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He just spoke about it in such a matter-of-fact way that it made the world a bit nicer but she shook her head at the impossibility. ‘He seriously messed with my head.’
‘We’re all messed up, Abby.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Of course I am. My whole family are.’
‘Because your parents died?’ Abby asked.
‘Because of how they lived.’
It was Abby who didn’t know what to say now.
Matteo never opened up to anyone. He could talk for hours and still reveal little about himself but with all she had told him today, well, it seemed wrong to hold back. He looked at her, so stunning on the outside and so churned up within, and it felt unfair to let her think that the polished, carefree man who sat before her didn’t have dark memories of his own.
‘Do you know why I said no to Pedro taking me for a spin?’
She shook her head.
‘Because the thought of having someone drive me around at high speed makes me ill.’
‘But riding a thoroughbred racehorse doesn’t?’ Abby frowned.
‘When I was five my father woke me up in the middle of the night. Now, when I look back, he was high on cocaine but I didn’t know about drugs then. I just knew there were times we avoided him and that this was one of those times. He’d won a car.’ Matteo sat there for a moment and remembered his bewilderment at being woken up. ‘We had loads of cars, but no, he had to show me this one. He took me into the garage and I remember that the car was silver. He told me how fast it went and just all this stuff and then he told me to climb in. I did...’ He looked at Abby, and Matteo was probably more confused in hindsight than he had been at the time. ‘Do you know, he didn’t even check if I was belted in? He just revved that engine and took off.’
‘To where?’ Abby asked.
‘Everywhere,’ Matteo said. ‘It was the longest night of my life, changing lanes, swerving, all the lights blurring. I wet myself,’ Matteo admitted. ‘He just kept going faster. He was laughing and shouting. I swear I knew we were going to die that night but somehow we made it home. A few weeks later there was a huge fight and my father got loaded. My mother got in the car, apparently to sort things out once and for all. They say the car skidded out of control but I always wonder...’
‘If she was as scared as you had been?’
‘Yep,’ Matteo said. ‘She’d got clean by then, well, apart from spending...’ He saw her slight frown. ‘Believe me, I almost wish she hadn’t though. I can’t stand the thought that she might have been as sober and as scared as I was that night.’
‘What do your brothers and sisters say?’
‘There are some things that you just don’t discuss. We talk about other things, but the past is there—we all know it. I’m sure they have their own memories and issues. I’ve never told anyone about that night.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘So, no—tell Pedro thanks but no thanks. I shan’t be taking him up on his offer.’
He tipped the last of the champagne into her glass.
‘Enough of the sad stuff,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating.’
They danced on the beach, a lovely long, slow dance, and Abby was celebrating not just the win, nor that she was out in her sexy silver dress and necklace, drinking champagne and relaxed, but turned on in his arms. But that this emotionally elusive man had told her something about himself.
Something that not even his family knew.
It was, without doubt, for Abby, the perfect end to the perfect day.
Matteo thought it less than perfect. Not the day, nor the night—more what he had found out. What had happened to Abby was criminal, not just the event but the effect that it had had on her.
For the first time that he could remember he wanted to step up, but that would mean offering more than he had sworn to ever do.
He remembered their kiss and could feel the attraction but the cruellest thing in the world would be to let her think he was capable of even a short-term relationship. And so, when the music ended Matteo did as promised.
He took her safely home.
CHAPTER SIX
ABBY WOKE AND stretched and looked over to her lovely silver dress that was draped over the chair and she was more mixed up than ever.
