“Right. I don’t have relationships.”
He caught her wrist as she reached past him for the pad thai. “Are you scared?”
She stared at him in shock. “Am I scared? Of men?”
“Of the emotional baggage.”
“No!” Well, that was about as defensive as it got. Definitely scared.
“You are.” He reached out a finger to trace along the line where her hair met her forehead. “I wonder why.” Hurt by an old boyfriend, maybe? Or something deeper than that?
“It doesn’t matter why.” She pulled her wrist free and batted his hand away. “And I’m not scared. I just prefer not to clutter things up with feelings.”
“This is why you are a lawyer, hm?” He’d noticed that she was more comfortable when they were discussing contracts and negotiating boundaries.
“Corporate law.” She shrugged. “It suits me.”
“But this, between us—” He gestured towards her with his chopsticks. “This is not a corporation.”
“We signed a contract.”
So they had. It was necessary, given the circumstances of their marriage. “Contracts can be ended.”
Theresa’s jaw dropped in utter horror. Emile laughed. “You are not good for my ego, Thérèse. Would it be so very terrible if we found we had feelings for each other?”
“It would be better if we kept our feelings out of it.” Her voice was tight and strained. She had some feelings hidden away behind that lawyer facade. It might be fun to see what could make the mask crack.
“We can’t always control what we feel.”
She looked up at him sharply. “I’m serious, Emile. This isn’t going to work if you start falling for me.”
“I might not be the one falling.”
She bent over her plate, pretending to concentrate on picking up a piece of chicken with her chopsticks. “I think I can manage not to fall in love with you this year.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It isn’t.” She waved toward the pile of bags near the door. “I never said thank you for those.”
Apparently, they were done talking about emotions. “That’s because you didn’t want them.”
“I don’t, but I think you probably meant well. So thanks.”
“My pleasure,” he said wryly.
“You’ll arrange for the clothes to be returned, right?”
“My housekeeper can have them.”
“But you must have spent a fortune. Is your housekeeper the right size?”
Emile laughed and leaned over to kiss her briefly. “She’s fifty and at least twice as round as you. She’ll sell them.”
“Huh. Good for her, I guess. But it seems pretty wasteful for you.”
“I told you before, chérie, I have enough money. Are you finished eating?”
“Is there any more rice? Right, I forgot. Premiership footballer on ludicrously high salary. Exactly how much money is Woolwich paying you?”
“About one hundred and fifty thousand.”
“That’s all?”
He smiled and added, “A week.”
“A week?” she repeated. “One hundred and fifty thousand pounds a week? What on earth do you do with it all?”
“Mostly I give it to my financial advisor and tell him to make it grow. He’s pretty good at that.” And it saved Emile from having to think about it. He hadn’t become a footballer for the money.
“Then what? Emile, you can’t just keep making more money for no reason.” Theresa seemed genuinely upset about it. Most women he knew loved the idea of a credit card with virtually no limit. They didn’t have trouble imagining how they’d spend a hundred and fifty grand every week. He smiled to himself. She really wasn’t like the others.
“It is not the reason I play football.” He spread his hands, trying to explain. “But if they want to pay me the money to do it, why shouldn’t I keep taking it?”
“Because…” Theresa shook her head. “I don’t know why. It just seems wrong if you’re not even going to use it.”
“I have everything I need. If I want something, I buy it. But otherwise… It’s just money, Thérèse.” And, when you’d grown up without much of it, it was good to know that you’d never have to worry about it again.
“To you it’s just money, but it could be so much more than that. You could, I don’t know, be saving lives in Africa or helping sick children. Don’t you want to do something worthwhile with it?”
He blinked. He’d never really thought about his money as a way to do something like that. “I guess. I do give some of it away. I do charity things with the club.”
“But you’re still building up a fortune that you don’t need and won’t spend?”
Dieu, he could see why she’d make a good lawyer. She never gave up on an argument. “I suppose so, if you put it like that.”
“But why? What is it for?”
He didn’t know what she wanted to hear. It was just what he earned. “I used to give half of everything I earned to my mother. It seemed fair. She gave most of what she earned to support me when I was in the junior teams.” At the beginning, that had been almost more important than anything. He’d wanted to pay her back for everything she’d done for him. When he’d got his first professional contract, she’d been so proud of him. She’d always believed he could make his dreams come true.
“Do you still miss her?” Theresa asked softly.
“Every day.” It didn’t hurt like it had at first, but the empty loneliness hadn’t gone away.
“I’m sorry.” She rested her hand on his arm and stroked her thumb gently across the skin. He put his hand over hers, holding it there, grateful for her silent sympathy.
Her silence helped him to say more. “For so long, it was just the two of us. Even after I moved to London, we talked every day. I wanted her to move here but she didn’t speak English and she was nervous of a foreign country.”
“What about your father?”
Way to break the mood. Emile sat up, pushing Theresa away with a derisive snort. “I have no father. Whoever got my mother pregnant does not deserve that name.”
He started to clear up the empty cartons, shoving them back into the flimsy plastic bag. Theresa stacked their plates.
“So now you’re on your own?” she said.
“I’m an adult. I manage.” He had friends, teammates, women. He was fine.
She nodded. “Still. Would you like a family of your own?”
His brain instantly conjured up an image of Theresa holding an infant out at arm’s length, telling it she didn’t need any emotions cluttering up their relationship. He couldn’t help the smile that sprang to his lips. “Are you offering?”
Instantly, she held up her hands in defense. “Idle curiosity. Nothing more.”
“Relax. I wasn’t planning to chuck out the condoms just yet. But one day, yes, I’d like a family. Children. A future.”
“So, what did you think of the match?” He took the remains of the takeaway through to the kitchen. He didn’t want her to think he cared about her answer.
“I wasn’t as bored as I thought I might be,” she called after him.
Huh. He pulled out another bottle of the Chateau Latour they were drinking and located the corkscrew. “That bad?”