Her Last Night of Innocence

She was standing in the middle of the milling hordes of people in the pit lane, looking around. Her head was turned away from him, her face obscured for a moment by the curtain of her dark-blonde hair, but there was no mistaking the length of her legs in the faded jeans she wore, the swell of those breasts beneath the navy T-shirt she’d picked up that morning from his bedroom floor.

He was smiling as he walked towards her, wondering how he could have missed her. Amidst all the painted pedigree grid-girls, she looked like an abandoned golden retriever puppy. He’d noticed her as soon as he had pulled into the pit lane after qualifying yesterday, because she was so different from the standard Grand Prix girl groupies. In her businesslike grey suit, with her hair pulled back, she’d reminded him of the clever girls at school. The ones who’d always had clean, neat uniforms and who had done their homework on time and been held up as a shining example by the nuns.

Instead of being a waster. A no-hoper. Like him.

‘Oh…’

She turned then, her full lips parting in a gasp of surprise and relief as he took her hand and dragged her into the shadow of the pit lane garages.

Kate felt heat explode inside her, spreading upwards to her cheeks and downwards to her knickers. ‘I couldn’t find you,’ she said a little breathlessly, ducking her head and leaning it against his chest as he pulled her into his body, hiding her fiery blush.

‘I’m here.’

‘I was beginning to think that I’d imagined it all.’ Oh, God—did that make her sound needy? Desperate? She laughed, but there was a slight break in it. ‘Or that it had all been a dream.’

‘Which bit of it would you like me to reassure you was real…?’ He lowered his head and spoke lazily into her hair, his husky voice with its outrageously sensual Italian accent sending shivers of bliss down her spine as his hands gripped her waist. ‘The bit in the swimming pool…or the bit in the bedroom? The kitchen floor this morning…?’

‘Shh…’ She was laughing, gripping the edges of his racing overalls with their Clearspring logos, her face buried in his chest. ‘Someone might hear.’

‘Would that be so bad?’

The laughter died and her smile faded. ‘It’s not my usual style.’ That had to be a strong contender in the ‘Understatement of the Year’ competition. ‘We only met yesterday—I came to interview you…’

‘And to think I’ve always hated interviews,’ he drawled softly. ‘I’d have agreed to do more if I knew they could be so much fun.’

Kate frowned. ‘I hardly know you.’

He took her chin between his fingers and tilted her head up so she had no choice but to look into those dark, bitter-chocolate coloured eyes. Famous eyes, familiar to her from television and magazines, from the countless photographs they had of him in the office, the poster on her younger brother’s bedroom wall…

‘After last night you know me better than anyone.’

His tone was ironic, but his swarthy pirate’s face with its high, hard cheekbones and finely shaped mouth was suddenly bleak. He shook his head slowly, thrusting a hand through his dark, deliciously untidy hair. ‘Gesu, Kate, I’ve never…bared my soul like that before.’

‘Me neither.’

Kate’s voice was just a whisper as her mind flickered back over the last twelve extraordinary hours. There had been the sex, of course, and that had been…magical. But they had also talked. Her heart contracted painfully and her breath hitched in her throat as she remembered how he’d lain in her arms, his voice oddly toneless as he told her about his past, the difficulties he had experienced in school that had driven him to seek success at all costs. And he had seen past the professional veneer she’d so painstakingly constructed to the secret void of grief and terror beneath. He’d told her that a life lived in fear was no life at all. And he’d shown her how to shut off the anxiety and live for the moment…

From outside the garages the noise of the crowd seemed to swell in the heat, pressing against the fragile walls of their private world. He pulled away from her, his expression suddenly blank.

‘I have to go.’

Kate nodded quickly and took a step back, desperate not to appear needy. ‘I know. Go. But remember—you don’t have to prove anything, Cristiano.’ She managed a crooked smile. ‘Drive carefully.’

For a heartbeat she saw a flicker of pain in his eyes, and then it was gone, and he was pulling on his gloves, giving her that wry, mocking smile that turned her inside out. ‘Tesoro, this is the Monaco Grand Prix. Driving carefully isn’t really the idea.’

She laughed, pushing back the panic that swelled inside her. ‘OK, fair point.’ She wasn’t going to be that person anymore—he had shown her how to live for the moment, to seize happiness, not to cling to fear. Even so, as he turned to go it took a massive effort to keep the smile in place and not let him see how this terrified her.

He was at the mouth of the garage now. Catching a glimpse of him, the crowd outside had begun to roar again. He turned, looking at her for a moment with dark, opaque eyes.

‘This isn’t over, you know. Last night was just the beginning.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Wait for me.’

And then he was gone, striding out into the shimmering haze of heat and petrol, his broad shoulders very straight. A strang er again.

The click of the harness was the signal Cristiano used mentally to switch off the outside world. From that moment there was nothing but the track, the car, the race.

He was first on the grid. The Monaco circuit was ridiculously narrow, making overtaking almost impossible, and the crowd was so close that at times you could count the gold fillings in the teeth of the billionaires on their yachts, and read the labels on the designer bikinis of their mistresses and trophy wives.

The first few laps melted away. Coming into the Grand Hotel Hairpin on the fourth—or was it the fifth?—a good half-second ahead of the competition, Cristiano changed gear smoothly, allowing his mind to pan out a little from its minute focus on the track. Silvio had done well. The car was performing perfectly. The conditions were ideal. The race was his—another win to add to his impressive record.

You don’t have to prove anything…

Darkness engulfed him as he plunged into the tunnel. The soft voice in his head was so real that for a moment it was as if she was in the car with him, and he could almost smell the cool scent of her skin. His focus wavered and he blinked hard, almost dizzy with longing.

The mouth of the tunnel was ahead of him. As he came out the sun was in his eyes, the taste of her skin was on his lips, the echo of her words in his ears, and suddenly he had the oddest sensation of everything making sense. The barrier in front of him was too close, coming too fast, but it felt almost unreal because in that moment he knew…

And then there was an explosion—pain, fire, blackness.

Nothing.

Chapter One

Four years later

CLEARSPRING WATER, as the marketing department was keen to point out, was sourced from an ancient spring deep in the green heart of the Yorkshire Dales. Its offices, however, were situated in a hideous 1960s building on an industrial estate on the fringes of a grey Yorkshire town.

They were pretty depressing at the best of times, but on the first Monday morning in January the drooping paper chains and balding Christmas tree in Reception that no one had quite got round to removing made them feel more than usually grim. Standing in the cell-like kitchen at the end of the corridor, waiting for the kettle to boil, Kate stared at the calendar on the wall in front of her.

New year, new calendar. New set of photographs of the Campano racing team.

Pulling the sleeves of the rather unflattering polo-necked jumper her mother had given her for Christmas down over her fingers, she turned her back on the calendar and leaned against the worktop, repeating her New Year’s resolution in her head like a mantra. This year I am going to stop waiting. I am going to give up dealing in maybes and what ifs; stop obsessing over what I haven’t got, and make the most of what I have—a gorgeous, happy, healthy three-year-old boy.

Her fingers tingled. She wasn’t going to look. Wasn’t going to pull the stupid calendar off the wall and flick through in search of a photo of Cristiano Maresca like some obsessed teenage fangirl.

As she had last year. And the one before.

Cristiano Maresca hadn’t raced since the accident that had almost killed him at Monaco, but if anything his status as a celebrity heart-throb had only increased. He was more elusive than ever, but rare snatched paparazzi photographs of him looking lean and menacing were reproduced endlessly in newspapers and magazines, along with speculation about whether he’d ever return to the circuit.

Why was the kettle taking so long to boil?

She took down mugs from the cupboard, threw a herbal teabag into the one that said ‘The Boss’ on it, and spooned coffee into ‘I’d rather be in Tenerife’. The kettle was just beginning the throaty splutter that was a prelude to its great crescendo as it reached boiling point. Kate’s gaze flickered back to the calendar.

January’s photo was harmless enough, showing two of the Campano cars—Clearspring banners clearly visible—racing side by side. Surreptitiously, as if it had a mind of its own, she felt her hand come up, lifting the page so she could see the picture underneath.

‘July.’

The voice from behind her made her jump. Kate snatched her hand back as Lisa from the art department stuck her head round the door.

‘Don’t pretend you weren’t looking for Maresca.’ She grinned. ‘We all have. He’s July. Roll on summer!’