Tango with mr footballer

5.

Carla opened the conversation almost like surgeons opening patients, directly, without ceremony, without apparent concern for what it felt like on the other side.

"You understand what happened last night," she said. Not a question.

"I understand I was photographed without my consent and the photographs are now on the internet in several languages," Eden said. "Yes."

Something moved briefly across Carla's face. Not quite approval. More like an adjustment of expectation. "The coverage is significant. It will grow before it recedes. Matteo's situation with the Ricci story was already complicated, last night has made it considerably more so."

"I understand that's a problem for him," Eden said carefully. "I'm not entirely sure why it requires me to be here and why this is solely about him."

Carla looked at her for a moment. Then she set down her pen, which Eden suspected meant something.

"We would like to offer you a proposition," Carla said. "It is unusual. It will require your discretion, your time, and your willingness to operate in a space that is.." she paused, selecting the word with a visible precision, "constructed."

Eden didn't react in any way.

"The photographs from last night create an opportunity," Carla continued. "The public narrative around Matteo currently suggests he was dishonest about Giulia Ricci. That he denied a relationship while conducting another one. This is damaging, to his reputation, to his sponsorships, to the club's management of his image." She paused. "Unless the narrative changes."

"Changes how, what do I have to do with all of these, oh God!!" Eden said. Slowly.

"Unless you and Matteo have been in a private relationship for some time. One that predates the Ricci story. One that explains both his denial, truthfully, as it turns out and his behavior last night." Carla's voice was completely level. "In which case, the photographs don't look reckless. They look like a couple."

The room was quiet.

Eden looked at Carla. She looked at Davide, who was watching her with the careful neutrality of someone in a meeting that could go several ways. She looked at the lawyer, who had not moved. She looked, finally, at Matteo.

He was watching her. Not with the calculated interest of a man running a transaction. With something more uncomfortable than that. Something that looked like he wanted her to understand he knew exactly what was being asked, and had decided to let her make the choice herself, and was finding that harder to sit with than he'd expected.

"You want me to lie," Eden said, "to pretend to be his girlfriend."

"His fiancée," Carla said. "It needs to be serious enough to be credible. A girlfriend of recent origin raises more questions than it answers. A private engagement, one you've both chosen to keep out of the public eye, is coherent. It is consistent with his behavior over the past months. It is a story that holds."

The word “fiancée” landed in the room and stayed there.

Eden looked at the table. At the grain of the wood. At her own hands, which she was keeping very still in her lap because stillness was something she was good at and right now it was the only thing she was confident about.

“What is this nonsense talk about Matteo or whatever your name is?” She faced him.

He looked ready to die on the spot but remained quiet, almost lost in thoughts. Perhaps wondering how he got into such a mess.

"How long," she said.

"Six months," Davide said. It was the first time he'd spoken. "Minimum. Enough time for the Ricci story to fully disappear and for this narrative to establish itself properly. We would reassess at the end."

"And what…" She stopped. Started again. "What does this involve, practically."

Carla picked up her pen again. "Public appearances. Matches. Events. Enough social media presence to be credible without being excessive, you don't want to look like you're performing it. Some press, but controlled, we manage what you say and when. You would need to be available at reasonable notice for anything time-sensitive."

"I have a business," Eden said.

"We're aware. We've looked into it." Carla said this without any apparent awareness of how it would land.

"You've looked into my business."

"We've looked into you. It's standard. We needed to understand who we were dealing with before this conversation happened." Carla met her eyes. "Your company is in a difficult position. We know that."

The room was very quiet.

"There would be compensation," Davide said, with the tone of someone deciding the moment had arrived. He named a number.

Eden kept her face still. She was good at that too.

It was not a small number. It was, in fact, the kind of number that would clear her outstanding invoices, cover her studio costs for the year, and give her enough runway to actually build the business back properly instead of chasing it from behind. It was the kind of number that changed the shape of the next twelve months entirely.

She looked at Matteo.

"Did you know," she said, "that they'd found out about my finances."

"Yes," he said.

"Before or after you asked me to meet you today."

A pause. "Before."

She appreciated the honesty. She wasn't sure it made her feel better.

"Can I ask you something," she said, and this was directed at him, not Carla, not Davide, not the lawyer at the end of the table who still hadn't moved.

"Yes," Matteo said.

"The Giulia Ricci story. Was it true?"

Something moved through the room. Carla's hand stilled on her pen. Davide looked at the table. The lawyer was a statue.

Matteo looked at Eden without flinching. "Nothing about her and me is true" he said. "We've met. At events. There's never been anything between us."

"Then why did it become a story."

"Because her father is the prime minister and someone wanted it to be one." His voice was even. "I don't know who. Carla has theories."

Eden looked at Carla.

"There are interested parties who would benefit from Matteo's public standing being diminished," Carla said, with the calm of someone who had said this sentence before and would say it again. "We don't need to get into that today."

"No," Eden agreed. "We don't." She looked back at Matteo. "If I do this, I want something beyond the money."

He didn't look surprised. "Tell me."

"I'm a designer. You have a world full of people who need designers — houses, spaces, events, wardrobes. You have access to clients I can't reach from where I'm standing. I'm not asking you to hand me contracts. I'm asking that when it's relevant, when it's genuine, you open a door." She held his gaze. "My talent does the rest. I'm not interested in charity."

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then Matteo said, "Done."

Carla looked at him. A look that suggested she would have preferred to negotiate that. He didn't look back at her.

"We'll need to agree terms formally," the lawyer said, speaking for the first time. His Italian was precise and unhurried. "Confidentiality. Duration. Terms of termination. What happens to the compensation structure if the arrangement ends early."

"Fine," Eden said.

"You'll want to have your own legal representation review it."

"I know." She'd worry about finding a lawyer she could afford later. One problem at a time.

She looked around the table. At Carla, who was already writing something on her legal pad. At Davide, who looked like he'd moved from worried to cautiously operational. At the lawyer. In the room, the good bones of it, the old floor, the books, the football by the sofa.

At Matteo, last, who was still watching her with that particular quality of attention, the one she'd noticed first in the club through the crowd, the one that felt less like appraisal and more like recognition.

"I need to be clear about something," Eden said. She was speaking to all of them but looking at him. "I'm not doing this because I'm in trouble and have no other options."

"I know," he said.

"I'm doing this because I'm choosing to. Those are different things."

"They are," he agreed. "I know that too."

She held his gaze for a moment. Something in his expression said he meant it. Something else in her, quieter, said it was too early to decide whether meaning it was enough.

She turned back to Carla.

"Send me the contract," she said.