Di Sione's Innocent Conquest (The Billionaire's Legacy) (13 page)

The knock sounded again and she was sweating, Abby realised. Her legs wouldn’t move and she just stared at the door, too frozen to go to the peephole and see who it was.

‘Abby?’

She just about dropped in relief when she heard Matteo’s voice and wrenched open the door.

He saw her terror.

‘I thought...’

‘Sorry, sorry...’ He took her straight in his arms. ‘I should have called.’

‘I thought you were on the yacht.’

‘I couldn’t get it up.’

He was so crude and yet he made her laugh.

‘I didn’t even try,’ he admitted and then, because he was holding her, because they had missed each other, for even as his mouth moved to hers Abby was reaching for him and they kissed intensely, hurriedly, before logic moved in, before they thought of the many reasons they should not. His arm curled around her waist as he pulled her in. The fear that had gripped her turned to angry passion and as she kissed him back Abby pushed Matteo’s jacket down and it fell to the floor. She didn’t care about tomorrow when she could have tonight. ‘Abby...’ She was opening the buttons to his shirt, her mind made up, yet Matteo refused to give her even a moment to regret and he peeled his mouth away. ‘I need to tell you something.’

‘You don’t.’

They were panting, both breathless, and she didn’t need to hear now that he didn’t love her and never would.

‘Abby,’ Matteo said. ‘You do deserve better than this.’

She did, because he was hard and his hands were bunched into the gown so as not to tear it off and they could be over and done with—Abby up against the wall, he could be taking her now—but he would not allow another morning between them like the last one, where the air was awkward and the conversation wooden. He would not do that to her.

‘We need to talk.’

‘Said the playboy.’ And then she saw that he was in as much of a mess as she, Abby realised. ‘Matteo, I don’t need to hear it. I know we’re going nowhere.’

‘And I’m trying to tell you why it has to be that way.’

It was possibly the most responsible decision in his life and regrettable at that because there was so much energy and want between them that it felt almost criminal to pull back. His shirt was undone and damp from her wet hair but he took a seat beside the desk as Abby straightened out her robe and then took a seat at the desk in front of her laptop. ‘It’s like a doctor’s visit,’ he said and she smiled but they were both hurting so much that their smiles didn’t last. ‘I know you should be asleep but I needed to say this. I really do have to leave tomorrow straight after the race so if I don’t say it now...’

‘Are you drunk?’

‘A bit.’ He nodded. ‘Look, you know how everyone says, “It’s not you, it’s me”?’ he said and now Abby really smiled.

‘Well, in this case it
is
me,’ she said. ‘I have more baggage...’

‘No,’ Matteo interrupted. ‘It
really
is me.’ He took a breath before continuing. He had never fully had this conversation in his head, let alone with another. ‘I made a decision a few years ago...’

‘You don’t have to do this, Matteo,’ Abby said because she could see his discomfort and reluctance to reveal more of himself.

‘I want to though,’ Matteo admitted. ‘I know that you’ve got baggage and I don’t want you thinking that my reluctance to get involved with you had anything to do with what’s gone on between us, or that what’s happened to you in the past has any bearings on my choice. You’re right, you should hold out for someone who can give you all that you deserve and I truly can’t. I don’t want a relationship.’

‘I know,’ Abby said, yet there was this tiny part that hoped one day he might change his mind.

He answered it there and then.

‘Ever.’

There wasn’t even a sound as that little flame died; she just silently acknowledged its passing.

‘My father had a lot of affairs,’ Matteo said. ‘I don’t even know if you could call them affairs. Just one-night stands, parties, drugs, alcohol...’ He closed his eyes as he had to the drama all those years ago, but then he had been lying in bed listening to the fights; now he was doing his best to block out thoughts of a beautiful future with Abby. ‘You never knew what you were going to get,’ Matteo explained. ‘I never knew who would be there in the morning—Mom, Dad, neither. Sometimes, for days on end it was just the nanny. Really, the older ones looked out for the younger...’ He wasn’t explaining this very well. ‘I always knew that in the morning they might not be there. One morning they weren’t but this time it was different. My grandfather was there as well as other relatives and outside there were reporters. But I knew already—I used to sleep with the radio on, I liked the voices and the music—I’d heard it on the news...’

Abby sat there.

She could remember the shock of her mother’s death. It had been expected. She had been older but she could still remember the shock and finality of it.

Imagine losing both at five and to hear it read out as a headline on the news?

She tried to but couldn’t quite grasp it.

‘There was a huge funeral. The press were everywhere and it was on the television constantly, as I expected it to be,’ Matteo said. ‘It was the biggest news in my life and because I was five I actually thought that it
should
be everywhere...’ He gave a wry smile. ‘You know how small your world is when you’re a child?’

Abby nodded.

‘But then we went to live at my grandfather’s and life went on but it had changed. The older ones all went off to boarding school and Allegra looked after my little sisters.’

‘You?’

‘I just did what I wanted and I was always getting into trouble but never really told off. I never got why my grandfather could hardly bear to look at me. No matter what I did, no matter how much trouble I got into, he hardly addressed me.’

‘I thought you two were close.’

‘We’re not close, but we’re closer now than we were.’ Matteo nodded. ‘While I was growing up he just stayed back. I started studying and after a year I realised I already knew how to make money. I had my start-up from my parents’ estate, but I didn’t need to sit in a lecture and be taught what I already knew and so I dropped out.’ He looked up at Abby and he told her about a row that repeated in his head to this very moment. ‘For the first time my grandfather got angry with me. We had a huge row. He told me I was wasting my life, I was heading for trouble and that he’d seen the signs, should have stepped in earlier...’

Abby swallowed.

‘“But you didn’t,” I said to him. I told him he had never cared about me so why start to worry now? I told him that I knew he couldn’t stand to be near me. I just didn’t know why.’

Abby sat quietly, remembering Matteo’s patience when she had told him what had happened in her past.

‘My grandfather said, “Every time I look at you I see Benito.”’

‘Your father?’

Matteo nodded. ‘He told me that I was just like him. A gambler, a liar, a risk-taker. He said that I was on track for disaster and he was tired of sitting back and watching history repeat...’

‘Matteo.’ Abby wouldn’t buy it. ‘Just because...’

‘Abby,’ Matteo interrupted her. ‘I am
all
of those things. When my grandfather said what he did, it just confirmed what I already knew. I decided then that I would never let myself be like my father. Yes, I might have his traits but I won’t get so involved with another that I’m capable of coming close to the damage that he did.’

‘Matteo...’ Abby started but then she halted herself. Matteo had let her speak; he had let her work out what she wanted for herself. It wasn’t her place to tell him how he felt, even if she thought he was wrong to be so down on himself, but she did say a little. ‘Your father had children and a wife—you don’t.’

‘And I intend to keep it that way,’ Matteo said. ‘He killed my mother. She had straightened herself out and his depravity and temper took her to an early grave.’ And then Matteo did what he never had; he exposed his fear. ‘I can’t take that risk, Abby...’

‘You’re the biggest risk-taker I know.’

‘Not with love.’ Matteo shook his head. ‘The stakes are too high. I’m sorry I can’t give you what you deserve. I never set out for us to get involved, but then, on sight I did. For the past couple of months, since the day we met...’

She waited.

‘It’s been you,’ Matteo said.

‘Just me?’

‘Abby, I might not be marriage material but it doesn’t mean that I’m not crazy about you. I’m just here to explain why it could never last. I don’t want to sleep with you tonight and for you to expect things to have changed tomorrow. They shan’t have. I’m flying back and the next time I see you...’ He shrugged, but it was a desperate one and Abby looked at a man who dealt in hours rather than days.

‘Do you see why I had them pull up such a watertight contract? I’m good for business, not much else...’

‘Matteo, I’m not holding out for a ring.’ She wasn’t sure at first what she was saying, but then Abby looked into the dark eyes of the man who had stayed loyal, who had listened, who had helped her work through dark, dark times to a point where a future seemed possible.

Even if it might not be with him.

And she was sure.

Very.

‘I’m going to go,’ Matteo said and he stood.

‘Please don’t.’ Abby looked up at him. ‘I heard the lecture...’ Their eyes met. ‘And I get it. I just want it to mean something...for us to mean something...’

‘You know that we do.’

‘And that’s all I need to know.’

It was.

Whatever they had amounted to more than a timeframe, what they felt for the other might not ripen with age but could be celebrated now.

They kissed in a way they had both tried not to, slow, precise and affirming. A kiss that was so tender that the only place it could possibly bruise was your heart. And it punctured his because never, not once, had Matteo allowed himself to even glimpse what another with heart exposed might taste like.

‘Sure?’ Matteo checked but Abby had already jumped.

The haste in his breathing as her hands stripped him of his shirt had their mouths mesh in hot wet kisses that tasted of no holding back.

Abby’s hands roamed his skin and pressed into his chest, feeling his tension and strength as he dealt with the last of his clothes. Haste left then; still kissing he undid her robe and she shrugged it off like a burden and wrapped her arms around his neck so their tongues could caress as their bodies met. His fingers strummed up her ribs and Abby rose to her toes just so that they might repeat that final ascent to the tender top again before he played her breasts.

And when his mouth lowered, when she ached for a bruising kiss, he just caressed one nipple with his tongue, over and over. Abby’s knees wanted to give way, but she stayed standing, simply for more, till she bit back the urge to beg. So desperate for more that when his face returned to hers, his kiss drowned her demand and he led her to the bed.

Matteo’s hand moved between her thighs and he played her so slowly, stroking her slick warmth, till her knees pulled up. She wanted to scream that she would not break. His skin, his scent, his want, did not match this slow perusal. He came over her and parted her legs wide. Abby met his navy eyes and she looked right at him as he first took her. She watched as he drove in slowly but as he met the depth of her desire, as welcoming muscles gripped, the crystal shattered for them both.

He kissed her eyes and her face; he moved to his side and turned her with him. Matteo stroked her thigh slowly and then down to her calf as he moved within. He positioned her leg higher and brought it onto his hip so he could thrust deeper.

Abby had given in trying to hide her feelings, and anyway there was nowhere to hide. She was moving with him, sharing intimate kisses, glad of his hands that pushed her hair back just so he could better see her come.

It felt like no other time; it
was
like no other time, because the feel of him swell inside her and the sudden haste in him had her sob as she tightened. Her thigh over his cramped but it only heightened the intensity as he parted her wider with deft hips that only angled to get him in deeper as Matteo came hard into her.

It left him dizzy; it made her the same. It was so intense that for a blind moment Matteo believed all things possible. He straightened her cramped limb; he bought her back down with a kiss—each pain he ironed, while still within, except for the big one.

And when he went to fix that, when in the rush of a high, he almost lost his head and told her the one thing she wanted to hear, Abby stopped him with a kiss, a hurried one, a necessary one.

Not for Matteo’s sake, but hers.

No lies, no promises.

That it meant something precious was enough.

CHAPTER TEN

‘Y
OU
’
RE
NOT
VERY
good for my race preparation.’ Abby sighed as she stretched her body and tried not to give in to temptation and sleep.

They hadn’t slept, and if she did now, then she might just wake up to a call from Pedro to ask where the hell she was.

‘I’m going to ring down for coffee,’ she said, deciding caffeine was in order before facing the world. ‘Do you want one?’

‘No.’ Matteo yawned. ‘It will ruin the very long lie-in that I intend to have.’

‘How long?’ Abby groaned and pulled a face as, having briefly opened his eyes, Matteo closed them again as he spoke.

‘Well, it’s nearly five now and Kedah doesn’t get here till around midday, so about seven hours...’ he said, rubbing in just how little she had slept.

Yes, it was incredibly hard to peel herself out of bed but she did so and showered and tried to get her head into what had once been the most important day of her life.

It still was, Abby thought as she showered.

Last night made it more so but for different reasons.

By the time she came out, her coffee had arrived. Abby took it out onto the balcony and looked out to the beautiful old buildings and the sparkling Mediterranean and, yes, Monte Carlo truly was beautiful.

It matched her memories of it now.

And whatever happened from here on between herself and Matteo, she’d be okay. The last time they had awoken together it had been awkward and difficult. It wasn’t now and Abby was determined to never let it get to that again.

She did not regret last night and surely never would.

It had been a very deliberate choice that she had made.

Abby went back in and Matteo was sleeping and so she dressed in her race-day bottle-green and then headed out to face the most important day of her life.

Her working life, Abby amended.

There was more now.

The build-up to the race passed in a blur.

Pedro was locked into his video games and Bernadette was doing her own thing, catching up with friends on her phone and present but not getting in the way.

She was good to have around, Abby thought.

Matteo and Kedah arrived just after one and there was a sense of calm in the Boucher camp.

Even if they came last they’d already won.

They were more united than they had ever been. Pedro was staying on and they had two amazing races behind them.

As the starting time to the final race of the Henley Cup approached, Pedro came out in his leather and he looked determined rather than tense. Bernadette gave Pedro a kiss for luck and everyone else wished him well but then it was just him and Abby for that last little talk before he took his place.

This time Pedro’s teeth weren’t chattering with nerves and there was no need to talk him down. Still, Abby carried on with what she had planned to say, that it was the taking part that counted and to remember how far they’d come. The Henley Cup would be the icing on the cake, she told Pedro.

‘You always eat the icing first.’ Pedro grinned as he put on his helmet.

‘Okay, I lied,’ Abby admitted and gave up on her losers-are-still-winners approach. ‘Bring it home.’

It was a spectacular race. How could it not be? The scenery was straight from a travel brochure, the weather perfect and the car that Abby loved so took off like a bullet from the chamber and left half the field behind.

They were off.

Matteo juggled cola and binoculars as the cars took to the gorgeous hilly streets and then later wished that he hadn’t had so much cola because, with only five laps to go, and the top five a close pack at that, he had to excuse himself, leaving Pedro in fourth.

Matteo returned to Kedah’s side to be told that Pedro was now third.

The Lachance team and Hunter were first, the Carter team with Evan at the helm in close second.

Matteo glanced over to Abby and saw her concentration as she spoke into her mouthpiece.

Not a stolen glance between them.

And he loved that about her—her drive, her focus—and so he got back to watching the race but, as he did, something happened.

Not on the track.

Well, yes, something happened on the track, because Pedro overtook Evan but, as he did so, hope overtook fear for Matteo.

Just this quiet second in a noisy world where Matteo lost the dread that he never showed, or rather, his fears that he had shown only to one other—Abby.

And if Pedro won, he was going to do it, Matteo told himself.

He was going to somehow put everything right.

‘Come on,’ Matteo shouted and it felt like Pedro must have heard because, just past the final bend, Pedro not just overtook Hunter, he almost blew him off the track.

‘Bring her home!’ Matteo shouted and, yes, now even he was talking about the car as if it were a person.

She won!

It was delicious; it was chaos.

As Hunter tried to right the car, Evan screamed past and the Carter team took second place.

There was music and champagne and the cup held high and it was all just a gorgeous blur until it was time for the press conference.

Abby was trying to locate Pedro and found him talking with one of the organisers and so Hunter and Evan had already taken their places as the victor walked in to applause.

Abby stood to the side and Matteo, in the middle of the room, looked at her unreadable expression and wondered what was going on in her mind as the questions commenced.

‘Congratulations to Pedro,’ Hunter said. ‘He’s an amazing talent. Without him...’

Hunter looked directly at Abby and tried to tell her she was nothing, that were it not for their driver...

And Matteo watched as...no, she didn’t struggle to breathe, and neither did she mouth an obscenity, or do any one of the things that she would be more than entitled to do.

There was more in her armoury than that.

Abby smiled.

For one reason only—she was happy.

And if looks could kill, then a well-timed smile could maim, because after the press conference, to Matteo’s relief, Hunter’s jet took off a lot faster than the Lachance car and finally there was this little moment when it was just Matteo and her.

‘You beat him,’ Matteo said.

‘No.’ Abby shook her head. ‘We won.’

She wanted to better explain the change in her, the changes to her heart that he had helped make—to say that, even if there was no future for them, she would treasure the past for ever, but there wasn’t time to do that now.

‘Hey, Matteo...’ Pedro shouted over. ‘How about it?’

‘How about what?’

‘I just got permission, before they take the barriers down. Do you want that ride now?’

‘Matteo has to head off,’ Abby said, covering for him, as she knew that the very thought of a ride in a racing car made him feel ill, but then, as always, Matteo surprised her.

‘I’d love to, Pedro.’

Matteo suited up and the face that disappeared into the helmet was grey but this was something he wanted—no, needed—to do.

Abby watched as he came out of the shed and her eyes drifted over his leather-clad body just as his had over hers that first day.

‘Is it wrong to say just how much I fancy you now?’ Abby asked.

‘You’re not doing it for me, Abby,’ Matteo said and blew out a breath.

‘You don’t have to do this.’

‘Oh, but I think that I do.’

He climbed in and took his seat and pulled down the harness and then Pedro did something—he came over and carefully checked Matteo’s helmet and harness before getting in himself.

And therein was the difference.

Pedro was nothing like Matteo’s father.

Pedro was an expert.

He trained for this, slept for this; every morsel that passed his lips was to better himself for this and Pedro kept to the rules.

And so, too, could Matteo.

Matteo wasn’t his father either.

All those thoughts buzzed louder than the engine as Matteo found out firsthand just how fit you had to be to deal with the G-force and heat and demands on the body as the vehicle cornered, as well as that Pedro had to focus.

Yes, it was terrifying but exhilarating and it was one of the best experiences of Matteo’s life, and as he climbed out it was to a world that looked different.

‘I feel like I’ve laid a ghost to rest,’ he admitted to Abby as he took off his helmet.

Abby nodded.

Last night, so, too, had she.