Page 45 of Match Point

“So you don’t want any of this wine?”

“I actually stopped drinking a month ago. I feel like it’s really good for my body.”

“Selfishly, I want you to have wine with me. But the former tennis player in me understands,” I replied.

“Sorry again for last night. I was afraid you would be upset.”

“I get it. Believe me—I do. That was my life up until last year.”

Dominic scratched his square jawline. “Did you find a nice Frenchman to go out with instead, like you joked about?”

“Actually, I did,” I said slowly. How honest should I be with him? I didn’t like keeping secrets, and there was a big one looming over us right now: my evening with Tristan. Maybe if I told him about part of last night…

Before I could elaborate, Dominic waved a hand. “It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me about it.”

“Really?”

“We both have our own lives,” he explained around a bite of chicken. “We’ve agreed that this isn’t serious because of my schedule. So we don’t need to get all hung up about labels or what each of us does in our own time.”

“We’re not serious right now,” I clarified. “But do you want us to be? In the future?”

He shrugged casually and stirred his veggies with a fork. “Honestly, I don’t know what I want.” His emerald eyes bore into me, warm and open. “But I know you’re an incredible woman. I love being with you, as infrequent as it has been so far. I could see this turning into something more serious.”

“But not until you’re done sleeping with lots of random women,” I clarified.

Dominic let out a deep laugh. “I actually did go on a date with a woman in March.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“Nothing came of it. We didn’t really vibe, I guess you could say. I don’t want to elaborate more than that. She’s a tennis player.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is it Kvitova?”

“I won’t tell.”

“What about Jabeur? Or Vondrousova? Or that Brazilian girl… Haddad Maia?”

“Miranda…”

“Just tell me it’s not Ludmila Samsonova,” I insisted. “Then I’ll stop hounding you.”

“I promise it wasn’t Samsonova,” he said with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Or, at the very least, I would run it by you first.”

“So we’re not serious, but you would still run your date by me?” I asked.

Dominic shrugged. “I know you two are rivals. Or,wererivals when you were playing. That complicates things. But it’s not her, so it doesn’t matter.”

His comments did little to reassure me though, because my concern was more aboutmyactions lately. Tristan wasn’t really Dominic’s rival, but the two of them had played each other plenty of times. And Gabrielwashis rival…

“Hey,” I said before I could change my mind. “The guy I went out with last night? It was… Moreau.”

Dominic froze with a piece of chicken halfway to his mouth. He lowered the fork slowly. “GabrielMoreau?”

“He happened to be walking by the restaurant where I was waiting for you. He knew the owner. Then he showed me the Louvre, and invited me out to a dance club or something…”

“You don’t have to tell me all of this,” Dominic said gently.

“He seemed sonice,” I explained. “He was normal. Not like his usual arrogant self. But when we got to the club, he spoke to a reporter and went right to being an asshole again. Saying awful things about you. So I left him there.”

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