Her Last Night of Innocence
India Grey
World-famous racing driver Cristiano Maresca always spent the night before a race in the arms of a beautiful woman… Three years ago that woman was Kate Edwards, and her time with Cristiano awakened her to unimaginable pleasure. But the following day the untameable Cristiano had a near-fatal crash…and then Kate discovered she was expecting his baby…Now Monte Carlo is set to celebrate Cristiano’s return to the track. Shivering with nerves, Kate braves the paparazzi to find the man who set her body aflame – and tell him her scandalous secret… That Italy’s most notorious playboy has a surprise love-child!
Adrenaline burned through Cristiano’s veins as he ran down the casino steps.
The cool air with its whisper of pine and the sea felt good, tasted better than the champagne he’d avoided all evening, and out in the street-lit darkness the pounding inside his head was less intense. He didn’t care about anything except finding Kate Edwards.
She had gone into the Hotel de Paris when she’d run out of here. Standing in the middle of the marble floor, still reeling from the realisation of who she was, he had watched her crossing the square, dodging in front of a car in her haste to get away.
He nodded curtly at the doorman, who leapt forward to open the door for him, as Suki’s words came back to him. ‘She wasn’t your type at all…Seriously plain and boring…’
She was right about the first bit at least—Kate Edwards was entirely different from the women he usually bedded. And yet the experience had been worth remembering.
Worth repeating.
Her Last Night of Innocence
By
India Grey
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
About the Author
A self-confessed romance junkie, INDIA GREY was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon® Writers’ Guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she gained a degree in English Literature and Language from Manchester University, and in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of romance met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!
Recent titles by the same author:
EMILY’S INNOCENCE
(#litres_trial_promo)
POWERFUL ITALIAN, PENNILESS HOUSEKEEPER
SPANISH ARISTOCRAT, FORCED BRIDE
To Michelle Styles, with love and gratitude for listening, advising and believing.
Prologue
A HAZE of heat hung over the tarmac. The air was thick, acrid with the smell of hot rubber and high-octane fuel. The starting grid was thronged with reporters brandishing microphones and news crews shouldering cameras, as well as pit crews wearing overalls in their team colours and promotions girls carrying flags and wearing hardly anything at all.
Cristiano picked up his helmet and gloves and stepped out of the shade of the garages into the blazing Côte D’ Azur sunlight. The noise of the crowd instantly doubled and reporters swooped, holding out their microphones to him. He kept his head down.
His body felt loose and heavy with the memory of last night’s pleasure. It wasn’t unusual for him to work off the residual adrenaline and testosterone from the qualifying session in the willing arms of one of the paddock club hostesses or pit lane beauties the night before a big race; sex was a good way of easing both the mental and physical tension of a Grand Prix weekend.
But last night hadn’t just been sex.
‘Ciao, Cristiano. Good of you to join us.’
Silvio Girardi, Campano team boss, came forward, perspiring heavily beneath his baseball cap as he slapped Cristiano’s shoulder. A stocky, grey-haired Neapolitan, rapid-fire sarcasm was his default setting. Right now the dial was turned to maximum. ‘Why you not take an extra half-hour in bed, huh? Make sure you were really rested for the race?’
Cristiano took a mouthful of water and grimaced. ‘If I’d had an extra half-hour in bed the last thing I would have been doing is resting.’
Silvio rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air in a gesture of elaborate exasperation. ‘I hope that whichever cocktail waitress it was last night knows better than to kiss and tell. Our new sponsors were most particular that they don’t want any scandal. Clearspring—it’s water, Cristiano, not bourbon. Clean living, wholesome, for kids—comprendo? Did you see the guy from their marketing department yesterday?’
‘It wasn’t a guy.’
‘Huh?’ Silvio frowned. ‘They said they were sending their head of marketing—a Dominic someone. You’re telling me Dominic isn’t a guy’s name in England?’
‘His wife went into labour unexpectedly. They sent his as sistant.’
‘A girl?’
A ghost of a smile touched Cristiano’s lips as he pulled on his gloves. ‘A girl.’
Oh, yes. Kate Edwards was very definitely a girl.
Nervously repositioning his baseball cap, Silvio gave a snort of contempt. ‘Well, I hope you were nice to her—no funny business. I need the money. You get paid millions just for showing up and sitting in a car it costs me millions to build for you. Think about it—how is this fair?’ He was pacing around the low emerald-green car with its Clearspring banners. ‘Now—time for you to do some work and show what this beauty can do. You’re in pole position. You can’t lose.’
With another slap on the back, he moved off to talk to the mechanics and engineers. Cristiano turned round, combing the crowd for a honey-coloured head amongst the peroxide blondes and polished brunettes.
Slim, brown arms twined around his neck, and he was enveloped in a familiar musky perfume.
‘Good luck,’ his PA whispered huskily in his ear.
Fighting irritation, he pulled away and looked over her shoulder. ‘Thanks, Suki.’
Where was Kate?
‘How was the interview yesterday evening with the girl from Clearspring? I hope it didn’t drag on too long. She looked a little bit…’ Suki’s glossy lips twitched into a smirk ‘…serious.’
‘It was fine.’ As far as he was concerned, it hadn’t dragged on nearly long enough. ‘Have you seen her?’
Suki raised one dark, perfectly arched brow. ‘This morning? Why would I have? Is she here?’
‘Si.’ Cristiano’s gaze moved restlessly over the PR girls, posing and pouting for the cameras in their team colours, and the journalists jostling for last-minute interviews. The excitement of the crowds of people packed into the grandstands and on every balcony and rooftop overlooking the street circuit was reaching fever-pitch, and the yachts sounded their horns plaintively out in Monaco harbour.
Suki shrugged her narrow shoulders in the tight-fitting Campano T-shirt. ‘Well, if I see her I’ll tell her you said hi,’ she said coolly. ‘But it’s pretty much time for you to get in the car.’
For a second he looked at her blankly, as if what she was saying meant nothing to him. Then he shook his head curtly. ‘I know.’
He turned away, thrusting his hands into his hair, gritting his teeth against a sudden urge to walk away, tear off his overalls and keep walking until he found her.
The television crew who had been talking to the team next to him on the grid finished their interview and began to head in his direction. Cristiano felt black despair pulling at him. The seconds were ticking away, and he could hear the crowd chanting his name. It was too late.
And then he saw her.
She was standing in the middle of the milling hordes of people in the pit lane, looking around. Her head was turned away from him, her face obscured for a moment by the curtain of her dark-blonde hair, but there was no mistaking the length of her legs in the faded jeans she wore, the swell of those breasts beneath the navy T-shirt she’d picked up that morning from his bedroom floor.
He was smiling as he walked towards her, wondering how he could have missed her. Amidst all the painted pedigree grid-girls, she looked like an abandoned golden retriever puppy. He’d noticed her as soon as he had pulled into the pit lane after qualifying yesterday, because she was so different from the standard Grand Prix girl groupies. In her businesslike grey suit, with her hair pulled back, she’d reminded him of the clever girls at school. The ones who’d always had clean, neat uniforms and who had done their homework on time and been held up as a shining example by the nuns.
Instead of being a waster. A no-hoper. Like him.
‘Oh…’
She turned then, her full lips parting in a gasp of surprise and relief as he took her hand and dragged her into the shadow of the pit lane garages.
Kate felt heat explode inside her, spreading upwards to her cheeks and downwards to her knickers. ‘I couldn’t find you,’ she said a little breathlessly, ducking her head and leaning it against his chest as he pulled her into his body, hiding her fiery blush.
‘I’m here.’
‘I was beginning to think that I’d imagined it all.’ Oh, God—did that make her sound needy? Desperate? She laughed, but there was a slight break in it. ‘Or that it had all been a dream.’
‘Which bit of it would you like me to reassure you was real…?’ He lowered his head and spoke lazily into her hair, his husky voice with its outrageously sensual Italian accent sending shivers of bliss down her spine as his hands gripped her waist. ‘The bit in the swimming pool…or the bit in the bedroom? The kitchen floor this morning…?’
‘Shh…’ She was laughing, gripping the edges of his racing overalls with their Clearspring logos, her face buried in his chest. ‘Someone might hear.’
‘Would that be so bad?’
The laughter died and her smile faded. ‘It’s not my usual style.’ That had to be a strong contender in the ‘Understatement of the Year’ competition. ‘We only met yesterday—I came to interview you…’
‘And to think I’ve always hated interviews,’ he drawled softly. ‘I’d have agreed to do more if I knew they could be so much fun.’
Kate frowned. ‘I hardly know you.’
He took her chin between his fingers and tilted her head up so she had no choice but to look into those dark, bitter-chocolate coloured eyes. Famous eyes, familiar to her from television and magazines, from the countless photographs they had of him in the office, the poster on her younger brother’s bedroom wall…
‘After last night you know me better than anyone.’
His tone was ironic, but his swarthy pirate’s face with its high, hard cheekbones and finely shaped mouth was suddenly bleak. He shook his head slowly, thrusting a hand through his dark, deliciously untidy hair. ‘Gesu, Kate, I’ve never…bared my soul like that before.’
‘Me neither.’
Kate’s voice was just a whisper as her mind flickered back over the last twelve extraordinary hours. There had been the sex, of course, and that had been…magical. But they had also talked. Her heart contracted painfully and her breath hitched in her throat as she remembered how he’d lain in her arms, his voice oddly toneless as he told her about his past, the difficulties he had experienced in school that had driven him to seek success at all costs. And he had seen past the professional veneer she’d so painstakingly constructed to the secret void of grief and terror beneath. He’d told her that a life lived in fear was no life at all. And he’d shown her how to shut off the anxiety and live for the moment…
From outside the garages the noise of the crowd seemed to swell in the heat, pressing against the fragile walls of their private world. He pulled away from her, his expression suddenly blank.
‘I have to go.’
Kate nodded quickly and took a step back, desperate not to appear needy. ‘I know. Go. But remember—you don’t have to prove anything, Cristiano.’ She managed a crooked smile. ‘Drive carefully.’
For a heartbeat she saw a flicker of pain in his eyes, and then it was gone, and he was pulling on his gloves, giving her that wry, mocking smile that turned her inside out. ‘Tesoro, this is the Monaco Grand Prix. Driving carefully isn’t really the idea.’
She laughed, pushing back the panic that swelled inside her. ‘OK, fair point.’ She wasn’t going to be that person anymore—he had shown her how to live for the moment, to seize happiness, not to cling to fear. Even so, as he turned to go it took a massive effort to keep the smile in place and not let him see how this terrified her.
He was at the mouth of the garage now. Catching a glimpse of him, the crowd outside had begun to roar again. He turned, looking at her for a moment with dark, opaque eyes.
‘This isn’t over, you know. Last night was just the beginning.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Wait for me.’
And then he was gone, striding out into the shimmering haze of heat and petrol, his broad shoulders very straight. A strang er again.
The click of the harness was the signal Cristiano used mentally to switch off the outside world. From that moment there was nothing but the track, the car, the race.
He was first on the grid. The Monaco circuit was ridiculously narrow, making overtaking almost impossible, and the crowd was so close that at times you could count the gold fillings in the teeth of the billionaires on their yachts, and read the labels on the designer bikinis of their mistresses and trophy wives.
The first few laps melted away. Coming into the Grand Hotel Hairpin on the fourth—or was it the fifth?—a good half-second ahead of the competition, Cristiano changed gear smoothly, allowing his mind to pan out a little from its minute focus on the track. Silvio had done well. The car was performing perfectly. The conditions were ideal. The race was his—another win to add to his impressive record.
You don’t have to prove anything…
Darkness engulfed him as he plunged into the tunnel. The soft voice in his head was so real that for a moment it was as if she was in the car with him, and he could almost smell the cool scent of her skin. His focus wavered and he blinked hard, almost dizzy with longing.
The mouth of the tunnel was ahead of him. As he came out the sun was in his eyes, the taste of her skin was on his lips, the echo of her words in his ears, and suddenly he had the oddest sensation of everything making sense. The barrier in front of him was too close, coming too fast, but it felt almost unreal because in that moment he knew…
And then there was an explosion—pain, fire, blackness.
Nothing.
Chapter One
Four years later
CLEARSPRING WATER, as the marketing department was keen to point out, was sourced from an ancient spring deep in the green heart of the Yorkshire Dales. Its offices, however, were situated in a hideous 1960s building on an industrial estate on the fringes of a grey Yorkshire town.
They were pretty depressing at the best of times, but on the first Monday morning in January the drooping paper chains and balding Christmas tree in Reception that no one had quite got round to removing made them feel more than usually grim. Standing in the cell-like kitchen at the end of the corridor, waiting for the kettle to boil, Kate stared at the calendar on the wall in front of her.
New year, new calendar. New set of photographs of the Campano racing team.
Pulling the sleeves of the rather unflattering polo-necked jumper her mother had given her for Christmas down over her fingers, she turned her back on the calendar and leaned against the worktop, repeating her New Year’s resolution in her head like a mantra. This year I am going to stop waiting. I am going to give up dealing in maybes and what ifs; stop obsessing over what I haven’t got, and make the most of what I have—a gorgeous, happy, healthy three-year-old boy.
Her fingers tingled. She wasn’t going to look. Wasn’t going to pull the stupid calendar off the wall and flick through in search of a photo of Cristiano Maresca like some obsessed teenage fangirl.
As she had last year. And the one before.
Cristiano Maresca hadn’t raced since the accident that had almost killed him at Monaco, but if anything his status as a celebrity heart-throb had only increased. He was more elusive than ever, but rare snatched paparazzi photographs of him looking lean and menacing were reproduced endlessly in newspapers and magazines, along with speculation about whether he’d ever return to the circuit.
Why was the kettle taking so long to boil?
She took down mugs from the cupboard, threw a herbal teabag into the one that said ‘The Boss’ on it, and spooned coffee into ‘I’d rather be in Tenerife’. The kettle was just beginning the throaty splutter that was a prelude to its great crescendo as it reached boiling point. Kate’s gaze flickered back to the calendar.
January’s photo was harmless enough, showing two of the Campano cars—Clearspring banners clearly visible—racing side by side. Surreptitiously, as if it had a mind of its own, she felt her hand come up, lifting the page so she could see the picture underneath.
‘July.’
The voice from behind her made her jump. Kate snatched her hand back as Lisa from the art department stuck her head round the door.
‘Don’t pretend you weren’t looking for Maresca.’ She grinned. ‘We all have. He’s July. Roll on summer!’
The kettle reached its final death rattle in a billowing cloud of steam as Lisa disappeared down the corridor. Grimly, Kate sloshed water into the mugs and followed, allowing herself a brief moment of triumph as she knocked on the door of Dominic’s office.
She hadn’t looked, and she had until July to get her life together and move on. Or give up coffee.
‘What the hell is that?’ Dominic peered suspiciously into the mug as she set it down on his desk and then gave a groan. ‘Oh, God—it’s a conspiracy. Don’t tell me Lizzie’s got you on board with this appalling New Year detox idea?’
Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘Happy New Year to you too,’ she said sardonically, turning and heading back towards the door. ‘And you’re welcome.’
‘Wait—sorry,’ Dominic sighed. ‘A whole week in the company of my mother-in-law seems to have brought out my petulant side. Let me try that again, in the manner of a civilised human being who is delighted to be back at work at the start of an exciting new year.’ He beamed comically, gesturing to the chair squeezed into the gap between the window and the filing cabinet opposite his desk. ‘Have a seat and tell me about your Christmas. I take it you weren’t buried beneath an avalanche of pink plastic like we were?’
Cupping her coffee in both hands, Kate sat down. Nine months older than her son, Dominic’s daughter Ruby was both Alexander’s best friend and his nemesis. Between them, they seemed to have dedicated their lives to proving any child psychologist who claimed that gender roles weren’t programmed from birth an idiot.
‘Nope, it was wall-to-wall cars with us,’ Kate said ruefully. ‘Alexander’s favourite by miles is the Alfa Romeo whatever-it-was from you.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘He even takes it to bed with him. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure,’ Dominic said with a wistful sigh. ‘It’s a Spider, you hopeless girl. An Alfa Romeo Spider—and Alexander’s quite right. It’s one of the most iconic cars ever made. I’d go to bed with one if I could.’
‘Does Lizzie know about this?’
‘I’m sure she wouldn’t be surprised,’ Dominic said wryly, putting down his mug with a little grimace of distaste. ‘An Alfa Romeo Spider would never make me go on a detox programme.’
‘Serves you right. You shouldn’t have partied so hard over Christmas.’
Dominic leaned back in his chair. ‘Yes, well, you know what this job’s like. Clients to entertain, staff parties to organise.’ He looked at her pointedly over his glasses. ‘Even though some staff didn’t bother to turn up.’
Kate rolled her eyes, suddenly taking a great interest in rearranging the Post-it notes stuck all over the filing cabinet into tidy lines. ‘Come on, we’ve been through this before. I couldn’t get a babysitter, OK?’
‘Your mum was out clubbing again, was she?’
The unlikeliness of the image made Kate smile briefly in spite of herself. ‘I can’t ask her all the time. She already does enough, looking after Alexander for me when I’m working. It’s not as if I can afford to pay her or anything.’
‘She wouldn’t take it even if you could. You know she loves having him. It’s been a lifeline for her after Will…’
‘I know, I know.’ Kate pressed her finger down on the corner of a Post-it note that stubbornly refused to stick. ‘Having a little boy around again takes her back to happier times, I guess, when both Will and my dad were alive. But I still don’t like to rely on her too much. I got myself into this situation, and as far as possible it’s up to me to deal with it on my own.’
Dominic took another unenthusiastic sip of herbal tea. ‘You didn’t get into it entirely on your own,’ he observed dryly. ‘Not unless it was an immaculate conception.’
It was pretty perfect, Kate thought bleakly, staring out over the grey, rain-soaked car park and thinking of a warm swimming pool, a quiet pine-and-lavender-scented night. But then she hadn’t had anything to compare it to—before or since—and, given that she hadn’t been out for an evening without Alexander in over six months, that wasn’t likely to change any time soon. She really must buy some decent clothes and go out with Lisa and the other girls next time they invited her. If they hadn’t given up asking her.
‘Hell-lo?’ Dominic’s voice, sounding distinctly tetchy, cut through her thoughts. ‘Are you listening to a word I’m saying?’
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, dragging her gaze away from the car park and her attention back to Dominic. ‘Immaculate conception. Getting into this on my own.’
Dominic sighed. Leaning forward, he put his elbows on the desk, rubbing his hands over his face and pushing his glasses up. ‘That’s the point—you didn’t get into it on your own, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it on your own either. Parenting is bloody hard work. It takes two people to make a baby for a very good reason.’
Kate’s heart sank as it began to dawn on her that Dominic was steering this conversation in a specific direction, and it wasn’t one that Kate wanted to go in. ‘I’m doing my best,’ she said defensively. ‘I know it’s not ideal, believe me, but I’m doing all I—’
‘I’m not saying you’re not,’ Dominic interrupted gently. ‘You’re a fantastic mother.’
Kate put her mug down carefully on the desk. Her heart had started to beat a little faster, and she had an odd sensation, as if something cold and heavy was pressing on her chest.
‘But?’
‘It’s been four years, Kate, and you’re still holding on—hoping that a tall, dark Italian racing driver is going to come roaring down the high street and pull you into his arms.’
Kate got to her feet with a bright smile. ‘OK—coffee break over. I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a load of work to do on the Healthy Schools account, so if you’ll—’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Dominic had got up too, his hands held up in a gesture of surrender, although he had also moved to one side of his desk so that he was effectively blocking her exit. ‘I’m not handling this very well, am I? Lizzie and I are worried about you, that’s all. The Christmas party was the last in a long list of Kate no-shows, and it just seems like you’ve been frozen in the same place for too long.’
Kate really didn’t want to ask, but couldn’t see that she had much choice. ‘What place?’
Dominic met her eyes steadily, giving her the distinct impression that he was preparing himself to say something he’d been planning for a while. ‘You’re still waiting for a man you don’t really believe is ever going to show up, and yet you can’t quite bear to stop hoping.’
She turned her head away sharply, so that he wouldn’t see the pain on her face as Cristiano’s words came back to her.
This isn’t over, you know. Last night was just the beginning. Wait for me.
‘Ah, well,’ she said with quiet bitterness, ‘that’s where you’re wrong. It’s my New Year’s resolution to do exactly that.’
‘And how well did you do with that one last year?’ Dominic joked and then, sensing her anguish, softened his tone. ‘The problem is, you’re not going to be able to do it while everything is so unresolved. You need closure. You need to know once and for all that things are over between you, and I don’t think that’ll happen until you’ve told him that he has a son.’
Kate had stayed standing in the hope that she could wind this conversation up quickly and be on her way, but suddenly she wasn’t sure that was going to be possible. Or that it was turning out to be the kind of conversation that she could have without sitting down.
‘Not this again, Dominic. I tried that, remember?’ She sank back onto the chair and looked down at her hands. ‘Twice.’
‘I know you did, lovey, but you don’t actually know that the message got through. You wrote to him. But letters go astray—fall into the wrong hands. I think that for Alexander’s sake you have to try again. In a way that leaves no room for doubt.’
In her lap Kate’s fingers were twisted together, the bones showing white beneath the roughened, winter-dry skin. ‘I’m not interested in trapping him,’ she said, very quietly. ‘I really don’t want to force him into acknowledging me, or Alexander.’
‘But it’s his responsibility.’
There was a hint of exasperation in Dominic’s tone now, though he was doing his best to hide it. Oddly, it strengthened Kate’s resolve.
‘I don’t care,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t need Cristiano’s help—Alexander and I are fine on our own. Finding out I was pregnant was such a massive shock at the beginning, especially coming on top of the accident and everything, but I’m so glad it happened now. I love Alexander more than I could ever have thought possible.’ She hesitated for a second, swallowing the lump of emotion that had suddenly formed in her throat. ‘I know it would be better if he had a father—for him and for me—but only if he wanted to be there.’
Dominic turned and chucked the remainder of his herbal tea into the pot of a sickly-looking yukka behind his desk. ‘You don’t know for sure that he doesn’t.’
‘Oh, I think I do.’ Kate gave a dry, humourless laugh, turning her empty mug between her hands as if trying to absorb some of its fading warmth. ‘He did actually tell me that he didn’t want children when I interviewed him, so it was hardly a surprise when he didn’t answer my letters. But I did try to see him as well, don’t forget. I stood for two days outside the hospital, with the hardcore press pack and a group of slightly scary fans, trying not to throw up every five minutes.’
She laughed, but tears stung at the back of her eyes as she remembered the late July heat, the constant drag of morning sickness, the growing pain and humiliation of realising she was wasting her time.
‘He was in a bad way,’ Dominic remarked. ‘He was in a coma for ten days—those kind of injuries take some getting over.’
She flinched. The image of Cristiano, unconscious in a hospital bed was one that had haunted her during those terrible weeks. ‘I know. But he’d been out of Intensive Care for a while then, and according to the papers he’s made a full recovery. If he wanted to get in touch with me, he would have by now.’
‘So where does that leave Alex?’ Dominic said gruffly. ‘One day he’s going to want to know who his father is. He’s only three years old at the moment, and already he’s obsessed with cars and speed. Sooner or later…’
Kate sighed, letting go of the mug and staring down at its cheery picture of a beach and palm trees. I really would rather be in Tenerife, she thought wearily. ‘What do you want me to do, Dominic? I tried. I wrote to him; I went to see him and couldn’t get past Security. Short of a front-page kiss-and-tell exposé in a tabloid newspaper, what else can I do?’
Wordlessly, Dominic opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a large silver envelope. He slid it across the desk towards her.
‘Go and see him again.’
Kate glanced from the envelope to his face, and back down again. Her heart had started to thud uncomfortably in her chest.
‘What’s this?’
‘An invitation.’ He silently cursed himself for not sounding more casual. He took a deep breath. ‘To a party at the Casino in Monte Carlo to launch the new season’s Campano team…And celebrate Cristiano Maresca’s return to racing.’
Kate’s cornflower-blue eyes widened, seeking out his and seeming to search them from a face that was suddenly the same colour as the pale grey sky beyond the window.
‘Are you going?’
Dominic couldn’t decide whether it was hope or terror that made her voice crack.
‘No. I’m sending Lisa, and Ian from the Campano account. And you.’
Kate leapt to her feet, shaking her head vehemently. ‘No. You can’t. I can’t. What about Alexander? I can’t leave—’
Dominic had known perfectly well that this would be her main objection and was well prepared. ‘He can come and stay with us—you know that he and Ruby have been pestering us for a sleepover for ages.’
Kate didn’t smile. ‘But I—I’ve never left him overnight before.’
‘He’ll be fine—just like Ruby was fine when she stayed with you when Lizzie and I went away for our anniversary. You’re doing it for him, Kate. This is your chance to get some answers.’
‘No—I can’t.’ She shook her head again, her hand flying to her throat, her eyes wide with fear.
Dominic felt guilt flare inside him like acid indigestion.
Losing her father in a car accident had taught six-year-old Kate Edwards that life was fragile, and that happiness and security were precarious—a lesson that had been brutally hammered home fifteen years later, when her seventeen-year-old brother had ploughed his car into a tree on the Hartley Bridge to Harrogate Road and been killed outright. Dominic had met Kate for the first time a few months after that, when he had interviewed her for a job as his assistant at Clearspring.
She had come back to stay in Hartley Bridge and be near her mother after university, she’d explained. It had been obvious within five minutes that she was capable of doing the job with her eyes closed, but also that she was a girl who was holding herself together by the skin of her teeth. He’d given her the job, and over the next year had watched the anxiety begin to fade from her eyes as her confidence grew. She’d been the obvious person to go to Monaco in his place when Ruby had made her unexpectedly early appearance, and he’d hoped that the trip would do her good—show her that there was a whole world beyond Hartley Bridge, and that aeroplanes were convenient methods of transport rather than plot devices in disaster movies.
It had all backfired spectacularly, leaving Kate more aware than ever of the risk involved in reaching for happiness. Hence Dominic’s guilt, and his feeling of responsibility to both her and Alexander. Sitting on the sofa with a bottle of wine the other night, he and Lizzie had decided that the Campano party was an opportunity to break the cycle once and for all. Tough love. That was what they’d called it.
Now it just felt cruel.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ he asked gently.
Looking out over the dingy car park, her eyes were huge in her pale face. ‘For once, I don’t even know where to begin to answer that,’ she said with a brave attempt at a laugh. ‘What if he doesn’t remember me? What if I got it totally wrong and to him I was just another anonymous, meaningless one-night stand? What if he’s there, surrounded by beautiful, adoring women, and he completely blanks me?’
‘Then it’s his loss.’ Dominic sighed. His caffeine craving was starting to bite, and this was the kind of conversation Lizzie was so much better at. ‘And you’ll know he was never worthy of your heart, or the time you’ve spent waiting for him, and you can finally move on.’
‘And Alexander?’
‘Look—here’s what I suggest.’ Frowning, Dominic got to his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets in what every member of the Clearspring marketing department would recognise as an indication that he meant business. ‘I think you should write Cristiano a letter, containing the basic facts about Alexander’s birth and leaving the name of your solicitor where he can contact you. If he doesn’t acknowledge you at the party, you can leave it with a member of his staff and come home knowing that this time you really have done all you can.’
Stunned into a moment’s silence, Kate blinked. ‘You’ve thought it all through, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve thought of nothing else since this damned invitation arrived.’
‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’
Despite her defensively tensed shoulders, Dominic recognised the final protest of a woman who knew she was defeated. He felt a small glow of tentative triumph.
‘So buy something. I’ll look after the kids at the weekend, and you and Lizzie can hit the shops in Leeds.’
‘I can’t afford it,’ Kate protested weakly. ‘I’m a single parent, remember?’
Reaching into the drawer again, Dominic took out his chequebook and began to scribble. Tearing it out, he handed a cheque to her with a grin. ‘Take this and buy something stunning, and hopefully you won’t be for much longer.’
‘It’s going to be quite a party.’
Dr Francine Fournier looked up from the invitation in her hand and raised a perfectly shaped, brutally eloquent eyebrow. ‘I’m just sorry I can’t be there, but unfortunately tonight is—’
‘Please—there’s no need to explain.’ Cristiano got up from the chair and walked a few paces across the thick carpet of Dr Fournier’s consulting room before turning back to her with a bleak smile. ‘I think we both know that the whole thing is a complete sham. I wouldn’t be going myself if I had any choice.’
Outside, the February dusk was falling early over Nice, and a thin slick of rain made the pavements glisten. In here, the lamps cast a soft glow over serious seascapes in oil, and a huge bowl of white hyacinths on the desk perfumed the centrally heated air. There was nothing remotely clinical about the room apart from the lightbox on the wall with its illuminated display of cross-sections of Cristiano’s brain.
Dr Fournier sighed, slipping the invitation inside the cover of the file of notes that lay open on the desk in front of her. ‘It’s not a sham, Cristiano,’ she said, in the grave, low-pitched voice she used for breaking bad news to families. ‘It’s just a little premature, perhaps.’
‘Premature?’ Cristiano echoed hollowly, thrusting his balled fists into his pockets and walking over to look more closely at the X-ray images, as if he might be able to see something in the intricate whorls and dark spaces that Dr Fournier had missed. ‘By how long? A year? A decade? A lifetime? Because, from what you’ve just told me, I’m never going to be able to race again.’
Francine Fournier was forty-eight years old, and had been happily married to her second husband for six years. She was also one of Europe’s most senior and well-respected brain injury specialists, but, in spite of all these things, she still had to steel herself against the spark of attraction as she looked from the images of the inside of Cristiano Maresca’s head to the face of the man himself.
‘I didn’t say that.’
The light from the X-ray box emphasised his pallor, and the lines of tension etched around his impossibly sexy mouth, but neither of those things detracted from his extraordinary good-looks.
‘Not in so many words,’ he said hoarsely. ‘But if you can’t find out what’s wrong with me and work out how to put it right, it amounts to the same thing.’
‘It’s not that simple, Cristiano. The good news is that you’re looking at a healthy brain. Those X-rays show that your recovery from the accident has been remarkably complete.’ She picked up the top sheet from the file and frowned slightly as she studied it. ‘All your stats are excellent—proving that your reflexes and responses far exceed those of the average fit male your age. My investigations have been exhaustive, and I can state categorically that there’s no physiological cause of the symptoms you’ve been having.’
He gave a hollow laugh. ‘You’re saying that it’s all in my mind?’
‘The brain is a very complex organ. Physical injury is easy to see, but psychological damage is harder to measure. The palpitations and flashbacks you’re suffering while driving are very real symptoms, but their cause is nothing I can specifically identify or treat.’ She paused, rearranging the papers on her desk, her large diamond eternity ring flashing in the lamplight as her hands moved. ‘I believe,’ she began again carefully, ‘that they are directly related to your memory loss. In itself, that’s not a problem, but because your subconscious has blocked out memories of the crash you haven’t yet been able to process them and move on.’
‘But what about before the crash?’ Cristiano’s voice was like sandpaper. ‘Why can’t I remember that either?’
‘Retrograde amnesia,’ Dr Fournier said gently. ‘It’s not uncommon. Many people experience some degree of memory loss after a head trauma. The length of time that’s lost is significant—the fact that you’ve only got a gap of twenty-four hours is good news.’
Cristiano gave a hard, abrupt laugh. ‘Is it?’ Silhouetted against the gathering darkness outside, his broad shoulders were absolutely rigid. ‘Will I ever get them back?’
‘It’s impossible to say. There are no guarantees. Sometimes memory comes back in its own time.’
He swore in Italian, softly and savagely. ‘I can’t wait for that. The Grand Prix season starts in six weeks.’ Thrusting a hand through his hair, he gave a ragged, bitter laugh. ‘Suki’s invited every sports journalist and team sponsor on the planet to this ridiculous event tonight to celebrate my return to the circuit. Silvio has rediscovered religion thanks to the miracle of my recovery.’
Dr Fournier’s voice was deliberately soothing. ‘Have you talked to the people you were with that night? Sometimes you just need a trigger for the memory to return…’
Cristiano gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘I was alone. The last thing I remember is getting into the car for qualifying.’ He had been over it time and time again. He remembered the click of the harness as he’d got into the car, and after that nothing. Sometimes, just as he was drifting off to sleep or waking up again, he thought he caught the echo of something that was a memory rather than a dream, and desperately tried to hold onto it, but the harder he tried the more elusive it was. ‘Suki tells me I did an interview with someone from Clearspring Water, but that can’t have taken long. After that I must have gone home.’
Leaning against the windowsill, he dropped his head into his hands for a moment as despair and self-disgust overwhelmed him. Against the odds he had survived a crash that should have killed him, come round from ten days in a coma and dragged himself from an Intensive Care bed back to the cockpit of a racing car. He had built up his strength, and driven himself ruthlessly and relentlessly to regain fitness, harnessing the same determination and focus that had made him so successful before.
Now everything he had worked for was slipping through his fingers. And there was nothing he could do about it—because while he could control his body and work harder, train longer, push himself further, his brain still let him down.
‘Don’t forget that you are lucky to have survived, Cristiano.’
He raised his head and looked at the doctor with an expression of infinite despair. ‘If I can’t race again, I might as well not have.’
Dr Fournier tapped her finger thoughtfully against her compressed lips. ‘When was the last time you had a holiday?’
He shrugged. ‘Relaxing has never really been my thing.’
‘Maybe you should try it. You’ve pushed yourself as far as you possibly can physically, so maybe now it’s time to give yourself a rest. Take some time out to think.’
‘No thanks.’
He had spent his life trying to avoid having time to think. Escaping from introspection had always been one of the driving forces behind everything he did.
Dr Fournier shrugged one cashmere shoulder. ‘It’s the best shot you’ve got of getting your memory back. Since you left hospital you haven’t stopped pushing yourself—almost as if you have to prove to yourself that you’re not just as fit as you were before the accident, but fitter, stronger, better. You’ve done it, Cristiano—congratulations. Physically, you’re in peak condition. However, mentally…’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’ He gave her a glacial smile. ‘You don’t need to remind me about my mental failings.’
‘Needing time to get over a trauma like you’ve had isn’t a failing—and I’m not saying this as your doctor; I’m saying it as your friend. I have a chalet in the Alps, near Courchevel. It’s pretty isolated, but a housekeeper keeps it stocked up with the essentials and the skiing is great.’ She opened the top drawer of her desk and took out a set of keys. They gave a silvery jangle as she held them out to him across the desk, looking at him steadily. ‘It’s yours for as long as you want it.’
And, because he had run out of options, because he was desperate, because it was the only glimmer of hope left on an increasingly dark horizon, Cristiano found himself leaning forward and taking them from her.
‘Go, Cristiano,’ she said gravely. ‘Go soon.’
Chapter Two
‘OMIGOD—you will never guess who’s just arriving…’
Kate jerked her head up, almost stabbing herself with the mascara wand, as Lisa’s shriek of excitement ricocheted off her taut nerves.
‘OK, tell me.’
Lisa, already dressed and ready to go in a skin-tight silver dress that showed off her magnificent figure to perfection, was stationed at the French windows looking out over the front of the hotel to where the Monaco Casino lit up the night like an elegant ocean liner. The guests for the Campano party were already arriving: a steady procession of shiny, sporty, expensive cars pulling up in front of the Casino’s famous Belle Epoque frontage to disgorge their glamorous occupants while Lisa gave an increasingly excited commentary.
‘Oh…no, wait a minute…it isn’t,’ she said now, her voice suddenly flat with disappointment. ‘I thought it was Maresca, but it’s not…Too short…’
In the mirror, Kate’s own eyes stared back at her—wide, and dark with terror as well as with unfamiliar make-up. Just the mention of his name and her hands, already shaking enough to make putting on mascara a very hazardous exercise, were damp and slick with sweat. Why had she ever thought she could actually go through with this?
Letting the curtain drop back into place, Lisa peeled herself away from her vantage point and picked up her mini-bar vodka and tonic. Taking a sip, she almost spat it out again as Kate turned round.
‘Wow—just look at you!’ she squealed, peering at Kate through thick false eyelashes as she came forward. ‘Who the hell would have thought that you’d scrub up like that, Miss Edwards?’ She circled around Kate and came back to stand in front of her, an expression of such astonished admiration on her face that Kate wasn’t sure whether she should be flattered or insulted. ‘The dress is fabulous. Fab. U. Lous. And where have you been hiding that figure?’
‘The dress was Lizzie’s choice,’ Kate muttered, tugging it over her straining cleavage. ‘There’s absolutely no way I would have gone for anything so revealing. You don’t think it’s too much, do you?’
As she asked the question she realised that since Lisa was wearing thigh-skimming silver sequins teamed with vertiginous over-the-knee black patent platform boots, her idea of ‘too much’ might not be completely reliable.
‘Absolutely not.’ Lisa’s eyes skimmed over Kate, taking in every detail of the midnight-blue satin dress, with its plunging halter-neck and gathered pleats held in a diamond clasp nestling between her breasts. She shook her head. ‘You are a dark horse, you know. I always thought there might be hidden depths behind that Plain Jane exterior you present in the office.’
Kate moved away, letting her hair fall over her face as she bent to slip on the impossibly high-heeled and pointy-toed shoes Lizzie had made her buy. ‘Oh, I’m completely not. I’m one of the most boring and straightforward people in the world—seriously.’
Lisa wandered over to the mirror, leaning forward and checking her own cleavage before pouting her glossed lips thoughtfully. ‘I was really surprised when I heard you were coming on this trip, since you don’t even work on the Campano account any more. I suppose it’s because you came out here all those years ago and did that interview with Maresca, isn’t it?’
Kate felt sick. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Now, what do we need—invitation, hotel key, money…?’
‘Apparently there’s going to be poker and roulette,’ Lisa said, her butterfly mind mercifully alighting on a new subject as she sprayed on more perfume. ‘Just like in a James Bond film. I’ve always fancied having a go at all that. What about you—are you going to get down to some serious gambling tonight?’
Kate had to reach out and lean against the edge of the bed for support as a black wave of panic swept over her, catching her off guard.
‘Yes.’
It came out as a kind of odd, breathless gasp, and she had to pretend to be adjusting the heel of her shoe as she doubled up against the pain.
At that moment there was a loud volley of knocks on the door. Lisa checked the time on her phone as she chucked it into her tiny silver clutch bag and crossed the room to open it. ‘That’ll be Ian. I said we’d meet him in the bar at seven-thirty, and that was fifteen minutes ago. He must have come to see what’s keeping us. OK! I’m coming!’ she yelled as the hammering started up again.
‘You go,’ Kate called after her. ‘I’m ready, but I just want to phone and say goodnight to Alexander. Please—you two go ahead. I’ll come over when I’m done.’
‘OK, if you’re sure,’ Lisa said, clearly recoiling from the idea of putting her evening on hold for something as boring as phoning home to speak to a three-year-old. ‘We’ll see you in there. Unless, of course, I’ve been swept off my feet and taken into a dark alcove by Cristiano Maresca before you get there…’
The door slammed behind her. Sinking down onto the bed, Kate listened to her laughter fading as she and Ian walked away down the corridor. She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a shaky breath.
Suddenly it was very quiet.
Since they’d got to Leeds airport at two o’clock that afternoon Lisa had kept up a constant stream of chatter that had almost driven Kate demented, but it had also provided a very useful distraction from the spiralling vortex of her own fears. Now they all came rushing in to fill the silence.
With a shaking hand she picked up her phone, longing to hear Alexander’s voice. Maybe that would remind her what she was doing this for. And stop her from packing her bags and getting in a taxi back to the airport.
Standing in front of the mirror, Cristiano dropped the ends of the silk bow tie for the sixth time and swore viciously.
No matter how many formal awards dinners and black tie sports events he’d attended over the years it had never got any easier. It was as if the ridiculous thing had a mind of its own and was determined to show him up as an impostor—a boy from the back alleys of Naples. The boy in the second-hand school blazer, who couldn’t write a line in an exercise book without smudging the ink or letting the words slide all over the page. The boy who would never amount to anything.
Damn.
Above the upturned white collar of his shirt, a muscle jumped in his freshly shaven cheek as his old friend despair wrapped him in its suffocating embrace. Damn Suki for coming up with the idea of this absurd and completely inappropriate party.
Damn him for going along with it.
Turning away from the mirror, he thrust his hands through hair that was still damp from the shower and exhaled heavily. Pretty much everything he’d achieved in the last twelve years had been as a result of his need to escape his past, but he had always shied away from looking too far into the future. There was no point. His future had always looked dazzlingly assured, so he’d lived in the moment, putting all his energy and his focus into making the most of now.
Death or glory. Those had always seemed to be the potential outcomes for his life. He’d either keep winning until he was ready to stop, or die in a ball of flame. This struggle with demons he couldn’t see, didn’t understand, had never occurred to him as a possibility.
Yanking the tie from round his neck he tossed it onto the bed and walked across the expanse of gleaming wooden floor to the wardrobe—the only other piece of furniture in the huge room. He’d bought the Art Deco villa high in the hills above Monte Carlo six years ago now, but had somehow never got round to furnishing it properly. In the old days before his accident, he had simply been too busy—travelling around the Grand Prix circuits in the summer months, away skiing or scuba diving or training out of season. And since the crash…
Viciously he slid back the wardrobe door and dragged out the battered leather holdall that had accompanied him around the racetracks of the world. Since the crash it had been as if he was waiting, he acknowledged bleakly. Waiting for a thousand bits of jigsaw to fit back together again before he moved on with his life.
Except now it was obvious that it wasn’t going to happen like that, because some of the bits were missing.
Maybe now it’s time to give yourself a rest. Take some time out to think. It’s the best shot you’ve got…
Dr Fournier’s voice echoed inside his head as he pulled clothes from the shelves in the wardrobe, shoving them into the holdall. He was used to packing light and packing quickly, and it took him only a couple of minutes to get together all the things he needed and throw the keys to the chalet on the top. At the first opportunity he was going to get the hell out of the party and drive up to Courchevel.
As he zipped up the bag he allowed himself a twisted smile. For once in his life he was going to do as he was told. Because he intended to beat this memory loss and start winning again.
Whatever it took.
“Night, Mummy.’
‘Goodnight, darling. Sweet dreams…I’ll phone again in the—’
There was a muffled click and then a high-pitched tone that told her that Alexander had hung up already. He’d sounded in great spirits, and although she wasn’t confident he and Ruby would be asleep any time soon, she wasn’t worried about him being miserable either.
That was just her.
She listened to the tone for a few seconds more, unwilling to sever the tenuous connection that had for a few minutes stretched across all the dark miles that separated them. Then with massive effort she pressed the button, tossed her phone into her black velvet evening bag and stood up. Her face in the brightly lit hotel mirror was ghostly pale. Her eyes—by contrast—were enormous and glittering feverishly. Her hair, newly washed, hung loose around her face to her shoulders, kinking horribly because it had dried long before Lisa had finished hogging the hairdryer. Lizzie had shown her how to coil it up and pin it into one of those sexy, wispy styles that other women always seemed so good at, but when Kate had tried earlier her hands had been shaking so much she’d had to give up. Oh, well, it was good to have something to hide behind anyway.
She carefully applied the dark red lipstick Lizzie had made her buy at outrageous expense in the cosmetics hall of Harvey Nichols, and stood back to look at the effect. Oh, God, she had just gone from ghostly to vampire. Dead to undead, she thought, reaching for a tissue and scrubbing it off again. It was no good. Lizzie might have lectured her endlessly on the need to make the most of herself and stand out from the crowd, to maximise the chance of Cristiano Maresca noticing her, but it really wasn’t her.
And last time he’d seen past the terrible prim grey suit and noticed her. No make-up, no cleavage-displaying dress, no killer heels. He’d seen her—the real her—with all her dark fears and anxiety that she spent her whole life trying to hide. And he’d talked to her too, telling her things about himself and his past that had made her heart turn over.
Gesu, Kate, I’ve never…bared my soul like that before.
And that, thought Kate bleakly, pulling open the door and going out into the corridor, was why she had spent the last four years waiting for him. Because when he had told her those things a link had been forged between them that went deeper than the physical. Before she’d met him she’d had so many misconceptions and prejudices about him, and what he did for a living, but he had smashed them all to pieces and let her see the truth.
She got into the lift, trying not to look at her reflection in its mirrored interior in case the longing that was suddenly raging inside her was written all over her face. She mustn’t allow herself to get her hopes up. She had enough to lose tonight without adding her dignity and her composure to the long list.
Alexander, for example.
‘Bonsoir, mademoiselle.’ The young doorman stood aside for her with a flourish, and a blast of icy air made her shiver. ‘Can I get you a taxi?’
‘No, thank you,’ she murmured, looking across the square to where the Casino’s twin turrets pointed upwards at the inky sky. ‘I’m just going…over there.’
‘To the Campano party? Bien, mademoiselle. Enjoy your evening.’
That, thought Kate, going carefully down the steps of the hotel in her high-heeled shoes, was extremely unlikely. But then, she hadn’t come here to enjoy herself. She’d come here for closure.
The square was quieter now. The party inside the Casino had already started, and the photographers Lisa had watched gathering around the entrance earlier, to capture the arrival of celebrities and sports personalities, had dispersed, leaving only a few ambling, curious tourists. Blue lights from the Casino’s entrance bounced off the shiny paintwork of the Bentleys and Ferraris and Lamborghinis that were lined up outside like the forecourt of Alexander’s fantasy garage.
As she picked her way across the wet cobbles, holding her skirt up so it didn’t drag on the ground, she could see through the open doors to rows of marble columns, glowing like gold in the lamplight inside, and hear music—the sexy, high-tempo whine of electric violins.
Oh, God. And now she had to go in there…
It would almost be funny if it weren’t so awful. This wasn’t her world, and she didn’t even want it to be. Much as she grumbled about Hartley Bridge, and the fact that its one shop closed for an hour at lunchtime and sold malt vinegar rather than balsamic, it was where she belonged.
Where she felt safe.
The shivering had turned into a violent trembling that was nothing to do with the cold. High above Monte Carlo, beyond the lights and the noise, the hills were barely distinguishable from the black sky. Somewhere up there was the big empty villa where, on a warm, pine-scented evening in May, her whole life had changed in ways she could never have imagined.
Resolutely she raised her chin. Dominic was right. It was time to take control of things. Things had a habit of happening to her—things out of her control—that served to remind her time and time again of how precarious life was, how fragile and fallible. It was high time she took matters into her own hands for once and faced up to her fears.
Clutching her evening bag in front of her like a shield, she went up the steps and into the gilded and opulent interior.
‘So, what do you think? Do you like it?’
Handing him a glass of champagne, Suki came to stand beside Cristiano at the gallery rail. Above the frantic swell of electric violins he could hear the note of triumph in her voice as she looked down on the scene below.
Like it?
A pulse beat in Cristiano’s temple, out of time with the music. He felt sweat break out on his forehead.
The party was well underway, and the ornate and imposing salon was filling up with guests—some of whom Cristiano knew well from the racing circuit, and others whose faces he knew only from glossy magazines. At the foot of the wide staircase that swept down from the gallery a raised platform had been erected, on which four ravishing beauties with Perspex electric violins prowled and writhed around two cars.
The Campano car that the team would be running during the forthcoming Grand Prix was being unveiled to the public for the first time tonight. A study of design and engineering perfection, its paintwork glittered in the light of the chandeliers like polished emeralds, and its sleek lines were reminiscent of some crouching, predatory beast.
But it was the other one that people had gathered to look at. The obscene lump of distorted metal that had once been a car and had nearly been his coffin.
‘Whether I like it is irrelevant,’ Cristiano said tonelessly, dragging his gaze away from it. ‘Everyone else seems to be fascinated.’
With a hiss of scarlet satin Suki turned, looking at him from under lashes that were too thick and black to be real. ‘They’re glad that you’re back, that’s all,’ she said throatily, reaching up to straighten his collar unnecessarily. ‘You’re a hero. Everyone remembers the accident, but seeing the car like that will bring it home to people how amazing you are to have come back from it.’
Her musky perfume caught in the back of his throat, combining with the despair that lodged there, choking him. Everyone remembered the accident except him. And if Dr Fournier was right that might mean that, no matter how strong he was, it would never come back.
He knocked back a slug of champagne. It had cost Silvio a fortune, but to him it tasted like battery acid.
‘I’m not back yet.’
‘But you will be,’ Suki purred, trailing a scarlet-tipped finger down the silk lapel of his dinner jacket. ‘You were three times World Champion. You just need to get a couple of races—a couple of wins—under your belt. I know it must be hard—’
With a muted sound of disgust Cristiano broke away from her, thrusting both hands through his hair. Apart from Francine Fournier, Suki was the only person who knew about his memory loss, but even she had no idea about the flashbacks and the panic attacks and the palpitations that plagued him when he was driving.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he said bitterly.
Below them Silvio was moving swiftly from group to group, beaming as he shook hands with the men and kissed the women, most of whom towered above him in high heels. In a moment he would make a speech, and then after that the guests would disperse into the adjoining salons and take their places at the gaming tables to play poker and roulette. Suki’s theme for the evening had been decided apparently without irony, and the guests were looking forward to celebrating Cristiano’s return by gambling with Campano money.
For him, the stakes were much higher.
‘I’m here for you—you know that,’ Suki said in a low voice. ‘If there’s anything—’
‘The twenty-four hours before the crash,’ he interrupted through tightly gritted teeth. ‘Tell me again. What happened?’
She stiffened slightly, and suddenly her perfectly made-up face was as hard and expressionless as a Venetian mask. ‘I’ve told you,’ she said carefully. ‘There’s nothing more.’
Cristiano’s gaze was inexorably pulled back to the shredded metal and blackened paintwork of the ruined car.
‘Again,’ he said with lethal softness.
He heard her give the merest hint of an impatient sigh. ‘You qualified in pole position. Some girl had come over from Clearspring Water to interview you and I took her to the press suite to wait for you while you went back to have a shower and rest.’ Her tone was nonchalant, almost as if the events of that lost evening were completely inconsequential. ‘One of Silvio’s friends was having a party on a yacht, so most of us had left the Campano building by six. I’m guessing that you must have finished your interview with the Clearspring girl by seven and gone home soon afterwards.’
‘What about the next morning?’
Suki picked an imaginary bit of lint from the front of her very tight red satin dress. ‘Normal race day routine. You arrived at the track—’
‘According to the newspapers I missed the drivers’ parade.’
‘Maybe you were a bit late.’ Suki shrugged. ‘Four years is a long time. I can’t remember exactly what happened that day—none of it seemed to matter compared to what came afterwards.’
The throbbing in his head intensified. The music was building to a crescendo, the violinists thrusting their hips and their bows more and more feverishly as the guests kept coming. Cristiano’s gaze flickered restlessly over all of them, as if he was looking for someone in particular.
‘Was I alone?’
‘When you arrived?’ she said casually. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t you have been?’
He gave an icy smile. ‘Because the night before a race I usually wasn’t.’
It seemed like another lifetime. When he had driven fast and won races and seduced women all with the same effortless arrogance.
‘Like I said, I was at the party. I didn’t see you leave.’
‘This girl from Clearspring…’
His voice trailed off and his hand tightened on the railing as his restless gaze snagged on something below. Someone. He snapped it back, raking his eyes over the crowd again, trying to locate whatever it was that had caused that sensation like a flashbulb going off inside his head.
Suki gave a dismissive laugh. ‘Oh, please. She wasn’t your type at all,’ she said with an edge of scorn. ‘She turned up wearing some kind of librarian-style grey suit—can you imagine? At Monaco? In May? I’m talking seriously plain and boring—the kind of girl who thinks the best fun you can have in bed is reading a book…’
Cristiano had stopped listening.
He was watching the girl in a dress of clinging blue satin who had just walked through the door and was drifting, like the rest of the guests, towards the stage. The thing was, he wasn’t sure why he was watching her.
Another flashbulb exploded inside his head.
In a roomful of some of the most beautiful women in the world she should have been invisible, but suddenly it was impossible to look at anyone else. She was slight, slender, though the cut of the dress accentuated breasts that looked surprisingly full and lush, and her dark blonde hair was loose and unadorned, curling up slightly at the ends where it skimmed her bare shoulders. There was something very separate about the upright way she held herself, as if she were battling the temptation to turn and run. Her eyes were downcast, her face pale and completely expressionless.
‘Who’s that?’
His voice sounded as if he’d swallowed a razorblade. Suki glanced at him in surprise, following his gaze. ‘I take it you don’t mean the woman in the red Dolce & Gabbana? Because if you don’t know who she is then—’
‘Blue dress.’
‘Oh.’ Suki made the single syllable bristle with disdain. ‘I have no idea—which means she’s probably nobody. The girlfriend of one of the minor mechanics or geeky technicians. She looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t think where I’ve seen her before.’
Cristiano didn’t answer. The girl was directly below them now, so that he could see the satin sheen of her bare back and the raised bumps of her spine.
This time his head felt as if it had been split in two by forked lightning. It was as if the violinists were dragging their bows backwards and forwards over his taut nerves as their music swooped and screamed towards its pulsing climax. He was distantly aware of pain shooting up the tendons in his forearms, and realised he was gripping the railing so hard that his fingers were numb, as if he was trying to stop himself vaulting over it to get to the girl in the blue dress.
She had come to a standstill a little distance away from the platform where the violinists still tossed their hair and swayed between the two cars. Her back was towards him and Cristiano felt his body tightening, hardening, as his eyes travelled down its bare length. Her skin was the colour of old ivory.
And then suddenly she turned, ducking her head and slipping through the crowd that had gathered behind her. Everyone was too preoccupied with watching the violinists and looking at the wrecked car to take any notice of her as she passed.
Except him.
Her hair fell forward over her face, but just as she passed beneath the gallery where he stood she pushed it back, and he saw that the expression on her face was one of naked anguish.
He didn’t think. He didn’t hesitate. Thrusting the barely touched glass of champagne back at Suki, he was moving towards the staircase before she could open her mouth.
‘Cristiano!’ Her voice was high with surprise and indignation. ‘Cristiano—where are—?’
But he had already gone.
Chapter Three
THE car was like some kind of gruesome exhibit from her darkest nightmare. Coming across it like that—incongruously displayed in the opulence of the Casino’s grand salon like some kind of obscene trophy—made Kate feel faint with horror.
She had to get away. People were pressing around her, trying to get closer to look at the lump of twisted metal, their avid faces blurring into one as Kate struggled to push past. The music was loud enough to make the hot air pulse, and the room seemed to tilt and spin so that she couldn’t remember which door she’d come through.
Looking around wildly, she stifled a whimper of panic. Whichever way she turned she seemed to be hemmed in by people—swigging champagne, tossing manes of glossy hair, throwing back their heads and laughing—until she felt as if she was in some grotesque circus. Then miraculously, ahead of her, she saw the tall double doors that led to the lobby. Ducking her head, she gathered up the slippery fall of her skirt and broke into a half-run.
The lobby was empty now, and the cool air from outside fanned across her burning cheeks. The heels of her torturous shoes rang on the marble floor as she headed for the exit, hoping that Lisa or Ian hadn’t seen her and might follow and try to persuade her to come back again.
‘Wait.’
The word was low and fierce. Oh, God, she was even hearing voices now. Echoes from the past. Just as she did so often in her dreams. Any moment now she’d wake up and find herself staring at the ceiling of her cramped bedroom back in Hartley Bridge. Please God—please let her wake up before the part where she had to watch the car he was driving hit the barrier. Turn over. Burst into flames…
‘Wait!’
In dreams things happen in slow motion, and that was how it was then. Strong fingers closed around her wrist and she was being pulled back, a powerful wave of shock jolting through her body and her making her head whip round.
Her breath stopped.
He was inches away from her, his face darker, harder, leaner and even more terrifyingly perfect than she remembered. But it was his eyes that made her poor battered heart turn over as they burned into hers with laser-like intensity.
Her lips parted to speak but no sound came out.
And then…
And then his mouth was on hers, his fingers biting into her shoulders as he gripped her, and kissed her, and she kissed him back with all the pain and loneliness and desperate longing of the last four years. Showers of incredulous joy burst inside her head and spread through her whole body. She felt weak with relief, with joy, as their mouths devoured each other, brutal and ruthless, their tongues probing and fighting, their teeth clashing.
Distantly she was aware of the music coming to a thundering climax, and the eruption of applause—which suddenly got louder as the door behind them opened.
‘Cristiano?’
The voice was sharp and impatient, and Cristiano was lifting his head, pulling away from her, and the real world was rushing back in, in a blur of bright light and noise. He let go of her shoulders abruptly.
Kate staggered backwards, her hands flying to her mouth, which pulsed and throbbed, covering the incredulous smile that she couldn’t suppress. A beautiful and exotic-looking girl she remembered from Monaco as Cristiano’s PA, and whom she had seen coming and going from the hospital, was standing in the doorway. Her slanting, cat-like eyes flickered over Kate before going back to Cristiano.
‘Silvio is about to make his speech.’
‘Va bene,’ he said tersely. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’
The girl stared at him for a second, as if she wanted to say more, but then she turned and disappeared with a disdainful flick of her black shiny hair. The noise from the crowded room was shut off suddenly as the door closed behind her.
Kate was trembling violently with shock in the aftermath of that kiss, and with a sort of wild, excited anticipation, unable to take in the fact that the moment she’d waited for all these years was finally here.
He was here.
Her gaze travelled wonderingly over him, as if trying to make her dazzled mind believe what she was seeing. She had only ever seen him in racing overalls or jeans and a T-shirt before, but the black, perfectly tailored dinner jacket added a whole new dimension of sexiness to his racing driver’s physique, making his shoulders look wider and stronger, his hips narrower. Or maybe they were narrower, she thought with a wrench of desire and compassion. He had lost weight since the accident. The realisation made her want to wrap her arms around him and…
Slowly he turned back to face her. There was a curious stillness about him. In the golden light of the chandeliers his face looked unusually pale.
‘Mi dispiace. I shouldn’t have done that.’
His voice was toneless. Kate felt a pinprick of icy fear at the base of her spine. She shook her head, twisting her hands together to stop herself from reaching out to him.
‘It’s OK.’
He smiled—a chilling echo of the lazy, sexy, delicious smile she remembered so well.
‘Not really. I’m afraid I mistook you for someone else. I apologise…’
The fear blossomed and spread through her, as if it was being injected into her veins. She felt her own smile freeze on her face—a rictus grin of horror. Her whole body suddenly seemed to be made of stone, and it was all she could do to turn her face away so he wouldn’t see the desolation and utter humiliation there.
‘Kate. It’s Kate.’
Her voice was a cracked whisper. She had to leave. Now. Before everything she had ever imagined in her worst-case scenario paled into insignificance.
He nodded curtly, taking a step backwards in the direction of the doors, giving her the benefit of his heartbreaking, ironic half-smile. ‘Kate. Forgive me for my…impulsiveness. It was a pleasure to meet you.’
It felt as if she’d been punched hard in the stomach. She wanted to double up and gasp for air. It had been a mistake. She’d thought he’d recognised her. Remembered her. But it had been…a mistake.
He turned, his shoulders very rigid as he walked away. In a second he would open the door and go back into the crowded room and she would be alone. The moment would have passed.
‘We—we’ve…met before, actually. I’m from Clearspring Water. I interviewed you…once.’
Oh, God. She sounded desperate. Unbalanced. Like some disturbed, obsessed fan. She wouldn’t blame him if he alerted Security now. So to save herself the humiliation of being escorted off the premises, she gathered up her skirt and backed off a couple of steps.
He stopped.
For a moment he was absolutely still, as if turned to stone. Kate had to remind herself to keep breathing. Slowly, stiffly, he turned back to face her.
‘Kate Edwards.’ His voice was soft, his tone completely neutral, but his face looked as if it had been carved from ice. ‘You interviewed me the night before the Monaco Grand Prix four years ago.’
‘Yes.’
So he knew. He knew who she was and yet he stood there, looking at her across the cavernous space with eyes that glittered with some emotion she couldn’t read, but which certainly wasn’t love. Or happiness, or excitement, or relief—or any of the other things she had felt when she saw him again. Her heart was beating very hard, very fast, shaking her whole body and pounding in her head as she began to back towards the door.
‘I’m glad you’re well again. I’m glad you’re back—i-if that’s what you want…’ Her skirt twisted around her legs, slowing her down. She managed a smile, though it felt as if her face might crack. ‘It was nice to see you again.’
She was almost at the door. She could feel the cold night air at her back, and she turned round and covered the remaining few feet as quickly as she could in her agonising high heels. She didn’t slow down until she had reached the door of the Hotel de Paris opposite.
It was only then that she remembered the letter in her evening bag.
Silvio’s speech was mercifully short. As the crowd clapped and cheered, Cristiano made his way round the back of the platform to where Suki stood.
‘I slept with her, didn’t I?’
‘Who?’
Suki looked up at him with deliberately blank eyes. Cristiano had to grit his teeth, steadying himself against the feeling of panic that was closing in on him. The whole evening had taken on a kind of nightmarish quality, so that he wasn’t sure what was real any more.
‘Kate Edwards,’ he rasped. ‘From Clearspring Water. I slept with her the night before the crash. Why didn’t you tell me?’
Suki’s blank gaze slid away again and she shrugged. ‘What does it matter? You slept with everyone.’
Cristiano jerked backwards, raising his hand so that for a moment Suki thought he was going to hit her. He thrust it into his hair and swore, and then swung round and began to push his way through the crowd.
Except me, she wanted to scream after him, watching his massive shoulders as he walked away, and the way people moved aside to let him through. Everyone except me.
Adrenaline burned through Cristiano’s veins as he ran down the Casino steps. The cool air, with its whisper of pine and the sea, felt good—tasted better than the champagne he’d been avoiding all evening—and out in the street-lit darkness the pounding inside his head was less intense. He knew that Silvio would be looking for him now, wanting him to stand in front of the two cars on the platform while the flashbulbs of hundreds of press photographers exploded all around, but he didn’t care.
He didn’t care about anything except finding Kate Edwards.
She had gone into the Hotel a Paris when she’d run out of here. Standing in the middle of the marble floor, still reeling from the realisation of who she was, he had watched her crossing the square, dodging in front of a car in her haste to get away.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/india-grey/her-last-night-of-innocence-39869936/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.