I tried to return the same. Then I gulped and turned to my side, pretending to be enthralled with the colorful, sculpted carvings that adorned the support beams. It wasn’t a stretch—they were fascinating. But I stayed that way until long after Luiz thanked everyone for being part of the tour and everyone gave him respectful applause. I pretended to be occupied until I thought the church was empty.
I turned around. And I was wrong.
Mateo was just a few feet away, standing in the middle of the faded red-carpeted aisle, his hands casually jammed into his pockets and looking at me with a most intense look in those smoky brown eyes.
“Vera,” he said and my nerves squirmed at the throaty quality of his voice, “can I speak with you? Please?”
“Yeah,” I said non-committal, even though I had a whole speech prepared in case he actually did end up lecturing me. It went something like “Why is it your business who I sleep with, you’re married, you’re not supposed to care?” Whether I ended up voicing that to him was unknown.
“I just wanted you to know,” he said, taking a step forward and then stopping, “that I’m staying here an extra week.”
Okaaaaay.
He read my expression. “My partner suggested it and I told him I could use the extra help with English.”
Well, that last part was bullshit. Aside from needing help with a few phrases and words here and there, Mateo was nearly fluent. His confidence level during the business portions needed some work, but considering the only language I knew was a shoddy level of French, I would have been happy with that.
Mateo must have been a perfectionist. Or, maybe, he just didn’t want to go home.
Or, maybe, it was something else.
Stop it, I told myself. Stop thinking that. The fact that he wants to be friends with you after all that means that he just sees you as a friend. After all, he’s—
And that’s when I cut my train of thought off. I wasn’t going to remind myself that he was married anymore. I’d known that from the moment I first laid eyes on him. It was too late to pretend I didn’t know what I was doing. I was in love, in lust, in something with him and all logic, all facts, all reality, none of that seemed to matter, not to my body and not to my heart.
“You look confused,” he said, peering at me. He tilted his hand from side to side. “More or less.”
I managed a smile. I was more or less confused. “I’m fine. I’m happy you’re staying.”
“Are you?” he questioned, not convinced.
“Are you happy you’re staying?”
He took another step my way. A waft of his delicious cologne teased me. “I’m sorry about the other night,” he said, his head dipped slightly. “I was a bit drunk and a bit rude.”
I stared at him. “You weren’t rude.”
He raised his brows, his forehead crinkling. “I have no business telling you how to…conduct yourself.”
What came out of my mouth next surprised me. “Maybe I need to be told.”
He seemed to suck in his breath. Chestnut eyes examined mine, framed by drawn, black brows. He was searching for some sort of truth in my eyes and I hoped he found it. I hadn’t meant to say that, especially so bluntly, but that didn’t make it untrue.
Our gazes locked onto each other as the seconds ticked by in that cold and empty church. What did he want from me? What did he think of me? What did he expect?
“Maybe,” he said slowly. “But it won’t be my place to do so. Only a fool would tell you what to do.”
I couldn’t hide the smile on my face. There was a sense of relief between us, like some of the bad tension had lifted. The good tension though, well, that was still there. It became static in the air every time my eyes raked over him.
Thankfully, before that kind of tension could build into an electric cloud, the main doors opened behind us and two hunched over ladies with grey, flower-adorned hair came padding into the church. They shot Mateo and I a suspicious glance then continued down the aisle.
“Guess we better not interrupt their worship, huh?” I said as we turned to leave, grateful for a way out of this.
We had free time now, about an hour before the football game. Peter had already driven our stuff over to the field and Jerry had yelled some easy directions on how to get there. Everyone else had scattered around the town, except for Claudia and Ricardo, who were waiting for us outside of the church by the statue of the pig with the humungous balls.
“We were wondering if you wanted to get a drink with us before the game,” Claudia said, a satisfied look on her face as she eyed us.
Mateo put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You really trust Vera? We’re all Spaniards. She could put drugs in our drinks and rig the game.”
“Or take advantage of us,” Ricardo put in, winking at me.
“Hey,” I said, acting like it wasn’t a huge detail that Mateo’s hand was on me. “Even if I did drug you, there’s no way the Anglos would win. You’d still have the rest of your team, and one Spanish football player is worth a million Anglo ones.”
They seemed to be happy with that answer. Over the past few weeks I’d learned the quickest way to a Spaniard’s heart is by feeding their football ego.
The four of us walked down the winding streets back to the main square. Along the way we ran into a few people from our program, but everyone seemed spread out, by themselves, or in groups like we were. We found a tapas bar with some outside seating and settled down, Claudia and Ricardo on one side of the metal table, Mateo and I on the other. Well, until Mateo got up to go buy us all drinks.
“Oh, you don’t have to,” I said, taking out my purse and rummaging for my wallet. It was weird needing it after being catered to for so long.
“Vera, shut your face,” Claudia said, leaning across the table and putting her hand on my arm to still me. She smiled. “He has money, let him.”
I looked up at Mateo but he had already started walking to the bar. The only thing that looked “rich” about him at the moment was the cut and fit of his brown blazer, which probably cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Otherwise, his vintage rock t-shirt and worn jeans and boots gave him the sexy casual, everyman look. Of course, everyone at the table knew that Mateo wasn’t like the rest of them.
I raised a brow and looked back at Claudia. “Wait, did you just tell me to shut my face?”
She laughed and raised her hands in the air. “You taught me that phrase! I only learn from the best.” She brought out her cigarette and jerked her chin at Ricardo. “Hey, you go help Mateo bring the drinks back.”
He rolled his eyes and got up, knowing when he wasn’t wanted. She lit her cigarette, blowing smoke away from us and then turned back to me with shining eyes. “I’m so glad you made up.”
“I’m not really sure we were fighting…”
“You were fighting,” she said confidently. “A day where you don’t see Mateo and Vera together means you are fighting.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded. “I told you they get very territorial.”
I pursed my lips. “I still don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
“Mateo,” she said knowingly, “is like most Spanish men. They are very passionate, very possessive. When they see you as theirs, they will make that known. Mateo is just better at hiding it than most. Maybe being a sports celebrity has helped with that. But I will tell you this.” She leaned in a bit closer. “When he was playing for Atletico, he was known for his temper. Hot-blooded, he is.”
I grumbled, not sure if I believed all that. Sure, I had seen a glimpse of him all “hot-blooded” when he was angry during our first business phone call together, but that seemed like nothing. Besides, how could you go from having a temper to acting all cool and collected like he usually did? If it was that easy to change your personality and who you are, maybe I would have done that a long time ago.