Home / Romance / My Ex's Football Rival Wants Me / Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

All Chapters of My Ex's Football Rival Wants Me: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

73 Chapters

61: Make Love to Me

Carmen's POVI did not stop after shifting closer. Before Andre could decide what I meant to do, I lifted myself from my seat and settled astride his lap, knees braced against the leather on either side of him. The movement startled him enough that his hands came up instinctively to catch my waist, fingers pressing in through the thin fabric of my dress like he wasn't sure yet whether to hold me there or move me back."Carmen..."Whatever else he meant to say disappeared when I kissed him.He tasted like the champagne from the party, and for a second he was too surprised to do anything but let me. Then his mouth opened under mine and something in him gave way. His hands slid up my back, one settling between my shoulder blades, and when I rocked forward against him, he made a low sound against my lips that I felt more than heard.I wanted that sound again. I wanted it because somewhere behind my ribs, Valentina's voice was still saying longing, I could see it in his eyes, and I needed

62: Stop Texting

Carmen's POVAndre: I need you to understand that I did not stop because I did not want you.The message arrived while I was still wearing the dress from the festival. I had made it as far as my bedroom before running out of energy for the rest of the night. One heel lay near the door, the other somewhere in the hallway, and I was standing in front of the dresser with one earring in my hand when Andre's name appeared on my screen.Before I could decide whether to open the message properly, another one came through.Andre: I wanted you so much I could barely think. That was the problem.For several seconds, I stood there with the phone in one hand and the earring in the other, reading both messages while the memory of his open shirt and uneven breathing returned with humiliating clarity. I put the phone face down on the dresser and told myself I was not going to spend the night waiting for him to explain something I was still too angry to hear.Twenty-three minutes later, I picked it u

63: Woman Crush Wednesday

Carmen's POVI spent the next few days trying to put my mind into something else more demanding in order to take my attention away from Andre. I had to focus on Aurelia now. Visitor days at Aurelia always changed the entire mood. Hard hats were stacked in neat rows near the temporary reception desk, the unfinished sections had been cleared of anything that could trip someone important, and members of the design team who normally argued over drawings in trainers had suddenly remembered they owned proper jackets.The private industry walk-through was supposed to show invited guests how far the Crown Pavilion had come before the next formal review, which meant half the morning was spent making an active construction site look as though it had never been messy.I was checking the route through the central atrium when Marina handed me the visitor list. Tomas Carvalho's name was fourth.I had known he was coming as Marina had mentioned it the day before, and under normal circumstances I mi

64: Contract Expiry

Andre's POV"Twenty-three days."Victor said it as he set his tablet on the table between us.I looked at the number displayed beside the contract end date, then at him. "I know when it expires.""I assumed you did. I am reminding you because twenty-three days is no longer far enough away for us to ignore."Across from me, Francisco stopped pretending to be interested in his coffee.My phone was still lying beside my hand with Tomas Carvalho frozen on the screen halfway through the interview clip that had been circulating all morning. I had paused it on the exact frame before he called Carmen perfect, which was somehow worse than simply closing it because now his face was sitting there while Victor talked about the date Carmen and I were technically allowed to stop being together.Francisco glanced at the phone and then at me. "You know turning it over does not erase the internet."I flipped it face down anyway. "I am aware.""You have watched that clip six times.""I have not."His e

65: Nothing Left to Perform

Carmen's POVThe contract ended on a Thursday at 11:59 p.m., which seemed far too precise for something that had stopped feeling precise months ago.I knew the date because Victor had emailed both of us that morning with the final paperwork, the same way he had emailed reminders about appearances, interviews and public events when this relationship still belonged partly to calendars and schedules. There was no renewal attached. No extension draft. No suggestion that Andre and I pretend for another month while the press adjusted.It was just a confirmation that the agreement had reached its end. By six that evening, Andre was standing in my apartment.He had asked if we could talk in person before Victor released anything, and I had agreed because avoiding him had already gone on long enough. The strange part was that seeing him again did not feel dramatic. He did not arrive angry. I did not open the door ready to fight. He walked in wearing a dark sweater and jeans, looked around the

66: The Last Crit

Carmen's POVProfessor Benítez moved my model three centimetres to the left and destroyed the only part of the presentation I had rehearsed. Not literally, as the model survived but my confidence did not.He stood at the end of the review table with two external critics beside him, one hand resting against the edge of the base while I tried to remember why I had ever believed presenting architecture to people who enjoyed finding flaws in architecture was a reasonable career choice."Explain the roof again," he said.I glanced at the drawings pinned behind me. "The final roof geometry reduces the amount of direct afternoon heat entering the central atrium while preserving the daylight strategy. The previous version solved one problem and created another because too much of the western exposure was still landing deeper into the hospitality space."One of the external critics looked at the section drawing. "And you changed the material?""Partly. The outer layer changed, but the structur

67: Graduation Day

Carmen's POVBy nine in the morning, Mateo had already complained about his collar four times, mum had cried twice, and Antonia had taken enough photographs to document the collapse of a small government.Graduation had not officially started, and we were still outside the hall with hundreds of other families, trying to keep track of gowns, tickets, flowers and relatives who seemed determined to stand directly in the paths of people carrying coffee.I had imagined this day differently when I first arrived at university. In most versions, I was calmer. Taller somehow. More certain that graduating would feel like crossing a visible line between one life and another.In reality, my cap kept slipping."Stop touching it," Antonia said."This thing is crooked.""It is supposed to look like that.""It absolutely is not."She slapped my hand away before I could adjust it again.Mum laughed. She looked beautiful in a deep blue dress, though she had spent the morning insisting nobody should pho

68: Friday in the Paddock

Carmen's POVEngines were already warming somewhere beyond the garages by the time I stepped out of the car, and the sound alone made it clear this was not the kind of event I could wander into casually. Tomas had told me to come early, before practice, so I could see the paddock before it turned into the version everyone watched on television. Now that I was standing in front of it, gates and fences and men with earpieces stretching in every direction, I understood why he had insisted.The paddock pass was heavier than I expected. It hung from a black lanyard against my chest, thick enough to feel more like a credential than an invitation, and every few minutes I caught myself touching it to make sure it was still there. By the time I followed Tomas through the second security checkpoint, I had already learned that almost everything about a Formula 1 weekend happened behind another door, another barrier or another person checking whether your name belonged on a list.Tomas glanced ba

69: He Saw the Pictures

Andre's POVCARMEN LOPEZ SPENDS FRIDAY PRACTICE WITH TOMAS CARVALHO AFTER FERNANDEZ SPLITThe headline sat beneath a photograph of Carmen walking through the paddock beside Tomas, her visitor pass hanging against her jacket while she looked up at him with the kind of expression that meant she was listening properly. There was nothing intimate in the picture. They were not touching, he was not leaning into her, and anybody with sense could have looked at it and seen two people having a conversation.I looked at it long enough to lose the right to call myself sensible.Numancia were in another country for a European fixture, and the coaching staff had given us the evening after dinner to ourselves as long as nobody left the hotel. Most of the squad had taken over one of the private lounges downstairs, where a card game had spread across one table and somebody had connected a console to the television. I had been half-listening to all of it until the first photograph appeared on my phone

70: Sunday Company

Carmen's POVTomas's mother was the first person that Sunday who made me miss the Formula 1 race on Friday. I had been back inside the paddock for less than twenty minutes when Tomas stepped aside outside his team's hospitality unit and introduced us. Until then, the morning had been easy. Race day had transformed the place I had explored two days earlier into something louder and more deliberate, with fuller grandstands beyond the paddock, guests moving between hospitality buildings in carefully planned streams and team personnel carrying the focused expressions of people who no longer had another practice session in which to fix a mistake.I liked the change, and I even liked that I no longer needed to keep checking the map or examining my paddock pass as though somebody might discover it had been issued to me by accident.Tomas had met me near the entrance between obligations, already dressed in a team kit and clearly operating on a schedule that did not belong to him anymore."Yo

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