Page 173 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

She smiled a smile of such open radiance that Mateo was temporarily knocked off his feet but he concealed it well. She was fumbling to fetch her phone and he deliberately didn’t spare her a distracted sideways glance as he connected her to his Wi-Fi and then brushed past her to his suite, sensing her light tread behind him and trying hard not to conjure up her image in his head.

‘I just want to say...’

He paused and glanced round to find her standing inches away from him, face upturned and still smiling.

‘Yes?’ he muttered gruffly.

‘I just want to say that I know you don’t want me here.’ She grimaced and rolled her eyes, laughing at herself. ‘Even if you hadn’t said so yourself, I can tell that I’ve interrupted whatever down time you had planned, and I’m sorry about that. I’m afraid I was a little rude when I first...well...fell headlong into your chalet but I honestly had no idea the weather was going to turn when I set off earlier. I was so scared out there... I guess my head was all over the place!’

‘That’s...fine.’

‘And then I made it here and I was just so relieved that I wasn’t going to die out there on the slopes that I didn’t even stop to consider that...that... I mean, you could have beenanyone!’

‘I... Yes, I suppose I could have been.’ Mateo was fascinated by this long, meandering explanation which wasn’t designed to grab his attention or capture his interest. He was so accustomed to coy advances that her open honesty was a little disorienting.

‘You read about these things. And then there are all the movies...’

‘You do read about those things and, yes, I suppose there are movies out there as well, although I don’t do them. Look, I’ll fetch some stuff for you. You can choose whatever you want, and if you leave your wet things on the floor of the bathroom I’ll stick them in the machine.’

‘That’s very kind. I can’t believe I ever thought you might have been an axe-murderer.’

‘You thought I might have been anaxe-murderer?’ Mateo stared at her and she smiled back, blushing and sheepish.

‘Like I said, I’ve seen enough movies in my time, although I guess the typical axe-murderer wouldn’t rent a chalet like this...although, in fairness, perhaps I’m stereotyping axe-murderers.’

‘I happen to own this!’

‘Which makes the axe-murderer scenario even more implausible. And yet...did you say that youdon’t do movies? I didn’t know there was anyone whodidn’tdo movies.’

‘We should continue this conversation...eh...later. Now, there are three suites here so you can use either of the two spare and you can take your time...eh...freshening up. No need to join me for dinner if you’d rather go to sleep. I imagine your nerves are frayed.’

‘Actually, I’m quite hungry.’ She cast her eyes downward and then glanced back up at him and blushed. ‘I keep meaning to go on a diet but somehow that never really gets off the ground.’

Mateo backed away as the silence thickened. She’d brought his attention bounding back to her shapely little body and he was perspiring as he reached the door and nodded in the direction of the bedroom suites off the broad landing.

His eyes flicked to her semi-damp layer that stretched lovingly over her generous breasts and sexy curves. He swallowed...and scowled.

‘Right. I’ll be in the kitchen.’

He left without further pointless pleasantries. He wished he could summon up the suffocating impatience he had felt when he had pulled that door open. Instead, the woman seemed to have distracted him, and as he stalked back to the kitchen, glowering at his momentary lapse in focus, the reality of the situation sank in.

His peace had been invaded. God only knew when the blizzard would stop but certainly he would be stuck with her for the next day, possibly more. And, instead of trying to think of ways in which he could somehow confine her to safe quarters so that they weren’t actually sharing space, he was already resigning himself to the fact that that was going to be impossible. Worse, he wasn’t quite sure whether that was a problem for him or not.

He returned to the business of cooking but his solitude had been interrupted. Images of her filled his head and he loathed that. Truth was, there were things that were contained within him, experiences best left buried. They’d remain buried just so long as his life didn’t derail, but the appearance of one Alice Reynolds had derailed him completely. As he stirred the sauce, his disobedient mind wandered back to his youth and to memories usually kept under lock and key.

Mateo had been nineteen when he’d met Bianca. He’d been within touching distance of getting his degree a year and a half ahead of schedule. She’d shown up at one of his boxing matches and had knocked him sideways with her beauty. What red-blooded teenager could have resisted all that long, dark hair, flashing dark eyes and a mouth that had invited a world of sexual adventure?

He’d fallen hook, line and sinker...for about six months, before realising that no amount of hot sex could detract from the cold reality that the two of them were not suited. He’d had ambitions; he’d wanted to move on from website designing for other people to ruling the world single-handedly. He’d known it would take time but that he would get there. He’d been young, ambitious and insanely clever.

She’d wanted the fast riches to be made if he turned professional as a boxer. She’d craved the adrenaline that would have come with the limelight and the lifestyles of the crowd that might hang around him. She’d been impatient, and contemptuous when it had come to looking at the bigger picture and thinking long-term.

The body he’d lusted after had begun to bore him and his eyes had begun to wander. The happiness he’d felt when she walked through the door had turned to irritation and impatience.

On the brink of breaking up, she’d fallen pregnant and everything then had changed. Mateo had married her. He’d been just twenty with a baby on the way and all his dreams of making it big in the world of start-ups and finance had started to dissolve, like dew on a summer’s morning. Money had had to be made there and then and turning professional would have paid all the bills and more. Bianca might not have been right for him but he’d been determined to put his all into a baby he’d found himself secretly thrilled to have fathered.

He’d never know how that adventure might have turned out because a miscarriage at a little over three months into the pregnancy had thrown everything up in the air. They’d stayed together for another eight months. He, because he’d felt sorry for her, had seen it as his duty to stand by her at a time when she’d needed him, whatever his personal feelings; and because, for a while, he’d been crippled by a sadness he hadn’t expected, adrift and unable to think straight. And Bianca, yes: she’d been upset, and had clung just for a while, but she was tough and essentially narcissistic.

‘We can always have another; we’re young,’ she’d told him with casual insouciance. The thought of a lifestyle being married to a professional boxer still glittered for her like a treasure chest waiting to be opened. Not for a single moment had she doubted that he would continue on that track. It wasn’t to be, and he’d been relieved when she’d finally walked out on him because he’d told her to forget it if she thought he was going to launch into a career in which he had no interest.

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