by Sarah Morgan
His rather brutal earlier thoughts on the subject had been that she could entertain herself, and he’d get away as soon as he could.
But the guys would be bringing their wives. Her remark—I’m not a toy for you to play with—nudged him.
The problem was if he took Lorelei she’d be privy to his story before it broke in the press. He tried to picture her as a media leak but all he could see were her sleepy, sexy eyes when she’d climbed on top of him in the early hours of this morning and taken him almost shyly into her slippery hot body. Those little cries of completion as she’d reached her peak had made him feel like a god, and how sweetly she’d curled in his arms afterwards and fallen asleep, still holding on to him.
He groaned in frustration and ran a hand through his thick hair.
‘We’re meeting some friends of mine for dinner at eight,’ he said gruffly. ‘I had some clothes sent up for you. I guess you’ll find them in the wardrobe.’
She turned and smiled at him. ‘Merci beaucoup, that’s very good of you.’
He almost laughed. This she didn’t fight him on.
Except she’d been fighting him ever since she’d climbed out of his bed.
He didn’t understand her.
He didn’t understand himself when he was around her. When he’d put her in Blue 16 on the track he’d only been thinking about a night, but this morning all he’d been thinking about was how soon they could be together again. He came up behind her at the glass doors leading onto the deck.
Today had been a long one for her. Even now he could see the faint mauve shadows under her eyes, a certainty fragility hovering over her. It was possibly the wisest course to leave her here. To go to dinner with the Eagle reps and give Lorelei some space. But it wasn’t just about giving her space, he acknowledged. He cared about her feelings.
Frankly, he didn’t want to make things any harder for her.
‘Nash, the ocean is right on the doorstep!’
‘It’s a matter of perspective. There’s a good twenty feet between the foundations and the surf, and this stretch of water is effectively a lagoon. It won’t rise.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, looking up at him with an open face, and he smiled a little because she clearly cared nothing for the logistics and everything for the magic.
And wasn’t that how she seemed to live her life?
He couldn’t resist stroking her silken hair. Everything about her was touchable and soft and...yeah, he wanted to know her better.
But she wasn’t an ingénue, and he wasn’t a man looking for dependants. This was about her being a reward before he hit lockdown for training and him being her man of the moment. If he kept it that way this should work out for both of them.
If there was something beguiling about Lorelei’s smile as she looked up at him it was to do with the tropical light and the promise of the night ahead. So he decided to follow her lead for once and just accept the magic.
‘Yeah, it is beautiful,’ he responded a little huskily, and framed her face with one hand. At last she opened up enough to let him kiss her. ‘Second only to you.’
He tasted her—the softness of her lips, the sweetness of her breath—and the magic happened all over again. He knew he’d be taking her to dinner.
* * *
‘So I’m to be your sex doll?’
Nash schooled his expression into something neutral as Lorelei emerged from the master bedroom, a tiny scrap of lace nothing dangling from her little finger.
He’d rung his housekeeper here at the bungalow and told her to organise some clothes through several boutiques at the resort, giving a vague approximation of size and stressing sexy. The helpful women at the boutiques had clearly interpreted this as less being more. He wasn’t complaining.
Lorelei stood in the doorway looking unimpressed, although he did detect a tiny quiver about her mouth that told him she was trying not to laugh.
She looked sensational in an ankle-length orange pleated silk chiffon dress, embroidered with tiny crystals at its plunging neckline. It was the neckline that had his attention. His mouth was suddenly dry.
Belatedly he noticed she had swept her hair up into one of those sophisticated knots that took lesser women hours, and wore delicate crystal earrings. The juxtaposition between the ice goddess standing before him, her short sharp nose in the air and the little bit of erotica hooked over her finger finally dragged his eyes away from her braless breasts.
‘You can be whatever you want to be,’ he corrected, coming towards her. ‘You could try being yourself.’
Lorelei’s lips parted slightly.
‘I am being myself.’
He plucked the bit of lace from her hand. ‘Then there’s no problem. I’ve seen your lingerie, Lorelei. You wear a great deal less than this.’
‘Currently I’m not wearing any, but I would have preferred the choice.’
Nash’s mind went blank.
‘You look very smart,’ she said with an arch lift of her brows.
Endeavouring to get himself under control, he rasped, ‘It’s the tailoring.’
A little smile sat at the corner of her mouth, as if she was very well aware of something else. ‘Shall we go?’
* * *
The restaurant was open-air, on the beach, and the rhythm of local Sega music thrummed as a backdrop. Lorelei sipped her iced water, too nervous to risk a glass of champagne.
On the charity circuit she was always working to get people to like her, to respond to her, to open their chequebooks. Tonight she wasn’t sure of the rules.
The large table was peopled with several couples: various identities from the motor-racing world, and one retired driver, Marco Delarosa, so famous even Lorelei recognised his face instantly.
This was Nash’s world, both corporate and competitive, with the glamorous edge provided by sport. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but amidst the thumping testosterone-fuelled talk about commercial deals and television rights she became conscious that Nash was talking about racing again.
This was confirmed when Nicolette Delarosa leaned over and murmured, girl to girl, ‘We need to form our own team—at least then we might be a viable part of this conversation.’
A team.
One by one the pieces fell into place.
He was staging a comeback.
With Eagle.
This was why he was so media-shy. This was why he’d cancelled their date. Yet here she was, at this table, privy to the big secret.
She couldn’t understand why, but Lorelei felt a frisson of unease.
Seeking reassurance, she flashed her gaze up to Nash beside her. His body language was relaxed—shoulders loose, open. He was fully himself because he was among friends. This was nothing like what she had built up in her mind. He wasn’t treating her like a rich man’s arm candy, as she had feared, those were her own insecurities.
It was clear in this company that when Nash was private it was because he needed to be—monosyllabic, as Simone called it, because everything he said publicly was weighed and measured. With his friends he was this relaxed and good-humoured man.
His thick black lashes were screening the full impact of his eyes, but although he was listening to Delarosa she knew his attention was on her. Had been on her all evening.
As if sensing the shift in her thoughts he lifted his lashes and there were his intense blue eyes. Lorelei found her pulse was fluttering wildly out of control. He was looking at her as if she was naked under him in bed.
Mon Dieu, other people would see...they would know...
The hum of conversation died away and there was only an incredible stillness. It seemed to happen between them again and again—his eyes and her heartbeat and that elemental force that shook her when she was in his arms. Only his
arms. Only him.
What was going on? She couldn’t fall so far and so fast for this man.
Almost to rip herself free from the spell he’d cast, she reminded herself that Nash was a public figure because of his sport, and he was about to enter that arena again. Did she really want to be the woman on his arm? To face that sort of intrusion into her personal life?
‘Lorelei St James,’ said one of the women, her voice a little too loud. ‘I knew that name was familiar.’
All of a sudden her musings ground to a halt. In that instant she felt Nash’s hand close over hers under the table.
‘Pardon?’
‘It has to be over a decade ago now, but I remember seeing you at the World Equestrian Games.’
Lorelei released a hurried breath. ‘Ah, oui—many years ago.’
‘I jump myself. My family breed Arabians.’
She felt Nash’s hand turning hers over, his fingers finding those calluses on her palm. All of a sudden she felt horribly exposed, and she didn’t quite know why, but to pull her hand away would be the first step to getting up and walking out, and she was done with that sort of reactive behaviour. It didn’t serve her. So she mastered her nerves and continued to smile at the woman. To answer questions. To discuss the relative merits of each breed.
Couples were dancing to an old Cole Porter tune outside, and Nash suddenly pushed back his chair, interrupting the woman’s flow. He got up, offered Lorelei his hand.
‘What a brilliant idea,’ said another of the women.
Lorelei followed him out, and the moment she was in his arms he caught one of her hands and turned it palm-side up. She didn’t want to struggle to free herself so she let him.
He rubbed his thumb over the calluses.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about these?’
He didn’t sound accusing, just genuinely surprised.
‘You never asked.’
‘You’re right. I haven’t asked. But I’m asking now.’
She tugged her hand away. He let her.
‘They bother you? The calluses?’
‘They’re not very feminine,’ she said tightly.
‘I disagree.’ He put his hands around her waist, drew her close. ‘You’ve got capable hands.’
Lorelei leaned in against him. ‘They used to be my gift,’ she said unthinkingly, seduced by the sudden proximity of his size and strength.
‘Your gift?’ he prompted
‘I evented. Rode horses in dressage and show trials. I was quite good.’
‘How good?’
‘Good enough.’ She felt slightly awkward. ‘International standard.’
Nash stopped swaying her in his arms. He was looking down at her as if she’d said she once had two heads.
‘I’ve surprised you,’ she said, a little more crisply.
‘You’ve impressed me,’ he said slowly. ‘But you said you rode, in the past tense. Why did you give it up?’
‘I had an accident. It’s made any sustained time in the saddle difficult.’ She hated this part. It was the reason she never talked about it. People either felt sorry for her or dismissed it as a minor disappointment. Both rankled. Almost in sympathy she felt the echo of phantom pains in her hip flexors.
‘How did it happen?’
His voice was low, and it was easy to forget they were on a dance floor. It was as if they were in their own private little world.
‘I was twenty-two. I came down over a jump, and so did the horse. He landed on me.’
Nash stilled.
‘I survived—obviously. It took several surgeries and a lot of physio, but I’m able to ride recreationally again.’
‘How long were you in recovery?’
‘Two years.’
She saw him absorb that information.
‘Those marks on your hips?’ he said a little roughly.
Her eyes darted to his. He’d noticed. They were so faint. Did he find them unattractive?
‘We all have scars, don’t we?’ she said slowly. ‘It’s a part of life.’
Nash surprised her by sliding his hands subtly onto her hips. ‘You hide yours very well,’ he said.
‘What about you?’ she challenged. ‘Where are your scars?’
He looked her in the eye. ‘I wear them for the world to see,’ he answered. ‘Every time I race.’
Race, present tense.
She wanted to ask him about it but Nash bent down and said in her ear, ‘And your old man? Is he really a gigolo?’
Lorelei pulled her arms free and went to walk away, but Nash had her tightly around the waist.
‘Touchy, aren’t we?’
She flashed active dislike at him and said tightly, ‘He’s the best on the Riviera.’
‘There you go,’ he said lightly. ‘Not so hard talking about it, was it?’
‘Have you finished?’
‘I’m just wondering,’ he said, continuing to sway her lightly, ‘how many other secrets you’re hiding.’
Lorelei looked away. ‘Nothing that could possibly interest you.’
‘On the contrary, Lorelei, I have a feeling it’s all going to interest me. Come on—we’ll get your wrap.’
‘I don’t understand. Where are we going?’
‘Where do you think?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
FROGMARCHING her across the sand in heels only got him so far. Lorelei ground to a halt and swiped off her shoes, then threw them at him. He’d seen her aim before. He had the sense to sidestep and duck.
‘You worked the crowd well tonight,’ he called after her.
‘I wasn’t working,’ she responded. ‘I was just being myself—not that you would know anything about that.’
Nash caught up with her.
‘Hard work, is it? Prising open those wallets?’
She stopped dead. ‘Why are you making it sound underhand, as if I have other motives?’
‘I’m sure when you were on Andrei Yurovsky’s yacht last summer you had the best interests of the charity at heart,’ he responded. ‘And when you were in New York with Damiano Massena earlier this year it was purely a charitable impulse.’
Lorelei blinked rapidly. ‘You’re jealous,’ she said as if this were a wonder.
‘No, sweetheart, not jealous. Territorial. There’s a difference.’
‘I’m not a country, Nash,’ she said coolly, but he could tell he’d rattled her. ‘You can’t invade me and stick up your flag.’
‘I can do whatever I damn well please.’
He had hold of her wrist. He wasn’t sure how that had happened. He just wanted answers. Despite everything he’d convinced himself about not wanting to dig any deeper, all of those possessive feelings had roared into life as she’d so casually admitted to a professional equestrian career.
She hid everything—and he’d thought he was the expert at keeping his private feelings under wraps. Lorelei could give him lessons.
‘You’re implying I sleep with men for money,’ she said icily. ‘I really don’t think we’ll be going any further, do you? Now, take your hands off me. I’m going home to bed.’
Nash shook his head.
‘Are you going to release me?’
Her voice was very calm but he could see the betraying uncertainty in her expression. He was taken back to the first time he had seen her eyes—a little mountain deer quivering at his approach.
‘Explain to me that party you had the other night.’
Lorelei frowned, shaking her head. ‘Why do you care? What do you want from me, Nash? What is this about?’
‘I want to understand you.’ The words were almost prised from him. He couldn’t understand where this seething frustration had come from but he neede
d answers.
The urge to rip her dress off her and have this out skin to skin in the sand, coupled with the need to protect her from herself, had him in a vortex of desire and self-loathing.
‘Work!’ she almost shouted at him. ‘Just like you. Work!’
Her shoulders rose and fell.
‘The CEO of the charity often asks me to host things,’ she said jerkily. ‘His wife finds it too oppressive. I was brought up to do these things.’ She added the last almost wearily, ‘By my grandmaman.’
‘Who’s dead?’
‘Yes, she’s dead!’ Lorelei’s voice lifted almost on a wail. ‘She’s been dead two years, three months, five days!’
Nash stilled. There were tears behind Lorelei’s eyes. She suddenly looked much younger and a little lost. Two years...It had to be around the time of her father’s arrest. And she was still grieving.
She’d lost both her father and her grandmother.
‘Is that why you still do it even though you can’t afford it? Is that where the debts have sprung from?’ He kept his voice low, not wanting to trigger those tears. He didn’t know what he’d do if she began to cry.
Lorelei lowered her head. He could almost literally see her heart hammering. Her bare chest was so delicate—almost like a baby bird’s. Guilt took a bite out of him. But he had to know if he was going to help her.
‘Does this CEO bloke know about your problems with money?’
‘I don’t have a problem with money. I have a problem with paying my bills,’ she said, lifting her chin a little aggressively. Baby bird or not, she was spitting like a cat. ‘And, non, I don’t care to share my private business with the world and his wife. Or you.’
She spun around and ran. He loped after her, hitting the automatic door release on the car.
The ten-minute drive back to the bungalow was tense, but it gave Nash time to think over all she’d said. His little eventer who couldn’t manage her chequebook.
As they entered the dark house he asked, ‘How long did you think you could hide it?’
‘I wasn’t hiding anything,’ she rapped out, staccato-fashion. ‘I was dealing with it. In my own way.’