He resisted the temptation to glance at his watch.
‘Not excessively,’ she said. ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever got over the Bali belly.’
At last—a reference to their recent shared past. He hoped the elephant was appeased.
‘You’re still feeling unwell?’
‘Off and on.’
He frowned. ‘That’s a worry. You should get it checked out. You might have caught a tropical bug. They can have long-lasting consequences.’
He thought about telling her the story of his teammate who’d picked up a parasite through his bare feet in some country or other, but decided that was hardly dinner date conversation.
Zoe sighed. ‘I know. I should go to the doctor. It’s just I’ve been run off my feet at work—it’s our busiest time of the year. All I do is work, work and more work.’
And date? Had she been going out with other guys? Had she found dating as unsatisfactory as he had?
The thought of her with another guy had tortured him back in Madrid. Had the ex-boyfriend come sniffing around? If he, Mitch, had had Zoe in his life he wouldn’t have let her go easily.
Mitch gripped the side of the menu. He had let her go. He had made love to her all night and then just let her go.
Had he seriously expected he could just fly into Sydney, show up on her doorstep and everything would be as it had been in Bali? He gritted his teeth. She wouldn’t be independent, feisty Zoe if she just fell back into his arms. This was up to him. Unfinished business or not.
‘Promise me you’ll get to the doctor as soon as possible?’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I promise. Thank you for your concern.’
Their eyes met across the table. To his relief, he saw genuine appreciation in hers. That was at least a step up from guarded politeness.
‘Good health is important,’ he said. ‘As I know only too well.’
‘Your knee,’ she said. ‘I keep meaning to ask about it. Is it holding up?’
‘So far, so good. I’m back to match fitness. Let’s hope it stays that way. I’ve still got a lot to prove.’
‘And your father?’ She laughed, and her laughter had a nervous edge to it. ‘No different from this morning, I guess. Sorry. Dumb question.’
‘It wasn’t a dumb question. He gets grumpier by the hour. Hates being inactive.’
‘Did you get your interest in soccer from your dad?’
This wasn’t how he’d pictured his reunion with sexy, passionate Zoe. Talking about his father. But if that was the way it was going he might as well throw his grandfather in too.
‘Dad liked to kick a ball around. But it was my grandfather who really got me into soccer.’ He smiled. ‘Grandpa is English, and he would hate to hear me refer to football as “soccer”.’
Zoe tilted her head attentively and her earrings swung. He wanted to reach over and still them. But would his touch be welcome? Her ‘hands off’ shield was very much in place.
Mitch realised that this evening might not go as he’d anticipated. After their meal was served he might get a polite brush-off and a cool kiss on the cheek like the one she’d given him this morning. He wasn’t used to that. It stymied him.
‘I didn’t know your family was English?’ she said.
‘My father was born in England and grew up there. In his twenties he came out to Australia on a gap year—only they didn’t call it that in those days—met my mother here and stayed. We lived in north London, near my grandparents, for a year when I was eight. My grandfather got me hooked on soccer then. He used to take me to games...got me on a local team. He played for a London team himself when he was young. He lives and breathes the game.’
‘He must be so proud of you now.’
‘Not proud of me playing for a Spanish team. In fact he’s disgusted.’
‘Why don’t you play for an English team?’
‘I did. But a Spanish team bought me.’
‘Bought you? Like a commodity?’
‘I guess you could put it that way.’
‘I know so little about the game.’ She smiled. ‘If an old schoolfriend hadn’t become a soccer superstar I’d know even less.’
‘Just ask if there’s anything you’d like to know,’ he said.
An old schoolfriend? He wanted to be so much more than that to her. Passionate, playful and sensual—that was the Zoe he remembered from Bali. He couldn’t settle for just friendship after she’d been all that to him. But then he couldn’t offer her a relationship either.
In that regard nothing had changed since they’d last met in Bali. He could not let himself be distracted from his game by Zoe or any other woman. He just couldn’t.
Last year he’d been briefly involved with a woman who had been too temperamental for his taste. When he’d broken it off with her there had been scenes, threats, confrontations—until he’d been forced to take out a restraining order against her.
It had been during that time when he had suffered his knee injury. Had the stress caused him to miss that split-second warning that two opposing players were headed towards him, clearly with the intent to take him out? He believed there was a good chance it had. It wouldn’t happen again.
‘Why do they call it “The Beautiful Game”? It sounds so...so romantic,’ Zoe said.
His grandfather had often used the term, and had explained it to him many times as a kid. ‘It’s because the game is beautiful in its simplicity. It’s not loaded with complex rules. If you have a ball you can play anywhere. Kids in their back yards or on dusty streets all over the world...highly paid players on a perfectly groomed pitch. It’s an intelligent game—an individual’s game as well as a team game. They say the first person to officially call it “The Beautiful Game” was the great Brazilian footballer Pelé.’
Mitch paused, conscious that he sounded as if he was preaching.
‘I don’t want to bore you...’
‘You’re not boring me at all. I can see how much you love your game. I admire your passion. No wonder it comes first with you.’
There was a hint of the Bali Zoe’s teasing in her smile.
‘Even if you are bought and sold like a racehorse.’
Zoe obviously had no idea of the money that changed hands at the top level of soccer. It wasn’t the huge deal in Australia that it was in Europe, where players’ incomes were splashed all over the press. Even he’d been astounded at the amounts that had poured into his bank account since he’d made it to the top. And that didn’t include the sponsorship and endorsements his agent was always negotiating.
He was glad Zoe didn’t seem to have any interest in his income. Lara had been only too aware of every possible euro, pound and dollar that might come his way. It had been a bitter realisation that Lara had been more in love with the money and the spotlight than she had been with him.
Ultimately she’d pressed for marriage—to secure that income, he’d believed. That had resulted in their final split—and a pay-out from him to stop her selling the story of their relationship to the media. To be fair to Lara, she’d stuck to the deal. It hadn’t come as a shock when she’d taken up with another player not long afterwards.
Since then he’d steered clear of women he suspected of being interested not in the real Mitch Bailey but in his image and wealth. There were plenty of them around. Star footballers could be a target for the unscrupulous.
The waiter came alongside their table and asked if he could take their order. Mitch quickly chose white fish and steamed vegetables in a lemon yogurt sauce. Zoe ordered a cheese and spinach vegetarian dish, explaining that she had lost her taste for meat since she hadn’t been feeling well.
The conversation dwindled to virtually nothing. The elephant in the pool below was wallowing in the shallow end and spraying water through its trunk all over the swimmers. But neither he nor Zoe seemed able to call it to heel.
Zoe pleated the edge of her linen napkin, drew her finger around the edge of her water glass, played with her dangly e
arrings. She must be feeling as uncomfortable as he was. This was untenable.
Mitch reached across the table and stilled her hand with his. He looked into her eyes for a long, still moment.
‘Zoe, I wish I could see what was in your thought bubbles,’ he said. ‘Because we’re not making any headway talking and I don’t have much time.’
* * *
Zoe gripped his hand in deep, heartfelt relief that Mitch had found the courage to say what she had been too knotted with nerves to say. He’d been so formal, his conversation so stilted—unless he was talking about soccer—that she’d feared the connection they’d shared in Bali had been completely severed. That she’d never see again the Mitch she’d shared both danger and ultimately pleasure with in the seclusion of her villa back in Seminyak.
‘My thought bubbles?’ she said, knowing her voice sounded shaky but unable to do anything about it except follow her words with a nervous laugh. ‘Please don’t ask me to sing them, because there’s a guy over there with a cell phone who seems a tad too interested in us.’
In fact it looked as if the onlooker was about to snap a photo of them. Zoe withdrew her hand from Mitch’s, kept her hands firmly on her lap.
‘No need to sing,’ Mitch said, with the disarming smile that struck straight to her heart.
He looked so impossibly handsome in that dark suit. She could still hardly believe he was here with her in Sydney. Her pulse quickened at the thought of what the evening might bring.
She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Okay. My thought bubbles say: “Apprehensive”. “Awkward”. “Curious”.’
‘“Curious”?’ he said, his head tilted to one side, his eyes narrowed.
‘Curious as to why you looked me up when you’d made it so clear you didn’t want anything ongoing between us.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘What about “awkward”?’
Under cover of the tablecloth overhang Zoe wrung her hands together. ‘I’m anxious that I’ll say the wrong thing—I’m second-guessing every word. I’m over the moon that you’re here, but I don’t want to appear too glad to see you in case...in case you think I’m wanting more from you. You made your agenda for the future very clear.’
‘Which explains “Apprehensive”...’ said Mitch.
She nodded, unable to speak through a sudden lump of emotion. She blinked against unwelcome, mortifying tears. ‘Yes,’ she forced herself to say.
‘My thought bubbles are pretty much the same,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m worried that we seem like strangers to each other.’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know what to do about it.’
Mitch leaned across the table. ‘I thought about you a lot when I was back in Madrid, Zoe.’
‘I...I thought about you too.’ She didn’t want to give too much away. Such as the fact she still awoke from dreams of him to find herself in tears.
‘We didn’t get to say goodbye in Bali.’
There was accusation in his voice and affronted pride in his eyes.
Zoe realised that Mitch, the celebrity sportsman, was not used to being left by a woman. Not in those circumstances. She hadn’t meant to take the upper hand by creeping out of the villa without awakening him to say goodbye. It had saved her an awkward moment. Mitch might be used to such nostrings encounters. She was not.
‘It seemed better that way,’ she said, finding it difficult to meet his eyes. ‘We’d agreed it...it would only be for that night.’
‘When I woke up and you weren’t there I was gutted.’
‘It...it was difficult to leave you, but it would have been worse to face you. I...I had never been in that situation before. I didn’t know how to deal with it.’
She’d sobbed in the taxi all the way to the airport. Then huddled into her seat on the plane for the entire six-hour flight home to Sydney, desperately trying not to sob some more.
His mouth twisted wryly. ‘Severing all contact between us seemed the right thing at the time. When I got back to Madrid and had time to think, it seemed all kinds of wrong. I wanted to get in touch. But I thought that wouldn’t be fair on you. My situation hadn’t changed.’
‘I wanted to contact you too. But I...I didn’t want to seem like a...like a groupie. I...know you’re probably plagued by them.’
Mitch’s so-expressive eyebrows rose. ‘Don’t ever think that. You are nothing like that. Not that I’ve had anything to do with groupies, and nor am I criticising them, but I see what goes on.’
‘Each to his own,’ she murmured, glad that Mitch had distanced himself from that aspect of his fame. But still... She couldn’t believe their one night in Seminyak had been the first nostrings incident for him. He was idolised by women.
‘You’re smart, gorgeous, funny. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’
On the surface, those words should have sounded romantic. But Zoe detected an undertone of annoyance—even anger. It was as if she were some unwelcome prickly thorn, pressing into his consciousness. She wasn’t at all sure she liked it.
She swallowed hard. ‘I...I couldn’t stop thinking about you either,’ she said. ‘I tried, though. I really tried. Otherwise I would have gone crazy. I purposely avoided the sports pages, the international sports news. That’s why I got such a shock to see you this morning. I had no idea you were in Australia.’
‘I was going crazy in my own way, trying to find out what you were doing. You’ve got such rigid privacy settings on your social media.’
‘You tried to stalk me on social media?’ Zoe tried to suppress her laughter so it didn’t attract attention. ‘Imagine...Mitch Bailey stalking me—I’m flattered.’
‘I wouldn’t say “stalking” you,’ he said, with what she took to be more affronted pride. ‘More...attempting research into your comings and goings. And failing dismally—courtesy of your firewalls.’
‘I told you...I’m a private person.’ She looked sideways at the guy on the other table with the camera phone. His attention was now on his meal, not on Mitch, thank heaven.
‘Did you date other guys?’
The directness of Mitch’s question stunned her. But she didn’t have to search for an answer. ‘No. I didn’t want to.’
How could any other man have compared to Mitch? Trouble was, no other guy she’d met in the meantime had attracted her. That night in Bali had shown her what it could be like between a man and a woman. Not just the lovemaking. It had also been about the shared laughter, the joy, the connection that to her had been so much more than physical.
She wanted Mitch but he could not offer her what she needed—commitment, love. One day she’d meet someone who could offer her more than one night in his busy schedule. She had no intention of putting her life on hold for Mitch Bailey.
No matter that just sitting opposite him at a restaurant table was thrilling her in a way being with any other man never had. No. She hadn’t even looked at another man in the last two months.
His relief was palpable. ‘Good,’ he said.
Zoe gasped. His reaction was a bit rich. What did he mean, ‘good’?
He had no rights over her personal life. They’d made no commitment—hadn’t even exchanged contact details. She was free to date whom she darn well pleased. The fact that she hadn’t met anyone who came anywhere near him was beside the point.
She wanted to say something but bit her tongue. It was an unexpected bonus to see Mitch again. She didn’t want to ruin it by being combative. What was the point?
‘What about you?’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘I went out with a few women.’
Jealousy—fierce and unexpected—stabbed her so hard she flinched. She couldn’t bear to think of him with someone else. And that was crazy, considering the nature of their relationship. Not that you could even call it a relationship. Heck, you couldn’t even call it a friendship. She couldn’t find a label to paste on whatever it was with her and Mitch Bailey.
She didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebr
ow. While she churned inside with jealousy.
‘It was a disaster,’ he said. ‘I kept comparing them to you and they fell short. I gave up on dating.’
What was she meant to infer from that? ‘Oh...’ was all she managed to choke out, with her jealousy somewhat appeased.
For a long moment their eyes met. But if she was searching for more she didn’t find it. His gaze was guarded.
‘It’s good to see you, Zoe.’
‘It’s good to you, too,’ she said.
‘There’s something there...more than friendship,’ he said.
A secret thrill that he had acknowledged it pulsed through her. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’ she asked eventually. ‘Fact is, I still live in Sydney and you still live in Madrid.’
‘And that isn’t going to change,’ he said. ‘For all the reasons I explained to you before. But we could keep in touch on the internet.’
‘You mean I’d have to let down my firewalls for you?’ she said, in a feeble attempt at humour.
‘Yes. You’d have to let me scale those walls.’
Did she detect a note of triumph in his voice? Mitch liked to win. For what purpose?
She found herself pleating her napkin again. ‘Will you be back in Australia any time soon?’
It would be torture to wait months and months to see him.
‘It’s not likely,’ he said. ‘Not until next year, when the season ends. Playing league football is more than a full-time commitment.’
‘That...that’s a long time.’ How could they possibly maintain anything resembling more than a casual friendship on that time scale?
‘Are you planning a trip to Europe any time soon?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure...’
She’d blown her vacation budget with the Bali trip. There was no spare cash for an expensive trip to Europe, and she didn’t believe in paying for vacations on credit.
‘That’s a shame. You could have visited me in Madrid,’ he said. ‘I have a very nice apartment in old Madrid. You’d like it.’
‘I...I’m sure I would,’ she said. ‘I’d like to see Spain some day. That would give me an incentive to study Spanish again.’
From Paradise...to Pregnant! Page 9