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

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      Releasing his clammy grip on the steering wheel, Marco flicked a glance at the villa door. He knew he’d find no respite within. If anything, the memories were more vivid inside. He didn’t need to close his eyes to see his mother laughing at Rafael’s shameless cajoling, her soft hazel eyes sparkling as she wiped her hands on a kitchen towel moments before rushing out of the villa.

      ‘For his twenty-first birthday my father bought Rafael a Lamborghini. We celebrated at a nightclub in Barcelona. Afterwards I flew down here in the helicopter with my parents. Rafael chose to drive from Barcelona—five hours straight. He arrived just after breakfast, completely wired from partying. I tried to convince him to get some sleep, but he wanted to take my parents for a spin in the car.’

      The familiar icy grip of pain tightened around his chest.

      ‘Rafael was my mother’s golden boy. He could do no wrong. So of course she agreed.’ Marco felt some of the pain seep out and tried to contain it. ‘My father insisted later it was the sun that got in Rafael’s eyes as he turned the curve, but one eyewitness confirmed he took the corner too fast. I heard the crash from the garage.’ Every excruciating second had felt like a lifetime as he sped towards the scene. ‘By the time the air ambulance came my mother was gone.’

      ‘Oh, Marco, no!’

      Sasha’s voice was a soft, soothing sound. The ache inside abated, but it didn’t disappear. It never would. He’d lost his mother before he’d ever had the chance to make up for what he’d put her through.

      ‘I should’ve stopped him—should’ve insisted he get some sleep before taking the car out again.’

      ‘You couldn’t have known.’

      He shook his head. ‘But I should have. Except when it comes to Rafael everyone seems to develop a blind spot. Including me.’

      Vaguely, Marco wondered why he was spilling his guts. To Sasha Fleming, of all people. With a forceful wrench on the door, he stepped out of the car.

      She scrambled out too. ‘And your father? What happened to him?’

      His fist tightened around the computerised car key. ‘The accident severed his spine. He lost the use of his body from the neck down. He’s confined to a wheelchair and will remain like that for the rest of his life.’

      Sasha looked after Marco’s disappearing figure, shocked by the astonishing revelation.

      Now Marco’s motives became clear. His overprotective attitude towards Rafael, his reaction to the crash, suddenly made sense. Watching his mother die on the race track he’d built had to be right up there with enduring a living hell every time he stepped foot on it.

      So why did he do it?

      Marco de Cervantes was an extraordinary engineer and aerodynamicist, who excelled in building astonishingly fast race cars, but he could easily have walked away and concentrated his design efforts on the equally successful range of exclusive sport cars favoured by Arab sheikhs and Russian oligarchs.

      So what drove him to have anything to do with a world that surely held heart-wrenching memories?

      She slowly climbed the stairs and entered the house, her mind whirling as she went into her suite to wash off the heat and sweat of the race track.

      After showering, she put on dark jeans and a striped blue shirt. Pulling her hair into a neat twist, she secured it with a band and shoved her feet into pair of flat sandals.

      She met Marco as she came down the stairs. The now familiar raking gaze sent another shiver of awareness scything through her. He stopped directly in front of her, his arresting face and piercing regard rendering her speechless for several seconds.

      ‘Lunch won’t be ready for a while, but if you want something light before then, Rosario can fix you something.’

      The matronly housekeeper appeared in the sun-dappled hallway as if by magic, wiping her hands on a white apron.

      ‘No, thanks. I’m not hungry.’

      With a glance, he dismissed the housekeeper. His gaze returned to her, slowly tracing her face. When it rested on her mouth she struggled not to run her tongue over it, remembering how his eyes had darkened the last time she’d done that.

      ‘I have a video call with Tom Brooks, my press liaison, in five minutes. Can I use your study?’

      His eyes locked on hers. ‘Why’s he calling?’

      ‘He wants to go over next month’s sponsorship schedule. I can give you a final printout, if you like.’

      She deliberately kept her voice light, non-combative. Something told her Marco de Cervantes was spoiling for a fight, and after his revelations she wasn’t sure it was wise to engage him in one. Pain had a habit of eroding rational thought.

      Being calmly informed by the doctor that she’d lost the baby she hadn’t even been aware she was carrying had made her want to scream—loudly, endlessly until her throat gave out. She’d wanted to reach inside herself and rip her body apart for letting her down. In the end the only thing that had helped was getting back to the familiar—to her racing car. The pain had never left her, but the adrenaline of racing had eased her aching soul the way nothing else had been able to.

      Looking into Marco’s dark eyes, she caught a glimpse of his pain, but wisely withheld the offer of comfort on the tip of her tongue. After all, who was she to offer comfort when she hadn’t quite come to terms with losing her baby herself?

      Silently, she held his gaze.

      For several seconds he stared back. Then he indicated his study. ‘I’ll set it up for you.’

      She followed him into the room and drew to a stunned halt. The space was so irreverently, unmistakably male that her eyes widened. An old-style burgundy leather studded chair and footrest stood before the largest fireplace she’d ever seen, above which two centuries-old swords hung. The rest of the room was oak-panelled, with dusty books stretching from floor to ceiling. The scent of stale tobacco pipe smoke hung in the air. It wouldn’t have been strange to see a shaggy-haired professor seated behind the massive desk that stood under the only window in the room. Compared to the contemporary, exceedingly luxurious comfort of the rest of the villa, this was a throwback to another century—save for the sleek computer on the desk.

      Marco caught the look on her face and raised an eyebrow as he activated the large flat screen computer on the immense mahogany desk.

      ‘Did your designer fall into a time warp when he got to this room?’

      ‘This was my father’s study—his personal space. He never allowed my mother to redesign it, no matter how much she tried. He hasn’t been in here since she died, and I … I feel no need to change things.’

      A well of sympathy rose inside Sasha for his pain. Casting a look around, she stopped, barely suppressing a gasp. ‘Is that a stag’s head on the wall?’ she asked, eyeing the large animal head, complete with gnarled, menacing antlers.

      ‘A bull stag, yes.’

      She turned from the gruesome spectacle. ‘There’s a difference?’

      The СКАЧАТЬ