The Price of Success

Sasha’s blood ran cold. ‘I … no, he couldn’t have said that! Besides, he didn’t mean—’ She bit her lip to stop the rest of her words. Although they’d rowed, she wasn’t about to betray Rafael’s trust. ‘We’re just friends.’

‘You’re poison.’ His hand slashed through the denial she’d been about to utter. ‘Whatever thrall you hold over your fellow team mates, it ends right now.’

Sliding the box containing the engagement ring into his pocket, he returned to the desk. Several papers were spread across it. He searched through until he found what he was looking for.

‘Your contract is a rolling one, due to end next season.’

Still reeling from the force of his words, Sasha stared at him.

‘My lawyers will hammer out the finer details of a pay-off in the next few days. But as of right now your services are no longer needed by Team Espiritu.’

With the force of a bucket of cold water, she was wrenched from her numbness.

‘You’re firing me because I befriended your brother?’

The hysterical edge to her voice registered on the outer fringes of her mind, but Sasha ignored it. She’d worked too hard, fought too long for this chance to let mere hysteria stand in her way. If she had to scream like a banshee she would do so to make Marco de Cervantes listen to her. After years of withstanding vicious whispers and callous undermining, she would not be dismissed so easily. Not when her chance to see her father’s reputation restored, the chance to prove her own worth, was so close.

‘Do you want to stop for a moment and think how absurd that is? Do you really want to carry on down that road?’ she demanded, raising her chin when he turned from the desk.

‘What road?’ he asked without looking up.

‘The sexist, discriminatory road. Or are you going to fire Rafael too when he wakes up? Just to even things up?’

His gaze hardened. ‘I’ve been running this team for almost a decade and no one has ever been allowed to cause this much disruption unchecked before.’

‘What do you mean, unchecked?’

‘I warned Rafael about you three months ago,’ he delivered without an ounce of remorse. ‘I told him you were trouble. That he should stay away from you.’

Her anger blazed into an inferno. ‘How dare you?’

He merely shrugged. ‘Unfortunately, with Rafael, you only have to suggest there’s something he can’t have to make him hunger desperately for it.’

‘You’re unbelievable—you know that? You think you can play with people’s lives!’

His face darkened. ‘Believe me, I’m not playing. Five million.’

Confused, she frowned. ‘Five million … for what?’

‘To walk away. Dollars, pounds or euros. It doesn’t really matter.’

Fire crackled inside her. ‘You want to pay me to give up my seat? To disappear like some sleazy secret simply because I became friends with your brother? Even to a wild nut-job like me that seems very drastic. What exactly are you afraid of, Mr de Cervantes?’

Strong, corded arms folded over his chest. His body was held so tense she feared he would snap a muscle at any second. ‘Let’s just say I have experience with women like you.’

‘Damn, I thought I was one of a kind. Would you care to elaborate on that stunning assertion?’

One brow winged upward. ‘And have you selling the story to the first tabloid hack you find? I’ll pass. Five million. To resign and to stay away from the sport.’

‘Go to hell.’ She added a smile just for the hell of it, because she yearned for him to feel a fraction of the anger and humiliation coursing through her. The same emotions her father had felt when he’d been thrown out of the profession that had been his life.

‘Is that your final answer?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I don’t need to phone a friend and I don’t need to ask any audience. My final answer—go to hell!’

Sasha braced herself for more of the backlash he’d been doling out solidly for the last hour. But all he did was stare at her, his gaze once again leaving her feeling exposed, as if he’d stripped back a layer of her skin.

He nodded once. Then he paced the room, seemingly lost for words. Finally he raked both hands through his hair, ruffling it until the silky strands looked unkempt in a sexy, just-got-out-of-bed look that she couldn’t help but stare at.

Puzzled by his attitude, she forced her gaze away and tried to hang on to her anger. She didn’t deserve this. All she’d tried to be was a friend to Rafael, a team mate who’d seemed to be battling demons of his own.

After her experience with Derek, and the devastating pain of losing the baby she hadn’t known she was carrying until it was too late, she’d vowed never to mix business with pleasure. Derek’s jealousy as she’d risen through the ranks of the racing world had eroded any feelings she’d had for him until there’d been nothing left.

As if sensing her withdrawal, he’d tried to hang on to her with a last-ditch proposal. When she’d turned him down he’d labelled her a bitch and started a whispering campaign against her that had undermined all her years of hard work.

Thankfully Derek had never found out the one thing he could have used against her. The one thing that could have shattered her very existence. The secret memory of her lost baby was buried deep inside, where no one could touch it or use it as a weapon against her.

Even her father hadn’t known, and after living through his pain and humiliation she’d vowed never to let her personal life interfere with her work ever again.

Rafael’s easy smile and wildly charming ways had got under her guard, making her reveal a few careful details about her past to him. His friendship had been a balm to the lonely existence she’d lived as Jack Fleming’s daughter.

The thought that Marco had poisoned him against her filled her with sadness.

‘You know, I thought it was Rafael who told you about my past. But it was the other way round, wasn’t it?’ she asked.

She waited for his answer, but his gaze was fixed on the view outside, on the picturesque towers of the Royal Castle. A stillness surrounded him that caught and held her attention.

‘For as long as I can remember I’ve been bailing Rafael out of one scrape or another.’

The words—low, intense and unexpected—jolted aside her anger.

‘He’s insanely passionate about every single aspect of his life, be it food, driving or volcano-boarding down the side of some godforsaken peak in Nicaragua,’ he continued. ‘Unfortunately the perils of this world seem to dog him. When he was eleven, he discovered mushrooms growing in a field at our vineyard in León and decided to eat them. His stomach had to be pumped or he’d have died. Two years later, he slipped away from his boarding school to run with the bulls at Pamplona. He was gored in the arm. Save for a very substantial donation to the school, and my personal guarantee of his reformation, he would’ve been thrown out immediately.’

His gaze focused on her. ‘I can list another dozen episodes that would raise your hair.’

‘He’s a risk-taker,’ Sasha murmured, wondering where the conversation was headed but deciding to go with it. ‘He has to be as a racing driver; surely you understand that?’ she argued. ‘Didn’t you scale Everest on your own five years ago, after everyone in your team turned back because of a blizzard? In my book that’s Class A recklessness.’

‘I knew what I was doing.’

‘Oh, okay. How about continuing over half the London-Dakar rally with a broken arm?’

His clear surprise made her lips twist. ‘How—?’

‘Told you I had nerd-tastic info on you. You own the most successful motor racing team in the history of the sport. I want to drive for you. I’ve done my homework.’

‘Very impressive, but risk-taking on the track is expected—within reason. But even before Rafael ever got behind the wheel of a race car he was … highly strung.’

‘If he’s so highly strung that you have to manage him, then why do you let him race? Why own the team that places him in the very sport likely to jeopardise his well-being?’