I frowned at the flowers. “Why?”
“Why not? They invested in me, put all their time and money into making sure I had the best coaches and opportunities. Pushed me to work hard. And when I started making money, I was too young and would have blown it all, so they took care of it and let me focus on tennis. Gradually, the business just became their lives. Sponsorships, team management, investments, media opportunities, modelling plans – I don’t even know half the things they do, but there’s lots of money so I can’t complain. Shitty of me to get mad at them really, especially since I’m only where I am now because they supported me.”
“Sure, but you can still be mad that he talks to you like that.” I rolled over to look at him. “I’d have struggled not to hit him if he’d actually been in the room.”
“He probably wouldn’t have said any of it if he knew he had an audience. My parents care very much what people think of them.”
He pulled his arm from around me and rolled onto his back, stretching out with languid ease – a sated lion in the noontime sun. He looked untroubled, and met my ongoing stare with an amused smile and a tilt of his head. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said, but when he lifted a brow, I cracked and shrugged. “I guess I was worried about you.”
“You didn’t seem particularly worried,” he said, adding with a hint of censure, “you sent me one message.”
Whereas he repeatedly messaged whenever I didn’t reply and had broken into my apartment. I winced. “I . . . didn’t want to bother you. I figured you had better things to do with your time than humour me.”
“Humour you? Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“No, but I didn’t think reassuring your current fuck buddy would be high on your list of priorities.”
He breathed out a wry laugh. “I guess that’s fair. But Mat . . .” Miles rolled his head on the pillow to look at me, every second my name hung on his lips pulling me in like gravity. Until he looked away with a shake of his head. “You can message me as often as you like, all right?”
“All right.”
“Good. Crisis averted.”
“I wasn’t having a crisis!” I lied.
“And neither was I. Losing is just tennis.” With a groan of effort, Miles pulled himself off the bed. “Now get up, I’m going to shower and change the bedding.”
Ten
“ARE YOU HITTING the court today?” Miles asked, striding into my apartment without bothering to knock.
I’d been staring at my tennis bag, trying to decide if I had everything – usually a simple task, but the last hour or so in Miles’s apartment had left me unbalanced. And now, here he was freshly showered and leaning against the kitchen bench, twisting his woven bracelet around his wrist like he wasn’t the world’s biggest distraction.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I didn’t end up going yesterday, so I bumped my session with Danny to today.”
Before I finished, Miles was shaking his head. “No. Don’t call him.”
“Why not?”
He fiddled with the ends of his bracelet, looking sidelong at me through the fall of his hair like he needed a shield from my reaction. “I want to try something.”
“A tennis something, or . . .?”
“Yes, a tennis something!” He laughed. “I don’t have anentirelyone-track mind despite how hot you are.”
I tried to suppress a grin at his compliment and failed. “Noted. I still need time with my coach though.”
“Tomorrow. Today, I want to be your coach.”
“Youwant to be my coach?”
“Just for one afternoon!” He held up placating hands, his expression almost imploring. “I want to see if we can cut through the overthinking. Find the old Matteo.”
It wasn’t one of his challenges. It might have been easier if it had been, because if the last few days had proven anything, it was that I would never back down from one of those. Perhaps he knew that though, knew this was too big a deal to force my hand with a sparkling look. He was asking me to take a risk.
Danny’s warning echoed through my head. There was no way Miles truly wanted the old Matteo Russo back on tour, yet I wanted to trust him, wanted to trust this man with his dark gaze and his gentle hands, who took my every ridiculous crisis in his stride like it was the easiest thing in the world.
