She Who Dares

by Jane O'Reilly

  And she needed to hear them. Needed that reassurance, would need it a million times a day, every day. She couldn’t survive without it. And if Sebastian couldn’t give that to her…

  Her heart started to pound fast, too fast, and Nic knew she needed to calm down. She needed to find some peace, needed to bring herself back to the ground. Without thinking her legs took her into the bathroom and over to the sink.

  The razor Sebastian had used to shave that morning sat on the side of the sink, tiny little shreds of dark stubble still clinging to the edge. She picked it up, turned on the tap, rinsed it off. Then she removed the handle and snapped the plastic, exposing the cutthroat gleam of the blade.

  Nic stared down at the blade for a very, very long time. Bile ran into the back of her throat and her hand trembled. She lifted her chin and stared at her reflection in the mirror, gripping the edge of the sink, her stomach in knots. She didn’t recognise the woman who looked back. Gone was the scared, awkward teenager. Lifting one hand, she touched her face. It was almost as if she was seeing herself for the first time. Dark eyes, sharp brows, good skin. It wasn’t the face of a girl that looked back, but the face of an adult woman who felt the fear and did what she had to do anyway.

  The blade clattered into the bottom of the sink. It wasn’t self-loathing or disgust or the fear of being caught that had stopped her, not this time. This time it was her choice.

  Nic walked out of the bathroom, blood thundering in her ears. She found a pad and pen sitting on the table next to the leather sofa where the two of them had had loud, shameless sex. She used them. The note was short because it was simply too difficult to put everything she wanted to say into words. Sebastian had changed her and she would be eternally grateful to him for that.

  But she couldn’t be with him. It was too painful and too hard, and her insecurities were rooted too deep. She’d carried them for too long. What sort of a life would they have together if every time he talked to another woman she fell apart? And what if, one day, those insecurities got too much? She’d seen what it was like to have a choice and she was never, ever going to go back to being the woman who didn’t have that.

  It only took a few minutes to gather her things and use Sebastian’s laptop to book herself a flight home. One final glance round the room, one of Sebastian’s t-shirts tucked into her overnight bag, and Nic closed the door on all that had been.

  And all that could never be.

  The radio crackled in his ear, and Sebastian switched his attention to it. Debris on the track at turn four. He’d have to be careful.

  He would be.

  All that mattered was getting to the end of the race first and he’d surrender that victory to no-one. For nothing. He had to prove that he was whole, that the crash had been nothing more than a blip in a hugely successful career, that it hadn’t broken him. That he was still Sebastian Prince in every way that counted. The Sebastian Prince who meant something. And then he was going to get Nic back into bed and keep her there until she told him she loved him again. He was steadily working up the courage to say those words back to her, words he’d never said to anyone. Not even to his parents when he’d been a kid, desperate for their attention. They weren’t words used in his life.

  But they would be from now on.

  Sebastian flung the car round the next corner, jostled for position, took it ruthlessly. Flat out his car didn’t have the greatest speed of all those on the track, but he had the edge on the other drivers in terms of sheer nerve. He took chances no-one else would. Pushed the car when other drivers let fear slow them down. The corners counted down. Ten remaining. Five. Two.

  He wondered if Nic was watching, if she was watching on the monitors or out in the crowds somewhere or if she was one of those spectators who couldn’t bear to look. The last corner came into view. Thirty seconds and this would all be over. Thirty seconds and he’d prove to everyone present that he was still the best driver on the circuit. He’d hear the applause, the cheers. He’d have the confirmation he needed.

  The corner rushed towards him, a tight almost ninety-degree turn, with a sharp drop waiting to swallow the car if he got it wrong. His co-driver barked an instruction. Turn. Brake. Third. Turn. Sebastian tightened his grip on the wheel, focussed on the line that would take them into that final bend and spit him out on the right side of it. He paddled the gears, toed the accelerator, the roar of the crowd mixing with the shout of the engine and making something potent, something wonderful.

  By his reckoning he was level-pegging with his nearest rival, time wise. His co-driver yelled at him to turn, but Sebastian ignored it. Cut the corner as close as possible, and he’d have the edge. A few feet more, just a few. Blood thundered in his ears as he tightened reflexes that were already lightning quick, instinct telling him to hold off a second longer.

  And then an image flashed into Sebastian’s mind. His car barrelling off the track, the world turned upside down and right way up again. Nic, gorgeous in red leather boots and attitude. Nic, crying in the shower as he made love to her. Nic, telling him she loved him, waiting for him to say the words back, and not hearing them.

  There was winning. And then there was suicide. The crash hadn’t changed him because he’d refused to let it. But Nic had. Maybe it was time to make a different choice. Maybe the price of winning was just too high, this time. And maybe some things were too precious to lose. All his senses flicked on to high alert and it was as if he could feel every single nerve in his body fire. He’d never felt more alive, more aware of himself and the world around him.

  He’d never felt more certain.

  The next few seconds passed in slow motion. A hard left, full lock. The car seemed to fly, the edge of the ravine shooting closer, every detail of the gravel and the rock magnified a thousand times. Was this it? Was he too late?

  Then the rear end of the car swung out. It was almost as if an invisible hand had lifted the car and placed it back on the track, facing in the right direction. Sebastian was over the line a heartbeat later. The radio went wild, stayed wild as he coasted past the spectators, seeing the flags and banners up in the crowd out of the corner of his eye as all the while he scanned the crowd for Nic.

  A slick left and he was in the parking area. He stuck the nose of the car in the tent that acted as a temporary garage, killed the engine, pushed himself out and discarded his helmet. The chief mechanic wrapped him in a bear hug but Sebastian shook him off. ‘Where is she?’

  The chief mechanic released his grip, slapped him on the back. ‘Well done, man, well done. That last corner…geez. You gave us all a heart attack.’

  Sebastian didn’t have the time or the patience for this. ‘Where’s Nic?’

  ‘Dunno,’ the man said. ‘She disappeared about halfway through. I’m sure she’ll be here in a minute.’

  But a minute later there was still no sign of her and the alarm bells weren’t just ringing in Sebastian’s head, they were all out screaming. He pushed aside the team boss and the journalist, not giving a damn that he was supposed to be giving interviews and smiling so the sponsors would get value for money.

  He checked the other garages, the car park, the offices. No sign. His slide from calm into panic started in earnest when one of the promo girls told him she had seen Nic heading in the direction of the hotel. Sebastian headed there at a run, the sweat on his body turning cold as he hammered on the door of the suite and realised that he’d given his passkey to Nic. More time wasted as he located a chambermaid and got her to let him in.

  The suite was empty. Tidy. Clean sheets on the bed, all traces of Nic gone, his slide into panic was complete. His throat closed up when he saw the little piece of thick white paper she’d left on top of the perfectly made bed. Picking it up, Sebastian tried to focus on the words, but his brain wouldn’t function. He headed into the bathroom, needing to splash some water on his face. Water gushed out of the tap when he flicked it on and spun the lever round to cold.

  Something rattled in the
sink.

  He lowered his gaze and his hand, intending to move whatever it was out of the way.

  When he saw what it was, he froze. And he had never, ever been more terrified in his life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lostwithiel looked dull and cold after the warmth and colour of Valencia but Nic refused to notice as she climbed out of the taxi that had brought her back from the airport in Newquay. It was home and that was all that mattered. She knew who she was here, what was expected of her. She could stay here and survive. She unlocked the garage, went up to her flat and debated calling Ella but decided that 4 am was probably a little early. Plus she wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to say, yet.

  The fridge was empty. So was the fruit bowl, the biscuit tin, and her heart. Nic settled herself down on the sofa but all she could think about was Sebastian in this very seat, flicking through a car magazine as strangers messed with her hair. If she closed her eyes, she imagined that she could smell him. No, she thought to herself. No. I will not sit here and do this.

  So instead she grabbed her car keys and took the Ferrari out. She drove until the petrol tank flashed low, stopped at a garage and refilled it, chatted pointlessly with the man behind the counter about her car and refused to think about what her life was going to be like without Sebastian in it. All she had to do was fill the minutes. Get through the next one, and the next one. She was strong enough to do that now even though there were memories everywhere, and the pain was a constant, incredible ache inside her and she missed him more than she could ever have believed possible. How could she feel so lonely, so empty, when she’d been away from him for less than a day?

  She thanked the man behind the counter, left the garage and lowered herself back in to the car. She didn’t want to go home, not yet, but neither could she burn up the world’s oil supply trying to avoid it, so instead she swung back out on to the road and went in search of a supermarket. It was time to stop hiding and start living her life the way she wanted to live it.

  And that meant food in the fridge and customers in the garage, for starters. Maybe at the next motor show, she’d book a stand and take a couple of her cars along. Maybe she could even start offering car maintenance classes for women. She couldn’t be the only one with two X chromosomes who was interested in engines.

  But for now she just needed to learn how to put one foot in front of the other, without Sebastian there to hold her up.

  Cupping his hands round his face, Sebastian pressed close to the window of the showroom, knowing she wasn’t in there but unable to stop looking. The lights were off, the whole place in silence, and if she was in her flat she wasn’t answering the door. He did his damndest not to panic, not to think about what she might have done to herself, to have confidence in her strength. Because she had plenty of it. Possibly more than anyone he’d ever met, and certainly far more than he did.

  He admired her, respected her, fancied her like mad and loved her beyond reason, and hated himself for being too scared to tell her all of the above and more. For telling himself that he could prove it all with sex, that he didn’t need to say the words when the truth of it was that he’d been too bloody scared to say them. And now he might have blown it.

  The main priority here had to be making sure she was okay. He had no right to ask more of her than that. He turned away from the window, was contemplating calling the fire brigade and getting them to break down the flat door when he noticed that the shops on the other side of the street were starting to open.

  These people knew Nic. They might know where she was. Sebastian slipped one hand into his back pocket, felt the soft crumple of the note that she’d left for him. If she came back, he’d see her. There was nothing to lose by asking around.

  His first stop was the newsagent’s, where he bought a couple of bags of sweets, listened to the paperboy argue over how many papers were in his round and found out that although the man behind the counter hadn’t seen Nic, she’d done a fantastic job when his four-by-four had packed up on Christmas Day.

  Next was the hairdresser’s. Sebastian hesitated outside. When he’d first seen her, Nic had been in here, doing something weird to her hair. To his mind that meant the women in here might know something. Women talked, right? Ripping open one of the bags, he popped a couple of jelly babies into his mouth, then pushed open the door and went inside.

  ‘Trim, sir?’ A small blonde approached him with an ugly sheet of fabric, and before Sebastian could blink he found himself being wrapped up in it and ushered towards a black swivel chair. One look in the mirror told him he was way beyond needing a haircut, so he chose not to argue as the blonde sprayed his hair with water, picked up a comb and started to snip.

  He refused the offer of coffee, then thought better of it. From his position by the window, he could see the garage perfectly. If Nic turned up he’d see her straight away, and anything was better than pacing the street, with nothing but crazy thoughts to keep him company. At least this way he was distracted. Wet strands of hair clung to the back of his neck and scattered on the floor around him, the press of fingers against his forehead every time he stole a look out of the window a constant irritation. He was on the verge of telling the girl to forget it when he heard it.

  The low, sexy rumble of a powerful engine. An engine he knew intimately. Sebastian shot out of the chair and was half way across the street as the bright red car rolled to a stop on the forecourt.

  He sprinted to the driver’s door, flung it open, yanked her out. ‘Are you alright? Just tell me you’re alright.’ His hands went to her waist, tugged her t-shirt free, started fiddling with the fastening on her shorts.

  ‘Sebastian Prince, stop that right now!’ Her voice was high, shocked, but he didn’t care. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t. Not until he saw every inch of skin and knew that it was unharmed. And if that meant the whole street saw her naked, so be it.

  She grabbed his wrist. ‘What are you doing?’

  He yanked his hand free, silenced her with a look. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’ His hands shook, worse than useless. ‘Dammit Nic, answer the question!’

  She stepped back and lifted her t-shirt, exposing the patch of skin where she’d once raged war on her body. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she said quietly. ‘I promise you.’

  Sebastian pulled his hands away from her clothes, set his palms to her cheeks then lowered his head and kissed her, over and over until she put her hands on his hips and gave up fighting.

  He rested his forehead against hers. ‘God, Nic, I love you so much. You scared me half to death. Don’t ever do that to me again.’

  ‘I…’ she said, and then she faltered. And then she was kissing him again, and it didn’t matter. ‘Tell me that again.’ The words came in between touches of her mouth to his, possessive, hungry touches that had more than a little desperation in them. He liked her desperate.

  ‘I love you.’ The words came out roughly, painfully, but they felt and sounded right. ‘I thought…I shouldn’t have raced. You needed me, and that should have been more important.’

  She buried her face in his neck, hiding her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have been so damn needy,’ she muttered. ‘It’s pathetic. I’m a grown woman, for goodness sake. I just…I’m so insecure, Sebastian, and I hate myself for it, but I don’t know how to get past it. I don’t know if we can get past it. Racing is your job. It’s your life. I’ve no right to stand in the way of that. I won’t stand in the way of it.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Sebastian set his fingers to her chin, forced her to meet his gaze. ‘Do you want to know why winning is so important to me? Why I nearly killed myself for it?’

  Her dark eyes went huge, and she nodded her head, the smallest of movements.

  ‘People love me when I win. My parents especially love me when I win.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn whether you win or not,’ she said hotly, but Sebastian stopped her, first with his mouth, then with his fingers.

  ‘I know that,’ he sa
id. ‘But it’s hard for me to accept it, Nic. No-one has ever loved me like this before. I’m a little scared of it, to be honest. I raced because I wanted to win. For you. I was going to stand on the podium and dedicate the trophy to you, and then you would know.’

  ‘You don’t need to win for me, Sebastian. You’ve got nothing to prove. Winning is amazing, of course it is, but I wouldn’t stop loving you if you never won again. I don’t care. I only want you. Just you.’

  ‘And I only want you,’ he said. ‘You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, Nic. You’re not afraid of anything.’

  ‘I’m afraid of everything,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid of this. I’m afraid of myself, and what I’m capable of.’

  Sebastian caught her mouth with his. ‘You never have to be afraid with me,’ he said. ‘I know what scares you, princess, and I won’t let it happen. You have my word on that.’

  ‘And I won’t let you push that limit either, Sebastian. You don’t get to die on a racetrack. I won’t allow it. You know that, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, holding her tightly against him, a painful smile curving his mouth. Emotion swelled in his chest, until he felt like he might break apart with the force of it. ‘That’s exactly why we’re so perfect for each other.’

  They were also outside, fully clothed, and in full view of the rest of the street, three things which Sebastian found himself suddenly unable to accept. He scooped her up and carried her round the side of the building, loving the way she felt in his arms. His. ‘Open the door,’ he ordered her.

  A brow went up, but she did as she was told, twisting the key in the lock and pushing the door open, then disabling the alarm with trembling fingers. Fingers that would soon be on his body. A shiver moved its way down his spine, a feeling of anticipation, hot and thrilling, and of something more. Because there was more. There had to be. ‘Go to the office,’ he said. ‘Take all your clothes off, sit on the desk and wait for me.’