Di Sione's Innocent Conquest (The Billionaire's Legacy) (15 page)

The dream that Matteo had actually cared about her.

She thought of her mother, smiling for the camera, pretending all was well in a messed-up world, and Abby refused to let that legacy live on.

‘What did you just say?’ Her voice was very clear as she walked into the study. Matteo’s back was to her but she saw it stiffen at the sound of her voice.

‘Abby...’ he started but Ellison spoke over him.

‘I was just congratulating your sponsor,’ Ellison said, not remotely bothered that they’d been overheard.

But then, Matteo thought, if he was insensitive enough to have Hunter’s photo on his wall, what was another layer of hurt to add to the mix.

‘What does my wearing my mother’s necklace have to with this?’ Abby asked. She had walked right over and stood aside the two men and confronted her father first. ‘What do you mean when you say that the necklace is Matteo’s?’

‘Can we talk away from here?’ Matteo suggested.

‘Why?’ Abby checked. ‘I think here is the perfect place. Why spread my misery outside the grounds of this home.’ She asked the question again, her voice rising. ‘Why would you tell Matteo that my necklace is now his?’

‘It’s actually
my
necklace,’ Ellison corrected. ‘Your mother left it to me. I knew that you needed money, Matteo wanted the necklace and I said if he could get you here wearing it for the do...’ Ellison shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal.’ As Abby’s eyes filled with tears Ellison misread them. ‘Oh, don’t go getting all sentimental, Abby. Your mother loathed that necklace.’

‘And I know why she did!’ Abby was shouting now. ‘Because, yet again, you’d been unfaithful and, yet again, you thought another trinket would put things right.’

‘And it did,’ Ellison said. ‘Your mother knew how to behave, as does Annabel. Whereas you, Abby...’

‘Whereas I,’ Abby interrupted, ‘don’t simply turn a blind eye to everything!’

‘Abby,’ Matteo said. ‘I can explain.’

‘No,’ Abby said. ‘I don’t want your charming lies. I want to hear—’ her voice was rising further ‘—the truth from my father. At least
he
doesn’t sugarcoat things.’

‘Abby,’ her father warned. ‘Keep your voice down.’

‘Then give me an answer. Are you telling me that you bribed Matteo?’

‘It was a gentleman’s agreement,’ Ellison said.

‘I’ve got this, thanks,’ Matteo said to her father and taking Abby by the arm he tried to steer her away but she shook him off.

‘And this gentleman’s agreement happened...when?’ Abby demanded.

‘Matteo came and saw me in April to purchase the necklace...’

Hearing that a meeting had taken place even before she had met Matteo, Abby didn’t need further details; she was already walking off. She had nothing,
nothing
, left to say to her father, and she had just one parting line for Matteo as she brushed past him.

‘Screw you!’ Abby said.

She stepped out of the study and walked briskly towards the entrance and out the front door. Guests were staring and Annabel was throwing fire with her eyes as, yet again, Abby created a scene.

‘Will you stop?’ Matteo called as he ran down the stairs after her and then overtook. Abby stood on the bottom step as Matteo reached the ground and so he was right in her face but she just stared coolly back, refusing to break down.

‘I hate you.’

‘No, you don’t.’ Matteo took her arms and almost shook her to listen to him. ‘You hate what I’ve done, you hate that I set out to deceive you, but I never have.’

‘How can you say that when you met him in April? You were never interested in my team.’

It was simple maths to Abby.

From the very start Matteo had never been interested in her.

All the joy, all the memories, dissolved like soap left in the bathtub.

She remembered sitting in jeans in a stunning restaurant and the joy that it hadn’t seemed to matter. Oh, there was a reason he hadn’t cared what she wore—Matteo had had other things on his mind that night.

Was the necklace the reason he’d been prepared to take things so slowly?

She felt sick with recall as every sweet memory of them soured.

‘Abby.’ Matteo would not give in. ‘My grandfather is sick and more than anything he wanted the necklace. I was going to pose as...’

‘Pose,’ Abby sneered. ‘You started lying even before we met.’

‘Yes, but I
stopped
lying an hour after we met,’ Matteo said. ‘You know that! By the next morning I was already head over heels with your team and by the next week I was struggling because I cared more about you than them...’

‘Leave me alone.’

She was humiliated, embarrassed and more hurt than she knew how to be.

‘I’ve been trying to tell you about the necklace...’

‘When?’ Abby demanded.

Matteo blew out a breath. He knew that he hadn’t really tried; he had left it in the too-hard basket, it would seem, for too long.

‘Have it...’ Abby said, yanking off the necklace, and she tossed it at him but it clattered onto the ground. ‘Take it to the old bastard. Tell him he’s got his precious necklace now. I hope you’re all happy.’

Matteo stood as Abby picked up the hem of her dress and walked briskly off.

He had a ring in his pocket but, no, some trinket wasn’t going to fix this and maybe full disclosure might prove too little too late but nonetheless he went after her. ‘If you think the past three months have been a sham...’ Matteo started but Abby was too angry to let him speak.

‘That’s exactly what they have been. A sham. And you’re the biggest sham artist of the lot.’

‘I can’t believe you won’t even hear me out.’

‘I don’t
need
to hear you out,’ Abby shouted. ‘You’re all the same!’

Even as she said it, even before Abby saw the expression on Matteo’s face as the words hit, she wished she could scramble on the floor, not for the necklace but to retrieve her own words.

‘Don’t you
dare
compare me to them!’

And when she had every right to be angry—furious, in fact—she saw his anger. But it didn’t scare her—in fact, it shamed her as Matteo continued.

‘Don’t you ever put me in your father or Hunter’s league...’ He was sick to death of it. He was sick of being blamed for others’ mistakes and tired of being compared to his father. ‘I would never knowingly hurt you.’

‘You have hurt me though,’ Abby said as tears started to fall.

‘It’s called a row, Abby...’

‘And I don’t need it!’ She walked off to her car and, now furious himself, Matteo stood there and let her leave.

‘Problem?’ Ellison walked down the steps and retrieved the necklace and held it out to Matteo as he spoke. ‘That’s Abby—drama as always. Still, you kept to your end of the deal. You’ve got what you wanted.’

Matteo said nothing as he pocketed the necklace.

It was far safer.

But instead of getting into his car, he took the steps in three strides and, with Ellison following, he walked back into the home and straight into the study from where they had just come.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Ellison asked as Matteo ripped the photo of Abby and Hunter from the wall and smashed it over his knee. Not content with that he took out the image and he shredded it over and over and then tossed the pieces at Ellison.

‘What you should have done years ago.’

But shredding a photo of Hunter wasn’t enough for Matteo.

It was far from enough!

Matteo got in his car and drove, not to Abby’s but towards the airport and, as he did, he summoned his jet.

‘Now!’ Matteo roared and then having ended the call he threw his phone out of the car window.

The bastard was in LA.

Oh, this had nothing to do with making things right.

This was just about catching up on so many unattended wrongs.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A
BBY
WOKE
AFTER
MIDDAY
.

Like a sad Miss Havisham she was still wearing her silver gown and her face was all swollen from crying till dawn.

Matteo hadn’t come dashing to her door to explain, when she had hoped he might, but Abby understood why.

And he hadn’t answered his phone when she’d tried several times to ring, and she understood why too.

She had put him in the same league as her father and, worse than that, Hunter, and that was the very last place he deserved to be. To a man like Matteo, who had been put in the same league as his father his entire life, it had been a very low blow she had served.

Abby simply didn’t know how to put this right.

Yes, he had lied to her, but now, every time she got cross, every time a rush of anger rose, she remembered his kindness, his sexiness and how he had helped her to find herself.

She had everything she thought she ever wanted.

The Henley Cup.

A winning team.

Revenge.

Her sexuality back.

But not him.

No wonder he didn’t want a relationship, Abby thought, only she tried one more time to reach him on his phone.

It was the Monopoly of love because she got sent straight to voicemail.

‘Matteo, it’s Abby. Last night...’ She’d taken the low road. ‘Last night,’ Abby attempted again, ‘I said some things that you didn’t deserve to hear. I’m sorry for that and...’ What else? Abby thought. The truth. ‘I don’t know what else to say. You’re right, I can’t believe that I didn’t hear you out. I want to though.’

She rung off and sat there, then pounced on her phone when a text came through but sagged when she saw it was just Bella.

Have you heard the news? :-)

Abby frowned.

What news?

Turn it on.

Abby did and saw the serious face of a news reporter standing outside the venue where she was supposed to have been for the presentation last night. The reporter was talking about the tight-knit world of the racing community and denying that Hunter had been loaded and got behind the wheel.

‘The Lachance team manager insists that he fell...’

And then they flashed to an image of Hunter leaving a medical centre and Abby swallowed because if he
fell
, then it must have been from some considerable height and in several directions!

She called Bella.

‘What the hell happened?’ Abby said. ‘Did he take out a car?’

‘Oh, this was no car accident,’ came the gleeful reply. ‘Your lovely sponsor paid him a visit last night.’

‘Matteo?’

‘Yep.’

‘Oh, no...’ Abby felt sick. ‘Has he been charged?’

‘That’s just it—Matteo
wants
to be charged!’ Bella laughed. ‘In fact, when he’d finished with Hunter he took out a business card and dropped it on him and said that he was looking forward to explaining his actions in front of a judge. Oh, Abby, it was one of the best nights of my life. We’re all still drinking and cheering.’ But then Bella was serious. ‘Hunter came on to me once. God, Abby, don’t ask but...’

‘It’s okay,’ Abby said. ‘I get it.’

They would talk properly some day.

‘Where is he?’ Abby asked.

‘Having his teeth reimplanted, I think.’

‘No, I mean, where’s Matteo?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bella answered. ‘He just left afterwards and no one knows where he is...’

Abby did.

As she rung off she heard the door and then his voice and there, swaying in the doorway, looking rather the worse for wear, was Matteo.

‘I know you hate violence...’ he started.

Abby did.

‘But he had to pay.’

Matteo had a black eye and bruised knuckles and a chipped front tooth. It would have been some fight; Abby knew how hard Hunter worked to stay in shape and she also knew, firsthand, how violent his temper could be.

‘Come in,’ Abby said and she held the door open but Matteo shook his head.

‘Nope, I’m just here to tell you one thing. Two actually.’

‘Well, can we at least do that inside?’ Abby asked and finally Matteo nodded and in he came. She spoke first. ‘I tried to call you.’

‘I threw my phone out the car.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t want you to talk me down,’ Matteo said, ‘which you would have tried to and then you’d have worried all night.’ Then he was more direct. ‘And I was cross with you.’

She’d thought that he might be.

‘What Hunter did to you was despicable. What he’s still doing to you, you shouldn’t allow. Stop wasting your life exacting revenge.’

‘I know that now.’ Abby was trying not to cry. ‘Even when we won the cup, I kept wanting to explain that I was happy, just that we’d won, not because of beating him.’

‘Good,’ Matteo said and then he gave in standing and went and took a seat on a large dark sofa.

He looked around her apartment and, after the night he had had, it was nice and relaxing just to sit in silence. There must be a huge tree outside because the only view he could see as he stared out was green leaves.

‘I’ll get to the second thing in a moment,’ Matteo said and rested his head back for a while.

‘Can I get you anything?’ Abby offered.

‘A drink.’

She guessed he didn’t mean coffee.

‘I don’t think you should be drinking,’ Abby said but then went and poured him a very nice cognac.

‘I thought you didn’t drink,’ Matteo said, taking a long, slow sip.

‘I run a motor team,’ Abby said. ‘They get tired of lemonade. Actually, my friend Bella gave it to me when we came fifth last year. I’ve been hiding it from them since then.’

‘Good.’

But the small talk didn’t last for very long.

‘Second thing,’ Matteo said and he watched as her cheeks went pink and her eyes, which were still red from crying all night, blinked a few times. ‘Don’t ever again compare me to him.’

‘I’m really sorry for what I said.’

‘And so you should be,’ Matteo responded, ‘because I would never treat any woman that way.’

‘I get that, Matteo. I was cross, I was upset...’

‘No excuse!’ he said and he pointed his finger at her. ‘Because I love a good row but if you ever hurl that at me again I’ll be straight out of the door.’

He served her a very serious warning but even as he did there was this little thing called hope flickering in her heart because...did that mean that they might, just might, have a future?

Oh, not a big one, he’d made that very clear, but he’d lived in her heart for three months yet and she didn’t want it all to end on a row.

‘And you’re never to compare me to your father either.’

‘I won’t,’ Abby said.

‘He knows what happened?’ Matteo checked. He still couldn’t believe it but Abby nodded.

‘He just carries on as if it didn’t. I hate how he has that photo still on his wall.’

‘It isn’t any more. I smashed it.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And I tore it up into a million pieces and it still wasn’t enough and so I went and found him and I don’t regret it.’ Matteo stood. ‘I’m going to go.’

He wanted a bath and to tidy up; this wasn’t how today was supposed to be.

‘Don’t go yet.’

‘I’m a mess. I want to sleep.’

‘I’ll run you a bath,’ Abby said. ‘And you can sleep here.’

She just could not stand another twelve or twenty-four hours’, or even, knowing Matteo, several weeks’ delay in proceedings.

Abby ran him a bath and he stripped off as easily as he always did and got in and then she sat on the edge in her gown.

‘Why are you still wearing it?’ Matteo asked.

‘I fell asleep with it on.’

‘That’s very un-Abby.’

‘Yes, lately I am.’

He had the loveliest body and she got a very nice view of the best of it as he lay back and ducked his head under the water for a moment and then came up again.

‘I know you don’t want to hear it,’ Matteo said, ‘but I am going to explain my version of things.’

‘I do want to hear it.’

‘Then get my jacket.’

She did and he half drenched it as he went through the pockets and took out the necklace and then dropped his jacket back on the floor.

‘You know my grandfather brought us up?’

Abby nodded.

‘And I told you about the fight. How, since then, we’ve worked at things. We don’t talk about much, but we do talk. I take him out and I care very much for him. In April he asked me to come and see him and told me that he was very ill.’

She knew that much from his conversation with Allegra.

‘When we were growing up he used to tell us this tale about the Lost Mistresses. I never really paid much attention. He’d just say it all the time...’

‘Tell me.’

‘Oh, no...’ Matteo rolled his eyes and put on an old man’s voice. ‘“Don’t ask me how I came by them...an old man must have his secrets...”’

Abby laughed.

‘Well, he started going on about his Lost Mistresses again. He said he wanted me to find one of them for him. At first I thought he was a bit confused. But no, he showed me a photo of the necklace and said he wanted to go to his grave in peace and he begged me to find the necklace. I tracked it down to your father and I made him an offer, which he refused. Your father said that if I wanted the necklace I had to get you to come to his fundraiser, looking like a woman for once and wearing it.’ He looked over to Abby. ‘I should have said no then. It was wrong of me, I accept that. I told him that I wasn’t going to seduce you or anything. He suggested that I go in as an investor.’

It hurt to hear.

She couldn’t polish his words up like a stone.

The very first time they met he had lied to her.

‘I thought you were interested in the team,’ Abby said...and it sounded so pathetic, but not as pathetic as admitting, she had hoped, almost from the start, that he had wanted her. ‘You said...’

‘Abby, I hated cars. And you know why.’ She nodded. ‘But I didn’t by the time we went to dinner.’

Still, she recalled him saying how great she looked in those awful jeans and the ease he had put her at.

To know it had all been a lie hurt like hell.

‘Abby, I thought you were the rudest woman I’d ever met. I had a hangover, and your attitude made it very easy to walk away. I was going to tell my grandfather there was no chance, or make your father a better offer. But the moment we started talking, I mean, really talking, I was in. I wasn’t pretending any more.’

‘Yet you still didn’t tell me,’ Abby said, and she wasn’t cross, just confused.

‘When?’ Matteo demanded. ‘When was I supposed to tell you?’ And then he told her something about himself. ‘I’m a good liar, Abby, and I don’t usually have much of a conscience. I say what I have to to get what I want and I’m very good at avoiding things. When my parents would fight I’d just go off into my own world. When my grandfather tells me he’s dying, I suggest we go out for a drink. When the woman I’m crazy about tells me all that’s happened to her and then comes down, so shy and nervous and wearing that necklace...should I have told you that night?’ he asked. ‘Would you have taken it well then?’

‘No.’

‘On Sunday night, as soon as I landed back in New York, I went and spoke with my grandfather,’ Matteo said. ‘I told him that he wasn’t getting the necklace, that I wouldn’t do it to you.’ He handed it to her. ‘It’s yours.’

‘Technically it’s yours,’ she said. ‘Gentleman’s agreement and that.’

‘Your father’s no gentleman, so that nulls that. It’s yours.’

Abby took it. ‘What did your grandfather say when he found out he wasn’t getting it back?’

‘He was upset, I guess, but he’ll live.’ Matteo closed his eyes. ‘Actually, he won’t.’ He gave her a half smile. ‘He asked if he could see it one more time—is that okay?’

‘I think we could manage that.’ Abby stood.

‘Do you get now why I didn’t tell you?’

Abby didn’t answer him; instead she stood and walked to the bathroom door.

‘You’re going?’ Matteo said.

‘Yep.’

Matteo lay back in the water and closed his eyes again.

Of course she was.