Phoebe laughed too and slapped his back. “Too much for you?”
He met her gaze straight on. “Not a chance.” He eyed the pizza again. “I can do this. Hot sauce is nothing. I eat this kind of thing for breakfast.”
“Well, don’t eat it all,” said Phoebe quickly. “We’ll need to have it for breakfast too.”
He hadn’t even said the words out loud, but clearly she knew there was no way he was getting out of here tonight. Trying to travel in that thick snow would be stupid. And it was New Year’s. Last thing he wanted to do was get stranded somewhere and have to call on any emergency services. Traveling now would be stupid and selfish. Matteo was neither.
He held his hand out for the soda that Phoebe passed with a laugh. “Should I have got you Hawaiian?”
He shook his head as the soda finally cooled the explosions in his taste buds.
Phoebe had pulled her knees up in front of her and leaned her head on her elbow. “So, it might be a little late, but I’m not that tired. You might not know this, but the TVs aren’t working yet, and the wi-fi doesn’t get fitted until next week. So, it’s books or nothing.”
Matteo leaned back on his hands and stretched his legs out in front of him. He might have taken his jacket off, but he was still wearing the suit he’d been dressed in all day. After sixteen hours his handmade leather shoes were starting to pinch. Phoebe looked much more comfortable than he did. “I’d kill for those sweatpants,” he murmured.
Phoebe nodded and pulled at the stretchy material. “There’s a reason I always have fall-back clothes.” She held up her hands. “And this, is it.”
Matteo shook his head. “How often do you get stranded or snowed in at work?”
Phoebe grinned. “You’d be surprised. Quite often I’m working at a place that is a bit out of the way. Or, is in the midst of renovations that means the water is turned off, or the electricity.” She lifted her hands higher. “So, this is really a palace in comparison to some of the other places.”
Phoebe was just so easy to be around. She was relaxed—comfortable in her own skin, and much more beautiful than she clearly realized.
But it was her manner that came over most. She had a good heart. Five minutes in her company virtually told you everything you’d ever need to know. She’d never be the person who was thoughtless or insincere. Business had made him hard. He was used to ruthlessness and backstabbing. It was refreshing to be in different company.
The only light in the room was the flickering flames and right now they were reflecting off Phoebe’s dark brown eyes. The noise from the fire—and the occasional spark—was actually very peaceful. For a few seconds he was sorely tempted just to sit here.
But Phoebe had already said she wasn’t tired—clearly, because she’d already slept. But how to spend the next few hours?
He took a deep breath. He only had one reason for being here. And the truth was, he didn’t even know where to start looking. Would it really be so hard for him to actually ask for a little help? He met Phoebe’s gaze again. “How about we play a game of hide and seek?”
* * *
She gave herself a shake. Had she just heard him correctly? It was possible she was hallucinating. In fact, it was possible she’d gone back to that dream state she’d thought she was in last week when she’d first met Italian stallion, Matteo Bianchi.
She tried not to smile at the nickname her brain had automatically conjured up for him.
Chances were, she was still sleeping in front of that crackling fire after getting snowed in. Matteo Bianchi wasn’t really sitting by her side, with his shirtsleeves pushed up and his dark hair flopping over his mesmerizing eyes. That would just be too good to be true. Really.
His hand closed over hers. Warmth. Heat. “What do you say?”
Nope. She wasn’t sleeping. She was definitely awake. A dream wouldn’t be making her heart beat so fast she couldn’t breathe.
“Hide and seek?” Her brain couldn’t really compute. He wanted to play a childhood game with her?
He nodded and changed position so he was kneeling next to her. “I told you that I came here to find something. Truth is, I’m not even sure where to look.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
His voice was steady. “I’m looking for an old photo album. There’s no guarantee it’s even here, but my family think it could be in a cupboard somewhere.”
The frown on her forehead deepened. Her head flicked from side to side. “In a cupboard, in here?”
In a place this size, how would they ever find it?
But Phoebe managed to shake off the enormity of the task quickly. Matteo had come all this way on New Year’s Eve to find a family heirloom. The least she could do was be helpful. “Any clues? Do you know any more about it?”
He hesitated. “I know it’s red. And it’s their wedding album.”
“Whose wedding album?”
He sucked in a deep breath. “My parents’.”
“They lost their wedding album?” She didn’t mean for it to come out like that—as if she almost couldn’t believe someone would lose something so precious.
She watched him swallow as he waved his hand. “There was a lot going on the last time we were here. My mother was—ill. My father just recently died and my sister would really like to find the album.”
There it was again. That little feeling she sometimes got around Matteo. He was telling her something—but not everything. Not that it was any of her business. She had no right to pry and ask questions. But she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t curious.
She pushed herself up onto her knees, mirroring his position. “Okay, so we’re looking for a red wedding album somewhere in this house. Do you have any idea at all where it might be?”
He shook his head. Phoebe put her hand on her chin and thought hard. “Okay, so I’ve been in some of the cupboards in the bedrooms and bathrooms—and I’ve definitely been in every one of the kitchen cupboards, and each of them were empty. There might have been some old cleaning products, or dishcloths, but I haven’t found anything personal at all. In fact—” she leaned a bit and looked around the room “—this place, these books, are the most personal things that I’ve found. But these didn’t belong to your family.”
Matteo’s face fell a little. “Maybe this is all a wild-goose chase.”
She hated that. She hated seeing him look defeated. She grabbed his hand. “Get up. Let’s think about this.” Matteo stood next to her, as she started to walk around. She smiled at him and followed his example from earlier. “Let’s play hide and seek. So, we don’t think it’s deliberately hidden somewhere?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, then, if you’d just moved in somewhere new—” she glanced at Matteo again “—and you had young kids—and you had plans to pretty much renovate the whole house—where would you put something precious? Where would someplace safe be?”
Matteo looked around too, as if he were trying to follow her train of thought. He gave her a hopeful smile. “Let’s find out.”
* * *
Almost two hours later they sagged back into the library. Even though the clean-up crew had been through the entire house more than once, it turned out that poking around the back of cupboards could still leave your hair and clothes covered in dust.
He was tired. He was definitely cranky. And even the woman who’d already had some sleep seemed to be flagging. He was ready to give up. The snow was still thick and heavy outside and it looked as if the gritters hadn’t made it onto the roads yet. He’d definitely be spending the rest of the night here.
Phoebe flopped down for a few minutes onto the bedclothes that were still strewn across the rug, putting her hands on her belly. She almost drummed a tune on her flat stomach as she spoke to herself.
“What makes sense? The bedroom cupboards are all empty. Y
ou wouldn’t put something as fragile as a photo album in the kitchen or any of the bathrooms. The main dining room and living room cupboards are empty. And I nearly broke my back trying to scramble up into the attic space.”
Matteo couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh. Maybe it was being overtired. Maybe it was just frustration that he couldn’t get away from the one place he didn’t want to be. Or maybe it was the sight of Phoebe’s legs hanging from the attic and doing her best impression of a spider trying to cling to any surface.
She opened her eyes and stared up at him. “Matteo Bianchi, are you laughing at me?”
Before he had a chance to answer she sat bolt upright again and smacked her hand off her forehead. “Oh, my goodness. We’re idiots. Complete idiots.”
Matteo shook his head. “What? What is it?”