Читать книгу The Billionaires Collection - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 12
ОглавлениеELLISON HAD BEEN right about one thing—his daughter Abby really was terrible at the corporate stuff.
It had taken two weeks for her to reply to Matteo’s email and at best her response had been lukewarm.
Of course Matteo had looked into the Boucher team more closely by then.
He was a risk-taker by nature, but they were, even by his standards, more of a gamble than one should take.
It was their second year in competition and their best was a fifth place last year. Frequently, they placed last or second last. Now they were competitors in the Henley Cup—a prestigious international event, held over three races.
They weren’t considered a mention.
Matteo finally decided to call Abby but effusive wasn’t a word that had sprung to mind when she told him that no, they couldn’t meet, given that she was on her way to Dubai.
‘So am I,’ he, on impulse, had replied.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’ve got a couple of racehorses that I want to look at and my sister Allegra is holding a charity event in May... Hold on.’ Matteo checked his calendar. ‘Yes, that’s on Saturday the seventh. How about lunch on the Friday?’
‘I won’t be able to get away for lunch.’
‘Dinner, then?’ Matteo persisted and she returned his offer with a long stretch of silence. ‘Breakfast?’
‘Just stop by the track.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward...’
She had already rung off.
* * *
The heat was fierce in Dubai.
And as for the humidity!
Suffice to say, with the hangover Matteo had, he would far rather be in the airconditioned comfort of his hotel than in the goldfish bowl of a racetrack. The sun seemed to be coming at him from all angles as he made his way to the Boucher sheds.
Matteo had been in Dubai for three days and what an amazing three days they had been. The first had consisted of a wild welcome on board his friend Sheikh Kedah’s yacht.
Kedah seemed hell-bent on returning the wild week Matteo had given him on a recent trip to New York City. The second day had been spent galloping at breakneck speed with his friend along a beach. Matteo had taken a tumble and dislocated his shoulder. The sheikh had called for his private physician to put it back. With Matteo’s arm strapped and a little out of action they had hit the racetracks and placed a few bets on a camel race. The potential two years’ jail time for illegal betting had only served to give Matteo an extra high!
It had been a giddy introduction to Dubai but now he had crashed back to earth—the smell of oil was nauseating and the sound from the track had his molars aching. He’d lost the sling that the physician had provided and so his shoulder was killing him.
And Abby Ellison was nowhere to be seen.
It was after four and he wondered if she might have finished for the day. A group of guys were watching as Pedro, the Boucher driver, put the car through its paces. He knew it was Pedro because Matteo recognised the deep green of the Boucher car.
Matteo had done some further research on the team, of course.
They had entered in the prestigious Henley Cup. A series of three races—Dubai, Milan and Monte Carlo. The final race took place in July a week before Ellison’s fundraiser.
As newcomers the Boucher team wasn’t being taken seriously, especially because the owner was a woman. Just a little rich girl playing with her daddy’s money seemed to be the general consensus.
Pedro Sanchez, their driver, was someone who was being watched seriously though, and there were a couple of other teams who had their eye on him.
The group of men all ignored him and that suited Matteo just fine. He just drank from a large bottle of cola and idly watched.
Or rather, at first, he idly watched.
Matteo had never really been in to cars and not just because his parents had died in a crash. His father had once taken a five-year-old Matteo for a joy-ride.
There was no joy in that memory!
Still, this was different—Pedro was really putting the car through its paces now, hugging the bend, belting it down the straight, and the roar of the motor was, as it flew past him, a bit of a turn-on.
‘Whoa!’ one of the guys shouted as the car lost traction, but then Pedro skilfully righted it and Matteo watched as the car again sped down the straight and then slowed down as it came towards them.
‘Hey...’
Matteo turned as someone greeted him and blinked in vague surprise. ‘Pedro...’ Matteo shook his hand; he recognised the young man himself from his research. ‘Sorry for the double take. I thought that I was watching you out there. I didn’t realise there were two drivers.’
‘No, no...’ Pedro said. ‘Soon you’ll get to see me drive. That’s Abby—she’s just checking out some adjustments that she has made.’
Matteo looked back at the car and, sure enough, climbing out from it, dressed in tight leather, was no man, and the vague turn-on Matteo had felt before was rather less vague now.
He hadn’t known that he was in to leather either!
The racing world was looking up, he decided as she took off her helmet and the fire guard and then shook her long dark hair out.
She was tall enough to wear her curves well, and if she only smiled he would return it with the best of his. And Matteo’s smile could melt. But then he remembered he was not here to seduce and so he kept his business expression on.
‘So,’ Pedro said, ‘I hear that you have a meeting with Abby.’
‘I do.’
‘Good,’ Pedro responded and he could hear the slight edge to the man’s voice. ‘Then I guess it’s time for me to show you a little of what I can do.’ He looked over to Abby, who had reached them now. ‘How is she?’
‘Oh, she’s running like silk now.’
They spoke as if the car was a person!
‘I’ve warmed her up for you,’ Abby said and then, as Pedro headed off towards the car, she finally acknowledged Matteo. ‘Di Sione?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘But you can call me Matteo.’
Abby didn’t return the smile.
Instead she blanked him and turned her attention to Pedro, who was climbing into the car.
Was she always this polite with investors? Matteo pondered.
‘How long has Pedro been out here?’ Matteo enquired, wondering how long he’d had to acclimatise to the hot and humid conditions.
‘Long enough,’ Abby said and then carried on ignoring him as Pedro started to do some laps.
‘Why don’t we...?’ Matteo started but his voice was drowned out by the sound of the engine and he had to wait till Pedro had passed before continuing. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere we can talk?’
Still she ignored him and watched the track intently and then, when Pedro had finished a few laps, she turned and finally answered him.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I don’t need an investor who wants to pull me away.’
‘But Pedro’s finished.’
‘I’m watching the competition,’ she said.
‘And you do need an investor,’ Matteo said.
Not this one, Abby thought.
She knew the Di Sione name, of course she did, and she had looked Matteo up.
Of course she had.
Reckless, wild and debauched, she had read, but looking at the photos of him and finding out a little more about her potential sponsor, it didn’t take long for her to work out that he was also as sexy as all hell.
And Abby didn’t like sexy.
It terrified her, in fact.
Abby had seen and recognised Matteo the second she had stepped out of the car. He was even better in the flesh and her stomach had curled in a way she would prefer it did not.
She had also seen and felt his eyes roam her body as she had walked towards them and had felt her cheeks turn pink from that fact.
‘Can I get earplugs?’ Matteo asked. Another team was taking their car out and his hangover was making itself known again. ‘I guess we can resort to sign language if we’re not allowed to go somewhere decent to talk.’
‘Decent?’ Abby frowned. What sort of a sponsor was he? Didn’t he get that she lived trackside?
She watched Evan put his car through its paces. She had been waiting all day to watch this. Evan Lewis, driver of the Carter team, was one of the Boucher team’s toughest opponents. Her friend Bella, who she had studied engineering with, worked for the Carter team and had told Abby that the engine, along with the driver, were poetry in motion. Yes, she had waited all day to see this but as Evan in the aqua-blue car tested the track, she found that she couldn’t concentrate.
Matteo stood beside her, swigging from his bottle, which made her thirsty, and as she licked her lips he offered her a drink, as if they had known each other for months.
She gave him a terse shake of her head and he moved forwards and leaned on the rail and bent over a little.
And she noticed.
Oh, she tried to watch Evan but her eyes kept flicking to Matteo’s long legs and to a white, slightly crumpled shirt that, despite the heat, wasn’t damp. He had a bruise over his left eye and she wanted to know where it had come from. He put down his bottle and in her peripheral vision she saw that he was undoing his shirt.
What the hell?
He turned then and gave her a smile as he popped his hand into the gap he had made in his shirt. ‘I’ve hurt my shoulder,’ he briefly explained.
She didn’t return his smile, nor did she comment.
Instead she walked off.
Matteo had had enough. He’d just have to work out another way to get his grandfather the necklace because if this was the way Abby dealt with sponsors he could just imagine her reaction to him suggesting what she wear to her father’s fundraiser!
‘Guess what,’ he said as he caught up with her. ‘You’ve just lost possibly the most hands-off sponsor you could have ever hoped find...’ He looked into the green eyes that would not meet his. ‘I’m going. I’ve decided that I don’t want to do business with you. You’re rude,’ he said and then saw that, just a little, she smiled. ‘You’re not very nice.’
‘I’m not.’
Now she met his eyes and, with contact made, he changed his mind; maybe they could work together after all.
‘That’s okay,’ Matteo said. ‘I’ll settle for polite.’
Abby gave him an assessing look. She liked it that he had said he’d be hands off—that had been one of the main issues with their previous sponsor; he had demanded so much of Pedro’s time. And she liked, too, that Matteo had addressed up front the issue—she’d been rude.
‘I can manage polite,’ she said.
‘Good.’ He drained the last of his cola. ‘I do need to get something to eat.’
She said something then but it was drowned out by the roar of a car and he couldn’t make out the words.
He just watched her mouth.
‘I can’t hear you,’ Matteo said and she had to watch his mouth now. ‘Dinner?’ he suggested. Finally there was a lull in the noise and he said it again. ‘Dinner?’
‘Here?’ Abby checked and Matteo looked around. The race wasn’t till next week and so the corporate caterers weren’t here yet.
‘Well, I’d prefer a nice lazy meal back at my eight-star hotel but if you insist on here, then I guess it will have to do. Do they have hot dogs in Dubai?’
Abby nodded to a van. ‘Not hot dogs exactly...’ She took a breath; they were about to talk big business and a takeaway back in the shed really wouldn’t cut it. ‘When you say your hotel...’ She saw him frown, but no, she would make very sure where they would be eating before she agreed to go back to his hotel. ‘You do mean the restaurant?’
‘What the hell did you think I meant?’ Matteo grinned. ‘Of course I meant the restaurant. Don’t believe everything you read about me, Abby—I’m fast but not that fast.’
She laughed.
Matteo had no idea what a rare sound that was.
‘Do you want to meet there?’ he suggested, assuming she had a car.
‘Sure,’ she agreed, and he told her the name of the hotel he was staying at. ‘I’ll just get changed,’ she said, but aware of all she had in her locker she was factoring in a dash back to her own hotel too.
‘Please...’ He stopped abruptly. Matteo had been about to say, ‘Please don’t.’ She looked amazing in the Boucher green leather after all, but there was something that stopped him and he quickly changed his plea. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you there on the hour.’
Abby felt her cheeks go a little pink again.
‘Is it okay if I have a look around before I head off?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
One of the mechanics who was peeling a pear offered Matteo half and, when he took it, offered to show him around. It was actually fascinating. There was a whole wall of tyres that would see them through just one race and the science of it all was something Matteo had never considered.
Abby took her time to get ready. Given Matteo had said that they were meeting on the hour there really was no time to go back to her hotel and change. Also, she was incredibly nervous. Oh, she had sat through her share of dinners and lunches, of course, just not with someone as gorgeous as he, and not with someone who made her smile.
Yes, she knew that she came across as brittle at times, but she had been particularly awful to him.
She forgave herself then.
After all, she knew why.
So, what to wear to dinner at an eight-star hotel with a stunning man when you have neither the time nor inclination for a dress but all you have in your locker is a pair of ill-fitting jeans, a massive black T-shirt and flat sandals?
She suppressed a smile because she had known exactly what Matteo had been about to say regarding her leather suit. That was why her cheeks had gone pink. It had felt a little like flirting and Abby wasn’t in the least good at that.
* * *
She put on some dark glasses and ran a comb through her hair. As she left the locker room she took out her phone to call for a taxi and then startled when she saw that Matteo was still there.
‘Sorry, I thought you’d have your own car. Why didn’t you say?’ he asked.
‘I just...’ Abby shrugged.
‘Come on,’ he said and put on his own dark glasses before heading back out in the sun.
What the hell happened there? he thought as they walked to his car. It was as if Abby had done everything possible to look as unattractive as she could. The jeans were massive and as for the T-shirt!
Maybe hot dogs would be a better idea after all.
He glanced down and he didn’t think he’d seen an unpainted female toenail before.
Half an hour spent getting ready, for that!
‘Will they mind jeans at the hotel?’ Abby checked as he drove them there.
‘Not the way you wear them.’ Matteo turned and smiled. ‘You look great.’
Again, she laughed.
‘You are such...’ She just laughed again. ‘I wasn’t expecting to go out for dinner, okay? I do know I’m badly dressed.’
‘For who?’ Matteo shrugged.
He was relaxing to her.
Oh, she was on edge, Abby knew, yet somehow Matteo was relaxing to her.
‘What happened to your eye?’ she asked.
‘I came off a horse,’ he said. ‘That’s how I dislocated my shoulder. I’m supposed to be wearing a shoulder strap.’
‘So, why aren’t you?’
‘I lost it.’
‘Oh.’
He was so incredibly handsome and she felt incredibly drab.
‘I could stop by my hotel and get changed,’ Abby offered, still a little worried that she was way underdressed.
‘No need.’
It was, however, Matteo thought, a seriously nice restaurant they were heading to. Seriously, seriously nice but thankfully he’d been here with the sheikh and had lobbed enough tips these past days that he knew they’d give him a welcome smile as they walked in.
But he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable.
‘We could go to Majlis Al Bahar...’ Matteo glanced over and he saw her nervous swallow. ‘I’m not getting romantic,’ he reassured, because it was possibly the most romantic restaurant on earth. ‘It’s just that the dress code is more casual and,’ he added, ‘I kind of want to try it.’
‘No,’ Abby said. ‘The hotel’s fine.
So his hotel it was.
‘Table for two,’ Matteo told the maître d’ and such was his confidence that, of course, no one turned a hair and they were shown to their seats.
Her glasses off, those disgusting jeans tucked away, she really was beautiful, Matteo thought. Her eyes were an intense green and thickly lashed and she was the first woman he had ever sat in a restaurant with who wore not a trace of make-up.
He knew what she’d look like in the morning, Matteo thought. Then he reminded himself that he wasn’t here for that and so he looked from Abby and out to the view of the Arabian Gulf. ‘I love it here,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t expect to, then again I had no real idea what to expect.’
‘I haven’t seen much of it,’ Abby said. ‘We only got here yesterday...’
Matteo was astute enough to frown. ‘So how is Pedro doing with the heat?’
She liked that he understood that it mattered.
‘A few days more to acclimatise would have been nice,’ Abby admitted.
‘Is Pedro as temperamental as the press make out?’ Matteo asked.
‘More so.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t blame him though. He’s an amazing talent.’
‘You’ve given him a very early break,’ Matteo said, remembering that Pedro had just turned twenty-one and had been nineteen when Abby had taken him on. ‘Shouldn’t he still be doing the dinky tracks in a go-kart?’
Abby smiled but it was a guarded one. ‘He’s going to be amazing—he already is.’
He saw her tight smile and read it.
Someone with a far bigger cash pot would snap him up very soon.
‘Treat him like a star, then,’ Matteo said. ‘Make him never want to leave.’ He saw the set of her lips. ‘What’s his latest gripe?’ he asked and her mouth relaxed into a soft laugh at his perception.
‘Well, some of the other drivers have suites with their own gym and lap pool.’ She looked at Matteo, who said nothing. ‘These guys are incredibly fit. You have to be to race at that speed. I know how taxing it is just doing a few gentle laps.’
‘It didn’t look particularly gentle to me,’ Matteo said. ‘So, what’s it like?’ he asked. ‘Driving one?’
And she knew the line the guys used but that would really tip her into flirting with him.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said, instead of saying that it was better than sex.
It had to be.
Her one experience had been hell after all.
No, she would not be flirting.
‘Pedro doesn’t like using the hotel pool and gym,’ Abby said. ‘And I get that, I do, but...’ She loathed talking about money, but that was what they were here to do. ‘Our budget’s tight.’
‘And Pedro doesn’t want to hear that?’
‘He’s been really good,’ Abby said. ‘They all have been. It’s hard watching the others swan off to fancy restaurants when we’re heading for the burger bar. We all want better things and know that we have to work for it. It’s just hard juggling egos. And also I know that Pedro’s right—he’d do better with more resources and I’d do better if I had more time to focus on the car and the opposition.’
‘Instead of playing bookkeeper?’ Matteo asked and she gave a low laugh.
‘And PA, and travel agent...’
‘I get it.’
How could he? ‘How come you want to invest?’ she asked him.
‘Well, I think you’re going places,’ Matteo said. ‘And I want to be securely on board when you do. I have a thing for outside chances.’ He looked at the wine menu. ‘What are we drinking?’ Matteo asked.
‘Water for me...’
‘You’re a cheap date.’
‘This isn’t a date, Matteo,’ she said.
‘Actually, no, it isn’t.’ He put down the menu and was serious. He was interested in sponsoring the team. Seriously so. Matteo was a gambler by nature but this was a huge one. He wasn’t thinking about the necklace or her father now. Matteo’s head was in the game and if he was going to be a sponsor, then there had to be rules. ‘My relationships run into hours rather than days. Believe me, you don’t want to know...’
‘I already do!’ she said.
‘Which means, if we want this to work, then it’s hands off each other.’
‘I’m good with that,’ she said.
‘Anyway,’ Matteo added, ‘I don’t date.’
‘And I don’t drink.’
‘At all?’
‘Nope.’ She shook her head.
‘Ever?’
‘Never.’ She smiled at his curiosity. ‘Well, I tried it and didn’t like it.’
‘Okay, water for two it is.’
‘You can.’
‘I know that I can,’ Matteo said, ‘but I’m keeping my wits about me with you.’
He looked at the menu and groaned. ‘Truffle-crusted scallops—I know what I’m having.’
His groan made her stomach tighten; the low sound of his want caused her breath to hold in her throat, and then he looked up.
His eyes were the darkest navy and when he smiled so, too, did she.
‘That’s better,’ Matteo said.
He was nice, her heart said.
Just that.
The food was amazing and the company too, and he really did take her concerns seriously.
‘I had a sponsor last year, not a particularly generous one,’ Abby explained. ‘He rang all the time, wanted constant progress reports. Race day was hell. He wanted me to join him and his cronies for a champagne brunch and Pedro to be sociable...’
‘Look, I get you don’t want someone sticking their nose in and I can manage lunch by myself. And, for what it’s worth, I won’t be putting pressure on you or your team. I wouldn’t expect much this year...’
‘Oh, no,’ Abby interrupted. ‘We’re winning the Henley Cup this year.’
‘I’m just saying that I’m patient.’
‘Pedro will be off soon,’ Abby said. ‘He’s a rising star and someone will make an offer that I can’t match any day soon.’
‘Probably.’ Matteo nodded. He’d thought the same but now he could really see the problem. ‘Hunter’s retiring at the end of this year and I guess the Lachance team...’ He paused, remembering that Abby had briefly dated him. ‘Hey, didn’t you two...?’
‘We’re winning this year,’ Abby said, not answering the question. ‘I want the Henley Cup—Dubai first, then Italy, then Monte Carlo.’
‘Then you need to keep your driver happy,’ Matteo said. ‘How tight is it?’ he asked.
No one knew just how bad it was and Abby was extremely reluctant to tell him.
Matteo watched as she fiddled with her glass. ‘The only thing I want in a relationship is honesty,’ he said and then he started to laugh. ‘I only get to use that line in business.’
Even Abby laughed.
‘So, how about we be honest with each other? Whatever you tell me goes no further than here, whatever we then decide.’
She believed him. And, Abby thought, maybe it would be a relief to tell someone the truth.
No one knew just how bad it was.
Her team all thought she was particularly tense; they didn’t know that she was waking up in dread every night. Abby was even considering agreeing to her father’s ridiculous bribe to go along to his fundraiser just for the injection of cash he had promised if she did.
The very thought of that made her sick.
She wondered if the photograph of her and Hunter still hung on her father’s study wall.
Abby closed her eyes for a second, as panic briefly hit.
No, she would not be going cap in hand to her father.
She opened her eyes to Matteo’s waiting ones and decided to tell him the truth.
‘I can’t get us to Italy.’
Matteo said nothing.
‘I’ve got the car and equipment covered but I can’t get the team there.’
‘The money’s run out?’
Abby nodded.
He didn’t get up and walk off and he didn’t berate.
He just sat there.
Thinking.
Then he gave in on water and called for a large cognac.
And still he sat there thinking.
Not about the necklace that he was supposed to be here for; instead he was thinking about cars and a team and it gave him a buzz that had been missing at the casino of late. He didn’t like motor racing. Fast cars were the only vice he didn’t have. There were too many painful memories attached.
Yet, he was starting to come around.
Watching Abby and later Pedro putting the car through its paces, speaking with the mechanics, gauging the opposition...
There was an attraction to the sport that Matteo had never anticipated when he had taken the challenge on.
He asked for figures and she went red in the neck but told him, and she watched as he crunched a few numbers on a calculator.
Not his phone, she noted.
And it wasn’t a two-dollar calculator either.
He had beautiful hands, Abby thought, and she liked the way his tongue popped out as he concentrated.
Matteo knew he should conclude this meeting now. The type of money that was required here outweighed the necklace and there was practically a guarantee of zero return.
‘Why do you think you’re a chance?’ he asked.
‘I built the car,’ Abby said. ‘I have the most fearless driver I’ve ever seen. Pedro’s a bit raw but that’s good. He’s unpredictable. No one except for me—actually, not even me—knows what he’s capable of...’
Still Matteo looked.
‘But he needs the right tool and my car is that.’
Still he looked. His face gave away nothing, Abby thought, but he had demanded honesty and if that was the case there was something rather large that she was leaving out.
‘And I’ve been waiting nine years for this.’
She didn’t tell him why; she just told him that she had.
He saw something then and its name was determination.
No, the numbers might not add up but the feeling in his gut tipped the scale.
‘Tell you what,’ Matteo finally said and Abby found she was holding her breath. ‘If you can come in in the top five here in Dubai, then I’ll take care of getting the team to Italy.’
‘Will you be staying to watch?’
‘God, yes,’ Matteo said. ‘And sorry if you don’t like it but if you do place, then I’ll be in Italy too. Don’t worry though. I shan’t be breathing down your neck.’
And for the first time, possibly ever, Abby imagined just that—a man breathing down her neck, or even on her neck...
Not just any man.
Him.
He expected her to backtrack, to maybe push for a lower place, but instead she looked straight back at him.
‘We’re going to do better than fifth.’
He really, really hoped so.
And so, too, did she.
‘Right,’ Matteo said and called for the bill and then he asked for her bank details.
‘We haven’t placed yet.’
‘I’m just making sure that you do.’
He paid and then asked for a driver to take her back to her hotel. ‘My sister Allegra has got a big charity event tomorrow. I think we should go.’
‘You said...’ Abby started but Matteo overrode her.
‘Everyone will be there, including the press. It might rattle the opposition if they think you’ve got a Di Sione on board.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Mind games.’
Oh, it would seriously rattle the opposition and Abby would take any edge that she could get.
She thought of Hunter and that terrible night and she had to beat him this year.
It was her only chance for revenge.
‘Abby, you need to ooze confidence,’ Matteo said. ‘Doesn’t matter how you feel on the inside.’
‘Please.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s easy for you...’
‘You don’t know me,’ Matteo interrupted. ‘But believe me when I say, never let them smell fear.’
She nodded.
‘So will you come?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ Matteo said. ‘After tomorrow I’ll leave you alone to do your thing. If I send a car for you at ten would that be okay?’
‘There’s no need for that. I’ll meet you here.’
‘Sure.’
When her car arrived it was Matteo, rather than the driver, who opened the door for her, and they spoke for a moment before she got in.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said and she nodded and then he shook her hand. ‘And you need to dress up.’
‘Excuse me?’ she flared.
‘I don’t care what you wear in your down time,’ Matteo said. ‘But if you want to wear the Di Sione name on your car and your overalls, then you have to look the part when we’re out.’
‘And I thought brunch on race day was an imposition...’ She was about to tell him to get stuffed but not only couldn’t Abby afford to, she didn’t want to either. He was right; if her team were going to get anywhere, then maybe it was time to play the corporate game a touch and maybe she could do that with him.
He hadn’t turned a hair at her jeans; he had made her feel relaxed and comfortable as she had told him the terrible mess she was in.
‘Tomorrow is work,’ he said as Abby climbed into the car but then, just before he closed the door, he gave her that smile. ‘Not that we can’t enjoy ourselves while working.’
The car drove off and Abby found her heart was thumping. They had very carefully laid the ground rules at the table—they were completely hands off, she knew that.
Matteo’s inference had been that they would simply enjoy provoking the press and the opposition.
It was her own imagination that was for the first time, if not exactly running wild, then peeking out and blinking at the sun.
A dark sun named Matteo Di Sione.
