Harlequin Presents February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Sold to the EnemyIn the Heat of the SpotlightNo More Sweet SurrenderPride After Her Fall

by Sarah Morgan

  ‘You took your revenge?’ she said quietly, uncertain as to how she felt about that.

  ‘No, I survived.’

  It was a terse statement, to the point, and it chilled her to the bone.

  ‘You didn’t abandon your old man,’ he said suddenly, meeting her eyes, and she could see he’d shut down again, ‘I admire that.’

  ‘Non.’ The negative was pushed from her instinctively. She rejected his statement with her entire body. ‘Don’t admire me. My mother wasn’t there for me either, but my father didn’t drink or make my life hell—at least not on purpose. He loved me. How could I abandon him? I couldn’t abandon someone I love.’

  Nash was watching her as if her words were flicks of a knife.

  ‘Good,’ he said with finality, and she knew the subject was closed, ‘I’m glad he loves you. You deserve that, Lorelei.’

  Meaning he didn’t? Lorelei wanted to offer him something, but she had a strong feeling whatever she did in this moment would be rejected. He was a man driven by demons and it was all too possible she had come too late into his life to make any difference at all.

  With a sudden movement Nash bounded up onto the sea wall beside her, offering her his hand. Standing over her, he was once more the solid, take-charge guy who made the world seem a less chaotic, threatening place when she was with him.

  ‘Enough of the past. I want to show you the mountains this afternoon. We’ll take the Jeep up.’

  * * *

  Later that evening over dinner she asked him the question that had been bothering her most. ‘That accident you were in, in Italy, is that why you got out of the sport?’

  Nash shook his head. ‘You’d think so, but no.’ His voice was quiet and deep and sure. The rose candlelight cut into the restaurant walls, lining his dark head in gold. ‘My take on it is I don’t have any dependants. If I killed myself racing at least I’d leave the world doing something I loved.’

  Lorelei almost choked on her mouthful of wine, a little stunned by his matter-of-factness. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’

  ‘I’m not planning on careening off the track any time soon, Lorelei.’

  ‘No, but—’ She broke off helplessly, wondering if he actually knew how empty he had made his life sound. ‘What about your brother Jack?’ she prompted.

  Nash said nothing, began cutting into his steak.

  ‘What about me?’ The moment the words passed her lips she couldn’t believe she’d been so gauche. ‘What I mean to say is, if anything happened to you I’d be heartbroken.’ She gave him a small smile to lighten the impact.

  He reached for his iced water. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

  Lorelei had the urge to rub the spot in her chest that had gone suddenly cold.

  ‘Something must have made you stop,’ she said, her voice a lot less confident.

  He put down his glass. ‘My brother Jack is an alcoholic, like the old man. He let his business slide, lost his wife, gambled away his life. He thought he had nothing more to live for. Six years ago I walked into a hospital room in Sydney and I barely recognised him. I’d been racing professionally for eight years, and I’d been back once.’

  Nash met her eyes. ‘His ex-wife told me I was to blame. Jack always wanted the career, but I was the one who got the talent. So I quit racing. I moved back to Sydney and I lived with him for a year. Got his business back on its feet, went every day to AA with him and made sure he was okay. I owed it to him. He got me to university. He’s my brother. And he hates me.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘The talent and the luck. To my old man I was a meal ticket, and my brother was convinced I stole what should have been his. In my family nobody works. The joke is I’ve worked hard all my life to get where I am. That’s what I do. I work. I came back to Europe and I sold the design for Blue 11, and part of the reason I did it was because I wanted to show them it was more than luck, more than being able to hold a car on the road at speed.’

  His expression was grim. ‘It should have been enough for me, but it wasn’t. I love to race. And now I don’t have to prove anything. To the old man, to Jack, even to myself. I don’t want to lose it a second time.’

  Lorelei was quiet. Finally she said, ‘Hence the comeback?’

  ‘You picked up on that the other night at dinner?’

  ‘It was hard not to. I was at the table, Nash.’

  He put his hands palm-down on the table, giving her a wry smile. ‘Have I ever told you, you do have a world-class ass, Ms St James?’

  ‘Several times,’ she replied dryly, dabbing at the tears in the corners of her eyes, then offering up her most beguiling smile. He deserved it after that. ‘I think you should take me home and I’ll show it to you.’

  Nash pushed back his chair, raised his hand for the cheque.

  * * *

  Lorelei lay with her head on his chest, her mind full of the story he had told her. She knew it was selfish, but she couldn’t help wishing he wasn’t staging this comeback—because it was going to have repercussions on their fledgling relationship.

  ‘Why now, Nash? Why race now?’

  His voice was heavy, relaxed. ‘Like I told you, I started out racing in spite of my father. Now I race for myself.’

  ‘But why now in particular?’ she pursued.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He yawned. ‘At the risk of sounding New Agey, I’ve been feeling a lack in my life and I know racing will fill that.’

  ‘What sort of lack?’

  Nash chuckled. ‘Not the sort you’re imagining, Lorelei.’

  A little frustrated, she lifted her chin. ‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’

  ‘Yeah...’ his smile was lazy ‘...I do. I’m thirty-four. All anyone’s going to be asking over the coming months before I start winning any flags is whether it’s an early midlife crisis.’

  ‘You’re confident of winning?’

  He gave her that very male look she was already familiar with. It was a redundant question. He was confident about everything, and he always won.

  She sat up. ‘During the early months of my rehabilitation the thing that got me out of bed was the desire to get back in the saddle. It was only when I realised I couldn’t go back to competitive riding that I found the emptiness resided not in the fulfilment of a dream but in the absence of anything else in my life.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘So what’s in your life now?’ he asked, his voice deceptively lazy.

  But Lorelei knew him well enough to catch the watchfulness in those blue eyes viewing her from beneath heavy lids.

  You.

  The rush of feeling overwhelmed her. She wanted to be enough for him.

  She wanted to stand in for racing.

  She wanted him to realise what an extraordinary man he was, and for once to stop pushing himself.

  She wanted a great deal she probably couldn’t have.

  ‘I have my work,’ she said diffidently.

  ‘Yeah, the charity.’

  ‘No, my horses...’ she began with a little frown.

  ‘You have horses?’

  ‘Oui, two, I stable them at Allards.’

  ‘So you still ride?’

  ‘Whenever I can.’ She hesitated, then went on the offensive. ‘So what are you lacking in your life, Nash?’

  ‘Me?’ He looked amused. ‘I’m just easily bored.’

  ‘I’ll have to come up with some ways of keeping you from being bored, then,’ she said softly, and slid forward over him, her curls falling down to brush over his chest in the way he liked. His eyes met hers, and all that banked heat made the blood pool in her thighs and pelvis. ‘I’ve got a few ideas.’

  She knew how to make a man want her, trip over his feet to get to her, but i
t had never been about that with Nash. From the moment he had put his hand on her shoulder outside the hotel and told her he would handle it, rushed to her rescue like a valiant knight, she’d been off-centre with him. She had always looked after herself, knowing all too well how unreliable men could be. She had given Nash access to the vulnerable heart of hers and made him her lover, and right now she knew there should be more.

  For the first time in her life she wanted more.

  ‘Isn’t this comeback supposed to be hush-hush?’ she asked

  He cupped her bottom. ‘I think I’m safe.’

  Lorelei kissed him. He was telling her he trusted her, that he accepted her right to know and she had his respect.

  ‘Besides,’ he said complacently as she kissed her way down his body, her bare bottom resting back on his thighs, ‘we’re releasing a timed leak on Monday. By Wednesday the media will be all over it.’

  Lorelei felt as if he’d yanked a rug out from under her.

  Her head came up. He wasn’t saying he trusted her at all. He was just saying the timing made it irrelevant. She tried to ignore the crumpling in her chest.

  ‘What’s happening Wednesday?’ she asked, feeling a little sidelined.

  ‘A press conference,’ he replied calmly, stroking her thighs, ‘and then lockdown.’

  ‘What’s lockdown?’

  ‘Training.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘The circuit.’

  ‘A lot of travel?’

  ‘For the next year.’

  He sat up, and she gave a gasp as he flipped her onto her belly and began placing hot kisses down her spine, over the rounded curves of her bottom.

  ‘Perhaps I can fly in?’ she suggested, feeling a little stunned.

  ‘I’d enjoy that,’ he said, tracing one quivering buttock.

  ‘Would you?’ she said a little sharply.

  Nash put his mouth to her ear. ‘Your visits would be most welcome.’

  She waited for him to ask her to go with him.

  He didn’t.

  * * *

  Nash took the steps by threes, coming out of the darkness into the bright light spilling down the front of the bungalow. He was impatient to get back to Lorelei.

  This afternoon they’d driven back to the bungalow around dusk. Nash had never felt less like a boys’ night, but he knew he’d been fairly difficult to pin down, given he was spending all his time with Lorelei, and there were ends to tie up and other people involved in this. He had responsibilities.

  ‘Two hours, tops,’ he’d told her, ‘and then I take you out to dinner.’

  She had smiled softly, a little sad, he knew, because of what he’d told her last night. He had his reasons, and it had not been easy, but she needed to understand racing came first.

  He found the bungalow empty and for a strange moment his insides hollowed out.

  She was gone....

  This was how it would feel next week, and the week after that, and after that.

  He made a frustrated sound, slamming the door. He was behaving like a green kid. There was no reason why he couldn’t keep seeing her on a casual basis. A few nights here and there when he was in town, perhaps flying her out when he was working. He was capable of cleaning this up, keeping everything locked down.

  Then he noticed the doors onto the deck were wide open. He relaxed. This at least was familiar. She was outside—probably on the beach. Then he spotted it: a piece of white paper weighted under a rock at the top of the steps leading down to the beach. There was another one on the bottom step. He hesitated, then smiled to himself.

  He had found four paper signals when he caught sight of her on the shore. He stood at the edge of the clearing. She was clearly waiting for him, because the moment she saw him she lifted her sheer kaftan.

  He stopped dead.

  She was wearing one of those tiny bikinis the boutique had interpreted as adequate beachwear. Adequate, Nash countered, if the beach was private and no other man was going to see her in it.

  She reached behind her and untied the strap of the top.

  A sudden surge of instinct had him doing a quick scan of their surroundings, aware his might not be the only pair of eyes on this little show. There was nothing but the private beach, the rustle of the wind in the palms and tropical undergrowth and the murmur of the water on the shore.

  Lorelei was peeling off the bikini bottoms, utterly unselfconscious. He watched as she lifted her arms above her head, moving with lithe grace as she stretched sinuously, seeming to be enjoying the warm breeze moving over her skin. There was a full moon and at this angle she looked to be reaching for it with both hands.

  She spun around, her head sank back and she began to dance.

  Nash swore his heart stopped. He knew her body—he’d explored every inch of her firm, tanned flesh—but in this moment he almost didn’t recognise her. Because he saw something more—the instinctive sensuality that was a part of her, her incredible naturalness and her acceptance not only of her body but of the cards life had dealt her.

  Why had he not seen this before? The answer was there. He’d been blind.

  His desire for her was suddenly a living flame inside him.

  He strode down the beach towards her.

  She continued to turn and glide, and when he was mere feet from her she slipped away with a soft laugh, running nimbly down to the surf.

  Nash didn’t hesitate. He stripped off his shoes, shirt, trousers, boxers and strode down to plunge recklessly into the cool draw of the ocean. The water was inky, but the moonlight cast enough light for him to see Lorelei, still now, as gentle waves broke at her hips.

  She laughed as he caught her around the waist, dragged her down into the water with him.

  A wave smacked against his back and he caught her mouth with his and tasted salt and woman. His woman. Lorelei.

  She licked her way into his mouth, winding those slim arms around his neck, her slick body riding against his in the water. Her long legs wound around his, and he lifted her, his sex nudging hers. She was wet and hot and welcoming, and he was surprised the water around them didn’t sizzle with the heat they were generating between them.

  She was like some pagan priestess, initiating him into this rite, uninhibited and demanding as a great goddess should be, taking and offering in equal measure.

  He rode deep into her body, the sway of the tide pulling them this way and that, making achieving a rhythm almost impossible. Yet the ocean held their bodies aloft and his climax eventually pulled him into a vortex of perfect symmetry with her. Lorelei pulsed around him, and if he was a fanciful man—which he was not—he would have said it was like flying.

  He eventually carried her out of the water and up to the beach, where he wrapped her in a towel and took her inside. She was shivering and laughing as he dumped them both under the shower, with warm water cascading down. He washed her hair and then rubbed some of the lemon-scented liquid into his own.

  She leaned against him as he rinsed her off, and he was struck all over again by how delicate she was. That feeling of possession he’d been nurturing this week roared into life. He didn’t want to let her go.

  It was never supposed to have been more than a few days out of time—a last indulgence before the weeks of intensive training that lay ahead. He couldn’t have known she would get under his skin. Women came and went. Yet as he tumbled her into their bed he knew part of Lorelei would always stay with him.

  His chest felt tight, but he knew he would get past this. He had life lessons to draw on in how to master his own emotions and make them serve him. Painful lessons, learned by a small boy too young to really understand what was happening in his life, always looking for someone to cling to, always being punished for it. The constant cycle of confusion.


  There was nothing confusing about the life he had grown up to lead. Everything was compartmentalised. Everything had its place.

  Including this. Including Lorelei.

  Tomorrow he would be flying back to Monaco and straight into the press conference, a show race for Eagle in Lyon, and then training. He wasn’t ready. He had been doing too much thinking about this beguiling woman in his arms and not enough about the job.

  The irony was, if he was given another week he’d spend it all with her.

  But he’d never put a woman before the job.

  Like his parents, he knew how to be ruthless to achieve his ends.

  * * *

  Lorelei was dreaming. In her dream she was walking down a long corridor. There were doors on either side of her, stretching as far as she could see.

  As she passed they would open.

  There was her mother. She was young—as Lorelei recalled her in her earliest years—holding out a doll with long golden curls that bore a marked resemblance to the child she had been before she cut off her hair. Another door opened on her father, Raymond, as she had last seen him, rigid in a suit, his back to her. Finally there was Grandmaman, holding out money in one hand and a tiny miniature of the villa in the other.

  Lorelei could feel the constriction growing in her body. She was moving faster. Hands were coming out to snatch at her skirt, her ankles, demanding things of her until she thought she would go crazy. And then she heard a deep, certain voice saying her name. ‘Lorelei.’ She stepped into his arms and the walls of the dream fell away. She was held poised in midair in the strongest pair of arms imaginable.

  ‘Nash.’ She clung to him and knew she was home, would always be safe.

  He wouldn’t let go. Which meant she could let go...

  Lorelei gasped, coming awake in a bath of perspiration. Nash was leaning over her in the dark. He gently stroked the hair back from her eyes.

  ‘Go to sleep. His voice was deep and sleep roughened. ‘It was just a nightmare.’

  ‘Oui,’ she murmured croakily, and closed her eyes.

  For a long while she lay awake, with Nash’s arm pinning her, his body curved around hers like a bulwark against uncertainty.