Pride After Her Fall

by Lucy Ellis

  ‘I do my share. If one is in a position to do so I think there’s no excuse not to.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘About this morning…’ she said slowly.

  He shook his head. ‘I think we’ve moved on from that, don’t you?’

  Lorelei picked up her champagne and sipped it. Had they? She was grateful not to have to apologise or explain, because, really, how did she explain? She didn’t want to look too closely at how out of control things had become.

  He had that lazy, contented male look about him—as if he had her exactly where he wanted her and was sizing up his options with her. It was time to do a little sizing up of her own.

  ‘I did some research on you,’ she said, knowing it was only half a white lie—because couldn’t Simone be counted as research?

  He didn’t look disturbed.

  ‘You’ve got quite a reputation.’

  Those blue eyes glimmered.

  ‘As a competitor,’ she added with a little smile.

  He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table. ‘I don’t like to lose.’

  ‘It must make you hard to live with.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ He almost smiled. ‘Not having to live with me.’

  ‘I guess it’s a question to ask your girlfriend—or wife.’

  She didn’t know why she’d phrased it that way. It was hardly subtle.

  ‘There isn’t a woman in my life.’

  Lorelei knew she’d be a fool to believe that. Look at him—big, rugged, rich, sex appeal to burn.

  ‘Oh, really? I heard you were quite busy in that department.’

  ‘Did this come up in all that research?’

  Lorelei ran her thumb over the stem of her glass. She realised he was watching her hand and that her gesture might be interpreted as quite provocative. She picked up her glass, intending to drink, then put it down again.

  She’d had quite enough to drink last night.

  ‘And you?’ he prompted. ‘Easy to live with?’

  ‘Me?’ She was no longer entirely sure what they were talking about. ‘I’m a pussycat.’

  ‘According to your husband?’

  ‘No husband.’ She met his eyes and saw satisfaction with her answer.

  This time she did take a sip of her drink, and another.

  She didn’t get involved with men like this. Yet here she was, walking straight on in.

  Whatever he said, he was probably seeing someone. Maybe not today, but certainly yesterday, and probably tomorrow. Girls were probably lining up around the block.

  Her father in his heyday had always had two or three women on the go. One to pay the bills, another in reserve and a third he actually enjoyed sleeping with. Some young starlet or tourist passing through.

  Lorelei frowned. She didn’t like to think about that side of Raymond.

  She preferred the side he’d thought she saw. He’d made an effort for her to see. The charming bon vivant, lavish with money and affection, especially with his darling daughter.

  But she’d always been aware he romanced older women up and down the coast to keep the wolf from the door.

  Her grandmaman had been the one with the real money, doled out sparingly.

  Raymond had never complained, and his phone calls from the low-security prison where he was currently serving out the last months of a two-year gaol term were always full of jokes and cheer. She loved him for it, but she wished sometimes she could speak seriously to him.

  She never had been able to breach that gleaming surface. Raymond didn’t want to hear about the difficulties of life. And under the current circumstances she felt guilty even raising the subject of the villa.

  Alors, she was back to thinking about the villa.

  ‘Lorelei.’ A deep voice said her name almost gently.

  ‘Oui?’ She blinked, took a breath.

  Nash was watching her with an intensity that hadn’t been there before, as if he knew something had changed.

  ‘Sorry.’ She made a forgetful gesture with one hand. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘Nothing that won’t keep.’

  He continued to watch her, a quiet smile conveying so much more than words. In that moment Lorelei knew she was in trouble.

  Oh, she knew how to deflect a man, how to make it clear that despite sitting across from him, sharing a meal with him, she was not on the menu.

  But right now she felt she was every dish he might like…

  Finally Nash spoke.

  ‘We’ve got a lot in common.’ He settled back, angled in his chair, all shoulders and lean, muscular grace.

  He seemed to be saying, Take a good long look. It could all be yours.

  But for how long? she wondered.

  ‘How do you gauge that?’ she asked aloud.

  ‘I like to compete. You’re a serious trophy.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  He gave her a lazy once-over she should have found insulting after the “trophy” description. Instead she felt it like a direct hit to her sleeping libido.

  ‘You’re smart and seriously sexy and I haven’t been bored since I sat down with you. Like I said, you’re a serious trophy.’

  Lorelei inhaled sharply.

  She knew this was how some men saw an attractive woman. She had just never met a man who had the nerve to say it to her in so many words.

  ‘Nash, a trophy is an inanimate object you sit on a shelf.’

  ‘A trophy can be anything you want to win,’ he countered, sitting forward.

  Lorelei had to remind herself not to edge back. He fairly emanated thumping male entitlement.

  ‘I don’t get in the race, Lorelei, unless I’m fairly confident of the outcome.’

  For a breathless moment she considered asking him exactly how confident he was of her. But deep down she feared the answer.

  Another Lorelei—the one who could hold men off with a death stare at a hundred paces—would have stood up and thrown the contents of her drink all over him. This Lorelei—the one clutching her glass like a life jacket and breathing in the spicy, earthy scent of him like oxygen—found herself asking, ‘Is that a problem for you? Women boring you?’

  He sat back, his hand resuming its drumming action. ‘On occasion.’ His head dropped a little to the side, as if he were considering her. He smiled slowly. ‘Most of the time.’

  Arrogant bastard.

  She couldn’t help smiling back.

  ‘Perhaps the better question is, do you think you’ll bore me?’ she asked sweetly.

  ‘How am I doing so far?’

  Lorelei paused long enough to take another sip of her drink.

  ‘Oh, I think you’re in the race.’

  *

  Nash weighed up two options: dinner and dancing here in Monaco, or would he fly them to Paris? He was leaning towards the latter, because something about this woman made him want to impress her. She was beautiful, but she was also clearly highly intelligent…and wasn’t that a turn-up for the books? He hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told her he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. But what if she hadn’t turned up this afternoon? On the strength of her undeniable physical appeal would he have hunted her down? Until now he hadn’t seen her like this—elegant, restrained…witty. Good company. Yet deep down he knew he would have gone looking, asked around, put in the legwork. There had been something about her from the beginning.

  But this…the woman in full…was a revelation that made his body’s unreasonable attraction to her no longer a betrayal of his common sense.

  The chemistry between them was pretty much a flame to an oily rag, and if in the end she proved not much more than a spoilt rich girl it would be a disappointment, but it wouldn’t stop him bedding her.

  *

  ‘Ms St James?’

  Lorelei looked up. It was one of the waiters. She recognised him from the several other occasions she had dined here this year. He glanced nervously at Nash.

  ‘I thought you should know your car is
being towed away.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your beautiful car, Ms St James. The authorities are taking it away.’

  For a moment Lorelei didn’t know what to do. Towed? Her lovely Sunbeam was being towed? But why…? This time she’d paid all the insurance and registration and…

  She looked at Nash.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I have to handle this.’

  She scrambled to her feet, scooping up her handbag. Nash was getting to his feet too, frowning.

  She wanted to see him again, but in that moment she knew it wouldn’t work. She’d forgotten for a time just how bad things were for her out there. If circumstances were different in her world… But they weren’t, and they seemed to be getting worse every day.

  Without counting the cost of her actions, only knowing she would regret it if she didn’t do it, Lorelei stepped up to him, put her hand gently to his jaw and lifted to kiss him. She inhaled man and aftershave, felt the heat of him and the surprising gentleness of his mouth because he hadn’t expected this.

  His momentary hesitation gave way to the sudden surge of his body against her own and his hand spread possessively across the back of her head. She tasted him fully as he moved to take over the kiss, giving her a moment’s glimpse of exactly how overwhelming his sensual expertise could be.

  Mon Dieu, this was what she was giving up…

  But she was already pulling free, turning away, because she’d allowed herself to be seduced by the solidity and masculine certainty of this man when there was nothing here for her in the long run. All the while she was sitting here her problems were still out there, mounting up, waiting for her return, and now she had to deal once more with the chaos in her life.

  She took off across the restaurant, as fast as her ridiculous heels would let her, knowing only one thing: she had to save the car. She wouldn’t be letting anyone take away the last damn thing she owned.

  Lorelei was across the Place du Casino and about to cross the road when a heavy hand curled possessively over her shoulder. She swung around, hitting out reflexively with her handbag, eyes wild with anxiety.

  ‘Let me go. I’ve got to get to my car.’

  Nash steadied her with both hands. ‘I want you to wait here. Are you listening, Lorelei? Let me handle it.’

  Responding to the authority in his voice, she blinked up at him. He was going to help? There was a scraping of metal on asphalt and, confused, she whirled around to see what was happening across the road. She saw the tow truck backing up in front of her car and automatically stepped out onto the road.

  Nash swore and reached to grab her.

  Of all the suicidal…

  She took off across two lanes of traffic.

  He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it, yet somehow she made it across unharmed.

  His heartbeat slowly resumed normal strength.

  Amidst the blare of car horns her high-decibel wishes were being made very clear in vitriolic French.

  ‘Get away from my car!’ she shrieked. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  Nash was not often left speechless, but at that moment he might still have been in the courtyard at the old villa this morning. The sophisticated, sexy woman he had pushed back a busy afternoon’s schedule for was gone. In her place was a reckless wild woman who was clearly out of control.

  Adrenalin levels surging, he crossed the street more circumspectly, all the while watching as Lorelei stormed up to the guy supervising the removal of her car. She was waving her hands about as she remonstrated with him in typical Gallic fashion, but the guy was pretty much ignoring her.

  Hell, for all he knew they were on a first-name basis and that car of hers was towed every day of the week…

  Lorelei had her hands on her hips and was gathering quite a crowd. Ice-queen blondes losing their cool on a lazy afternoon in Monte Carlo had pulling power, and now Lorelei was… Was she taking off her shoes? She was taking off her goddamned shoes! What in the hell?

  She slung first one and then the other stiletto heel at the guy. The first one missed but the second one caught him in the groin.

  The bloke said something crude and headed for her, and Nash dropped amusement and swapped it for street-level aggression. He made a direct line for the problem, collared the ape so fast the guy didn’t see it coming and shoved him hard up against the side of the truck.

  ‘You want someone to lay into, mate,’ he said, low and with deadly menace, ‘try me.’

  The man’s face fell, then turned an apoplectic red. Nash realised he had him in a chokehold. He eased off. But Lorelei was suddenly right up beside him, stabbing her slender index finger within inches of the guy’s face.

  ‘You listen to him and you listen to me. I want my car back. Pronto!’

  Nash growled. ‘Hand in my back pocket.’

  ‘Quoi?’

  ‘Keys,’ he snarled.

  Fumbling, Lorelei retrieved them.

  ‘Get in my car.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do it. Now.’

  She backed up, limped a little to the roadside, spotted the red Veyron across the street. She could only see one of her shoes. The other one seemed to have rolled under the truck. The red haze had shifted and she was beginning to think clearly again. What on earth had she done?

  People were standing on the pavement, watching.

  Let them watch, she thought miserably, casting a longing look back at her car…and then at Nash, who had let the guy go and was using his phone.

  Possibly to call in the men with the straightjacket for her before he made excuses to reverse right out of her life. She’d pretty much made a fool of herself, and from experience she knew that whilst men enjoyed the effort she put into her pretty packaging they didn’t have much patience for her more high-octane behaviour. Not that she made a practice of causing scenes in public streets—no, that was a little more to do with the stress she was under at the moment. But Nash wasn’t going to buy that. All he’d seen was crazy.

  Serves you right, Lorelei St James, she thought as she picked her way across the road in bare feet.

  She let herself into the car and forced herself to sit up dead straight, not slide down the seat and hide. She’d been doing enough hiding of late. It was an uncomfortable thought she quickly shoved out of her mind. But this was pretty bad. She’d behaved like a lunatic…

  But, oh, her car.

  Nobody would understand, but it was all she had left in her own name. It was the one thing she hadn’t sold off to pay all the creditors. It was ridiculous, running a gas-guzzling monster like that, but when she drove it she felt like a queen in her castle—important, invincible…

  All the things she had discovered recently she wasn’t.

  She watched Nash coming across the road. He looked so calm and in control. More things she wasn’t.

  He slid in alongside her, slamming the door, belting up, checking the lights as he fired up the quiet engine.

  Lorelei fumbled for her cell.

  ‘You don’t need to make a call.’

  She forced herself to look at him. Stupidly, her eyes went to his mouth and she relived the moment she had impulsively kissed him. ‘Au contraire. I need to track my car. They’ll impound it, and last time it took over a week to get it back.’

  ‘Last time?’ His eyes flicked over her.

  Lorelei assumed a facsimile of a haughty expression but her heart just wasn’t in it.

  ‘I admit it has happened before,’ she said wearily.

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘It’s such a large car,’ she found herself explaining. ‘I find it difficult to park.’

  ‘You parked in a loading zone,’ he inserted dryly.

  Lorelei worked some invisible creases out of her silken lap. ‘Yes, perhaps. I’m a little short-sighted when it comes to parking. It does happen.’

  ‘Yeah, to you I’m guessing a lot.’

  Lorelei didn’t answer. What could she say? Oui, I’m a m
ess on heels. Oh, her Louboutins. Could she ask him to…?

  She glanced sidewards. Non…

  ‘Nash,’ she said slowly, ‘could you be a darling and fetch my shoes…?’

  He shifted around in the seat, his expression not encouraging.

  ‘They’re very expensive,’ she murmured with a hopeful upwards look. Would it help if she fluttered her eyelashes? Showed him the receipt from the shop in Paris?

  Without a word he swung the sports car out into the traffic and Lorelei shrieked as he did an abrupt U-turn. She grabbed her seat, holding on for dear life.

  He braked with a screech.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he uttered, punching open the door.

  No, she wouldn’t be doing that. Although she might just have lost a couple of years off her life…

  He returned with both shoes, dropping them into her lap. He didn’t even look at her, just pulled the Veyron into the light traffic and drove away from the scene of her crime. Lorelei craned her neck to try and work out what was going on with her car.

  ‘You’ll have it back in the morning,’ he informed her abruptly.

  She stared at him stupidly.

  ‘It’s not being impounded. A mechanic is going to have a look at that stop-start engine of yours. They’ll run it up to you tomorrow.’

  Lorelei plucked at her shoes, too stunned even to check for damage.

  ‘Merci,’ she said inadequately, wondering how she was going to begin to apologise and thank him. It had been so long since someone had done something just for her.

  But what did it mean? This went beyond some silly flirtatious nonsense about a race and a trophy and him being out to win. He’d just done something very nice for her, and she couldn’t enjoy it because she knew she had probably put the kybosh on this going any further.

  As if sensing her disquiet, he turned those stunning eyes momentarily in her direction.

  ‘I’ll run you home,’ was all he said.

  She forced herself to shrug.

  ‘Comme vous le souhaitez.’ As you wish.

  CHAPTER SIX

  COULD he be a darling and fetch her shoes…?

  As the traffic eased to a halt at a pedestrian crossing Nash snapped and did the only thing a man in his circumstances could be expected to do, given the series of events, the surging adrenaline and hot blood being pushed through his body, and the proximity of this unpredictable wild creature he had somehow become involved with.