‘He got so angry.’
Matteo just didn’t know what to say.
‘I told my father. He said not to report it.’ She shook her head. ‘You see, I was drunk...’
And now Matteo did know what to say.
It was his first rule.
‘Then he should have seen you safely home.’
‘I was in his hotel room.’
No, he would not let her go there.
‘Then he should have checked into another or put you to bed and slept in the chair,’ Matteo said. ‘There’s no excuse for what he did.’
‘It was so violent.’ Abby relived it just for a second and she watched Matteo blink, not once but three times, and then he responded.
‘He should have treated you like glass,’ Matteo said.
‘It was my first time...’
‘Crystal glass, then,’ Matteo amended. ‘And that was not your first time—that’s not sex.’
‘It’s the only sex I know.’
And then her panic came back because they were coming out of the press conference. ‘He can’t see me like this.’
Yet she couldn’t stand.
‘What if we look like we were having an intimate moment—is that okay?’ Matteo gently checked and she nodded.
He just wrapped her in his arms and she saw the yellow leather of Hunter walking past and she heard the increasing thud, thud, thud of Matteo’s heart and his breathing firing into rapid. Abby felt the tension in him and she knew that Matteo wanted to drop her and run and do what her father should have all those years ago.
For her sake he didn’t.
But then, at the last moment, when he recalled Hunter’s “I tend to get there first” line, Abby felt the rip of tension in him.
‘Please don’t,’ Abby begged when she felt him move to run but then his arms came tighter around her.
‘I won’t.’
He wanted to though.
Matteo now could barely breathe.
Abby could feel him struggle to contain himself. Matteo even with a hangover in fierce heat did not break a sweat, yet he was swimming in adrenaline and his shirt was drenched and his breathing was coming fast and shallow.
‘I might need to borrow that paper bag...’ Matteo said.
Still he could make her smile.
And she waited for the questions to start but when her breathing was normal and she peered out from his chest, the only thing Matteo asked was if she wanted some water.
‘Please.’
He went off to a vending machine and got her a drink and Abby drank it down thirstily, and Matteo was right; the panic had passed.