Название: Unnoticed and Untouched
Автор: Lynn Harris Raye
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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It was the closest thing to a vow he’d ever heard her utter. She said it with such conviction. Such bitterness.
Such passion.
Renzo felt a jolt of awareness curl through him. Maledizione, was he mad? She was his PA, and though he didn’t quite understand where this sudden attraction to her sprang from, she was most definitely off-limits. She had to be. He needed to concentrate on the Viper, and he needed his efficient PA at his side, taking care of the business side of his life while he rode the hell out of the motorcycle and worked on the adjustments to the design. If he crossed the line with her, he could endanger everything—in so much as she might leave and he’d have to train a new PA when he did not have the time.
No, Renzo could not afford to endanger anything right now when time was critical. When Niccolo Gavretti was just waiting to find a weakness he could exploit in his quest to destroy Renzo and D’Angeli Motors. He should have crushed Niccolo when he’d had the chance, but he’d been sentimental. Idiot.
“I don’t suppose you care to tell me why,” he said, more than a little curious about what could make quiet, calm Faith Black run away from home.
Her head moved, the lights shining off her golden hair as she shook it. “Some families don’t get along,” she said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
He could only stare. He’d thought her sweet, harmless, and here she was made of steel and wrapped in velvet. Faith did not speak to her family. It was a revelation, and he burned with curiosity as to why. He spoke to his mother and sister regularly, couldn’t imagine not speaking to them. But here was this quiet girl telling him with such vehemence that she’d cut herself off from everyone in her life.
It stunned him. This was a woman with unsuspected depths. A woman who’d worked for him for six months, and he’d never once realized there was more to her than the face she presented him with every day.
The car pulled to a stop in front of her apartment building. He thought she might make a dash for it, but she waited for Stefan to come around and open the door. Renzo stepped out onto the pavement, his leg throbbing so badly now that he knew he would need a pain pill when he got home. At least, mercifully, the damn thing would make him sleep.
“You don’t have to see me up,” Faith said as he started toward the building door.
He turned toward her, saw the worry lines bracketing her mouth, and knew that she’d seen through him. For some reason, that made him angry.
“I do,” he said shortly, his tone brooking no argument. A part of him was saying he was a fool, but the other part—the prideful, stubborn part—insisted he could still do any damn thing he wanted to do. It was simply an issue of mind over matter. If he couldn’t conquer the little things, like stairs, how could he conquer the big things, like riding the Viper on the Grand Prix circuit?
Faith turned away in a huff and walked to the door. He followed her. She used her key to get inside the building, and then they were moving toward the stairs. She took her time, saying her high heels were bothering her, but he suspected she did it for him.
His leg cramped as he climbed the two flights, but then they were in the hall and standing before her door. Pain spiked into his leg then, radiating through his entire body so that he leaned against the wall, certain he wouldn’t be moving for at least five minutes. Per Dio.
Faith unlocked her door and turned, a little gasp escaping her when she saw him standing there. “Renzo? Are you okay?”
“Si, of course,” he said, but his voice sounded as if he were gritting his teeth. Which he was, he realized a moment later.
Faith didn’t hesitate. She looped her arm in his. “Come in and sit down. Let me massage it for you.”
Now why, in the midst of his pain, did that thought make his libido kick into gear?
“I’ll be fine in a few moments. Just let me stand here.” It wasn’t an admission he’d wanted to make, but he wasn’t so stubborn as to deny the truth when she could clearly see it.
She frowned up at him. “I had a roommate who was a massage therapist, and she taught me some things. I’m not a professional, but I can try to ease the cramp.”
“It will go away in a moment.”
Her expression said she didn’t believe it for a minute. “I can massage it or you can stand here. Whichever you prefer. But know this. My feet hurt and I’m going inside and sitting down, with or without you.”
He swore softly in Italian, but he let her help him into the cramped living space of her apartment. He didn’t even bother trying to hide the limp this time. What was the point?
She eased him down on her sofa and then hastily moved magazines from her coffee table before bending to pick his foot up and prop it on the table. Renzo leaned his head back and closed his eyes as pain throbbed into his body.
“You shouldn’t have stood on it so long tonight,” Faith said.
“This rarely happens,” he replied automatically, though it was a lie. In truth it happened too often of late. And what if it happened on the track? He’d been asking himself that for months now. The consequences could be disastrous. He knew what it was like to wipe out at two hundred miles an hour. Knew how lucky he’d been to wake up from the accident with pins in his leg and his head intact.
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