by Maya Blake
‘Private things.’ She wasn’t about to deliver a blow-by-blow account. It wasn’t her style. ‘I thought he was reacting to his last break-up.’
He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘Rafael and Nadia broke up two months ago. Are you suggesting this was a rebound?’ Marco asked derisively. ‘My brother’s bounce-back rate is normally two weeks.’
Sasha frowned. ‘Rafael’s changed, Marco. To you he may have seemed like his normal wild, irreverent self. But—’
‘Are you saying I don’t know my own brother?’ he demanded.
Slowly, Sasha shook her head. ‘I’m just saying he may not have told you everything that was going on with him.’
Her breath caught at the derisive gleam that entered Marco’s eyes.
‘His text told me everything I needed to know. By refusing him, you gave him no choice but to come after you.’
‘Of course I didn’t!’
‘Liar!’
‘That’s the second time you’ve called me a liar, Marco. For your own sake I hope there isn’t a third. Or I’ll take great pleasure in slapping your face. Contract or no bloody contract. Whatever Rafael led you to believe, I didn’t set out to ensnare him, or encourage him to fall for me—which I don’t think he did, by the way. And I certainly didn’t get him riled up enough to cause his accident. Whatever demons Rafael’s been battling, they finally caught up with him. I’m tired of defending myself. I was just being his friend. Nothing else.’
Heart hammering, she took a seat on one of the extremely delicate-looking twin cream and gold striped sofas and pulled in a deep breath to steady the turbulent emotions coursing through her. Emotions she’d thought buckled down tight, but which Marco had seemed to spark to life so very easily.
‘I find it hard to believe your actions have taken you down the same path twice in your life.’
‘An unfortunate coincidence, but that’s all it is. I have to live with it. However, I refuse to let you or anyone else label me some sort of femme fatale. All I want is to do my job.’
He sat down opposite her. When his gaze drifted down her body, she struggled to fight the pinpricks of awareness he ignited along the way.
‘You’re a fighter. I admire that in you. There’s also something about you...’
His pure Latin shrug held a wealth of expression that made her silently shake her head in awe.
‘An unknown quality I find difficult to pinpoint. You’re hardly a femme fatale, as you say. The uncaring way you dress, your brashness, all point to a lack of femininity—’
Pure feminine affront sparked a flame inside her. ‘Thanks very much.’
‘And normally I wouldn’t even class you as Rafael’s type. Yet on the night before his accident he was fiercely adamant that you were the one. Don’t get me wrong, he’s said that a few times in the past, but this time I knew something wasn’t quite right.’
Despite his accusation, sympathy welled inside her. ‘Did you two fight? Was that why you didn’t come to Friday’s practice?’
His nod held regret. ‘I lost it when he asked for the ring.’
‘You had it?’
He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled sharply. ‘Yes. It belonged to our mother. She didn’t leave it specifically to either of us; she just wanted the first one of us to get married to give it to his bride.’ He shook his head once. ‘I always knew it would go to Rafael since I never intend—’ He stopped and drew in a breath. ‘Rafael has claimed to be in love with many girls, but this was the first time he’d asked for the ring.’
‘And you were angry because it was me?’
His jaw clenched. ‘You could have waited until the race was over,’ he accused, his voice rough with emotion.
‘Marco—’
‘He’d have had the August hiatus to get over you; he would’ve mended his broken heart in the usual way—ensconced on a yacht in St Tropez or chasing after some Hollywood starlet in LA. Either way, he would’ve arrived back on the circuit, smiled at you, and called you pequeña because he’d forgotten your name. Instead he’s in a hospital bed, fighting for his life!’
‘But I couldn’t lie,’ she shot back. ‘He didn’t want me—not really. And I’m not on the market for a relationship. Certainly not after—’ She pulled herself up short, but it was too late.
He stood and pulled her up, caught her shoulders in a firm grip. ‘After what?’
‘Not after my poor track record.’
‘You mean what happened with your previous lover?’
She nodded reluctantly. ‘Derek proposed just before I broke up with him. I’d known for some time that it wasn’t working, but I convinced myself things would work out. When I declined his proposal a week later he accused me of leading him on. He said I was only refusing him because I wanted to sell myself to the highest bidder.’
Derek had repeated that assertion to every newspaper and team boss who would listen, and Sasha’s career had almost ended because of it. She pushed the painful memories away.
‘Rafael knew there was no way I’d get involved with him romantically.’
Marco’s grip tightened, his gaze scouring her face as if he wanted to dig out the truth. Sasha forced herself to remain still, even though the touch of his hands on her branded her—so hot she wanted to scream with the incredibly forceful sensation of it.
‘Do you know the last thing I said to him?’ he rasped.
Her heart aching for him, she shook her head.
‘I told him to stop messing around and grow up. That he was dishonouring our mother’s memory by treating life like his own personal playground.’ His eyelids veiled his gaze for several seconds and his jaw clenched, his emotions riding very near the surface. ‘If anything happens to him—’
‘It won’t.’
Without thought, she placed her hand on his arm. Hard muscles flexed beneath her fingers. His eyes returned to her face, then dropped to her mouth. Sharp sensation shot through her belly, making her breath catch.
Sasha felt an electric current of awareness zing up her arm—a deeper manifestation of the intense awareness she felt whenever he was near. Comfort, she assured herself. I’m offering him comfort. That’s all. This need to keep touching him was just a silly passing reaction.
‘He’ll wake up and he’ll get better. You’ll see.’
Face taut and eyes bleak, he slowly dropped his hands. ‘I have to go,’ he said.
She stepped back, her hands clenching into fists behind her back to conceal their trembling. ‘You’re returning to the hospital?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m going to Madrid.’
Her belly clenched with the acute sense of loss. ‘For how long?’ she asked lightly.
‘For however long it takes to reassure my father that his precious son isn’t dying.’
* * *
The state-of-the-art crash helmet was no match for the baking North Spanish sun. Sasha sat in the cockpit of the Espíritu DSI, the car that had won Rafael the championship the year before. Eyes shut, she retraced the outline of the Belgian race track, anticipation straining through her.
Sweat trickled down her neck, despite the chute pumping cold air into the car. When she’d mentally completed a full circuit she opened her eyes.
They burned from lack of sleep, and she blinked several times to clear them. She’d been up since before dawn, the start of her restless night having oddly coincided with the moment Marco’s helicopter had lifted off the helipad. For hours she’d lain tangled up in satin sheets, unable to dismiss the look on Marcus’s anguished face from her mind. Or the heat of his touch on her body.
Firming her lips, she forcibly cleared her mind.
She wrapped fireproof gloved hands around the wheel and pictured the Double S bends at Eau Rouge, and the exact breaking point at La S
ource. Keeping her breathing steady, she finally achieved the mental calm she needed to block out the background noise of the mechanics and the garage. She emptied every thought from her mind, the turmoil of the past few days reduced to a small blot. She welcomed the relief of not having to dwell on anything except the promise of the fast track in front of her.
Her eyes remained steady on the mechanic’s STOP/GO sign, her foot a whisper off the accelerator.
When the sign went up, she launched out of the garage onto the track. Adrenalin coursed through her veins as the powerful car vibrated beneath her. Braking into the first corner, she felt G-forces wrench her head to the left and smiled. This battle with the laws of physics lent an extra thrill as she flew along the track, the sense of freedom making her oblivious to the stress on her body as lap after lap whizzed by.
‘You’re being too hard on your tyres, Sasha.’
Luke’s voice piped into her earphones and she immediately adjusted the balance of the car, her grip loosening a touch to help manoeuvre the curves better.
‘That’s better. In race conditions you’ll need them to go for at least fifteen laps. You can’t afford to wear them out in just eight. It’s early days yet, but things look good.’
Sasha blinked at the grudging respect in Luke’s voice.
‘How does the car feel?’
‘Er...great. It feels great.’
‘Good. Come in and we’ll take a look at the lap times together.’
She drove back into the garage and parked. Keeping her focus on Luke as he approached her, she got out and set her helmet aside.
He showed her the printout. ‘We can’t compare it with the performance of the DSII, but from these figures things are looking very good for Spa in three weeks’ time.’
Reading through the data, Sasha felt a buzz of excitement. ‘The DSII is great at slow corners, so I should be able to go even faster.’
Luke grinned. ‘When you have the world’s best aerodynamicist as your boss, you have a starting advantage. We’ll have a battle on the straight sections, but if you keep up this performance we should cope well enough to keep ourselves ahead.’
Again she caught the changed note in his voice.
Although she’d tried not to dwell on it, throughout the day, and over the following days during testing, Sasha slowly felt the changing attitude of her small team. They spoke to her with less condescension; some even bothered to engage her in conversation before and after her practice sessions.
And the first time Luke asked her opinion on how to avoid the under steering problem that had cropped up, Sasha forced herself to blink back the stupid tears that threatened.
* * *
Marco heard the car drive away as he came down the stairs. He curbed the strong urge to yank the door open and forced himself to wait. When he reached the bottom step he sat down and rested his elbows on his knees, his BlackBerry dangling from his fingers.
Light footsteps sounded seconds before the front door opened.
Sasha stood silhouetted against the lights flooding the outer courtyard, the outline of her body in tight dark trousers and top making sparks of desire shoot through his belly.
Clenching his teeth against the intensity of it, he forced himself to remain seated, knowing she hadn’t yet spotted him in the darkened hallway. Her light wrap slipped as she turned to shut the door, and he caught a glimpse of one smooth shoulder and arm. Her dark silky hair was tied in a careless knot on top of her head, giving her neck a long, smooth, elegant line that he couldn’t help but follow.
He found himself tracing the lines of her body, wondering how he’d ever thought her boyish. She was tall, her figure lithe, but there were curves he hadn’t noticed before—right down to the shapely denim-clad legs.
Shutting the door, she tugged off her boots and kicked them into a corner.
She turned and stumbled to a halt, her breath squeaking out in alarm. ‘Marco! Damn it, you really need to stop skulking in dark hallways. You nearly scared me to death!’
‘I wasn’t skulking.’ He heard the irritation in his voice and forced himself to calm down. ‘Where have you been? I called you several times.’
She pulled the wrap tighter around her shoulders, her chin tilting up in silent challenge. ‘I went for a drink with the team. They’re all flying out tomorrow morning and I wanted to say goodbye. I know that wasn’t part of the deal—me socialising with the team—but they kept asking and it would have been surly to refuse.’
Annoyance rattled through him. The last thing he wanted to discuss was his team, or the deal he’d made with Sasha Fleming. Dios, he wasn’t even sure why he’d come back here. He should be by his brother’s bedside—even if the doctors intended to keep him in his induced coma until the swelling on his brain reduced.
‘And you were having such a great time you decided not to answer your phone?’
‘I think it’s died.’
‘You think?’
‘You’re annoyed with me. Why?’
Sasha asked the question in that direct way he’d come to expect from her. No one in his vast global organisation would dare to speak to him that way. And yet...he found he liked it.
Rising, he walked towards her. A few steps away, the scent of her perfume hit his nostrils. Marco found himself craving more of it, wanting to draw even closer. ‘Why bother with a phone if you can’t ensure it works?’
‘Because no one calls me.’
Her words stopped him in his tracks. For a man who commanded his multi-billion-euro empire using his BlackBerry, Marco found her remark astonishing in the extreme. ‘No one calls you?’
‘My phone never rings. I think you were the last person to call me. I get the occasional text from Tom, or Charlie, my physio, but other than that...zilch.’
Marco’s puzzlement grew. ‘You don’t have any friends?’
‘Obviously none who care enough to call. And, before you go feeling sorry for me, I’m fine with it.’
‘You’re fine with being lonely?’
‘With being alone. There’s a difference. So, is there another reason you’re annoyed with me?’
She raised her chin in that defiant way that drew his gaze to her throat.
He shoved his phone into his pocket. ‘I’m not annoyed. I’m tired. And hungry. Rosario had gone to bed when I arrived.’
‘Oh, well, that’s good. Not the tired and hungry part. The not annoyed part.’ She bit her lip, her eyes wide on his as he moved even closer. ‘And about Rosario...I hope you don’t mind, but I told her not to wait up for me.’
Marco shook his head. ‘So where did you go for this drink?’ He strove to keep his voice casual.
‘A bodega just off Plaza Mayor in Salamanca.’
He nodded, itching to brush back the stray hair that had fallen against her temple. ‘And did you enjoy your evening out?’
Her shrug drew his eyes to her bare shoulder. ‘León is beautiful. And I was glad to get out of the villa.’
Her response struck a strangely discordant chord within him. ‘You don’t like it here?’
‘I don’t mind the proximity to the track, but I was tired of knocking about in this place all by myself.’
Marco stiffened. ‘Do you want to move to the hotel with the rest of the team?’
She thought about it. Then, ‘No. The crew and I seem to be gelling, but I don’t want to become overly familiar with them.’
Marco found himself breathing again. ‘Wise decision. Sometimes maintaining distance is the only way to get ahead.’
‘You obviously don’t practise that dogma. You’re always surrounded by an adoring crowd.’
‘X1 Premier Racing is a multi-million-spectator sport. I can’t exist in a vacuum.’
‘Okay. Um...do you think we can turn the lights on
in here? Only we seem to be making a habit of having conversations in the dark.’
‘Sometimes comfort can be found in darkness.’
Facing up to reality’s harsh light after his own crash ten years ago had made him wish he’d stayed unconscious. Angelique’s smug expression as she’d dropped her bombshell had certainly made him wish for the oblivion of darkness.
Sasha gave a light, musical laugh. The sound sent tingles of pleasure down his spine even as heat pooled in his groin. His eyes fell to her lips and Marco experienced the supreme urge to kiss her. Or to keep enjoying the sound of her laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked as she reached over his shoulder and flipped on the light switch.
‘I was thinking either you’re very hungry or you’re very tired, because you’ve gone all cryptic on me.’
He was hungry. And not just for food. A hunger—clawing and extremely ravenous—had taken hold inside him.
Pushing aside the need to examine it, he followed her as she headed towards the kitchen. The sight of her bare feet on the cool stones made his blood thrum faster as he studied her walk, the curve of her full, rounded bottom.
‘I could do with a snack myself. Do you want me to fix you something?’
Walking on the balls of her feet made the sway of her hips different, sexier. He tried to stop himself staring. He failed.
‘You cook?’ he asked past the strain in his throat.
‘Yep. Living on my own meant I had to learn, starve or live on takeaways. Starving was a bore, and Charlie would’ve had conniptions if he’d seen me within a mile of a takeaway joint. So I took an intensive cookery course two years ago.’
She folded her wrap and placed it on the counter, along with a small handbag. Only then did he see that her top was held up by the thinnest of straps.
Opening the fridge, she began to pull out ingredients. ‘Roast beef sandwich okay? Or if you want something hot I can make pasta carbonara?’ she asked over her shoulder.
Marco pulled up a seat at the counter, unable to take his eyes off her. ‘I’m fine with the sandwich.’
Her nod dislodged more silky hair from the knot on her head. ‘Okay.’ Long, luxurious tresses slipped down to caress her neck.
