"…and so you say this woman is lying?" The voice reverberated around the room. "In fact you're happily married? There is a wife, but she's not hidden away somewhere? So why isn't she with you? Are you estranged?"
Darcy turned to him, and if he had one wish, it would be to banish the pained look in her eyes. Heaven help him, he'd done his best to avert the interview, but some ferrety reporter had discovered he was married and of course it was full bodied fodder for the gossip columns. Gael knew fine and well how his boring, no companion, race, practice, test, train and sleep regime annoyed them. Even more so because in his youth he'd kept most of them in business.
"Cara, I…"
"Shh, I'm listening to what my husband has decided to say." Darcy turned her back on him. "Even if he chooses not to say it to me. Strange, that."
Gael spent a few seconds admiring the curve of her spine and the way a few tendrils of reddish brown hair tickled the nape of her neck before he shrugged and wandered into the kitchen. After several wrong attempts he found mugs and coffee and set the stovetop machine on the hotplate to percolate.
It was inevitable this day would come, but he wished it hadn't been mid season, where his chances for in-depth discussion would be few and far between. Unless he could persuade Darcy to accompany him to the track, and after today there was less likelihood of that than persuading her to fly to the moon.
He was pouring the liquid into two mugs when a sound alerted him to her presence. She leaned against the doorjamb, her long legs bare and a tiny skirt and strappy top covering what needed to be covered to preserve her decency.
"What a load of cobblers you spouted. 'My wife has a busy life and we prefer to have our time together without interruptions. Those moments are precious and I'm greedy enough not to want to share them with anyone else. Lucky for me she feels the same'." Darcy parroted his explanation in the interview in a sarcastic tone. "Yuck, so icky-sicky. Why didn't you just divorce me?" She held her sunglasses by one of the arms and spun them around before jamming them on her nose. "You have grounds. I left you."
It was a pity, because Gael could no longer see her eyes to gauge her reaction to his words. "Sadly I couldn't find any Italian coffee, but I've done the best I could."
"You get whatever was on offer and lump it. I buy for myself, not for unwelcomed guests."
He winced very theatrically, and was immediately ashamed when she coloured and looked away from him.
"Why should I divorce you? I took my vows in all faith, and intended to abide by them. I still do. In sickness and in health, in good times and bad. Etcetera. The fact we are apart does not negate my love for you. That strengthens every day. It is above everything. It's your choice not to be with me, and I have to accede to your preference." He took a swallow of coffee and grimaced. "It was pigs’ swill on sale, cara. You were robbed if they called it coffee. False advertising."
"Join the real world, caro. See how the most of us live."
"I do, and drinking pigs’ swill is not part of it." He took another mouthful and set the cup down. "I can hope of course you will one day wish to share my life but…well, I can't force you. You have a mind of your own and I can do nothing but admire you for it. I accept it was I who pushed for our marriage to occur when it did, without due thought for what it would be like. Then it was I who gave you no chance to assimilate it. I failed in my role of a husband, and for that I am ever regretful. But I am still and will always be, your faithful husband."
He couldn't tell if his words had any effect on Darcy. She didn't move a muscle. The silence wasn't exactly comfortable, but neither was it painful. He continued to sip his so-called coffee and look at her face. After three minutes and twenty seconds—he counted them off on the clock on the wall beside her—Darcy drew a deep breath.
"You love me so much you want me to see you on fire?"
Ah. That had to come up. Damn it, I wish I could see her eyes.
"In fairness I became not on fire rather fast." He felt he had to point that out. "And I walked back to you."
"You limped back to me. With no eyebrows," Darcy said. "Your girlfriend, I believe I was called. Your unknown lady friend who didn't count. Hellfire—shit, that is not the best word to use at this moment. Or, I don't know, maybe it is, if I separate it in two. Hell and fire sums those few minutes up perfectly. I wasn't even allowed to see you for two days after. 'Not on the list, love. He only wants people who matter'. Fuck it Gael, I know we were trying to be low key but that sucked. And the first thing you did was go back to work." The hurt she experienced showed in her voice and the fact she rarely swore showed him how agitated she was.
"You were the one who didn't want to be involved with the three-ring circus as you called it." How he kept his voice level and his temper under control Gael had no idea. Both were ready to erupt. "How the hell could I say ‘ohh add my wife to the list’? No one knew there was such a creature. I did say put Dee Scott on the list, but you never showed up."
Darcy stalked—there was no other word for it—across the kitchen and put her mug in the sink. She turned back to Gael and he looked at her hands warily. He'd learned they were an indication of her level of annoyance. She was rubbing her thumbs and forefingers together, nothing else. Not too bad.
"Well why would I? Dee Scott for heaven's sake, who thought that up? You hadn't seen fit to tell me that was my alias. Let's face it: I didn't even know I had an alias. And I had no one to ask, did I? Because your so called arsehole of a manager told me in no uncertain terms I wasn't wanted, and put it out that I was not to be allowed to contact anyone on the team. That a wife was an encumbrance and if he'd known about the wedding before it happened there would have been no wedding."
"What?" Gael roared the words so loudly, Darcy jumped. No wonder she took a step back. "Joff said what?"
"You heard," Darcy said in a tired, defeated voice. "I was under the impression you felt the same way."
"Never," Gael said. "I asked for you, begged to see you and was told you didn't want to visit. That you'd had enough. Then when you didn't appear…" He shrugged, determined not to show how badly her non-appearance had affected him. "I began to believe it."
"Hell Gael, I sat in the stands and watched my husband burn." Darcy scrubbed at her eyes with her knuckles and then turned the tap on high before she dashed water over her face.
Gael itched to cuddle her, but the set of her spine gave him the idea his touch wouldn't be appreciated. Instead he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, and leaned against the wall.
"Then I heard nothing," Darcy said in a soft, small voice. "I went back to the hotel, and waited. And waited. Three days after I got home—and by the way I'd waited three days in the hotel before I heard you were out of hospital, and that was on the T.V.—I got a call from you. 'I'm fine, where are you, you should be here. Come to Italy.' Oh that's okay, then. Nothing for a week and it was all my fault." She opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. South African Gael noted, not Italian.
"Fiddlesticks, it’s a load of rubbish."
Darcy let her breath out in one long hiss. "We're sniping again. Okay, let's start over. Try and be civilized." She put her sunglasses down on the work surface, opened the wine, filled two glasses and handed him one. "Hello Gael, long time no see. Why the interview, why are you here and what’s going on?" Darcy sipped her wine and stared at him over the top of her wine glass. "Why do I feel threatened?"
Gael pondered on how to answer. "Which question shall I answer?"
"All of them. Oh, knickers, let's sit in the garden." The silly non-epithet tickled him. Darcy always said swearing showed a lack of imagination and she had a large and varied selection of words she used instead. It had rubbed off and it was now a standing joke that Gael Lorenzo had the most colourful vocabulary of non-swear word cussing. He was relieved she was back to her words, not swear words.
He nodded and followed her out of the door he'd entered through.
"Hold on." Darcy stopped dead and swung r
ound to look at him. "Will this take long? I'm supposed to be helping out with the fete at four."
He rather hoped they be reconciled by then.
"Hopefully not."
She nodded. "I'll go with that for now."
Gael looked around him with appreciation. Darcy had created a flower filled and secluded patio area, with plants and shrubs in bright pots. On any other occasion he'd love to sit and relax. This time however, Gael didn't think much relaxing would be done. At least not on his part. Darcy looked as cool and composed as ever. Only a tiny pulse in her neck gave away the fact that she maybe wasn't.
"Right." Darcy sat in a comfy looking wooden rocker with smart black and white striped covers and indicated another one next to her. "Sit and spill. Not the wine."
"You always did have a way with words." Gael did as she bade and let the chair sway under him. He patted the cushions. "I see you have my team colours here."
"Really?" Darcy's lips twitched and then she grinned and raised her eyebrows in a 'you what?' manner. "Wh…oh you mean the stripy cushions? Nice aren't they? Sorry to disappoint you, but rein your ego in, they are the colours of Newcastle United, the footie team I support."
Gael chuckled and put his hand over his heart in a dramatic fashion.
"Wounded by words."
She rolled her eyes. "Better than by a crash. Oh sweet peas and toffee apples, sorry. See snipe-central again. I'll button my lip and you stop stirring, eh?"
"Fair enough." He'd like to kiss her lip not see her button it, but he knew it was neither the time nor the place. If Darcy was going out before four o'clock he needed to get talking, and fast. "Okay, I woke up last week to an article in an Aussie paper saying my wife and I were estranged. No names and a lot of half-truths, but enough of it was correct to make me realise I'd need to do something, even though I wasn't sure what. I was requested to go on T.V. to talk about it, so I did. There was no time to ask your opinion. It was that day, or have innuendo everywhere, and no doubt the lane outside this house and the road through the village like that three-ring circus you despise. That was my choice. I did the interview, sorted out everything that Tam, my new and non-arsehole manager said was imperative, and flew in this morning. I had hoped to get to you before it aired but your local road hogs put paid to that."
"Road hogs?"
"Tractors, log lorries, dog walkers and every kid on a bike, scooter or skateboard in Scotland. I even swerved to miss a squirrel. It is lucky I have good skills, reactions, and coordination."
"Someone in the family has to." Darcy's eyes widened. "Darn it." She bit her lip, bushed, and huffed.
He managed not to laugh. It might sound trite and saccharine sweet, but hell he was Italian, he liked saccharine and sweet, and she did look adorable when she was flustered. Just like a kitten, a tawny-red haired kitten who'd been caught sneaking the cream off the milk.
"Freudian slip, cara?"
Chapter Three
He had her there. Darcy bit her lip. Seeing him in the flesh had flustered her more than she'd thought possible. It was one thing saying to yourself you knew your marriage was a sham, another accepting it. A few hurried and hidden meetings when his schedule and her career permitted it¸ did not make a marriage.
Neither it seemed, did no contact break one.
It was suspicious, sometime agents who did that. And gullible wives.
"Oh shoot, I don't know," Darcy said sarcastically. "Evidently you can't turn emotions on and off like a tap. Well, I can't anyway, who knows about you? But Gael, we can't carry on like this, living in a marriage that isn't. Look what problems it's caused."
He raised one eyebrow in a very arrogant—and all Gael—manner.
"I see no problems other than those we have made."
"Well you wouldn't," Darcy snapped. "How about the words ‘arsy manager’?"
"Arsy ex-manager," Gael corrected her. "With a big emphasis on the ex."
"If you say so."
"I know so. Now, what next?" He stared at her steadily and then winced as he rolled his shoulders.
"Are you okay?"
"What?"
"You winced."
"I ache. Driving, racing and testing, plus coming here. I ache. Tools of the trade. Over to you, cara."
"You need a massage."
Oh way to go. You need a massage…duh. Almost as bad as 'I carried a watermelon'. She so loved the film that sentence came from. They'd watched it together, bounced the well known phrases from it off each other, and danced just as the hero and heroine had. She'd never looked at it, or listened to the music (unless by accident) since she'd walked out.
"So I do," Gael agreed. He tugged on the ends of his hair. "Do you have your oils handy? No one kneads and rubs as well as you." He ran his hand over the black curls that skimmed his shoulder, and pressed his knuckles into the point where his neck met his shoulders. "Maybe you should travel as my masseuse if you won't come as my wife."
How to answer that?
I don’t have one. Saying I don't want to see you crash and burn is pathetic, childish and shows I lack faith in your ability. She didn't, not really. That wasn't what had driven her away.
He waited and she counted six seconds before he sighed. "Why won't you come out, so to speak?"
Evidently nothing she could say was going to faze him. Darcy mentally recited from one to ten, pulled up her panties—metaphorically—and then took a deep breath.
"We've been through the wife thing before and there's no point in rehashing it." It was so difficult to put into words how useless she'd felt. Even to herself it was hard to admit that rather than excite her, his fame and career scared her. If she'd known who he was before she was in so deep she couldn't pull back, then their association would have stopped before it started.
Who am I trying to kid? I was in deep the first time he spoke.
Stupid maybe, but one look at the gorgeous wives and girlfriends, and Darcy had backed into her shell faster than a snail on speed. Gael was busy, on a roll and couldn't understand how she felt as the unknown arm candy. That was if she was even noticed. The now ex manager took every opportunity to tell her she wasn't wanted, was holding Gael back and no help to him. As a form of water torture, drip, drip, drip, it worked. Eventually when she pleaded to Gael, for acknowledgement, or even a night together, uninterrupted and he either didn’t or wouldn't understand, she admitted defeat.
After the ‘important people only’ debacle she'd tried hard to be accepted. But when the one person who could pave your way was determined to erect obstacles, and the other one—your husband—was so focused on his job, and you didn't want to disturb his concentration, you were at a disadvantage.
Darcy gave up.
Luckily she'd had long, dyed blonde hair, and contact lenses during the short period she'd been with him. It was galling to admit the sum time of their life together could be measured in weeks and months not years, but it was a sad fact. For three months and three weeks plus five days, she'd been a long-haired blonde, and able to give lie to the statements blondes had more fun. Not always.
Now her hair was its normal tawny red, cut in a short and spiky style, and she'd ditched the lenses for glasses. To add to the transformation, she'd lost a stone in weight by eating sensibly. There was very little of the Darcy Murray—or Lorenzo—of those days in the Darcy of today.
She'd even changed her career.
"I don't do massages these days, except for a favoured few. Yeah, I'll let you be one. But after that stunt on T.V. do you trust me not to give you even more pain? Or give you a nice bruise that looks like someone has taken a paddle to you?"
Gael paled and then laughed, somewhat shakily. "Hell, good joke. Well, I hope it's a joke."
Darcy grinned and knew fine well it was a both wicked and evil look. "You'll have to risk it, won't you? But then that's your life, taking risks."
"No." Gael spoke in a serious voice. "My life is making sure I do not take risks. On this occasion, I will however put my life—
well my body—in your hands."
Darcy sniggered. Gael in this mood was irresistible. Not that she intended to let him know that. "Okay, give me a few minutes to find the oils. I've got about an hour and then I'm gone." And so are you, she hoped her tone informed him. "If you want to cool down, there's a tap over by the rose bush."
He looked startled, and then smiled. "Ah cara, I thought you would do that small task. However if you say so…"
As she watched in amazement, he put his still full glass of wine down onto the slabbed patio and walked towards the tap. Once there he gripped the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it up and over his head. His long tanned back called to her in the most primitive way possible, and Darcy's mouth became dry. The sexual tension was very much alive and kicking.
"Here, catch." He threw the top in her direction. Darcy put her hands up automatically and to her and she guessed his surprise, she caught it as it stroked her cheek. It smelled of him. Citrus, vanilla, and Gael. He must still use the same Jo Malone cologne she introduced him to all those years ago.
Memories bombarded her and she shook her head to shake them away. "If you grab a chair from the kitchen I'll go and get my oils." She didn't wait to see if he answered but walked briskly indoors and fetched the small case she used to keep all her masseuse supplies in, and took a towel from the pile of dry washing on the table. It was easier to think about a massage than anything else, surely?
Ten minutes later, she wasn't so sure. Plus, she had no idea why she brushed her hair, rubbed blush over her cheeks, added eyeliner and lippy, and sprayed on her favourite Jo Malone perfume.
When she got back to the garden Gael had taken one of the ladder back chairs from the kitchen, set it on the flags and straddled it so his arms rested on the rim of the back, and his chin on top. He faced away from her, toward the lawn and the vegetable garden beyond it, and seemed deep in thought.
The Racing Driver's Wife Page 2
