JACQUELINE BAIRD - The Price Of Desire - The Price of Success / The Cost of Her Innocence / Not For Sale

When the sign went up, she launched out of the garage onto the track. Adrenalin coursed through her veins as the powerful car vibrated beneath her. Braking into the first corner, she felt G-forces wrench her head to the left and smiled. This battle with the laws of physics lent an extra thrill as she flew along the track, the sense of freedom making her oblivious to the stress on her body as lap after lap whizzed by.

‘You’re being too hard on your tyres, Sasha.’

Luke’s voice piped into her earphones and she immediately adjusted the balance of the car, her grip loosening a touch to help manoeuvre the curves better.

‘That’s better. In race conditions you’ll need them to go for at least fifteen laps. You can’t afford to wear them out in just eight. It’s early days yet, but things look good.’

Sasha blinked at the grudging respect in Luke’s voice.

‘How does the car feel?’

‘Er … great. It feels great.’

‘Good. Come in and we’ll take a look at the lap times together.’

She drove back into the garage and parked. Keeping her focus on Luke as he approached her, she got out and set her helmet aside.

He showed her the printout. ‘We can’t compare it with the performance of the DSII, but from these figures things are looking very good for Spa in three weeks’ time.’

Reading through the data, Sasha felt a buzz of excitement. ‘The DSII is great at slow corners, so I should be able to go even faster.’

Luke grinned. ‘When you have the world’s best aerodynamicist as your boss, you have a starting advantage. We’ll have a battle on the straight sections, but if you keep up this performance we should cope well enough to keep ourselves ahead.’

Again she caught the changed note in his voice.

Although she’d tried not to dwell on it, throughout the day, and over the following days during testing, Sasha slowly felt the changing attitude of her small team. They spoke to her with less condescension; some even bothered to engage her in conversation before and after her practice sessions.

And the first time Luke asked her opinion on how to avoid the under steering problem that had cropped up, Sasha forced herself to blink back the stupid tears that threatened.

Marco heard the car drive away as he came down the stairs. He curbed the strong urge to yank the door open and forced himself to wait. When he reached the bottom step he sat down and rested his elbows on his knees, his BlackBerry dangling from his fingers.

Light footsteps sounded seconds before the front door opened.

Sasha stood silhouetted against the lights flooding the outer courtyard, the outline of her body in tight dark trousers and top making sparks of desire shoot through his belly.

Clenching his teeth against the intensity of it, he forced himself to remain seated, knowing she hadn’t yet spotted him in the darkened hallway. Her light wrap slipped as she turned to shut the door, and he caught a glimpse of one smooth shoulder and arm. Her dark silky hair was tied in a careless knot on top of her head, giving her neck a long, smooth, elegant line that he couldn’t help but follow.

He found himself tracing the lines of her body, wondering how he’d ever thought her boyish. She was tall, her figure lithe, but there were curves he hadn’t noticed before—right down to the shapely denim-clad legs.

Shutting the door, she tugged off her boots and kicked them into a corner.

She turned and stumbled to a halt, her breath squeaking out in alarm. ‘Marco! Damn it, you really need to stop skulking in dark hallways. You nearly scared me to death!’

‘I wasn’t skulking.’ He heard the irritation in his voice and forced himself to calm down. ‘Where have you been? I called you several times.’

She pulled the wrap tighter around her shoulders, her chin tilting up in silent challenge. ‘I went for a drink with the team.

They’re all flying out tomorrow morning and I wanted to say goodbye. I know that wasn’t part of the deal—me socialising with the team—but they kept asking and it would have been surly to refuse.’

Annoyance rattled through him. The last thing he wanted to discuss was his team, or the deal he’d made with Sasha Fleming. Dios , he wasn’t even sure why he’d come back here. He should be by his brother’s bedside—even if the doctors intended to keep him in his induced coma until the swelling on his brain reduced.

‘And you were having such a great time you decided not to answer your phone?’

‘I think it’s died.’

‘You think ?’

‘You’re annoyed with me. Why?’

Sasha asked the question in that direct way he’d come to expect from her. No one in his vast global organisation would dare to speak to him that way. And yet … he found he liked it.

Rising, he walked towards her. A few steps away, the scent of her perfume hit his nostrils. Marco found himself craving more of it, wanting to draw even closer. ‘Why bother with a phone if you can’t ensure it works?’

‘Because no one calls me.’

Her words stopped him in his tracks. For a man who commanded his multi-billion-euro empire using his BlackBerry, Marco found her remark astonishing in the extreme. ‘No one calls you?’

‘My phone never rings. I think you were the last person to call me. I get the occasional text from Tom, or Charlie, my physio, but other than that … zilch.’

Marco’s puzzlement grew. ‘You don’t have any friends?’

‘Obviously none who care enough to call. And, before you go feeling sorry for me, I’m fine with it.’

‘You’re fine with being lonely?’

‘With being alone . There’s a difference. So, is there another reason you’re annoyed with me?’

She raised her chin in that defiant way that drew his gaze to her throat.

He shoved his phone into his pocket. ‘I’m not annoyed. I’m tired. And hungry. Rosario had gone to bed when I arrived.’

‘Oh, well, that’s good. Not the tired and hungry part. The not annoyed part.’ She bit her lip, her eyes wide on his as he moved even closer. ‘And about Rosario … I hope you don’t mind, but I told her not to wait up for me.’

Marco shook his head. ‘So where did you go for this drink?’ He strove to keep his voice casual.

‘A bodega just off Plaza Mayor in Salamanca.’

He nodded, itching to brush back the stray hair that had fallen against her temple. ‘And did you enjoy your evening out?’

Her shrug drew his eyes to her bare shoulder. ‘Leon is beautiful. And I was glad to get out of the villa.’

Her response struck a strangely discordant chord within him. ‘You don’t like it here?’

‘I don’t mind the proximity to the track, but I was tired of knocking about in this place all by myself.’

Marco stiffened. ‘Do you want to move to the hotel with the rest of the team?’

She thought about it. Then, ‘No. The crew and I seem to be gelling, but I don’t want to become overly familiar with them.’

Marco found himself breathing again. ‘Wise decision. Sometimes maintaining distance is the only way to get ahead.’

‘You obviously don’t practise that dogma. You’re always surrounded by an adoring crowd.’

‘X1 Premier Racing is a multi-million-spectator sport. I can’t exist in a vacuum.’

‘Okay. Um … do you think we can turn the lights on in here? Only we seem to be making a habit of having conversations in the dark.’

‘Sometimes comfort can be found in darkness.’

Facing up to reality’s harsh light after his own crash ten years ago had made him wish he’d stayed unconscious. Angelique’s smug expression as she’d dropped her bombshell had certainly made him wish for the oblivion of darkness.