AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They had spent the day shopping. It was the first time she had ever shopped with a guy and she had loved the way he’d made her feel when she’d paraded outfits for him.
He’d made her feel special.
He made her feel special now, their fingers loosely entwined on the wrought-iron table between them, an intimate gesture that warmed her.
But for how long? For how much longer could this continue...?
Reality awaited them. As predicted, they had been a flash in the pan when it had come to the tabloids, soon overtaken by celebrities doing stupid things or getting into trouble.
And what about his ex? From even further away in LA, where she was apparently back on the catwalk and doing the social scene, she had sent a text telling him that she’d met someone and sarcastically wishing him the best with his new woman.
Maude had done her bit and, if Cassie was poised in the wings, waiting for the fallout of her mischief-making to rain down, then this charade had served its purpose because Cassie had apparently given up the ghost when it came to trying to climb back into a relationship with Mateo. She would have the last laugh when the engagement she had engineered came to its predictable end. She’d think he would be massively inconvenienced and she would be rather pleased with herself.
And her family... Maude had sent a couple of sneaky selfies to them, but her mother was busy with the finishing touches to the wedding and just content that her daughter was doing a bit more than working eight to eight in an office, ignoring her pleas to find herself a good man.
She’d found the good man and all was right in the world. Except, it wasn’t, was it?
‘Penny for them.’
Maude felt Mateo’s eyes resting on her and she sighed. ‘I’m thinking how wonderful all of this is,’ she said truthfully.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve never been to Italy before?’ he said gently. ‘Isn’t this the playground for the English middle classes?’
‘You’re very cynical, Mateo Moreno.’
‘Old habits die hard. But am I right?’
‘I’ve been before,’ she confessed. ‘But not for a long time and never like this.’
‘Like this?’
With someone I’m falling for...
‘Not...being shuffled here and there by parents who want to cram in as much as they can with two pre-adolescent kids.’
Her heart was beating fast and she felt a slick of perspiration form a film over her.
Was that what was happening—was this a slow path towards falling in love with this guy? Yes. How and when, she didn’t know. She just knew that this was where she’d ended up—on track to losing her heart to a heart breaker, to becoming another notch on the bedpost. Because, however much of a gentleman Mateo could be, he was still the inveterate bachelor who had no intention of settling down.
She’d disobeyed every rule she had ever taken care to lay down for herself and had drifted into love—and what a hopeless love it was.
He was smiling, his voice a lazy drawl as he sympathised with a twelve-year-old Maude wanting to wriggle out of traipsing around churches and looking at boring old statues.
She wasn’t even listening. Appalled, her mind was throwing up a series of scenarios, each worse than the one before. How desperate he had been to get rid of his clingy ex—would he be equally desperate to get rid ofhershould he find out what she felt for him? She pictured him fleeing into the dead of night and then disappearing without a trace.
‘My mum wants me to head back home,’ Maude said abruptly. She turned to look at him and faked a smile, relieved that she could hide behind her sunglasses. ‘Something to do with flowers and bridesmaids.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘And I guess it’s time we left this paradise behind. It’s safe to say that the hounds have found other trails to sniff. We’re old news.’
‘Flowers and bridesmaids?’
‘Happens when there’s a wedding and your mum is a perfectionist,’ Maude hedged vaguely.
‘When did you have in mind?’
‘Perhaps in the morning?’ She smiled again but inside her heart was breaking in two. ‘Or is that too soon for...er...things to be put in place?’
‘That could work.’
Mateo tried not to scowl. How easy to destroy a good moment! Of course she was right, he grudgingly admitted—he was a workaholic, wasn’t he? And there was work waiting for him in London—lots of it.
