Page 59 of Winning Winnie’s Hand

“Hey,” he said with a toss of his head, taking a step farther into the room.

Winnie didn’t respond, her eyes falling to her laptop, then back to him. He was interrupting whatever she was doing, but did she actually expect him to leave her alone when it was his home?

“Winnie?” A voice spoke from the laptop, and both of their eyes dropped to it.

“Is she there?” another voice asked.

“I think she’s frozen.”

“No, there was another voice. Didn’t you hear it?”

Realization struck Matthew. She was on a call. But with whom?

“Winnie are you there?” came yet another voice.

Finally, Winnie looked down at her laptop. “Yeah, I’m still here. Just a sec.”

“Winn—”

The voice was cut off mid-word as Winnie muted the conversation. She looked back up at Matthew expectantly, as if to ask what he was doing there.

He had a mind to ask her the very same question, but then, after the last week of maintaining his stellar silence on how she was ruining his festival, he wasn’t in the mood to get into an argument with her.

“I was just grabbing a bite to eat,” he said, pointing to the fridge. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No, of course not,” she said, glancing back down to her screen.

“I can come back when you’re finished if you’d like me to,” he offered, wondering if she’d accept his ridiculous suggestion.

Fortunately, she shook her head. “No, you’re totally fine. I was just talking to my family.”

Ah, her family. “Well, I’ll just be a minute.” He motioned to her laptop. “Please, don’t let me interrupt.”

She hesitated. “Okay.”

He made his way across the room, feeling her eyes on him as he approached the fridge before Winnie unmuted her family.

“—I just don’t know how skiing is not the best option,” a female voice said loudly before coming down a few notches. “Ah, Winnie’s back!”

“Yeah, sorry,” Winnie said softly.

“We were just talking about our skiing trip again,” the woman continued. Her voice dropped in the middle of her sentence as Winnie lowered the volume of her laptop again.

She obviously wished for more privacy, but the kitchens were bare and quite echoey. Matthew could still hear their words as clear as day, but did Winnie know this?

A buzz in his pocket drew his attention to his phone, and he pulled it out, standing in front of the open fridge.

He wasn’t surprised to see more texts from his mates. They’d been messaging non-stop today, prepping for the coming weekend when they’d finally be together for the charity run—the charity run Matthew had yet to start really preparing for. He’d been too busy doing Winnie’s bidding for her version of his festival.

Finn

I hope you’ve got better accommodation for us this year, Matt. I don’t want to be sleeping in the servants’ quarters again.

Matthew smiled. The Irishman always teased him about his family’s wealth.

Matthew

Nope. I’ve got somewhere even better this year. It’s the dungeons for you.