A Secret Worth Keeping?: Living the Charade / Her Shameful Secret / Island of Secrets

‘Would you stop looking at those women? We are not here to pick up,’ Tino Ventura growled at his brother.

‘Seems to me it might solve your problem about what to do with yourself this weekend.’

Tino snorted. ‘The day I need my baby brother to sort entertainment for me is the day you can put me in a body bag.’

Sam didn’t laugh, and Tino silently berated his choice of words.

‘So how’s the car shaping up?’ Sam asked.

Tino grunted. ‘The chassis still needs work and the balancing sucks.’

‘Will it be ready by Sunday?’

The concern in his brother’s voice set Tino’s teeth on edge. He was so over everyone worrying about this next race as if it was to be his last—and okay, there were a couple of nasty coincidences that made for entertaining journalism, but they weren’t signs, for God’s sake.

‘It’ll be ready.’

‘And the knee?’

Coming off the back of a long day studying engine data and time trials in his new car, Tino was too tired to humour his brother with shop-talk.

‘This catch-up drink was going a lot better before you started peppering me with work questions.’

He could do without the reminder of how his stellar racing year had started to fall apart lately. All he needed was to win this next race and he’d have the naysayers who politely suggested that he would never be as good as his father off his back.

Not that he dwelt on their opinion.

He didn’t.

But he’d still be happy to prove them wrong once and for all, and equalling his father’s number of championship titles in the very race that had taken his life seventeen years earlier ought to do just that.

‘If it were me I’d be nervous, that’s all,’ Sam persisted.

Maybe Tino would be too, if he stopped to think about how he felt. But emotions got you killed in his business, and he’d locked his away a long time ago. ‘Which is why you’re a cottonwool lawyer in a four-thousand-dollar suit.’

‘Five.’

Tino tilted his beer bottle to his lips. ‘You need to get your money back, junior.’

Sam snorted. ‘You ought to talk. I think you bought that T-shirt in high school.’

‘Hey, don’t knock the lucky shirt.’ Tino chuckled, much happier to be sparring with his little brother than dissecting his current career issues.

He knew his younger brother was spooked about all the problems he’d been having that so eerily echoed his father’s lead-up to a date with eternity. Everyone in his family was. Which was why he was staying the hell away from Melbourne until Monday, when the countdown towards race day began.

‘Excuse me, but do I know you?’

Tino glanced at the blonde who had been eyeballing them for the last ten minutes, pleasantly surprised to find her focus on his little brother instead of himself.

Well, hell, that was a first. He knew Sam would get mileage out of it for the next decade if he could.

He turned to see where her cute friend was but she seemed to have disappeared.

‘Not that I know of,’ Sam replied to the stunner beside him, barely managing to keep his tongue in his mouth. ‘I’m Sam Ventura and this is my brother Valentino.’

Tino stared at his brother. No one called him Valentino except their mother.

Switch your brain on, Samuel.

‘I do know you!’ she declared confidently. ‘You’re at Clayton Smythe—corporate litigation, L.A. office. Am I right?’

‘You are at that.’ Sam smiled.

‘Ruby Clarkson—discrimination law, Sydney office.’ She held out her hand. ‘Please tell me you’re in town this weekend and as free as a bird.’

Tino willed Sam not to blow his cool. The blonde had a sensational smile and a nice rack, but she was a little too bold for his tastes. His brother, however, he could see was already halfway to her bedroom.

Some sixth sense made him turn, and his eyes alighted on the friend in the black suit with the provocative red trim at the hem. She glanced at her empty table and her mouth fell open when she scanned the room and located her friend.

Then her eyes cut to his and her mouth snapped closed with frosty precision. Tino saw her spine straighten and grinned when she glanced at the door as if she was about to bolt through it. His eyes drifted over her again. If she’d bothered to smile, and he hadn’t just ended a short liaison with a woman who had lied about understanding the term ‘casual sex’, she was exactly his type. Polished, poised and pert—all over. Pert nose, pert breasts and a pert ass. And he liked the way she moved too. Graceful. Purposeful.

As she approached, he took in the ruler-straight chestnut-coloured hair that shone under the bar lights, and skin that was perhaps the creamiest he had ever seen. His eyes travelled over a heart-shaped mouth designed with recreational activities in mind and the bluest wide-spaced eyes he’d ever seen.

‘Ruby, I’m back. Let’s go.’

And a voice that could stop a bushfire in its tracks.

Tino felt amused at the dichotomy; she should be leaning in and whispering sweet nothings in his ear, not cutting her friend to the quick.

‘Hey, relax. Why don’t I get you a drink?’ he found himself offering.

‘I’m perfectly relaxed.’ Her eyes could have shredded concrete as she turned them on him, but still he felt the effect of that magnificent aquamarine gaze like a punch in the gut. ‘And if I wanted a drink I’d order one.’

Well, excuse the hell out of me.

‘Miller!’ Her friend instantly jumped in to try and ease the lash of her words. ‘This is Sam and his brother Valentino. And—good news—Sam is free for the weekend.’

The woman Miller didn’t move, but the skin at the outside of her mouth pulled tight. She seemed about to set her friend on fire, but then collected herself at the last minute.

‘Hello, Sam. Valentino.’

He noticed he barely rated a nod.

‘I’m very pleased to meet you. But unfortunately Ruby and I have to go.’

‘Miller,’ her friend chided. ‘This is a perfect solution for you.’

This last was said almost under her breath, and Tino directed an enquiring eyebrow at Sam.