Page 127 of My Italian Love Affair

We walk in silence for a few more steps before I speak again.

“I was a dick, too,” I say.

She blinks up at me, clearly thrown off guard.

“What?”

“The other day,” I say. “I… shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

Daphne stops walking. It takes me a second to realise that she’s just - well,standing there,and so I stop, too.

She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“What?”

“You just…” She shakes her head. “Matteo, did you justapologise?”

“Don’t get used to it,giornalista,” I smirk.

She huffs out a breath, shaking her head as we set off walking again.

“I must be dreaming.”

“Told you I wasn’t all bad.”

She tilts her head slightly, studying me.

“Why were you like that, anyway?”

“I was pissed off, “ I sigh. “At the match, at myself, at the way it played out.”

I pause.

“And at you.”

Her brows furrow.

“Atme?”

“You didn’t believe in me,” I murmur. “Your predictions. You wrote us off before the game had even started.”

She falls silent, and I take a step closer, closing the distance between us.

Her back presses lightly against the door of her car, and I brace a hand against the roof, effectively boxing her in.

She inhales sharply, but she doesn’t shrink away.

She doesn’t stiffen, doesn’t tense up the way shehad with Mark.

Instead, she shifts, her body language speaking volumes.

Her breath comes a little quicker, her fingers twitch slightly at her sides like she’s resisting the urge to reach for me. Her green eyes flicker up to mine, wide and bright, and I don’t miss the way her pink tongue darts out to wet her lips - like she’s preparing for something.

She’s not nervous. Not uncomfortable.

She likes this. She likesmelike this.

And that’s all the confirmation I need.

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