by Sarah Morgan
She felt a little triste. It could have been because of the fast-fading dream but was probably because they were going back to Monaco tomorrow.
But it wasn’t the villa or her debts that filled her horizon, it was the man beside her, who appeared not to be sleeping either, although his chest rose and fell steadily.
She burrowed in a little closer.
I’ve fallen in love with this man, she thought, framing it like a statement and waiting to feel the panic it should open up inside her.
All those fears of dependency, of being left behind, of not being loved back.
None came.
She curved her body trustingly into his and closed her eyes. She was back in the ocean with him, certain of this one thing: this has been as close to flying as I’ve ever come.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘LORELEI, we need to talk.’
According to the flight screen they were twenty minutes out of Nice.
Lorelei removed her ear buds and looked up. Nash had been hooked into a laptop for the better part of an hour, which was why they hadn’t been sitting together.
Or at least she told herself that was why, but she had been telling herself a great many things since boarding his plane. If he was being a little distant this morning she assumed he was thinking about what he was flying back into. She certainly was.
He was a famous man, about to reignite that fame, and there were consequences for her. She would be foolish to discount them.
But when she looked at him everything fell away, leaving only what she felt for him: a tremulous sort of tenderness mingled with a longing to have this in her life.
He dropped into the seat beside her, stretching out his long legs, but there was nothing casual about the expression on his face.
‘You look ominous,’ she said lightly.
‘Do I?’ He looked at her, his eyes cool. ‘I’m going into lockdown tomorrow. That’s going to have ramifications on my personal life.’
His personal life? She guessed that meant her. She moistened her lips.
‘I see.’
Did she see? Lorelei curled the fingers of one hand around her music device instead of around his hand.
Why, all of a sudden, couldn’t she reach for his hand?
Yesterday she wouldn’t even have thought about it. She wouldn’t have had to. Whenever he was beside her he held her hand.
‘I gather it will limit the time we can spend together?’ Her voice held none of the turmoil suddenly swirling in her belly.
‘I’ll be training intensively and then I hit the circuit.’ Nash spoke matter-of-factly. ‘This hasn’t happened at a propitious time. I wish it could be different, but it can’t.’
Lorelei had never thought about what it would be like to jump from a plane without a parachute. She imagined the landing would feel something like this.
There were so many things she could say. I don’t understand. Please explain yourself more clearly. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this....
But he was doing it. She looked into his hard eyes and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he would do this to her.
‘I don’t want you to feel tied to me in any way.’
Lorelei tried to sit up but every bone in her body felt broken. Still, she had to get up. She couldn’t just sit here, stunned.
‘It wouldn’t be fair to you.’
From a long way away she was hearing an echo from the past. It was her father, explaining why she couldn’t live with him any more, that she was to go to her grandmother. She’d been thirteen years old. She hadn’t understood then. She had cried until she threw up.
But she understood now. She was a grown woman. She had lived in the world, had been swept away by feelings that fed her soul, and he had enjoyed some recreational sex.
‘How good of you to explain it all to me,’ she said, her voice more throaty than usual. ‘I suppose there is a reason we didn’t have this conversation several days ago?’
He was watching her stone-faced. ‘Things have changed. Several days ago I didn’t know we would need to.’
‘I see—and what has changed for you?’
‘I didn’t realise we’d be going any further than Mauritius.’
She knew he was right. She hadn’t thought beyond Mauritius, either. She’d just assumed everything would fall into place.
‘Lorelei, I know you’ve invested some emotions in our time together,’ he said almost carefully. ‘When we flew out I made some assumptions.’
‘Ah, oui.’ She clutched her music device and in that moment wished it were a weapon. ‘All the men I was supposed to have fleeced.’ The words stuck to the roof of her mouth.
‘Assumptions about myself,’ he growled.
For the first time she looked at him properly. He didn’t look like a man feeding her a line. He looked like Nash. Tense, brooding, not wanting to hurt her, but tearing her apart all the same.
After all, Lorelei, it’s not his fault he’s not in love with you. You made that little bed all on your own.
But he had been there with her. All the way.
‘You’re an extraordinary woman, Lorelei, and you deserve a lot better than a man like me.’
And just like that it was over.
‘Apparently I do,’ she said woodenly, hearing her voice as if it were coming from a long way off. ‘I really don’t know what to say.’
For the first time since he’d sat down beside her Nash looked unsure, as if they had taken a wrong turn somewhere and he was looking for the best way to circumvent the route.
‘I don’t necessarily want to end it, Lorelei. All I am saying is there are difficulties involved. I’ll be gone for long periods and my focus will be on the job.’
All the cold inside her chest pushed its way up into her mind. She welcomed it.
‘I’m saying I wouldn’t want you to feel committed to me.’
Lorelei blinked. Her eyes were the only part of her face she could move.
‘You really are a complete bastard, aren’t you?’
Those intense blue eyes flashed up, hard as agate, but his voice was soft as he acknowledged heavily, ‘Yeah.’
What more was there to say?
She didn’t know how to fight for this. How did you fight for something that had to be given freely? She didn’t understand him. She’d thought she did. She had seen in him from the very first such solidity. He had seemed impervious to the turmoil in her life, a strong hand she could hold as she righted herself.
So she had opened up her heart to him, had thought she understood him, but it was clear she knew nothing at all.
Anger and rage and sorrow all rolled through her in an almighty wave and she thought if it crashed now the emotions would drag her under.
She had to be strong. Stronger than him.
‘What happened to you? Who did this to you?’
He actually flinched as she said the words. He stood up, those big shoulders that held up the world suddenly a little heavier, his expression almost remote.
‘I’ve got a job to do, Lorelei, and relationships have never been my strong suit.’
No, me neither....
She actually felt too stunned to fully process what had happened. It was only when they landed on the tarmac and she spotted the limo that confusion set in.
What was she supposed to do? Was he taking her back to town? To the villa? Oh, Dieu, she couldn’t get into the villa. She gulped a deep, sustaining breath. She needed to calm down. She needed to stop standing around waiting for him to call the shots.
Taxi. She needed a taxi.
Nash said, almost formally, ‘The car is for you. It will take you into town. I’ll take the Veyron.’
For a moment she considered refusing, but wha
t was the point?
‘Ainsi soit-il.’ So be it.
‘The car will take you back to my apartment. You can stay there until you get back on your feet.’
He had to be kidding.
As if anticipating her reaction, he said, ‘You need a roof over your head.’
‘I do not think that is your concern any longer, Mr Blue.’ Her voice was croaky, as if she’d been yelling for a very long time.
‘Let me do this for you,’ he said quietly.
The bastard.
She stepped up to him, looked him in the eye. ‘Why on earth didn’t you just leave me on the doorstep that morning after? If all you wanted was a one-night stand you could have left it there. I didn’t ask for you to take me to Mauritius. But I damn well deserve better than being dumped fifteen minutes after we land.’
It was good to say it, and to say it with some control, but she knew she wasn’t just raging at Nash. She was raging at her dear, feckless father, who had rescued her from her absent mother’s apartment in New York all those years ago, only to neglect her and dump her on his mother, who for all her good intentions had been a difficult and sometimes ferocious taskmaster.
She deserved to be loved and accepted for who she was, not what others expected her to be.
Nash looked her in the eye and said, ‘Yeah, you do.’
It was that resigned acceptance of her anger and his role in her pain that left her with nowhere to go. He was behaving as if it was all inevitable.
As if he didn’t have a choice.
But he did. Couldn’t he see that? Surely he could see that?
She’d fought like a tiger to regain full mobility after her accident, she’d stood by Raymond through his trial and all the scathing publicity, and she’d struggled like a fish in a net to hold on to the villa these past months.
But she couldn’t make this man fight for her.
Turning away, she said softly, ‘Nash, do you have any feelings for me at all?’
‘Lorelei, of course I do.’ He jaw was so rigid it was a wonder he could speak.
She took a deep breath.
‘Bon,’ she said forcefully, and pushed past him. ‘In that case I don’t ever want to see you again.’
She stepped into the limo.
‘Take her wherever she wants to go,’ she heard him say to the driver.
In the car Lorelei blocked the oncoming truckload of pain by opening her cell and regrouping.
She checked her client list for next week and sent off a text to Gina’s mother to bump up her appointment for this afternoon. Work, rules and structure. She had never needed it so much as right now. She sent a text to her solicitor, asking for an appointment, which gave her a vague feeling of asserting a little control over events. Finally she scrolled through her address book, turning over in her mind which one of her friends she could ask for a bed.
In the end she sent a text to Simone. A million miles away in Paris.
Please come. I need you.
Then she closed her eyes and decided the tears that were building inside her really had no place right now. She would hold them until she was alone. And with that she realised for the first time in two years she was once more in complete control of her actions.
* * *
Nash was about to throw the keys for valet parking outside the hotel when suddenly he knew he wouldn’t be going inside. It had only taken a couple of phone calls on the way down to have information regarding the lien on Lorelei’s loan sent through, and in an hour the locks would be taken off her house. But somehow it wasn’t enough.
He reached into his pocket and palmed his cell, dialled the limo. ‘Where did you drop her, mate?’
He had a press conference. He had a training schedule ahead. He needed to let her go. Instead he leapt back in the car and gunned the engine.
He’d driven past, but never been inside the equestrian centre. There had never been a reason. He gave her name at the desk and the wide-eyed girl told him Lorelei should be in the arena and asked did he need an escort? She was free.
‘I’m sure I can find it,’ he replied with a slight smile, and followed the arrows.
What in the hell did he think he was doing? Better question: why had she come here? Straight here? Who was she meeting? He couldn’t fathom the growing jealousy in him.
The first thing that hit him was the odour of manure and horse. So far, so expected. He jogged lightly down the steps of the stadium seating, scanning as he went. There were horses being worked in the domed arena. He recognised Lorelei. She was unmistakable, leaping a bay gelding over barriers. It was a breathtaking sight. Her grace and ability was fully on show.
He sank down slowly onto one of the bench seats.
Presently she drew alongside another rider, and that was when he noticed something else. The young girl on the smaller horse had a prosthesis on both her right arm and leg. Lorelei was showing her how to guide her horse.
An arrow-backed middle-aged woman sitting nearby looked at him with interest. She was the only other person within earshot.
She leaned back. ‘Lorelei runs our programme here for disabled young people. She’s a superb trainer. If you’re interested I can set up an appointment, but I have to warn you she’s in demand. There’s a waiting list.’
Nash gave the woman a polite nod and settled back.
He didn’t know what he was feeling.
But, my God, she was magnificent.
She looked like a queen in the saddle.
He remembered what she had told him about her two years of rehabilitation. He’d just assumed she’d given up. When he knew better than most what made someone a gifted athlete was that drive. Why hadn’t he realised she would take that same drive and rechannel it?
It was what he had done.
The trappings of fame and success for him had become the bells and whistles people paid attention to. But he’d earned it with hard work and focus. Yet he’d completely discounted that when he’d looked at Lorelei. He’d just seen bells and whistles, a beautiful blonde bauble. Why?
Feelings shifted like tectonic plates in his chest. Why hadn’t he asked more questions? Why hadn’t he seen this in her? She wasn’t weak. She was strong. It made sense that she would pick herself up and start all over again. And she’d do the same with that bloody house of hers.
However she’d accumulated those debts, there would be a good reason.
And he intended to find out.
Nash wasn’t sure how long he sat and watched. He only knew when he emerged into the late afternoon he wanted to smash something. When he returned to his car his cell was throwing up a volley of messages.
The press conference.
He hit redial. ‘John, I’m on my way.’
He walked into a conclave of cameras and the relief of his Eagle teammates. He sat down, put his hands either side of the mike and said calmly, ‘Ladies, gentlemen—sorry to keep you waiting. I’m driving for Eagle next year.’
A volley of questions came at him. He took a few, then fielded the rest, scrolling through his phone.
He knew tomorrow there’d be copy on how Nash Blue had been so bored at his own press conference he’d seemed more interested in playing with his phone. At another time it would have amused him. But right now he didn’t care about the press, the public or even the Eagle reps, who seemed more than adequately able to handle this without him.
He got up and walked out into the empty carpeted corridor.
‘Mike,’ he said with deceptive casualness to his genius PA, ‘I’ve got a few leads I need chased up.’ He asked for all the pertinent information about Raymond St James’s trial and his creditors.
John Cullinan stepped into the hall. ‘Nash, man, are you in this or not?’
‘Yeah.’ Nash poc
keted his cell. He’d done all he could for the moment. ‘I’m in.’
* * *
Sitting on the little red couch in a twin room at the Hotel de Paris, Lorelei shook her head over the paperwork the bank had given her.
‘So let me get this straight,’ said Simone, mixing coffee. ‘He’s opened up negotiations with the bank for you, covered your outstanding mortgage payments and is acting as guarantor for the next six months?’
‘Oui, it appears so.’
‘Is that legal?’
‘If I give the bank my signature.’
Simone stopped stirring. ‘If? If?’
‘I can’t accept this, Simone. Not now.’
‘You’re going to accept it, chère, if I have to tie you up and carry you down there myself. He must be feeling a cartload of guilt to be doing this.’
‘Non, it’s just Nash—the way he is.’ Generous. Always so generous with his time and his money...and his brother. He’d given up everything for a year for his brother. He’d given up his racing career for his brother.
He deserved to have another chance.
Lorelei found her breathing had become scratchy.
Like Simone. Who had flown down immediately from Paris, leaving her children with her husband and taking a leave of absence from her high-powered job. To make coffee, offer a kind shoulder and listen.
You did those things for the people you loved.
But he didn’t love her or he wouldn’t have let her go.
Simone came and set a mug down in front of her.
‘He’s racing tomorrow in Lyon. We could go. You could speak to him about this.’
Lorelei shook her head vigorously.
Simone gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘Do you know what I think, chère? This man loves you. He’s just having a few problems working out how to show it.’
‘Don’t, Simone. You have no idea how many times I heard all my stepmothers and their girlfriends talking like this. He’s this way because he’s a man. He’s this way because you make him like this. In the end he’s this way because it’s who he is. It’s who he wants to be. Nash wants to race cars, he wants to win and he puts work above everything.’