Her Last Night of Innocence (17 page)

Dio.
He needed to focus.

Suki turned round, her catlike eyes lighting up as she saw him, and in that moment he felt something shift again inside his head. She came forward, reaching up to kiss his cheek…

Where was Kate?

The question appeared in his head from nowhere, and he felt a sensation like a small electric shock in his brain. He pulled away from Suki, looking around, suddenly filled with an inexplicable conviction that Kate was here—that she was looking for him too.

Around the other side of the car, Silvio was talking to a cluster of reporters who were all pointing their microphones at him like tribesmen wielding spears. Cristiano’s heart was pounding. Without thinking he turned and headed back in the direction of the garages, ignoring the TV reporters who held microphones out to him and shouted questions as he passed. Desperately he raked the crowd with his eyes. Kate was here. He was certain of it. He broke into a run, feeling the sweat start to pool in the small of his back, knowing he should be conserving his hydration levels for later in the race, but somehow not managing to translate that abstract knowledge into physical reality.

He was breathing hard as he reached the garages. He stopped, looking around, expecting to see her.

She had to be there.

She had to…He was so sure…

Raking his sweat-damp hair back from his forehead, he spun round, speaking softly under his breath.

‘Please…Please…’

‘Cristiano!’

It was Suki’s voice behind him. She was running over, her hair bouncing over her shoulders like some clichéd shampoo advert. ‘Come on—it’s time to go!’

Despair knifed him between his ribs. He cast one more look around, then with a low, ragged curse began to walk back to his car.

The roads were wide and fringed with palm trees. The desert stretched out on all sides, flat and beige and unfinished-looking, contrasting with the clean perfection of the streets and buildings.

‘How long will it take to get there?’ Kate asked from between clenched teeth.

In the rearview mirror the taxi driver’s currant-like eyes were sharp with curiosity.

‘Not long. I drive fast—like the racing drivers.’ The eyes crinkled with amusement. ‘Don’t worry. I get you there for start of the race.’

Kate stifled a moan of frustration, staring out of the window at the pristine buildings. ‘That’s too late. There’s something I have to say to someone before the race.’

‘OK.’ He glanced at her uncertainly, as if she was mentally unstable and potentially dangerous. ‘Nearly there now. Which stand are you in?’

Kate looked down at the laminated pass Cristiano had left for her and read out the information. The eyes in the mirror widened.

‘VIP area,’ the taxi driver said in a tone of renewed respect. ‘Don’t worry—nearly there now.’

A bright red banner stretched above the road, welcoming visitors to the Bahrain International Circuit. Kate’s blood throbbed painfully through her veins as if it had been thickened with treacle. Through the front windscreen she could see an impressive round tower, rising up over the rest of the stands and buildings, dominating the landscape. As they came to a gate manned by security guards the taxi driver slowed, and she handed over her pass for scanning.

Impassively the guard looked at it, then handed it back and waved the car through. The pointed tops of the stands loomed larger, as pale and delicate as tented canopies from
some
Arabian Nights
fantasy. Kate was sitting on the edge of her seat, every atom of her being willing the car onward.

‘You are big motor racing fan?’ the driver asked.

Kate gave a choked laugh. ‘I hate it.’

The eyes in the rearview mirror blinked in surprise. The English lady with a face as white as her T-shirt clearly
was
mad.

‘Then may I ask why you come here?’

Kate exhaled a shaky breath. ‘Because I suddenly realised that love is a million times stronger than that.’

The dark eyes softened as the car came to a standstill at another set of gates. ‘I leave you here, miss.’

Her hands were shaking as she reached into her bag for money and got out of the car. Her legs nearly gave way beneath her.

‘Good luck,’ the taxi driver called after her.

She handed her pass to another set of security guards, who frowned down at it for a second, then back up at her.

‘A guest of Cristiano Maresca?’

‘Where do I have to go?’ she gasped. ‘I need to find him before the race starts.’

‘Through there. But you’ll have to hurry—’

At that moment the ground beneath them began to shake with what felt like the beginnings of an earthquake. A high-pitched hum vibrated in the air, suddenly rising like a siren to an ear-splitting scream.

‘Ah…’ said the guard apologetically. ‘Sorry. Too late.’

The sun was low on the track, shining through a haze of fuel. A white plume of smoke rose up from the Ferrari in front of Cristiano as they came into the second corner, making it impossible to see.

Cristiano kept going, his lungs bursting as the acceleration pressed back on him. He was driving blind, with only his split-second reflexes between him and oblivion. And Alexander’s fossil, he thought with a sudden burst of elation as the choking cloud lifted. Another corner. On Cristiano’s nearside wing a
car spun out of control, spiralling away behind him. Cristiano felt his elation die a little as he let out a vicious curse.

Silvio’s voice on the team radio was reassuring. ‘It’s OK, Cristiano. Plenty of room at the front now. Move in. Show them that you’re back.’

You don’t have to prove anything to anyone…

Swearing softly again, Cristiano hit the brakes. This wasn’t meant to happen, he thought grimly. The noise of the engine and the pressure of the G-force and the sheer bloody need to stay alive should make it impossible to hear Kate’s voice inside his head. That was why he did this—to escape the tangled mess of complicated emotions over which he had no control.

To forget.

But he couldn’t. And in that moment he felt another flashbulb sensation as the track in front of him disappeared and he
remembered…

He remembered last time. Monaco. Going back to look for Kate before he got in the car. That was why he’d thought she was here today, he realised, as a clear picture of her in a blue T-shirt—
his
blue T-shirt?—appeared in his head.

And she had turned and smiled at him, and he had pulled her into the garages and kissed her and laughed because she had told him to drive carefully
.

A shower of sparks flew up from the brakes of the car in front. Swerving out of his wake, Cristiano found some clear space on the outside of the bend.

‘Move in, move in!’ Silvio yelled over the radio. ‘You’re losing seconds!’

And suddenly it all made perfect sense. All this time he had surrounded himself with people who urged him on, wanting a piece of him, wanting him to reach higher, drive faster. And all he’d ever really wanted was someone who loved him enough to tell him to stop.

His mother had wanted that. And so did Kate.

He slowed down. Silvio was shouting so loudly in his headset that his voice was an incoherent crackle of noise. The pit
lane entrance loomed in front of him and he swung in. The pit crew sprang forward, looking alarmed. Silvio appeared from behind them, pushing his way to the front, mouthing apoplectically as Cristiano brought the throbbing, shaking car to a standstill.

Yanking off his steering wheel, he levered himself up out of the car. He was fleetingly aware of cameras closing in, but then something else caught his eye, making his head snap round as forcefully as if he’d just taken a corner at one hundred and eighty miles an hour.

Kate.

It was Kate.

She was standing behind Silvio, both hands pressed to her mouth in a way that in that single, incredulous, sunlit moment made him think of when they’d made love in her brass bed in Yorkshire and she’d had to stop herself crying out.

‘What the hell are you
doing
?’ Silvio yelled, his face almost purple with rage. ‘The track was wide open in front of you. The car was going like a dream—’

‘I know.’

Cristiano pulled off his head support and his helmet, tossing them back into the cockpit of the car. His eyes never left Kate. He wanted to tear open his overalls and pull his beating heart from his chest, offering it to her on the palm of his hand.

‘You know? You
know? Per Madre di Dio,
Cristiano, the race could have been
yours…
’

‘I know,’ he said again, moving past Silvio and going towards her. ‘But the thing is, I just realised I don’t want it.’

The huge desert sun brushed her hair with gold-dust and turned the tears that welled in her eyes into shimmering pools of molten gold.

‘Don’t say that—please,’ she croaked hoarsely, and for a moment his heart stopped as icy fear gripped him. Real fear.

‘Kate—’

‘No. Let me finish.’ She reached up and pressed her finger
to his lips, hushing him. Her throat felt as if she’d swallowed an entire desert of sand. ‘I came here to tell you—’

But the other cars, still grouped together, were coming around the circuit again, the ever-present scream of their engines rising to an ear-splitting shriek. She kept her eyes fixed on his, desperate to make herself heard above the noise.

‘To tell you that I’m sorry,’ she yelled, standing on her tiptoes to bring her mouth closer to his ear. ‘I won’t stand in the way of what you want to do. I love you so much, and I was so frightened of losing you, but you were right—a life lived in fear is no life at—’

She didn’t get any further because at that moment he captured the back of her head in one strong hand and brought his mouth down on hers, kissing her on and on as the cars streaked past on the track behind them, whipping her hair against his face. Her body arched against him, her bones melting as he held her in their own dark, sweet world. When the noise had died away again they pulled apart slowly, gazing at each other in stupefied wonder.

‘What did you say?’ Cristiano rasped, holding her face between his hands as her tears streamed over his fingers.

‘I said I love you,’ Kate sobbed. ‘I want you—on any terms. Because I’d rather have five minutes of being loved by you than five hundred years of being loved by anyone else. So if you want to get into the car and go back out there, that’s OK with me.’

‘Kate…’

He kissed her again, with a tenderness that bordered on reverence this time. Kate smiled tremulously.

‘But you’d better do it soon, because even you might struggle to make up time from an extended kissing stop in the middle of a race.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ve finally remembered what happened last time—in Monaco. But even before that I had realised anyway. I don’t need this anymore. I don’t need to risk my neck to feel alive, or win to prove that I’m something. Not if I have you and Alexander.’

She was dimly aware of cameras whirring at a distance, as the pit crew kept back the journalists who had gathered. Happiness was rising inside her like the sun, spilling warmth and shining light into the dark corners where fear had lurked for so long.

‘You do. You will. Always.’

The sun dazzled her, making rainbows dance in the blur of tears as he stood in front of her. His face was pale, his narrow eyes black with fiercely restrained emotion. ‘Does that mean that if I asked you to marry me again you might say yes this time?’

‘Try,’ she sobbed.

Gravely, he lowered himself down onto one knee, looking for all the world like some handsome crusader in a Pre-Raphaelite painting about to be knighted. Cars screamed past on the track behind them, but the noise that used to set her teeth on edge was now nothing more than a background symphony to Cristiano’s voice.

‘Kate Edwards,’ he said, taking her hand, ‘would you possibly be brave and foolish enough to risk joining your life to a dyslexic ex-racing driver who loves you more than he can ever say?’ He looked up at her with a crooked, heartbreakingly sexy smile. ‘Certainly on paper.’

Tipping back her head, Kate laughed, tears still cascading down her cheeks as she pulled him to his feet again. ‘You know me—I thrive on risk. Bring on the challenge—and the happy ending.’

He caught hold of her waist and gathered her into his arms. ‘Oh, no,’ he said softly, his eyes gleaming as he bent his head to kiss her again. ‘It’s not the end. This is only just the beginning…’

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 2010
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18–24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© India Grey 2010

ISBN: 978-1-4089-1952-1