losses to the company that had devastated Matteo’s life. His mother had been inconsolable—the thought of her anguish still made him wince with pain. He had gone to her side, nursed her and taken charge as he knew his father would have wanted. A stream of people from the banking world had arrived—all firm handshakes, sober suits and quiet conversations.
All of that he had lived through, knowing that it couldn’t get any worse. Knowing that Sophie was there for him.
And the knowledge of her warm, loving body had driven him one night to take a flight north to university, then a two-hour taxi ride from the airport to the cold, stormy coast of St Andrew’s, where he’d known she would be just about to wake up. Maybe he’d slip into bed beside her, feel the love in her arms and bury himself and his pain...
How many times must he relive those moments? The crunch of the gravel, the lightening shadows of the morning and the frosted cloud of his breath. The cold, metallic slide of his key in the lock, lamps still burning in the hallway, the TV on, glasses on the table.
Like an automaton he had turned to
