Pedro sat there grinning; so, too, did Evan. Even Hunter had recovered from his hissy fit and that assured smile was back on his face.
‘I have to congratulate Pedro...’ They were the first words out of Hunter’s mouth.
He was charming, said a reporter standing to the side of Matteo and Abby.
‘Narcissists generally are,’ Matteo drawled.
He didn’t like him.
‘I lost my focus for a second,’ Hunter conceded, ‘and Pedro took his chance.’
Hunter made it sound like he had lost rather than that they had won and Matteo felt Abby tense beside him.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ Matteo said, without looking over to her. ‘You know you won.’ He then listened as a reporter asked Hunter a question.
‘What about your reaction after the race? You seemed pretty angry.’
‘Ha.’ Hunter shrugged and then spread his hands, holding his palm to the sky. ‘I guess I’m not used to it...’ And then he put down his hands and looked straight over to Matteo as he spoke on. ‘I tend to get there first.’
Matteo didn’t know that he had hackles till then, yet he felt them rise and he watched as Hunter’s gaze moved to the woman who stood beside him.
‘That was for me...’ Abby said and Matteo frowned because her voice was slurred.
His newly discovered hackles were still up and Matteo put an arm around Abby.
‘It’s okay.’ He didn’t know what was going on but he could feel Abby’s distress and he tried to reassure her.
But all she could hear was Wah-wah-wah...
The rest of what Matteo said she lost.
There was a roaring in Abby’s ears and her chest felt closed and she could feel that her lips were tingling.
‘I can’t breathe...’ she gasped.
‘Abby...’ Matteo said, but then she lost track of his deep smoky voice again and she made one last desperate plea.
‘Don’t let Hunter see me like this.’
Matteo got her out of the press conference and to a horrid plastic seat, where he sat her down and told her to cup her hands over her face. ‘You’re having a panic attack.’
He was just calm.
On the outside.
Matteo never let anyone glimpse his fear.
He went over to a guy who was walking past and tipped the man’s burger into his hand and returned to Abby with the paper bag. ‘Breathe into this...’ Matteo said and he just kept on talking in his lovely deep voice and telling her she would soon be okay. ‘It will pass soon,’ he assured. ‘My sister Natalia gets them and they pass. I promise.’
He just sat with her the entire way through it. Abby was sweating and white and her eyes were wide open and looking into his as she breathed in and out of the paper bag and then moved it aside.
‘He lost,’ Abby said and, with a sinking feeling, Matteo knew, he just knew, that they weren’t talking about Hunter losing the race today.
Matteo felt sick; he actually did but he just looked back at her.
‘He lost a race...’ Abby said. She could not do it in full sentences. ‘I was ending it. We’d only gone out a few times. We’d never...’
And he didn’t know what to say.