‘So what happened?’ She moved up beside him and held her hands out so he could put his growing collection of tomatoes into them.
He avoided answering by popping a tomato into his mouth—putting one into her mouth too. She ignored the sweet sensation that flared deep inside—not just from the sun-warmed sweet fruit, but from the feeling of intimacy in him having fed it to her. Determinedly she kept looking at him—her brows raised as she waited for him to spill it.
‘Okay, we dated,’ he said after finally swallowing. ‘Just normal dating—which for me is usually fairly short term, right?’ He gave her a keen look.
Roxie grinned. ‘Yeah, but I’m guessing she didn’t take that on board?’
‘I ended it—way soon even for me. But she’d got it into her head that we were supposed to be soul mates or something. It got very awkward and she became increasingly hysterical. She was on my doorstep, she’d turn up at events I attended. I went away with the team and when I got back she’d actually moved into my apartment. All her stuff, everything, and was acting like... I don’t know. It had gone from awkward to ugly to dangerous. She threatened all kinds of things. I called a friend who’s a psych. We called her family. But it was bad, it was really bad. And after that I decided to take a break from dating altogether.’
Which was why he’d been so grumpy? Because a dating break wasn’t his natural style. Yeah, she knew he wasn’t entirely the heartless playboy he had the rep for, but he did like to have some fun. She moved to put the tomatoes on the outdoor table, pleased he’d been honest enough to tell her about it. She liked that he’d been bothered someone had been hurt—even if it wasn’t really his fault. She guessed Diana had other issues too, it had all just come to a head with Gabe. Poor guy, she didn’t think he’d deserved to put himself into penance for months like that. She smiled at him as he followed her and added yet more tomatoes to the collection.
‘You do know I’m not going to go stalker on you, right?’ He had nothing to fear from her.
‘Yes, I do know that.’ He broke eye contact—staring across the garden instead.
There was an oddly fixed silence.
‘So what does your family think of your career now?’ she asked, just to break it. ‘Youcan’tbe a disappointment, you’re a doctor.’
That brought a slight smile back. ‘Even just a sports doctor?’
‘You know I was only teasing.’ She’d seen for herself how highly regarded he was at the stadium—the team totally relied on him.
‘Yeah, well. You’re not the first to make an issue of it. No, my dad didn’t want me to do medicine. You’re looking at Andrew G. Hollingsworth the sixth and the first to betray the family and walk off the land.’
‘Andrew?’ That threw her—Andrew didn’t suit him at all.
‘Andrew Gabriel,’ he explained. ‘Gabe.’
Gabe was so much better, with those heavenly connotations and all—she knew justhowheavenly he felt. ‘Did that go down badly too?’
‘Unbelievably,’ he answered briefly, picking up another tomato and munching on it.
‘Were you written out of the will?’ she joked.
‘For a while.’ He nodded and answered out of the side of his mouth. ‘But I wasn’t going to back down. I’m not having my entire life dictated by other people’s expectations.’
Freedom was important to him too, huh? Roxie walked over to the tap at the back of the garage so she could rinse the plant scent from her fingers.
‘So how did you break free?’ she asked when he came beside her, waiting for his turn under the tap.
‘I ran away to the city, which wasn’t the smartest move, but at the time it was all I had. It’s not that easy to go against the wishes of your whole family when you’ve been groomed from the moment of conception—“one day this will all be yours, your responsibility” blah, blah, blah.’
‘Did they come after you?’
He shook his head. ‘I was seventeen and we didn’t communicate for over a year.’
‘That’s awful.’ How could they do that to a son who was everything any sane parent would want? Not just fit and healthy but bright and super successful andeverything.
‘It wasn’t so bad.’ He smiled when he saw the expression on her face. ‘I had friends. Studied, played rugby. And I kept in touch with my sister because she was at boarding school. Honestly, the things I missed most were the lambs I’d reared and my dog.’
‘You had lambs?’ She was momentarily diverted by that cute mental image. Was even more diverted when Gabe cupped his hand under the still running water and then sipped from it.
‘Took the orphans in each season,’ he explained after he swallowed.
She refused to ask if they’d had them for Christmas dinner.
‘No, I didn’t eat them, they were pets.’ He read her mind as he turned off the tap. ‘Anyway, Mum got steadily madder and madder with Dad. In the end they had a massive blow-up.’
