Pride After Her Fall

by Lucy Ellis

  The secrets behind her smile

  Bankrupt, homeless and alone, Lorelei St. James is an heiress on the edge. Yet she hides her desperation behind her glossy blond hair and even brighter smile. Getting lectured on her driving by a hot-tempered—and ridiculously attractive—stranger will not be what shatters her carefully crafted facade!

  Legendary Australian racing driver Nash Blue knows a thing or two about pride and sees straight through Lorelei’s polished front. Her vulnerabilities play havoc with his concentration. Never shy of a challenge, he begins his biggest yet: unwrapping the real Lorelei St. James….

  “We’ve got a lot in common.” He settled back, angled in his chair, all shoulders and lean, muscular grace. “I like to compete. You’re a serious trophy.”

  “Pardon me?”

  Nash gave her a lazy once-over she should have found insulting after the “trophy” description, instead she felt it like a direct hit to her sleeping libido.

  “You’re smart and seriously sexy, and I haven’t been bored since I sat down with you. Like I said, you’re a serious trophy.”

  Lorelei inhaled sharply.

  She knew it, this was how some men saw an attractive woman, she had just never met a man who had the nerve to say it to her in so many words.

  “Nash, a trophy is an inanimate object you sit on a shelf.”

  “A trophy can be anything you want to win,” he countered, sitting forward, and Lorelei had to remind herself not to edge back. He emanated thumping male entitlement. “I don’t get in the race, Lorelei, unless I’m confident of the outcome.”

  For a breathless moment she considered asking him exactly how confident he was of her. But deep down she feared the answer.

  “How am I doing so far?”

  Lorelei paused long enough to take another sip of her drink.

  “Oh, I think you’re in the race.”

  All about the author…Lucy Ellis

  LUCY ELLIS has four loves in life: books, expensive lingerie, vintage films and big gorgeous men who have to duck going through doorways. Weaving aspects of them into her fiction is the best part of being a romance writer. Lucy lives in a small cottage in the foothills outside Melbourne.

  Other titles by Lucy Ellis available in ebook:

  Harlequin Presents®

  3081—THE MAN SHE SHOULDN’T CRAVE

  3057—INNOCENT IN THE IVORY TOWER

  Lucy Ellis

  Pride After Her Fall

  For Bridie

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  NASH as a rule didn’t court publicity, so meeting with a publicist went against the grain. But this was for a charity event and he couldn’t very well say no.

  ‘I’ll meet her at the American Bar in the Hotel de Paris.’

  He checked his watch as he approached his low slung Bugatti Veyron.

  ‘I’ll be with Demarche until one. I can give her a couple of minutes in the bar. I’ll try to make it, but she may have to cool her heels.’

  It was one of the few perks of fame. People would wait. He hooked the door of the Veyron and idled for a moment, looking out over the calm Mediterranean water.

  Cullinan was talking about seating.

  ‘No, mate, don’t book a table. This is a five-minute job. Nobody will be sitting down.’

  Blue’s management team was headed up by John Cullinan, a savvy Irishman Nash had used in his early racing career when he was thrust onto the world stage. John had protected him from the worst of the media for over a decade and he trusted him to deal fairly with the public and handle the professionals.

  He’d need him in the coming weeks. There was already intense speculation about his future. He hadn’t said a word during the running of the Grand Prix here in Monaco in May, but somehow just his presence trackside with current Eagle heavyweight Antonio Abruzzi had sent the media into a frenzy. Not that it took much. Meat in the water and the piranhas swarmed. That was why this meeting with the construction firm Eagle was taking place in the privacy of a hotel room and security barracudas on both sides had elaborate lockdown procedures in place.

  He ended the call and jumped into the Veyron, keen to get out of town.

  The flip of a wrist and he had the engine purring. His deep-set blue-grey eyes, which one female sports commentator had called ‘lethal blue’ as if they not only needed colour coding but branding, assessed the traffic and he pulled away from outside the corporate offices of the business that had been his heart and soul for five years.

  He had just tied up a deal with Swiss-based car manufacturer Avedon to produce Blue 22, and whilst every vehicle design was a rush this was the car he’d first conceptualised back in his racing days, when nobody would have taken him seriously if he’d spilled his guts on his future plans.

  Fortunately he’d never been overly chatty. Being raised by a mean drunk who’d seen a kid’s prattle as an excuse to deal out backhanders had bred in him the habit of silence. To the public he was notoriously impenetrable. ‘Self-contained,’ one journalist reported. ‘A cold sonafabitch,’ countered a disenchanted former lover.

  But, however else he was perceived, the world took him seriously nowadays even when they weren’t intrusively curious. At thirty-four, he’d survived as a professional in one of the most dangerous sports in the world for almost a decade before retiring in a blaze of glory—and unlike so many sports pros he’d parlayed his expertise and a passionate love of design into a second career.

  An extremely successful second career.

  One that overshadowed whatever fame he’d had as a driver—which had been his intention. He could command any price for his work and right now he was in demand—at the top of an elite field of specialists.

  Yet he was restless, there was no denying that, and several times in the last year he’d caught himself asking the fateful question: What next?

  But he knew the answer to that question. It was why the Eagle head honchos had flown in last night.

  Yeah, he wanted back in the game, but this time on his own terms. His twenties had gone past in a rush of track groupies and speed as he’d raced against the world’s best and outraced his own demons. He’d known when it was time to stop. He also knew this time it would be different. He wasn’t a boy any more. His feelings about racing had undergone a change. He had nothing to prove.

  The road cleared. He changed gear and took off up the hill.

  He had a date this morning up on the Point, with a genuine glamour-girl car who had it all over this newer model he was driving, and even the stumbling block of dealing with meetings all afternoon couldn’t dull the edge of what promised to be a very nice find. She was reported to be a sweet little number, with curves aplenty, an all-original and he was finally going to see what the fuss was about.

  She’d only recently come on the market, and Nash knew he’d have to move quickly, but he didn’t buy without handling the merchandise.

  He’d flown in to Monaco that morning after twenty-four hours in the air to hear the news that the owner had loaned her out but she’d be available to look at this afternoon. With the morning to kill he’d decided to take the opportunity to run up the hill and possibly rescue the poor thing from whatever indignities had been visited upon her overnight.

  The place overlooked the bay—nice and exclusive. But wha
t address wasn’t exclusive in this town? The house had a little fame for being a silent-film actress’s hideaway in the twenties and he was a little curious to see it. He’d driven past many times, but this was the first occasion he’d had to turn in, idling at the gates—which, to his surprise, were wide open. Security was usually pretty tight in this neck of the woods.

  As he eased the sports car down the linden lined gravel drive he slowed to a creep, taking in the state of disrepair. Masses of flowering bougainvillaea couldn’t hide the fact that the old place needed a face-job.

  And then he saw her.

  Nash barely had his car at a standstill before he was out, slamming the door, advancing on the object of his desire.

  Sticking out of a flowerbed.

  A 1931 Bugatti T51, currently upended in a parterre of small flowered bushes. As if to add to the indignity one of its doors was hanging open.

  Every muscle in his body stiffened. He wasn’t angry. He was beyond anger.

  He was appalled.

  But he was a man who had made self-control a byword. He reined in the fury—knew it needed to be directed where it could do some good.

  Coming towards him was a rotund man in garden greens, shaking his arms towards the sky as if inviting divine intercession.

  ‘Monsieur! Un accident avec la voiture!’

  Yeah, that was one way of putting it.

  And that was when the shouting started.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LORELEI St James came awake with a languorous stretch, sliding her bare arms over silken sheets, revelling sensuously in the luxurious comfort. She made a ‘mmph’ sound, rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, prepared to sleep away the day, if that were possible—only to hear a deep male voice raised in anger somewhere outside her bedroom terrace.

  Ignore it, she decided, snuggling in.

  The voice lifted.

  She snuggled a bit more.

  More shouts.

  She wrinkled her nose.

  A crash.

  What now?

  Sighing, Lorelei pushed her satin sleep mask haphazardly up her forehead and winced as she copped an eyeful of bright Mediterranean sunshine. The room did a rinse-cycle spin around her—no doubt the product of too much champagne, inadequate sleep and enough financial trouble to sink this house around her ears.

  She shoved thoughts about the latter to the back of her mind even as her heart began to beat the band, and she felt about for a glass of water to ease the Sahara Desert that was her throat this morning. She was greeted by a clatter as she clumsily knocked her watch, her cell phone and a tangle of assorted jewellery to the stone floor.

  Easing herself into a sitting position, pushing the fall of chin-length blond curls out of her eyes, Lorelei wrinkled her nose and held on to the mattress as the room did another gentle spin.

  I will never drink again, she vowed. Although if I do, she revised, only champagne cocktails…and at a pinch G&T’s.

  As if sensing she was at her most vulnerable, the phone on the floor gave a judder and began to vibrate. Her heart did that annoying leap and race thing again. She made a pained face. When the phone rang nowadays there was usually somebody angry on the other end…

  To dissuade her from getting out of bed it stopped, but the muted sound of male voices coming up from below her terrace lifted to a crescendo. This was what had woken her. Men shouting. Some sort of altercation going on.

  Surely she didn’t have to deal with this, too? Not today…

  But without the catering staff from last night there was only Giorgio and his wife, Terese, and it was unfair to expect them to deal with interlopers. They’d had a lot of them in the past few weeks—all of them creditors, hunting her down now that her father Raymond was banged up in a low-security prison.

  As if she had a cent to her name after two years of legal fees.

  It wasn’t that she was exactly ignoring her problems—she preferred to think of it as delegating responsibility. She’d deal with the phone calls later, and the emails and the lawyers who wanted her signature on a mountain of documents. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. It was just such a nice day. The sun was shining. She shouldn’t ruin it. One more day in paradise and then she’d pay the piper.

  Just one more day…

  And then she remembered. Not only did she have a client booked in at noon, she had an appointment this afternoon at the Hotel de Paris. It was about her grandmother’s charity: the Aviary Foundation. Every year they hosted an event to raise money for cancer research.

  This year the feature was a one-day vintage car rally, and a famous racing driver would be giving kids struggling with cancer the pleasure of a spin around the track in a high-powered vehicle. Their usual publicist was ill, and the foundation’s president had personally asked her to do the meet-and-greet with their guest celebrity.

  She squeezed her temples. She hadn’t even done any research. What if he expected her to know his stats? She could barely balance her own chequebook…

  Last year they had lined up a Hollywood actor who famously had a home here in Monaco. Now, that one would have been easy—watch a few films, gush… Everyone knew actors had egos like mountains. Frowning, she contemplated racing-car drivers. Weren’t they kind of like cowboys? She pictured swagger and ego in equal dimensions. Blah.

  Reaching for the eau de nil silk evening gown crumpled at the foot of her bed, Lorelei tugged it over her head. Really, she was happy to do the meet-and-greet—she’d do anything the Aviary Foundation asked of her—just not today…

  She gave a shriek as something small and furry tunnelled its way onto her lap, claws digging into her flesh.

  ‘Fifi,’ she admonished, pulling the silk to her waist, ‘behave, ma chere.’

  Lifting her beloved baby, she buried her face in a ball of white fluff.

  ‘Now, be good and stay here. Maman has things to attend to.’

  Fifi sat up expectantly in the pool of white silk sheets, curious eyes on her mistress as she opened the French doors and went to step outside. Lorelei doubled back as she remembered she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She wasn’t prudish about her body, but she knew Giorgio was conservative and she didn’t want to embarrass him unnecessarily.

  Belting her robe at the waist, Lorelei wandered out onto the terrace. It was going to be another one of those perfect early September days, and she inhaled the briny breeze filled with lavender and rosemary scents from the garden. She most definitely didn’t want to go and sort this out. As she weaved her way down the stone steps, pulling her sunglasses into place, she told herself that whoever it was couldn’t do anything worse than yell at her.

  But it wasn’t easy being shouted at, and she wondered if she was ever going to become inured to other people’s anger. In her defence, she’d been facing more than her fair share lately—and it wasn’t getting any easier. Maybe she was suffering from overload, because this morning it felt harder than ever. But Giorgio didn’t deserve this either, and the buck had to stop somewhere.

  It would just be nice if for once it didn’t stop with her.

  Lorelei saw the Bugatti first and her heart sank. How on earth had it ended up in the garden? On second thoughts, she had a pretty good idea…

  And then she saw the man who had disturbed her slumber.

  He was… She was…

  Lorelei was vaguely aware that her mouth had formed a little ‘oh’ of wonder. In the next instant she remembered that she hadn’t run a brush through her hair, she wasn’t wearing any make-up and her panties were upstairs.

  Too late now. He’d spotted her.

  She couldn’t do anything about her wrinkled evening gown, but she smoothed her sleep-mussed hair, glad of the shades—which this morning were hiding a thousand sins. She tried to remember that even if she wasn’t looking her best she wasn’t without her own certain charm.

  Besides, men were so easy.

  He headed over, all six foot forever of him, with shoulders that would have served a linebacker,
a deep chest, a lean waist, tight hips and long, powerful legs—and one of those classically handsome faces that made her think of old-time movie stars.

  Lorelei knew better than to be a sitting target. She took the initiative and approached the Bugatti, giving her scowling uninvited guest her back view, which she knew—thanks to riding and an hour a day on her Stairmaster—wasn’t bad, and came up with her best line.

  ‘Goodness me,’ she drawled, ‘there’s a car in my rose bushes.’

  On the other hand, maybe humour hadn’t been the best direction to take this in. As she listened to the crunch of gravel—big, heavy male footsteps coming up behind her—Lorelei experienced that sinking feeling: the one that told her she’d read the situation all wrong.

  Giorgio’s expression told her to duck and cover, but after a brief, desperate glance at the older man she decided to stay where she was. It wasn’t her style to cut and run, and she’d come this far—she just needed to brazen it out. And the guy had stopped shouting, which was encouraging.

  ‘Are you responsible for this?’

  Lorelei took in three things. He was Australian, he had a voice that made Russell Crowe sound like a choirboy, and—as she turned around and looked up into a set masculine face—he clearly wasn’t in any mood to be amused or charmed. She couldn’t blame him. The car did look pretty bad.

  ‘Are you?’ he repeated, snapping off his aviators and revealing a pair of spectacular eyes—navy blue rimmed with grey, surrounded by dense, thick, dark lashes.

  Those eyes. They were sort of…amazing. Lorelei couldn’t help gazing helplessly back.

  Except they pinned her like a blade to a dissection board. She could almost feel him deciding which part of her to excise first. She came back to earth with a thump and tried to ignore the pinch in her chest. It was a look she was becoming depressingly familiar with of late, and it didn’t mean anything, she told herself. She would have thought she’d be used to it by now.