Unexpected Love

Chapter 4

Catalina.

I have been dating Cristiano for three months now and I have to say it has been the most peaceful period of time since I came here to live in Spain. I miss Brazil tremendously but Europe is where my headquarters is situated.

Two weeks after we officially started dating, he took me to meet his family.

To say I was scared was an understatement.

What if they thought about me the same way they think about Irina?

But all my fears were quelled. I immediately got along with his siblings and his mother was practically overjoyed that he found someone who actually cared about him. She thought that after what Irina had done that her son would never be right again but then I came along and gave her hope. She does know how to flatter a person.

Some days he would come by my house and we would just lounge around and talk, about everything and anything, sometimes I would play the guitar and he would sing, he has an amazing singing voice which I can say I am totally jealous of.

Or take walks on the beach and eat at the little cafe where we first met. Isabella couldn't contain her excitement when she saw us approach the cafe hand in hand so she began asking us a flurry of questions.

And somedays I would go to his house and just swap recipes with his mother and help her with cooking, play video games with him and Hugo. Cristiano would always lose so he just stopped playing altogether and just watched while me and Hugo battle each other to the death, with me normally winning and Hugo normally cursing his head off. I really have never met someone with such a colourful vocabulary before.

Or go shopping with his sisters Elma and Katia(They always had funny stories about him as a young child and teenager, like the time he tried to challenge a dog for a football and ended up with a long scratch down his leg, I've always wondered about that) or just play with Junior while Cristiano was at practice.

He loved his team and always talked about them and the silly things that they do together in between training. It warms my heart to see him like that, so young and carefree. Whenever he has to travel across the country for a game, we would skype each other every night, staying up late talking about everything we could think of. I don't know what I'll do when I have to leave the country because my vacation is almost up. I told him about my scheduled trip to Africa, but I didn't go into details about when I had to leave, I was waiting for the right time to do so.

At first he seemed a bit reluctant to open up to me. I liked him, but I never really knew who I liked, Cristiano Ronaldo the footballer persona or real life Cristiano. After weeks of pushing, I eventually found out why while we were taking another walk on the beach after he came home after a match.

It all came back to Irina.

She was the one who used him, who treated him like a lap dog while she went all of the world gallivanting around the place with other men. It nearly made me cry seeing the hurt in his eyes. He thought she was the one, but everyone else could have seen it was just a facade. He looked ashamed of this afterwards, But I reassured him that it wasn't his fault and that it was her loss. Then I made it very clear I wouldn't ever do that to him.

.............................................

Cristiano

"I've never seen you this happy," Marcelo commented while we were training.

"Yeah, neither me, it's rather odd, the last few weeks you've been playing better," Pepe added while trying his hand at the hurdles.

"Nothing is happening, it's the same old me," I said with a small smile.