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‘It’s perfect...’ Alice breathed, finally turning to Mateo and smiling sheepishly. ‘And not at all what I was expecting.’
They were walking back to his car and she glanced over her shoulder, already knowing that this was where she wanted to be. The sun was starting to lower in the sky, and her heart warmed when she looked sideways at Mateo, impressed at how he had managed to get something as big as this just right.
‘I’m a guy who’s full of surprises. I’ve booked a table for an early dinner for us so that we can discuss the place.’
‘You assumed I’d like it?’
‘I’d assumed even if you didn’t that we would have a lot to discuss.’
As he circled the small courtyard in front of the house heading out towards the town centre, Alice murmured, ‘I haven’t said how great it is that you’ve taken all this in your stride.’
Mateo looked at her in silence for a few seconds.
He’d made sure to take a step back as she’d looked around, wanting to gauge her reaction without her being aware of him gauging her reaction. She loved it, as he’d known she would; subtle persuasion had been his game plan. Now, he was in the process of gauging something altogether different—namely whatever had prompted her mood earlier on.
‘You can move in as quickly as next month, but it will entail quitting your job. I can’t see the commute working.’
‘Mateo...’
‘If you want to hang on at the school, then be my guest, but the seller wants to get rid of the house as soon as possible and there are already three offers under review. I’ll outstrip them all, but only on your say so.’
‘Can I think about it?’
Mateo shrugged. ‘I’d say you have little more than twenty-four hours to do that.’
‘I’m just so attached to the school and to all my friends there.’
Mateo gritted his teeth and tried to check resurfacing notions of some fellow teacher laying it on thick about Alice’s situation, mopping up her tears of sadness that she hadn’t found true love with the father of her baby. Jealousy didn’t usually feature in his life but he was having a hard time fighting it. When he thought of her pouring out her disappointment to some other guy, he literally saw red.
‘What was all that about?’ he ground out, before clearing his throat and trying to sound as composed as possible, given the weird feelings tearing through him.
‘What was all what about?’
‘Your mood earlier on.’
‘I...’
‘Don’t be shy—it’s not your style. I’m too accustomed to you saying exactly what you think so, like I said, spit it out.’
‘If you must know, I saw a picture of you—actually, several pictures of you.’
‘No idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I happened to be looking through the paper in the staff room and there you were, at some do or other last week, with a blonde.’
‘Ah. I see.’ He did see, quite a bit. In a heartbeat he thought...to heck with the long game. He should never have denied the man he was, the guy who’d literally fought to get where he was, the guy who’d always known that all was fair in love and war. ‘I think I remember the occasion—a bash for a charity dealing with mental health issues in youngsters.’
‘And was the woman with you?’
‘That’s not really your concern, now, is it, Alice?’
Had there been a blonde woman there? More than likely. Expensive charity fund raisers with high-profile guests usually attracted a very pretty crowd, and a lot of them tended to gravitate towards him.
‘No, I know that. I was just a little curious, that’s all.’
‘But curiosity about who I may or may not be going out with doesn’t enter the equation, not now.’ He slowed down and pulled into one of the spaces close to the restaurant and waited for her to digest what he had just said for a few minutes, then he opened the door for her, and they walked to the place he had booked for them.
‘If you had chosen to accept my marriage proposal,’ he told her as soon as they were seated and water had been poured, ‘then you would naturally have had a right to that kind of curiosity, but you chose another road, and that road has a different set of rules.’