Her eyes hardened as they held his. ‘Did you think to ask me if I’d like to be whisked away to a hotel for the weekend? What if I had other plans? What if I had already made my own arrangements?’
‘You can cancel them, can’t you?’
She blew out a whooshing breath. ‘You’re unbelievable. You think you can do anything you like by waving a fistful of money around. You’re exactly like my father. You think you can control people by dangling big carrots under their nose. Well, you can find someone else to have your weekend with. I’m sure you won’t have too much trouble. I’m not available, nor am I interested.’
Luiz stopped her spinning away by grabbing her arm. ‘Wait a damn minute. I’ve rearranged my whole schedule to get here. I forfeited a training session with my team. That’s a big deal so close to the Grand Slam.’
She looked at him with a steely glare. ‘Why are you here, Luiz? Why are you really here?’
He thought about telling her but how could he do it like this? Not out on a cold and gloomy rain-sodden street with people looking on. He wanted to take her away and romance her, to show her just how much he loved her by treating her like a princess. ‘I told you. I wanted to see you. We agreed to see each other for the next—’
‘So you’ve seen me. Now you can go.’
His heart jerked with a spasm of pain so sharp it felt like someone had ripped it out of his chest. Disappointment chugged through him, making his legs feel numb and useless.
He’d been wrong.
Stupidly, gullibly wrong.
She didn’t feel anything for him. She couldn’t have made it clearer.
The blood was pounding in his head and his ears to a repetitive and sickening beat: It. Is. Over. It. Is. Over.
He let his hold fall away from her arm. ‘Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it. We’ll leave it there.’ He stepped back from her. ‘Adios, querida.’
She stood with soldier-straight shoulders, her lips barely moving as she said, ‘Goodbye.’
* * *
Belinda scrolled through her Twitter feed. ‘Nope. Not a thing about him anywhere. He hasn’t posted anything since he was playing those charity matches in Argentina.’ She put her phone down and gave Daisy a pointed look. ‘Makes you kind of wonder, doesn’t it?’
Daisy flattened her lips. ‘He’s probably too busy seducing some skinny supermodel.’
‘Maybe.’ Belinda leaned forward. ‘Are you going to eat that cheesecake or just scowl at it?’
She shoved the plate in Belinda’s direction. ‘You have it.’
Belinda took a mouthful and then swallowed it before saying, ‘Turning your nose up at cheesecake is a bad sign.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Boy, you have got it bad, haven’t you? I’ve never seen you like this before.’
Daisy dropped her head into her hands and squeezed bunches of her hair until her scalp stung. ‘I’m so stupid. What was I thinking? A holiday fling with a career playboy? Me? God, what a pathetic joke.’