Page 212 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

Alice shrugged and smiled. ‘You did. “Nice but dull” was the way you summed him up when I told you that I’d ended the relationship.’ She frowned. ‘If you want to know, it was something I sleep-walked into. At least, that’s what it feels like looking back. I was young and we were good together: friendly; no highs and no lows... We got along, and I suppose I never thought I’d do anything but end up with a nice guy in a solid relationship and Simon seemed to fit the bill. You were right, though. He wasn’t for me. I didn’t analyse at the time what I wanted but I just knew that I wanted more. All history.’ She shrugged.

‘I surprised you at your leaving party because I wanted to see you in your own comfort zone.’ Mateo abruptly changed the subject and Alice looked at him, startled at this admission.

‘And? You surprised me but then you didn’t join the party. Everyone wanted to know what happened to you, why you showed up and then just disappeared.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That something had come up with the house. You had to make a decision about something and needed my input but you couldn’t get through to me on my mobile and you were in the area.’

‘And they fell for that?’

‘They were too busy having fun to go into a question-and-answer session.’

‘And you were as well.’

‘Meaning?’

Alice felt that they were going round in circles and, because she knew that Mateo was a direct person who couldn’t be bothered with conversational niceties, she couldn’t stop a tremor of nerves.

He’d implied that they were still going to be married. It was crazy but, having dug her heels in to start with at the whole marriage idea, she had given in the minute she had seen that picture of him with another woman. It was as though the reality of an alternative situation had hit her hard enough for her to put things in perspective. She had accepted his proposal even as she’d accepted that it wasn’t ideal and had told herself that nothing in life was ideal. She’d kept her love guarded, but there had been a sadness behind the acceptance that it was a one-sided relationship and would probably always remain that way.

She knew that she’d been skittish around him recently, and she wondered whether he’d picked up on that. Uncertainty swooped through her, shaking her to the foundations. For good or bad, she knew that shewantedthis man,wantedto be married to him and damn the consequences; she would live with them.

‘Alice...’ Mateo’s voice was low and quiet. ‘I looked at you at that party and you were laughing.’

‘I was having a good time.’

‘That’s my point. What we have here...’ He spread his arms wide to encompass the room they were in, the apartment, everything around them. He raked his fingers through his hair and vaulted upright to pace the room in restless, jerky strides while Alice remained where she was, following him with anxious eyes and wondering where this was going.

‘What we have here is duty and obligation, based on mutual respect and a healthy sex life as a foundation for a union.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with any of that. You yourself said so from the start!’

Her heart picked up speed. She wanted to spring to her feet and dash over to where he was still prowling the room so that she could hold onto him. But then would that just be taking refuge in physical contact again?

She looked down and clenched her hands into balls, willing him to just shut up and overlook whatever blip had recently happened between them instead of dragging it out into the open and analysing it. Since when had he been the guy who liked having heart-to-hearts? Couldn’t he just do them both a favour right now and return to type, scorn this chat he insisted on having?

‘And when I said that I meant it, but time has a habit of changing everything,’ Mateo returned in a low, driven voice. ‘I see now that, whilst I can be perfectly happy with those ingredients, unlike you I’m not the sentimental sort. You broke off your engagement with Simon because you wanted more than he could offer. Maybe he offered you the sort of neutral love that wasn’t enough; you wanted more. Themoreyou wanted then will always be themoreyou want now—themorethat I can’t give you. Alice, I saw you laughing with your friends. You don’t laugh like that with me.’

Mateo’s words hung in the air between them and there was nothing Alice could do to deny the truth in them. He was so right, because Simon had never been quite enough, had never offered the love her heart craved. He had never been anywhere close to Mateo, this difficult, complex, proud, caring guy who had everything she wanted but would never give it to her.

There was a reason she hadn’t laughed in a while. Laughter would come again but it had been in short supply as she had grappled with circumstances that gave so much and withheld so much more. Grappled with a union where the sex was so sweet and the caring nature of Mateo so undisguised...and yet a union in which the love she so desperately wanted, the love that only he could give her, was not forthcoming. Putting her guard up had made her cautious, and caution had kept that open, honest laughter in check.

And then all sorts of other thoughts had swirled in her head of late, exacerbated by hormones and sudden apprehension at the future awaiting her.

Looking at the shadows flitting across her face, Mateo almost cursed himself for having said anything. What he had just said had made him sound vulnerable. He wasn’t the vulnerable sort, but the words were out there, and he couldn’t retract them. He didn’t know whether he even wanted to.

Just like that, clarity came to him with sudden, shocking force.

A chance meeting: he’d opened his door to a woman lost in a blizzard and he hadn’t realised that, in doing so, he had also opened the door to a world of emotion he had thought to be beyond him.

As realisations struck him, he could do no more than make for the nearest chair and sink into it. Frankly, if it wasn’t so early in the day, he would have been seriously tempted to see if a slug of whisky might not help things.

Suddenly released from their restraints, his thoughts ran rampant, coming at him from all directions as the silence built up between them. Snowbound on those slopes, he’d thought that he was enjoying was some harmless fun with a woman who was way too sexy to resist. He’d gone to his lodge to escape the frantic, high-voltage world that occupied him for fifty-one weeks of the year. He’d taken his usual week off to recharge his batteries and remind himself that, in life, it paid to remember your roots.

He’d gone for peace, solitude and some edge-of-his-seat skiing...and instead he’d found Alice. They’d lived in a bubble for a while, marooned in his lodge and discovering one another. What he’d thought was just going to be a week of unexpected fun had turned into something completely different, and just how different that something was now hit him with the force of a sledgehammer.

He’d fallen in love with her. How and when, Mateo had no idea, but it was something that had crept up on him as stealthily as a thief in the night, overthrowing his defences and leaving him powerless.

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