The Ruthless Billionaire’s Redemption

by Sandra Marton

  Lee smiled gently. ‘Ah, the lady’s brain is whirring into high gear. If you’re asking me, could I live without driving, the answer is yes, I could.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But if you’re asking me, am I ready to give it up, the answer is no, not yet.’ His eyes met hers. ‘I meant what I told Bonet, you know. He’s not God.’

  Danielle’s smile dimmed. ‘But he said—’

  ‘I know what he said. But he’s never been a driver. It takes as much guts and skill as it takes muscle and bone.’ His eyes drilled into her. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Danielle ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Yes. And—and I hope you’re right. I just don’t think you should—I mean, if you have expectations that don’t—that may not work out…’

  ‘Danielle, listen to me. I’ve always known I’d have to stop racing some day. Hell, everybody knows that, you think about it after a bad race or a crash—you think about it after a good race, too. You wonder how many more you have left in you.’ He rolled his chair towards her and took her hand in his. ‘To walk away from racing is different from being wheeled away from it in a bloody chair. Do you understand?’

  She looked at him and nodded her head. ‘Yes.’

  Lee’s hand tightened on hers. ‘Last night, I promised a certain young woman I’d fight back. And I will.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know you didn’t. And I’m not building castles in the air, I promise. But there’s no point in trying if you don’t aim as high as you can. Right?’

  She looked at him helplessly, and then she nodded. ‘I guess.’

  He grinned. ‘Well, then, how about starting? You promised to help me, remember?’

  Danielle smiled. ‘Of course. Just tell me how.’

  His smile was smug. ‘Drive me to Grasse.’

  ‘To Grasse?’ she repeated, staring at him. He might as well have said the moon, she thought, remembering how much effort it had taken only yesterday to convince him to so much as go out on the terrace.

  Lee laughed. ‘You should see the look on your face, farm girl.’ This time, the teasing name brought a smile to her lips, although she felt a catch in her heart. ‘Yes. To Grasse. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘I’ll do anything for you,’ she said softly, and then she tugged her hand free of his and turned away before he could read the whole truth of what she’d said in her eyes.

  * * *

  Lee whistled through his teeth and beat a light rhythm on the dashboard as the road unrolled before them. Danielle glanced over at him and smiled to herself. He looked wonderful, she thought. He was glowing with vitality. And he was so handsome. So…

  Lee turned towards her. ‘What are you thinking?’

  Colour flooded her cheeks and she looked quickly back to the road. ‘Nothing,’ she said, staring straight ahead.

  He smiled. ‘Then why are you blushing?’

  ‘I am not blushing. I was—I was just thinking that you look—you look very well. Healthy, I mean. You know.’

  ‘Debonair. Sophisticated. Are those the words you’re looking for?’

  Her eyebrows rose. ‘It must be hard to be so modest,’ she said, trying to look stern.

  He laughed as he lay his head back. ‘It must be the sandal,’ he said, tilting his toes so that the leather thong slapped against the floorboard. ‘Women can’t resist a man with only one shoe. Brings out their mothering instincts.’

  She looked at him in surprise. Was he really joking about his legs? This was definitely a day of milestones, she thought, and her heart rose to her throat. But she knew enough to keep her response light, to match his.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you knew much about women’s maternal instincts.’

  Lee turned his head towards her. ‘Women are one of the things that happen to a racer,’ he said, after a minute. ‘There are some who are attracted to the glitter or the danger—I’m not certain what draws them.’ He paused. ‘But they’re there, and they’re available. And racers—men like me—sometimes end up treating them the same as we do other perks. Hell, you say to yourself, if they’re here, why pass them by?’

  Danielle nodded, hating those unseen and unknown women with a burning ferocity that she hid with a casual smile. ‘Sort of like being turned loose in a candy store, hmm?’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ His laughter faded. ‘They don’t mean anything, though. I mean, women are just—they’re just women. I’m not proud to admit it, but sometimes I can’t even remember their names.’

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. She knew what he was doing. This was a left-handed kind of compliment; he was telling her that their friendship rose above the sexual, reminding her that what had happened last night would not happen again.

  ‘So much for you and women’s maternal instincts,’ she said lightly.

  Lee smiled. ‘I know it must come as a surprise,’ he said, ‘but even I have a mother.’

  Danielle felt the tension begin to leave her. ‘What’s she like? No, don’t tell me. She probably has the disposition of a saint.’

  ‘To have tolerated me, you mean?’ He laughed. ‘My Dad’s the one that gave her the tough time, not me. At least I always knew what it was I wanted.’

  ‘And your father didn’t?’

  Lee shook his head. ‘He was an automobile mechanic when they met. By the time I was born, he ran an autoparts store. That lasted a year or two, until he got bored and decided it was time for a change. So he went to work for a car dealership.’

  Danielle smiled. ‘So that’s how you come by your love of cars.’

  He nodded. ‘I suppose. Funny, though, the one thing he never wanted was the thing I always did.’

  ‘Racing, you mean.’

  ‘Yes. I built my first go-kart when I was ten, pieced together my first souped-up old Pontiac when I was fourteen—’

  ‘Fourteen?’ She glanced at him, eyebrows arched. ‘Where can you get a driver’s licence at fourteen?’

  Lee grinned. ‘No place I know of, certainly not San Diego, where I grew up. What I did was put the car together, then conned a guy I knew to drive us to a place out in the hills. Then I got behind the wheel and put the pedal to the metal…’ He shook his head. ‘God, the dumb things kids do.’

  Danielle flexed her fingers on the wheel. ‘And you never got caught?’

  ‘Nope. Never even came close. As soon as I was old enough, I began to enter dirt-track competitions. Small stuff, but it was enough so I began to learn and make contacts. My father staked me the money I needed to buy a decent car, but I had to make my own living expenses.’

  She laughed softly. ‘Enter tinned tuna,’ she said.

  Lee laughed, too. ‘Exactly. With enough wins, it was possible to get a ride in Formula Three, then move up to Two—’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Racing categories, like One, but with smaller engines and lighter cars.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘What about you, farm girl? What’s your life like?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Dull, dull, dull. I went to college when Val went off to New York.’ She smiled slightly. ‘She used to send home these terrific letters about auditions and modelling shoots, and I’d read them in between cramming for exams.’

  ‘And now you teach French, hmm?’ Danielle nodded. ‘To high school kids?’ She nodded again. ‘But you don’t like it very much.’

  Danielle looked at him in surprise. ‘I do like it. A lot. Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘You said teaching was dull.’

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t mean that, exactly. I just meant—I meant that what I do is dull, compared to—well, to what Val does.’

  ‘Don’t compare yourself to Val,’ Lee said quickly.

  A bitter taste filled her mouth. ‘No,’ she said softly, ‘I suppose I shouldn’t.’

  He put his head back against the seat and stared out the window. ‘You’re not anything like her. She does outrageous things, but people—men—are w
illing to turn a blind eye. But you…’

  A horn beeped sharply behind them, and Danielle looked into her mirror.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘We’re here, in Grasse. I’ll have to find a place to park.’

  Lee nodded. ‘OK. I’ll start looking.’

  ‘Good idea,’ she said brightly.

  It was much better to look for a place to park than to listen to Lee tell her what she already knew.

  Val—beautiful, sexy Val—had turned her back on him when he’d needed her most. But she was still very much a part of his life.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DANIELLE had heard as much speculation as anyone about the mysterious connection between mind and body. Ginny had once gone to St Louis for a weekend course in meditation. Afterwards, she’d talked, rather mysteriously, of bio-feedback and the art of funnelling one’s energies into oneself.

  ‘You can lower your blood-pressure and cure headaches and—’

  ‘I’ll bet.’ Danielle’s expression had been absolutely innocent. ‘How’s it on hangnails and adolescent acne?’

  ‘It’s not a joking matter,’ Ginny had said with indignation. The friends’ eyes had met, and a smile had flickered on Ginny’s face. ‘OK, I know it sounds funny…’

  ‘Who taught this class, anyway? A seventies leftover wearing a long white robe?’

  ‘He’s not. Maharishi Levine is…’ The women’s eyes had met again, and Ginny had giggled. ‘Anyway, his robe was blue.’

  The women had burst into laughter. In the end, Ginny had wiped her eyes and sighed.

  ‘Well, it was an interesting lecture,’ she’d said. ‘Better than another weekend spent doing laundry, anyhow.’

  Now, watching Lee take command of his life again, Danielle began to wonder if she didn’t owe Ginny’s maharishi an apology. She could almost see Lee changing in front of her eyes, from a man grown passive in the face of adversity to one determined to mould his own future.

  If it was at all possible to will yourself well, Lee would do it. Their first stop in Grasse was at a chemist, where he plucked bottles of vitamins and protein supplements from the shelves.

  ‘Kelpweed tablets?’ Danielle said, shuddering as she peered over his shoulder.

  Lee gave her a grim smile. ‘If you think they sound bad, you ought to taste them,’ he said, adding a second bottle to the first.

  Out on the street again, he frowned as he peered at the shopfronts. ‘There has to be a sporting-goods shop somewhere. Do you see one?’

  ‘Yes. There’s one at the corner. But—’

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said. The muscles in his upper arms bulged as he wheeled his chair quickly up the street.

  What could a man confined as Lee was need in a shop whose windows were filled with tennis rackets, golf clubs, and scuba gear?

  ‘Weights,’ he said, as if he’d heard the unspoken question. ‘Wrist weights and dumb-bells. Can you translate for me, please?’

  She did, and a short time later the shopkeeper deposited an impressively heavy box into the boot of the car.

  ‘What’s next?’ Danielle asked, smiling at him.

  He grinned back. ‘Lunch. I’ve worked up an appetite just thinking about using those weights.’

  They lunched on a quiet terrace under the leafy branches of a flowering tree. Lee waved away the menus and ordered for them both with an easy assurance that bordered on arrogance. But it filled her heart with pleasure; the old Lee Bradford was back, she thought.

  ‘Soupe de poissons,’ he told the waiter. ‘Et un demi de Château Simone blanc, s’il vous plaît.’

  Danielle put her elbows on the table, propped her chin in her hands, and smiled. ‘Fish soup and a half-bottle of white wine, huh? I thought you didn’t speak French.’

  Lee laughed. ‘What I speak is “menu”. I’ve been on the circuit for years. I can get myself fed in any language where there’s ever been a Grand Prix.’ He leaned towards her. ‘The fish soup’s a speciality here—assuming you like garlic.’

  Danielle smiled. ‘Garlic’s one of my secret vices.’

  He smiled in return. ‘I should have known you’d be a woman of impeccable tastes.’ The waiter arrived with two huge bowls of soup and a basket of hot, crusty bread. ‘Come on,’ Lee urged, ‘eat up. You’ll need your strength—we have lots of shopping left to do.’

  They stopped at a toyshop next. ‘Here we go,’ Lee said cheerfully. ‘Monopoly. Terrific!’

  Danielle eyed the game warily. ‘Well, yes. But it’s the French version.’

  He grinned at her. ‘Yes, but there’s a method to my madness, mademoiselle. Besides, I can beat you, hands down, no matter what the names of the streets and utilities.’

  ‘Such modesty, monsieur,’ she said archly.

  Lee sighed. ‘I just happen to be a world-class Monopoly player.’

  Danielle laughed softly. ‘I’m pretty good myself, pal.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, her eyes twinkling.

  He smiled. ‘We’ll see. As for the French—I thought you might teach me the language while we play. How does that sound?’

  The simple request filled her with joy. ‘It sounds fine,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’

  At a bookshop around the corner, Lee bought English-language newspapers and magazines, and whatever books he could find on sports-related injuries and the men and women who’d suffered them. Two were in English, but the rest were in French.

  ‘Would it be an imposition to ask you to read these to me?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said softly, ‘not at all.’

  Then he wheeled his chair to a stop beside a rack of paperback novels. ‘What do you like?’ he asked Danielle. ‘Romances? Mysteries? Histories?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Mysteries. I’ve always promised myself that some day I’d buy every John MacDonald novel ever published and—’

  ‘Hold out your hands,’ he said.

  When she did, he stacked a load of the MacDonald paperbacks into her arms.

  ‘Lee.’ She stared from the books to him. ‘What are you—’

  ‘It’s summer vacation, teacher,’ he said, smiling. ‘You might as well relax and enjoy it.’

  In a little gourmet shop tucked away on a quiet street, Lee filled a straw basket with tins of caviar and anchovies, crackers, cheeses, chocolates, and bottles of wine.

  ‘We’ll never eat all that,’ Danielle insisted, but he waved away her protests.

  ‘It’s for cocktail hour.’

  ‘But we don’t have a—’

  ‘Then it’s time we did,’ he said, adding a tin of cashew nuts to the basket. ‘Besides, I’m going to have to keep my calories up once I start my exercise programme.’

  He started that programme the very next day. The intensity of it at first astonished and then terrified her. Lee worked out twice a day, morning and evening, with the weights he’d bought in Grasse. The first time she heard him grunting and panting out on the terrace, Danielle raced outside, certain he’d fallen out of his chair.

  But he hadn’t. He was sitting shirtless under the relentless Provence sun, hoisting the dumb-bells high over his head. Muscles bulged in his forearms as sweat streamed down his body.

  ‘Hi,’ he gasped. ‘Come to watch the torture session?’

  That was exactly what it looked like. ‘It’s so hot out here,’ Danielle said, watching as he strained. ‘Why don’t you work inside?’

  He grunted. ‘Sweating’s good for you.’

  Danielle laughed. ‘That’s silly.’

  Lee grinned as he picked up the pace of the lifts. ‘Maybe I just like the feel of the sun.’

  Her smile faded. Maybe he did. His tanned skin was slick with sweat. His hair was damp, too, where it curled along the nape of his neck. Drops of dampness glistened like diamonds in the dark mat of hair on his chest. Her gaze slid lower, to the ridged muscles in his abdomen, and suddenly she felt a swelling heat move within her veins.

  ‘Well, then,’ she
said with false brightness, ‘have a good time.’

  She fled to the safety of the garden where she plunged her hands into the soil, weeding the gangly plants with feverish determination.

  Lee’s laughter followed after her. ‘Can’t stand watching a guy suffer, hmm?’ he called.

  She waved, as if in agreement, which was much safer than letting him suspect there might be a deeper reason.

  The simple truth was that watching Lee lift weights, body gleaming under the blazing sun, took her breath away. He was beautiful, as beautiful as any of the ancient Roman statues she’d seen in the ruins that dotted the hills above Nice. She ached to feel his arms around her, to feel the touch of his mouth against hers.

  The depth of her need frightened her. It frightened her even more that Lee might read her desire in her eyes. He had made his feelings clear. The last thing she wanted was to hear him explain his gratitude to her again.

  Twice they drove to Nice so that Dr Bonet could examine Lee’s legs. On the second visit, the surgeon exchanged Lee’s knee brace for one far lighter and smaller, and told him he could start using crutches.

  ‘Not all the time,’ Bonet warned. ‘You must not put too much strain on yourself just yet.’

  Lee assured the doctor he would not overdo it. But Danielle saw the set to his jaw, and she knew that the wheelchair was in its last days.

  She almost said something when she saw the new routines he added to his daily workouts. They were ‘curls’, he said, to strengthen his arm muscles so he would not tire on the crutches. A pulsing vein stood out on his forehead; he was pushing himself too fast, she thought—but the look in his eyes silenced her. It was useless to argue with that kind of determination.

  But when she found him stretched flat on his back on the terrace floor, his face contorted in a rictus of agony as he lifted his left leg into the air, held it aloft for a slow count of ten, then lowered it again, Danielle decided it was time to speak out.

  ‘What are you trying to do to yourself, Lee Bradford?’ she demanded pushing open the French doors and stalking towards him. ‘That knee…’

  But he wasn’t listening. He was lifting his leg again, counting softly in agonised gasps while the sweat poured down his face. His leg trembled with exhaustion when he lowered it.