About the Author

CAROL MARINELLI is a Taurus, with Taurus rising, yet still thinks she is a secret Gemini. Originally from England, she now lives in Australia and is the single mother of three. Apart from her children, writing romance and the friendships forged along the way are her passion. She chooses to believe in a happy-ever-after for all and strives for that in her writing.

MAYA BLAKE’s hopes of becoming a writer were born when she picked up her first romance at thirteen. Little did she know her dream would come true! Does she still pinch herself every now and then to make sure it’s not a dream? Yes, she does! Feel free to pinch her, too, via Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads! Happy reading!

RACHAEL THOMAS has always loved reading romance and is thrilled to be a Mills & Boon Modern Romance author. She lives and works on a farm in Wales—a far cry from the glamour of a Modern Romance story—but that makes slipping into her characters’ worlds all the more appealing. When she’s not writing or working on the farm she enjoys photography and visiting historical castles and grand houses. Visit her at rachaelthomas.co.uk.

Billionaires: The Playboy

Di Sione’s Innocent Conquest

Carol Marinelli

The Di Sione Secret Baby

Maya Blake

To Blackmail a Di Sione

Rachael Thomas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09294-4

BILLIONAIRES: THE PLAYBOY

Di Sione’s Innocent Conquest © 2016 Harlequin Books S.A The Di Sione Secret Baby © 2016 Harlequin Books S.A To Blackmail a Di Sione © 2016 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Di Sione’s Innocent Conquest

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

The Di Sione Secret Baby

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

To Blackmail a Di Sione

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

About the Publisher

Di Sione’s Innocent Conquest

Carol Marinelli

PROLOGUE

MATTEO DI SIONE knew only too well his shortcomings.

He didn’t need to have them pointed out to him.

Again.

Summoned by his grandfather, Giovanni, it was with a sense of dread that Matteo drove towards the Di Sione estate—a magnificent, sprawling residence set in the Gold Coast of Long Island.

On the death of Matteo’s parents, Giovanni had taken in the seven orphans that his son, Benito, and wife, Anna, had left behind. For Matteo, then only five years old, this place had become home.

Now he had a penthouse apartment in Manhattan with glittering views of the skyline and the city that never slept at his feet.

This was home though.

For better or worse, this was where his fractured, scattered family met on occasion, or returned to at times.

Now, Matteo assumed that he had been called here to be served a lecture.

Another one.

The previous weekend had been particularly wild, even by Matteo’s licentious standards. The press, who were eagerly awaiting his downfall, had been watching. They couldn’t wait for a Di Sione to hit skid row and so had taken delight in reporting Matteo’s million-dollar loss in Vegas on Saturday night. They had, of course, failed to mention that he had recouped the loss twice over by dawn. What hurt him the most, though, was that a prestigious paper had written a very scathing piece.

Arriving in Manhattan this morning, he had gone from his jet to the waiting car and checked the news—the headline he had seen had been the one he had dreaded the most.

History Repeats!

There was a photo of him coming out of the casino, unshaven, with his hair falling over his eyes. He was clearly a little the worse for wear. On his arm was a blonde.

Beside that image, there was another, taken some thirty years ago, in the very same year that he had been born.

Benito Di Sione coming out of a casino, unshaven with the same straight black hair falling over the same navy eyes and clearly a little the worse for wear. On his arm the beautiful requisite blonde, who was not Matteo’s mother.

Matteo doubted his father would have remembered who the woman was, whereas Matteo always remembered his lovers.

On Saturday night her name had been Lacey and she had been gorgeous.

He adored women.

Skinny ones, big ones and anywhere in between. Matteo had a slight yen for the newly divorced—he had found that they were only too happy to rekindle that long-lost flame of desire.

Matteo always made it perfectly clear that he was here for a good time not a long time and he was never with anyone long enough to cheat.

The article had gone on to list the similarities between father and youngest son—the risk-taking, the decadent, debauched lifestyle—and had warned that Matteo was heading towards the same fate that had befallen his father—dead, his car wrapped around a lamppost and his wife deceased by his side.

No, Matteo was not looking forward to speaking with his grandfather; after all, Giovanni often said the very same thing.

He drove into the huge estate and looked ahead rather than taking in the luxurious surrounds, for they held few happy memories.

Still, it was home and, as he parked his car and walked towards the mansion where the Di Sione children had been raised, he wondered as to his reception. Matteo stopped by fairly regularly and took Giovanni out to his club for lunch whenever he could.

He knocked on the door simply to be polite but, as he did, he let himself in with his own key.

‘It’s Matteo,’ he called out as he opened the door and then smiled when he saw Alma, the housekeeper, up on a stepladder.

‘Master Matteo!’ Alma mustn’t have heard him knock because she jumped a little. She was working on a large flower display in the entrance hall and went to get down from the ladder but he gestured for her to carry on.

‘Where is he?’ Matteo asked.

‘In his study. Do you want me to let Signor Giovanni know that you are here?’

‘No, I’ll just go straight through.’ Matteo rolled his eyes. ‘I believe he’s expecting me.’

Alma gave him a small smile and Matteo took it to be a sympathetic one. Of course she must have seen the newspaper when she had taken Giovanni his breakfast this morning.

‘How is he doing?’ Matteo asked as he often did.

‘He wants to speak with you himself,’ Alma said and Matteo frowned at the vague answer.

He walked down a long hallway and then stood at the heavy mahogany door of his grandfather’s study and took a steadying breath, then knocked on the door. When his grandfather’s voice called for him to come in, he did so.

‘Hey!’ Matteo said as he opened the door.

He looked not to his grandfather but to the folded newspaper that lay on Giovanni’s desk and, even as he closed the door behind him, Matteo set the tone. ‘I’ve already seen it and I really don’t need a lecture.’

‘Where does lecturing you get me, Matteo?’ Giovanni responded.

Matteo looked up at the sound of his grandfather’s tired voice, and what he saw made his heart sink in dread. Giovanni looked not just pale, but so incredibly frail. His hair was as white as snow and his usually bright blue eyes seemed faded, and suddenly Matteo changed his mind—he wanted a lecture now! He wanted his grandfather to have brought him here to haul him over the proverbial coals, to tell Matteo that he must grow up, settle down and cease his hedonistic days. Anything other than what, Matteo had the terrible feeling, was about to come.

‘I’ve asked you to come here to tell you...’ Giovanni started but Matteo did not want to hear it. A master in diversion, he picked up the newspaper from his grandfather’s desk and unfolded it.

‘For all their comparisons they forget one vital piece of information,’ Matteo said. ‘He had responsibilities.’

‘I know that he did,’ Giovanni said, ‘but you have responsibility too. To yourself. Matteo, you are heading for trouble. The company you keep, the risks you take...’

‘Are mine to take,’ Matteo interrupted. ‘My father was married and had seven children when he died.’ He jabbed at the photo. ‘Well, seven that he had admitted to!’

‘Matteo!’ Giovanni said. This was not going as he intended. ‘Sit down.’

‘No!’ He argued not with his grandfather but himself. ‘For all they compare me to him they deliberately omit to mention that I don’t have a wife and children. I’d never put anyone through the hell he made.’

He never would.

It was a decision Matteo had made a long time ago.

He was single and staying that way.

Giovanni looked at his grandson and he worried for him.

Fun-loving and charismatic, Matteo not only acted like his father at times, he looked like him too. They had the same navy eyes, the same straight nose and even their hair fell forwards in the same way.

Giovanni, for his own private reasons, had never bonded with his son. He had never told anyone why; it was a secret he had intended to take to his grave.

In the aftermath of Benito’s and Anna’s deaths, five-year-old Matteo, a carbon copy of his father, had been too much of a visual reminder of Benito for Giovanni and, rather than learning from his mistakes, he had repeated them, and Giovanni had kept his distance from his grandson.

Matteo had run wild and that irrepressible personality had gone largely unchecked. When he had dropped out of college after just a year, a terrible row had ensued. Matteo had said that he didn’t need to be taught about the business world—playing the stock market was in his DNA and he wanted to set up a hedge fund rather than sit in lectures—and Giovanni had told his grandson that he was just like his father and that he feared he was heading the same way. Accusations that Matteo had not needed to hear and certainly not from his grandfather.

It was too late to tame him. Giovanni had shouted at the young man, and Matteo had fought back.

‘You never once tried!’ It was the only glimpse Matteo had ever given to another of the pain he carried. ‘You never once fought for me,’ he had shouted. ‘You left me to roam this house and make my own way. Don’t act now as if you care.’ Yes, harsh words had been said and their relationship still bore the scars to this day.

‘Take a seat, Matteo,’ Giovanni said.

Matteo didn’t do as asked.

Troubled by his grandfather’s appearance and unsettled as to what was to come, instead of sitting down, he walked over to the window. He looked out to the vast estate that had once been his playground. Matteo’s grandmother had died before he had been born, so his younger sisters had been taken care of by his older sister, Allegra, while his older siblings had all headed off to boarding school.

Matteo had pretty much been left to his own devices.

‘Do you remember when you used to visit me as children when your parents were still alive?’ Giovanni asked.

‘I don’t think about that time,’ Matteo answered.

He did his best to never look back.

‘You were very young, of course. Maybe you can’t remember...’

Oh, Matteo did.

He remembered only too well life before the Di Sione children had come to live here. He could still recall, with painful clarity, the fights that could erupt at any given time and just the sheer chaos of their existence. Of course, he hadn’t understood then that there were drugs involved. Matteo had just known that his family lived on the edge.

A luxurious knife edge.

‘Matteo.’ Giovanni broke into his dark thoughts. ‘Do you remember when I used to tell you all the story of the Lost Mistresses?’

‘No.’ Matteo shrugged and dismissed the conversation. As he looked out of the window to the lake, his gaze fell on a tree that was so high his stomach churned as he remembered climbing it and falling. A branch had broken his fall. Had it not, he’d probably have died.

No one had seen and no one had known.

Alma, the housekeeper, had scolded him for the grass stains on his clothes and had asked what had happened.

‘I tripped near the lake,’ he had said.

His ribs and head had hurt and his heart had still been pounding, not that he would let Alma see that.

Instead it had been easier to lie.

The sensation of falling still woke Matteo to this day but that wasn’t all that he recalled as he stood there staring out of the window. There was a darker memory that he had never shared, one that could still bring him out in a cold sweat—pleading with his father to stop, to slow down, to please take him home.

From that day to this, Matteo had never again revealed fear.

It got you nowhere. If anything, it spurred others on.

‘You surely remember,’ Giovanni insisted. ‘The Lost Mistresses...’

‘I don’t.’ He shook his head.

‘Then I’ll remind you.’

As if I need to hear this again, Matteo thought! He said nothing, though, and let the old man speak.

‘Don’t ask me how I came by them, for an old man must have his secrets...’ Giovanni started. Matteo remained standing, his face impassive, as his grandfather recited the tale. ‘But when I came to America, I had in my possession trinkets, my Lost Mistresses. They meant more to me than you can ever know but in order to survive I was forced to sell them. My Lost Mistresses, the love of my life, we owe them everything.’ Giovanni stopped speaking for a moment and looked at Matteo’s pale features and unshaven jaw, which was now clenched. ‘You do remember.’

‘No.’ Matteo was getting annoyed now. ‘I’ve told you I don’t.’ He loathed delving into the past and he didn’t want a trip down memory lane today. ‘Do you want to go out?’ he suggested. ‘I could take you for a drive. We could go to your club...’

‘Matteo.’ Giovanni cut him off. He knew that Matteo was trying to change the subject. He loved his grandson very much. Even if they had had their problems, still Matteo came by often and took him out. He just, Giovanni knew, let no one in.

Giovanni had to put things right while he still could. ‘I have to tell you something.’

‘Come on, we’ll go for a drive...’ Matteo pushed. He did not want to be here and he did not want to hear what he knew his grandfather was about to tell him.

‘I’m dying, Matteo.’

Giovanni watched his grandson for his reaction but Matteo never gave his true feelings away.

‘We’re all dying,’ Matteo responded, trying to make light of the devastating news while his heart pounded in his chest, as still his mind fought to deny the truth.

He did not want to have this conversation.

He could not stand to think of his grandfather gone and his family together at another funeral. Images of his parents’ coffins and the children all walking behind them still appeared in magazines at times and were always in his mind.

He did not want his grandfather to die.

‘The leukemia is back,’ Giovanni said.

‘What about that treatment you had?’ Matteo asked. Seventeen years ago they had nearly lost Giovanni. A bone marrow donor had been needed and all the grandchildren had been tested but none of them had returned a match. It had been then that the eldest, Alessandro, had confessed that he knew their father had another son. They had tracked Nate down and he had returned a match. ‘Couldn’t Nate...’

‘A transplant is out of the question, and I’m not sure that treatment is the best way forward at this stage,’ Giovanni said. ‘The doctors say we can hope for remission but, failing that, it is a matter of months. The reality is, I have a year at best.’

‘You know how I loathe reality,’ Matteo said and the old man smiled.

‘I do.’

And Matteo escaped reality often—in casinos, clubs, daredevil escapades, constantly pushing both his body and the hedge fund he had set up to the very brink.

How Giovanni wished he could take back the damaging words he had said and handled this complex man so much better. Yes, while there were many similarities between Matteo and his father, there were other traits too—there was an innate kindness to Matteo that had been absent in Benito, a rare kindness of which Giovanni was immensely proud. And though Matteo was eternally restless, in other ways he was the most patient man Giovanni had ever known. As his health had deteriorated, as his stamina had waned, it was Matteo who would come around and take him out, Matteo who fell easily into a slower step beside him and let Giovanni ramble as he had just done.

‘Matteo, I want you to do something for me. I have something that I need for you to do if I am going to go to my grave content.’

Matteo took a breath and braced himself for the inevitable. Here came the lecture! He was quite sure he was about to be told to settle down and tame his ways and so he frowned when the old man voiced his thoughts.

‘I want you to bring me one of my Lost Mistresses.’

Matteo turned and looked at his grandfather and wondered if he’d finally lost his mind. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘My Lost Mistresses!’ Giovanni went into one of the drawers in his desk and Matteo saw a flare of excitement in the old man’s eyes as he took out a photo. Giovanni’s hand was shaking as he handed it to Matteo.

‘This necklace is one of my Lost Mistresses.’

Matteo looked at the photo. It was a lavish emerald necklace and it was, quite simply, beautiful. ‘White gold?’ he checked and Giovanni shook his head.

‘Platinum.’

The emeralds were amazing—the size of robins’ eggs, they sparkled and beguiled. They were so beautiful that even their image made Matteo reach out to run his finger over the stones. ‘We thought it was just a tale that you told, that they were some old coins or something.’

‘So you do remember!’

Matteo conceded that he did with a half smile. ‘Yes, I remember you telling us your tale.’ He let out a low whistle as he looked at the necklace again. ‘This would be worth...’ Usually he could pick this sort of thing but in this instance he really didn’t know. ‘Millions?’ he loosely gauged.

‘And some.’

‘Who’s the designer?’ he asked. ‘What jewellery house...?’

‘Unknown,’ Giovanni quickly said and Matteo frowned because surely a piece of jewellery as exquisite as this would have some considerable history attached.

‘Is this how you got your start?’ he asked. He could see it a little more clearly. Di Sione had started as a shipping empire but now the name was global. If Giovanni had sold pieces as exquisite as this one, then Matteo could see how it might have transpired. Yet, how could a young man from Sicily come to be in possession of this?

Giovanni was less than forthcoming, though, when Matteo pushed for answers.

‘I just want you to find it for me,’ Giovanni said. ‘I don’t know where to start. I sold it to a man named Roche some sixty years ago. Since then it’s been sold on.’ Matteo could see that his grandfather was getting distressed and knew that this necklace really meant something to him.

‘How did you come to own this?’ he asked again.

‘Don’t ask me how I came by them, for an old man must have his secrets...’ Giovanni said and Matteo gave another half smile.

Now the tale of old made a bit more sense.

‘Matteo, I want that necklace. Whatever it takes. Can you find it and bring it to me?’

He looked over to his grandfather.

How he wished he could open up and tell the old man that he meant something to him, that he understood how hard the years had been on him. But Matteo was incapable of giving anyone more than a loan of that smile or body. His mind was a closed door.

So instead he nodded.

This he could do.

‘You know that I shall.’

Giovanni got out of his chair and walked over to Matteo and wrapped his grandson in an embrace, something Giovanni wished he had done more of all those years ago.

Just for a moment, Matteo let himself be held, but then he pulled back.

‘Come on, then,’ he said, pocketing the picture in his jacket.

‘Where?’

‘Your club,’ Matteo said and rattled his keys but then he changed his mind.

His grandfather was dying.

There was no way that he’d be driving today.

Giovanni called for his driver.

CHAPTER ONE

MATTEO DIDN’T LIKE HIM.

Not that it showed in his expression.

He just sat in Ellison’s study and glanced up at the hunting trophies that lined the walls and then back to the man.

‘Do I look like I need the money?’ Ellison sneered.

Matteo shrugged, refusing to let the other man see that he was surprised by his response to a very generous offer.

He had been unable to find out the designer or jewellery house that the necklace had come from but had found out that Roche had sold it on to Hugo Ellison some twenty or so years ago.

Matteo vaguely knew Ellison from fundraising galas he had attended and he also knew that the man was money and power mad. He had been sure it would only take a generous donation to his political fund to secure the necklace and had set off for the meeting cocksure and confident that he would leave with what he wanted.

Now Matteo wasn’t so sure.

‘It was a gift to my late wife,’ Ellison said.

Matteo knew enough about that marriage to be sure that Ellison wasn’t crying himself to sleep at night over her death but he went along with the game. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and then stood. ‘It was insensitive of me to ask.’ He held out his hand. ‘Thank you for seeing me though.’

Ellison didn’t offer his hand and when he didn’t conclude the meeting, Matteo knew, even before Ellison spoke, that he held the ace—it was just a matter of time before the necklace was his.

‘Actually,’ Ellison said, ‘it seems a shame to keep it locked up.’ He looked at Matteo. ‘Sit down, son.’

He loathed it when people said that.

It was just a power play, a chance to assert a stronger position, but Matteo knew he had the upper hand and so he went along with it and took a seat again.

I really don’t like you, Matteo thought as Ellison poured them both a drink.

‘How come you’re interested in the necklace?’ Ellison asked.

‘I appreciate beauty,’ he answered and Ellison gave a smug smile.

‘And me.’

Ellison knew who Matteo was, of course. Everyone knew the Di Siones and he knew Matteo’s reputation with women.

Yes, Matteo appreciated beauty.

‘Didn’t you date Princess...?’

‘I don’t date,’ Matteo interrupted and Ellison laughed.

‘Good call. So, how far are you prepared to go?’

‘How much do you want?’ Matteo asked.

‘Not how much, how far?’ Ellison corrected. ‘I believe you like a challenge.’

‘I do.’

‘And from what I’ve read about you, impossible odds don’t daunt you.’

‘They don’t.’

They thrilled Matteo, in fact.

‘See this.’ Ellison beckoned for him to stand and Matteo walked over and they stood staring at a portrait of Ellison and his late wife, Anette, and their two daughters. ‘This was taken at our charity gala some twelve years ago.’

‘Your wife was a very beautiful woman.’ And very rich, Matteo thought. A lot of Ellison’s wealth had come from her family and Matteo privately wondered just how far Ellison’s political career would have gone without Anette’s billions.

‘Anette knew how to play the game,’ Ellison said. ‘We had a terrible fight the day before that photo was taken. She’d found out that I was sleeping with my assistant, but you wouldn’t know it from that photo.’

‘No.’ Matteo looked at Anette’s smiling face as she stood by her man. ‘You wouldn’t.’

Ellison’s revelation didn’t shock Matteo; instead it wearied him.

He peered at Ellison’s daughters. They were both immaculate—one was dressed in oyster grey, the other in beige, and both were wearing the requisite pearls. One had her hair neatly up and the other... A small smile played on Matteo’s lips as he examined the younger daughter more closely. Her dark wavy hair, despite a velvet band, was untamed and her eyes were angry. Her smile was forced and it looked as if the hand her father had on her shoulder was not a proud display of affection, more that it was there to hold her down.

‘That’s Abby.’

Ellison’s sigh as he said her name told Matteo that Abby was the bane of his existence.

‘Look at this one,’ Ellison said and they moved on to the next photo. ‘It must have been...’ Ellison thought back. ‘I think Abby’s about five here, so some twenty-two years ago.’

Abby’s eyes were red, Matteo noted.

Well, they were actually a vivid green but she’d clearly been crying.

‘The only way we could get her to sit in a dress for the photo was to give her a toy car. She was obsessed with cars even then.’

Matteo had no idea where this was leading but he had learned long ago that all knowledge was power and so he let Ellison drone on. He could also see that in the photo Anette was wearing the necklace that Giovanni so badly wanted.

‘Abby was upset because we’d just fired the nanny. Both the girls were terribly fond of her,’ Ellison said. ‘My wife insisted on it though.’

Now they were getting somewhere! Matteo guessed that it wasn’t just the daughters who’d been fond of the nanny.

‘And this,’ Ellison said, moving along, ‘is the last photo I have of my daughter in a dress.’

There Abby stood on a red carpet, with a good-looking blond man by her side.

A man Matteo thought that he recognised.

‘Hunter Coleman ,’ Ellison said and Matteo nodded as he now placed him. Hunter was a top racing driver and had a reputation with women that rivalled even Matteo’s. ‘Abby dated him for a while,’ Ellison explained. ‘Anyway, as I said, she always had a thing for cars. If I couldn’t find her, then she’d be in the garage, pulling apart a Bentley, or taking the engine out of a Jag. I tried to get her out of it—it’s not exactly fitting for a young woman of her standing. She went off to college to study fashion and started dating Hunter and finally I thought that the tomboy in her was gone. The trouble is, unlike her mother, my darling daughter doesn’t know how to stand and offer quiet support. No, Abby, being Abby, had to offer a top racing driver advice on his racing technique.’

Matteo laughed but then it trailed off.

Hunter’s hand was closed tightly around Abby’s, and again, despite the smile, her eyes were...not angry. Matteo looked more closely.

Guarded.

It was the best he could come up with—but no, despite the smile for the camera, that wasn’t a happy young woman.

‘Anyway, she dumped him!’ Ellison sounded shocked. ‘God knows how she thought she could do better, and then she switched from studying fashion to automotive engineering. Now she’s...’

‘The Boucher team!’ Matteo could place her as well now. Well, not Abby specifically, but yes, he knew a little about the emerging racing team.

‘Boucher was my wife’s maiden name.’ Ellison sighed. ‘It’s a very expensive hobby...’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Oh, believe me, you can’t.’ Ellison shook his head. ‘Especially when the owner of the team refuses to play the corporate game and chat up sponsors. As I said to Abby last week, she’s going to have to find the cash. I’m not bailing her out.’

‘Has she asked?’

‘Not yet!’ Ellison’s smug smile returned. ‘But the rest of her mother’s trust fund is tied up till she’s thirty or married. There’s no chance of that girl marrying, which means she’s got no income for another three years!’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ Matteo asked.

‘Because, as you must have heard, I’m on the comeback trail. In July I’m going to be holding my first political fundraiser since my wife’s death. I’ve told Abby that if she comes, and looks the part, and by that I mean she loses the jeans and oil rags, then I’ll give her a cash injection to tide her over.’

‘Has she said that she’s coming?’

‘Not yet,’ Ellison said. ‘But I need her to be there. Image is everything in politics and I don’t want there to be even a whiff of discord. Annabel, my eldest daughter, will do the right thing but I want Abby to be here too. I want my daughter, at my function, wearing her mother’s necklace. I want her looking like a woman for once...’

She looked all woman to Matteo.

‘Can you manage that?’ Ellison asked.

‘Sorry?’ Matteo frowned.

‘You said that you like a challenge. You like women—see if you can sweet-talk her and get Abby to show up here, looking the part. If she does, at the end of the night, the necklace is yours.’

‘How am I supposed to persuade her if you can’t...?’ Matteo started but then, guessing Ellison’s intent, he shook his head. ‘No way.’

Ellison just laughed. ‘I’m not asking you to seduce her. I don’t think you’d get very far. Rumour has it my daughter isn’t particularly interested in men.’

No, Matteo really, really didn’t like this man.

‘She hasn’t dated anyone since Hunter and it hasn’t gone unnoticed,’ Ellison said, frowning at the photo. ‘I want that rumour quashed. I want Abby here, dressed like a woman and with a handsome chap by her side.’ Ellison returned his gaze to Matteo and continued. ‘You could be a potential sponsor, considering investing in her team.’

‘It’s April,’ Matteo pointed out. ‘Your fundraiser isn’t until July. How long am I supposed to be considering investing for?’

‘I’d be giving you the necklace for nothing, perhaps the money you’ve earmarked for it could go towards convincing my daughter that you want to sponsor the team.’

‘And if she doesn’t come to your fundraiser?’

‘You don’t get your necklace.’

Matteo could cheerfully have knocked Ellison’s lights out but instead he watched as Ellison went over to the safe and took out a gleaming polished wooden box and handed it to him.

Oh, my God, Matteo thought as he undid the intricate latch and saw the necklace firsthand.

Not even the photos did it justice.

How the hell had his grandfather come by this? Matteo wondered, and he could see now why he would want it back.

Jewellery had never really impressed Matteo.

This piece couldn’t fail to.

‘I doubt it’s possible to get Abby here,’ Ellison said.

Matteo looked over to Ellison and then back to the necklace and he took Ellison’s words as a dare—which was something he never said no to.

And his grandfather wanted the necklace so badly.

No, he could never be the man his grandfather wanted him to be but this he could do.

‘Can you give me your daughter’s contact details?’ Matteo asked.

His mind was made up—he would get this Lost Mistress back to where it belonged.

CHAPTER TWO

ELLISON HAD BEEN right about one thing—his daughter Abby really was terrible at the corporate stuff.

It had taken two weeks for her to reply to Matteo’s email and at best her response had been lukewarm.

Of course Matteo had looked into the Boucher team more closely by then.

He was a risk-taker by nature, but they were, even by his standards, more of a gamble than one should take.

It was their second year in competition and their best was a fifth place last year. Frequently, they placed last or second last. Now they were competitors in the Henley Cup—a prestigious international event, held over three races.

They weren’t considered a mention.

Matteo finally decided to call Abby but effusive wasn’t a word that had sprung to mind when she told him that no, they couldn’t meet, given that she was on her way to Dubai.

‘So am I,’ he, on impulse, had replied.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’ve got a couple of racehorses that I want to look at and my sister Allegra is holding a charity event in May... Hold on.’ Matteo checked his calendar. ‘Yes, that’s on Saturday the seventh. How about lunch on the Friday?’

‘I won’t be able to get away for lunch.’

‘Dinner, then?’ Matteo persisted and she returned his offer with a long stretch of silence. ‘Breakfast?’

‘Just stop by the track.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward...’

She had already rung off.

* * *

The heat was fierce in Dubai.

And as for the humidity!

Suffice to say, with the hangover Matteo had, he would far rather be in the airconditioned comfort of his hotel than in the goldfish bowl of a racetrack. The sun seemed to be coming at him from all angles as he made his way to the Boucher sheds.

Matteo had been in Dubai for three days and what an amazing three days they had been. The first had consisted of a wild welcome on board his friend Sheikh Kedah’s yacht.

Kedah seemed hell-bent on returning the wild week Matteo had given him on a recent trip to New York City. The second day had been spent galloping at breakneck speed with his friend along a beach. Matteo had taken a tumble and dislocated his shoulder. The sheikh had called for his private physician to put it back. With Matteo’s arm strapped and a little out of action they had hit the racetracks and placed a few bets on a camel race. The potential two years’ jail time for illegal betting had only served to give Matteo an extra high!

It had been a giddy introduction to Dubai but now he had crashed back to earth—the smell of oil was nauseating and the sound from the track had his molars aching. He’d lost the sling that the physician had provided and so his shoulder was killing him.

And Abby Ellison was nowhere to be seen.

It was after four and he wondered if she might have finished for the day. A group of guys were watching as Pedro, the Boucher driver, put the car through its paces. He knew it was Pedro because Matteo recognised the deep green of the Boucher car.

Matteo had done some further research on the team, of course.

They had entered in the prestigious Henley Cup. A series of three races—Dubai, Milan and Monte Carlo. The final race took place in July a week before Ellison’s fundraiser.

As newcomers the Boucher team wasn’t being taken seriously, especially because the owner was a woman. Just a little rich girl playing with her daddy’s money seemed to be the general consensus.

Pedro Sanchez, their driver, was someone who was being watched seriously though, and there were a couple of other teams who had their eye on him.

The group of men all ignored him and that suited Matteo just fine. He just drank from a large bottle of cola and idly watched.

Or rather, at first, he idly watched.

Matteo had never really been in to cars and not just because his parents had died in a crash. His father had once taken a five-year-old Matteo for a joy-ride.

There was no joy in that memory!

Still, this was different—Pedro was really putting the car through its paces now, hugging the bend, belting it down the straight, and the roar of the motor was, as it flew past him, a bit of a turn-on.

‘Whoa!’ one of the guys shouted as the car lost traction, but then Pedro skilfully righted it and Matteo watched as the car again sped down the straight and then slowed down as it came towards them.

‘Hey...’

Matteo turned as someone greeted him and blinked in vague surprise. ‘Pedro...’ Matteo shook his hand; he recognised the young man himself from his research. ‘Sorry for the double take. I thought that I was watching you out there. I didn’t realise there were two drivers.’

‘No, no...’ Pedro said. ‘Soon you’ll get to see me drive. That’s Abby—she’s just checking out some adjustments that she has made.’

Matteo looked back at the car and, sure enough, climbing out from it, dressed in tight leather, was no man, and the vague turn-on Matteo had felt before was rather less vague now.

He hadn’t known that he was in to leather either!

The racing world was looking up, he decided as she took off her helmet and the fire guard and then shook her long dark hair out.

She was tall enough to wear her curves well, and if she only smiled he would return it with the best of his. And Matteo’s smile could melt. But then he remembered he was not here to seduce and so he kept his business expression on.

‘So,’ Pedro said, ‘I hear that you have a meeting with Abby.’

‘I do.’

‘Good,’ Pedro responded and he could hear the slight edge to the man’s voice. ‘Then I guess it’s time for me to show you a little of what I can do.’ He looked over to Abby, who had reached them now. ‘How is she?’

‘Oh, she’s running like silk now.’

They spoke as if the car was a person!

‘I’ve warmed her up for you,’ Abby said and then, as Pedro headed off towards the car, she finally acknowledged Matteo. ‘Di Sione?’

‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘But you can call me Matteo.’

Abby didn’t return the smile.

Instead she blanked him and turned her attention to Pedro, who was climbing into the car.

Was she always this polite with investors? Matteo pondered.

‘How long has Pedro been out here?’ Matteo enquired, wondering how long he’d had to acclimatise to the hot and humid conditions.

‘Long enough,’ Abby said and then carried on ignoring him as Pedro started to do some laps.

‘Why don’t we...?’ Matteo started but his voice was drowned out by the sound of the engine and he had to wait till Pedro had passed before continuing. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere we can talk?’

Still she ignored him and watched the track intently and then, when Pedro had finished a few laps, she turned and finally answered him.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I don’t need an investor who wants to pull me away.’

‘But Pedro’s finished.’

‘I’m watching the competition,’ she said.

‘And you do need an investor,’ Matteo said.

Not this one, Abby thought.

She knew the Di Sione name, of course she did, and she had looked Matteo up.

Of course she had.

Reckless, wild and debauched, she had read, but looking at the photos of him and finding out a little more about her potential sponsor, it didn’t take long for her to work out that he was also as sexy as all hell.

And Abby didn’t like sexy.

It terrified her, in fact.

Abby had seen and recognised Matteo the second she had stepped out of the car. He was even better in the flesh and her stomach had curled in a way she would prefer it did not.

She had also seen and felt his eyes roam her body as she had walked towards them and had felt her cheeks turn pink from that fact.

‘Can I get earplugs?’ Matteo asked. Another team was taking their car out and his hangover was making itself known again. ‘I guess we can resort to sign language if we’re not allowed to go somewhere decent to talk.’

‘Decent?’ Abby frowned. What sort of a sponsor was he? Didn’t he get that she lived trackside?

She watched Evan put his car through its paces. She had been waiting all day to watch this. Evan Lewis, driver of the Carter team, was one of the Boucher team’s toughest opponents. Her friend Bella, who she had studied engineering with, worked for the Carter team and had told Abby that the engine, along with the driver, were poetry in motion. Yes, she had waited all day to see this but as Evan in the aqua-blue car tested the track, she found that she couldn’t concentrate.

Matteo stood beside her, swigging from his bottle, which made her thirsty, and as she licked her lips he offered her a drink, as if they had known each other for months.

She gave him a terse shake of her head and he moved forwards and leaned on the rail and bent over a little.

And she noticed.

Oh, she tried to watch Evan but her eyes kept flicking to Matteo’s long legs and to a white, slightly crumpled shirt that, despite the heat, wasn’t damp. He had a bruise over his left eye and she wanted to know where it had come from. He put down his bottle and in her peripheral vision she saw that he was undoing his shirt.

What the hell?

He turned then and gave her a smile as he popped his hand into the gap he had made in his shirt. ‘I’ve hurt my shoulder,’ he briefly explained.

She didn’t return his smile, nor did she comment.

Instead she walked off.

Matteo had had enough. He’d just have to work out another way to get his grandfather the necklace because if this was the way Abby dealt with sponsors he could just imagine her reaction to him suggesting what she wear to her father’s fundraiser!

‘Guess what,’ he said as he caught up with her. ‘You’ve just lost possibly the most hands-off sponsor you could have ever hoped find...’ He looked into the green eyes that would not meet his. ‘I’m going. I’ve decided that I don’t want to do business with you. You’re rude,’ he said and then saw that, just a little, she smiled. ‘You’re not very nice.’

‘I’m not.’

Now she met his eyes and, with contact made, he changed his mind; maybe they could work together after all.

‘That’s okay,’ Matteo said. ‘I’ll settle for polite.’

Abby gave him an assessing look. She liked it that he had said he’d be hands off—that had been one of the main issues with their previous sponsor; he had demanded so much of Pedro’s time. And she liked, too, that Matteo had addressed up front the issue—she’d been rude.

‘I can manage polite,’ she said.

‘Good.’ He drained the last of his cola. ‘I do need to get something to eat.’

She said something then but it was drowned out by the roar of a car and he couldn’t make out the words.

He just watched her mouth.

‘I can’t hear you,’ Matteo said and she had to watch his mouth now. ‘Dinner?’ he suggested. Finally there was a lull in the noise and he said it again. ‘Dinner?’

‘Here?’ Abby checked and Matteo looked around. The race wasn’t till next week and so the corporate caterers weren’t here yet.

‘Well, I’d prefer a nice lazy meal back at my eight-star hotel but if you insist on here, then I guess it will have to do. Do they have hot dogs in Dubai?’

Abby nodded to a van. ‘Not hot dogs exactly...’ She took a breath; they were about to talk big business and a takeaway back in the shed really wouldn’t cut it. ‘When you say your hotel...’ She saw him frown, but no, she would make very sure where they would be eating before she agreed to go back to his hotel. ‘You do mean the restaurant?’

‘What the hell did you think I meant?’ Matteo grinned. ‘Of course I meant the restaurant. Don’t believe everything you read about me, Abby—I’m fast but not that fast.’

She laughed.

Matteo had no idea what a rare sound that was.

‘Do you want to meet there?’ he suggested, assuming she had a car.

‘Sure,’ she agreed, and he told her the name of the hotel he was staying at. ‘I’ll just get changed,’ she said, but aware of all she had in her locker she was factoring in a dash back to her own hotel too.

‘Please...’ He stopped abruptly. Matteo had been about to say, ‘Please don’t.’ She looked amazing in the Boucher green leather after all, but there was something that stopped him and he quickly changed his plea. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you there on the hour.’

Abby felt her cheeks go a little pink again.

‘Is it okay if I have a look around before I head off?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’

One of the mechanics who was peeling a pear offered Matteo half and, when he took it, offered to show him around. It was actually fascinating. There was a whole wall of tyres that would see them through just one race and the science of it all was something Matteo had never considered.

Abby took her time to get ready. Given Matteo had said that they were meeting on the hour there really was no time to go back to her hotel and change. Also, she was incredibly nervous. Oh, she had sat through her share of dinners and lunches, of course, just not with someone as gorgeous as he, and not with someone who made her smile.

Yes, she knew that she came across as brittle at times, but she had been particularly awful to him.

She forgave herself then.

After all, she knew why.

So, what to wear to dinner at an eight-star hotel with a stunning man when you have neither the time nor inclination for a dress but all you have in your locker is a pair of ill-fitting jeans, a massive black T-shirt and flat sandals?

She suppressed a smile because she had known exactly what Matteo had been about to say regarding her leather suit. That was why her cheeks had gone pink. It had felt a little like flirting and Abby wasn’t in the least good at that.

* * *

She put on some dark glasses and ran a comb through her hair. As she left the locker room she took out her phone to call for a taxi and then startled when she saw that Matteo was still there.

‘Sorry, I thought you’d have your own car. Why didn’t you say?’ he asked.

‘I just...’ Abby shrugged.

‘Come on,’ he said and put on his own dark glasses before heading back out in the sun.

What the hell happened there? he thought as they walked to his car. It was as if Abby had done everything possible to look as unattractive as she could. The jeans were massive and as for the T-shirt!

Maybe hot dogs would be a better idea after all.

He glanced down and he didn’t think he’d seen an unpainted female toenail before.

Half an hour spent getting ready, for that!

‘Will they mind jeans at the hotel?’ Abby checked as he drove them there.

‘Not the way you wear them.’ Matteo turned and smiled. ‘You look great.’

Again, she laughed.

‘You are such...’ She just laughed again. ‘I wasn’t expecting to go out for dinner, okay? I do know I’m badly dressed.’

‘For who?’ Matteo shrugged.

He was relaxing to her.

Oh, she was on edge, Abby knew, yet somehow Matteo was relaxing to her.

‘What happened to your eye?’ she asked.

‘I came off a horse,’ he said. ‘That’s how I dislocated my shoulder. I’m supposed to be wearing a shoulder strap.’

‘So, why aren’t you?’

‘I lost it.’

‘Oh.’

He was so incredibly handsome and she felt incredibly drab.

‘I could stop by my hotel and get changed,’ Abby offered, still a little worried that she was way underdressed.

‘No need.’

It was, however, Matteo thought, a seriously nice restaurant they were heading to. Seriously, seriously nice but thankfully he’d been here with the sheikh and had lobbed enough tips these past days that he knew they’d give him a welcome smile as they walked in.

But he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable.

‘We could go to Majlis Al Bahar...’ Matteo glanced over and he saw her nervous swallow. ‘I’m not getting romantic,’ he reassured, because it was possibly the most romantic restaurant on earth. ‘It’s just that the dress code is more casual and,’ he added, ‘I kind of want to try it.’

‘No,’ Abby said. ‘The hotel’s fine.

So his hotel it was.

‘Table for two,’ Matteo told the maître d’ and such was his confidence that, of course, no one turned a hair and they were shown to their seats.

Her glasses off, those disgusting jeans tucked away, she really was beautiful, Matteo thought. Her eyes were an intense green and thickly lashed and she was the first woman he had ever sat in a restaurant with who wore not a trace of make-up.

He knew what she’d look like in the morning, Matteo thought. Then he reminded himself that he wasn’t here for that and so he looked from Abby and out to the view of the Arabian Gulf. ‘I love it here,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t expect to, then again I had no real idea what to expect.’

‘I haven’t seen much of it,’ Abby said. ‘We only got here yesterday...’

Matteo was astute enough to frown. ‘So how is Pedro doing with the heat?’

She liked that he understood that it mattered.

‘A few days more to acclimatise would have been nice,’ Abby admitted.

‘Is Pedro as temperamental as the press make out?’ Matteo asked.

‘More so.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t blame him though. He’s an amazing talent.’

‘You’ve given him a very early break,’ Matteo said, remembering that Pedro had just turned twenty-one and had been nineteen when Abby had taken him on. ‘Shouldn’t he still be doing the dinky tracks in a go-kart?’

Abby smiled but it was a guarded one. ‘He’s going to be amazing—he already is.’

He saw her tight smile and read it.

Someone with a far bigger cash pot would snap him up very soon.

‘Treat him like a star, then,’ Matteo said. ‘Make him never want to leave.’ He saw the set of her lips. ‘What’s his latest gripe?’ he asked and her mouth relaxed into a soft laugh at his perception.

‘Well, some of the other drivers have suites with their own gym and lap pool.’ She looked at Matteo, who said nothing. ‘These guys are incredibly fit. You have to be to race at that speed. I know how taxing it is just doing a few gentle laps.’

‘It didn’t look particularly gentle to me,’ Matteo said. ‘So, what’s it like?’ he asked. ‘Driving one?’

And she knew the line the guys used but that would really tip her into flirting with him.

‘It’s amazing,’ she said, instead of saying that it was better than sex.

It had to be.

Her one experience had been hell after all.

No, she would not be flirting.

‘Pedro doesn’t like using the hotel pool and gym,’ Abby said. ‘And I get that, I do, but...’ She loathed talking about money, but that was what they were here to do. ‘Our budget’s tight.’

‘And Pedro doesn’t want to hear that?’

‘He’s been really good,’ Abby said. ‘They all have been. It’s hard watching the others swan off to fancy restaurants when we’re heading for the burger bar. We all want better things and know that we have to work for it. It’s just hard juggling egos. And also I know that Pedro’s right—he’d do better with more resources and I’d do better if I had more time to focus on the car and the opposition.’

‘Instead of playing bookkeeper?’ Matteo asked and she gave a low laugh.

‘And PA, and travel agent...’

‘I get it.’

How could he? ‘How come you want to invest?’ she asked him.

‘Well, I think you’re going places,’ Matteo said. ‘And I want to be securely on board when you do. I have a thing for outside chances.’ He looked at the wine menu. ‘What are we drinking?’ Matteo asked.

‘Water for me...’

‘You’re a cheap date.’

‘This isn’t a date, Matteo,’ she said.

‘Actually, no, it isn’t.’ He put down the menu and was serious. He was interested in sponsoring the team. Seriously so. Matteo was a gambler by nature but this was a huge one. He wasn’t thinking about the necklace or her father now. Matteo’s head was in the game and if he was going to be a sponsor, then there had to be rules. ‘My relationships run into hours rather than days. Believe me, you don’t want to know...’

‘I already do!’ she said.

‘Which means, if we want this to work, then it’s hands off each other.’

‘I’m good with that,’ she said.

‘Anyway,’ Matteo added, ‘I don’t date.’

‘And I don’t drink.’

‘At all?’

‘Nope.’ She shook her head.

‘Ever?’

‘Never.’ She smiled at his curiosity. ‘Well, I tried it and didn’t like it.’

‘Okay, water for two it is.’

‘You can.’

‘I know that I can,’ Matteo said, ‘but I’m keeping my wits about me with you.’

He looked at the menu and groaned. ‘Truffle-crusted scallops—I know what I’m having.’

His groan made her stomach tighten; the low sound of his want caused her breath to hold in her throat, and then he looked up.

His eyes were the darkest navy and when he smiled so, too, did she.

‘That’s better,’ Matteo said.

He was nice, her heart said.

Just that.

The food was amazing and the company too, and he really did take her concerns seriously.

‘I had a sponsor last year, not a particularly generous one,’ Abby explained. ‘He rang all the time, wanted constant progress reports. Race day was hell. He wanted me to join him and his cronies for a champagne brunch and Pedro to be sociable...’

‘Look, I get you don’t want someone sticking their nose in and I can manage lunch by myself. And, for what it’s worth, I won’t be putting pressure on you or your team. I wouldn’t expect much this year...’

‘Oh, no,’ Abby interrupted. ‘We’re winning the Henley Cup this year.’

‘I’m just saying that I’m patient.’

‘Pedro will be off soon,’ Abby said. ‘He’s a rising star and someone will make an offer that I can’t match any day soon.’

‘Probably.’ Matteo nodded. He’d thought the same but now he could really see the problem. ‘Hunter’s retiring at the end of this year and I guess the Lachance team...’ He paused, remembering that Abby had briefly dated him. ‘Hey, didn’t you two...?’

‘We’re winning this year,’ Abby said, not answering the question. ‘I want the Henley Cup—Dubai first, then Italy, then Monte Carlo.’

‘Then you need to keep your driver happy,’ Matteo said. ‘How tight is it?’ he asked.

No one knew just how bad it was and Abby was extremely reluctant to tell him.

Matteo watched as she fiddled with her glass. ‘The only thing I want in a relationship is honesty,’ he said and then he started to laugh. ‘I only get to use that line in business.’

Even Abby laughed.

‘So, how about we be honest with each other? Whatever you tell me goes no further than here, whatever we then decide.’

She believed him. And, Abby thought, maybe it would be a relief to tell someone the truth.

No one knew just how bad it was.

Her team all thought she was particularly tense; they didn’t know that she was waking up in dread every night. Abby was even considering agreeing to her father’s ridiculous bribe to go along to his fundraiser just for the injection of cash he had promised if she did.

The very thought of that made her sick.

She wondered if the photograph of her and Hunter still hung on her father’s study wall.

Abby closed her eyes for a second, as panic briefly hit.

No, she would not be going cap in hand to her father.

She opened her eyes to Matteo’s waiting ones and decided to tell him the truth.

‘I can’t get us to Italy.’

Matteo said nothing.

‘I’ve got the car and equipment covered but I can’t get the team there.’

‘The money’s run out?’

Abby nodded.

He didn’t get up and walk off and he didn’t berate.

He just sat there.

Thinking.

Then he gave in on water and called for a large cognac.

And still he sat there thinking.

Not about the necklace that he was supposed to be here for; instead he was thinking about cars and a team and it gave him a buzz that had been missing at the casino of late. He didn’t like motor racing. Fast cars were the only vice he didn’t have. There were too many painful memories attached.

Yet, he was starting to come around.

Watching Abby and later Pedro putting the car through its paces, speaking with the mechanics, gauging the opposition...

There was an attraction to the sport that Matteo had never anticipated when he had taken the challenge on.

He asked for figures and she went red in the neck but told him, and she watched as he crunched a few numbers on a calculator.

Not his phone, she noted.

And it wasn’t a two-dollar calculator either.

He had beautiful hands, Abby thought, and she liked the way his tongue popped out as he concentrated.

Matteo knew he should conclude this meeting now. The type of money that was required here outweighed the necklace and there was practically a guarantee of zero return.

‘Why do you think you’re a chance?’ he asked.

‘I built the car,’ Abby said. ‘I have the most fearless driver I’ve ever seen. Pedro’s a bit raw but that’s good. He’s unpredictable. No one except for me—actually, not even me—knows what he’s capable of...’

Still Matteo looked.

‘But he needs the right tool and my car is that.’

Still he looked. His face gave away nothing, Abby thought, but he had demanded honesty and if that was the case there was something rather large that she was leaving out.

‘And I’ve been waiting nine years for this.’

She didn’t tell him why; she just told him that she had.

He saw something then and its name was determination.

No, the numbers might not add up but the feeling in his gut tipped the scale.

‘Tell you what,’ Matteo finally said and Abby found she was holding her breath. ‘If you can come in in the top five here in Dubai, then I’ll take care of getting the team to Italy.’

‘Will you be staying to watch?’

‘God, yes,’ Matteo said. ‘And sorry if you don’t like it but if you do place, then I’ll be in Italy too. Don’t worry though. I shan’t be breathing down your neck.’

And for the first time, possibly ever, Abby imagined just that—a man breathing down her neck, or even on her neck...

Not just any man.

Him.

He expected her to backtrack, to maybe push for a lower place, but instead she looked straight back at him.

‘We’re going to do better than fifth.’

He really, really hoped so.

And so, too, did she.

‘Right,’ Matteo said and called for the bill and then he asked for her bank details.

‘We haven’t placed yet.’

‘I’m just making sure that you do.’

He paid and then asked for a driver to take her back to her hotel. ‘My sister Allegra has got a big charity event tomorrow. I think we should go.’

‘You said...’ Abby started but Matteo overrode her.

‘Everyone will be there, including the press. It might rattle the opposition if they think you’ve got a Di Sione on board.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Mind games.’

Oh, it would seriously rattle the opposition and Abby would take any edge that she could get.

She thought of Hunter and that terrible night and she had to beat him this year.

It was her only chance for revenge.

‘Abby, you need to ooze confidence,’ Matteo said. ‘Doesn’t matter how you feel on the inside.’

‘Please.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s easy for you...’

‘You don’t know me,’ Matteo interrupted. ‘But believe me when I say, never let them smell fear.’

She nodded.

‘So will you come?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ Matteo said. ‘After tomorrow I’ll leave you alone to do your thing. If I send a car for you at ten would that be okay?’

‘There’s no need for that. I’ll meet you here.’

‘Sure.’

When her car arrived it was Matteo, rather than the driver, who opened the door for her, and they spoke for a moment before she got in.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said and she nodded and then he shook her hand. ‘And you need to dress up.’

‘Excuse me?’ she flared.

‘I don’t care what you wear in your down time,’ Matteo said. ‘But if you want to wear the Di Sione name on your car and your overalls, then you have to look the part when we’re out.’

‘And I thought brunch on race day was an imposition...’ She was about to tell him to get stuffed but not only couldn’t Abby afford to, she didn’t want to either. He was right; if her team were going to get anywhere, then maybe it was time to play the corporate game a touch and maybe she could do that with him.

He hadn’t turned a hair at her jeans; he had made her feel relaxed and comfortable as she had told him the terrible mess she was in.

‘Tomorrow is work,’ he said as Abby climbed into the car but then, just before he closed the door, he gave her that smile. ‘Not that we can’t enjoy ourselves while working.’

The car drove off and Abby found her heart was thumping. They had very carefully laid the ground rules at the table—they were completely hands off, she knew that.

Matteo’s inference had been that they would simply enjoy provoking the press and the opposition.

It was her own imagination that was for the first time, if not exactly running wild, then peeking out and blinking at the sun.

A dark sun named Matteo Di Sione.

CHAPTER THREE

ABBY DIDN’T SLEEP WELL.

Yes, their conversation last night about money should have reassured her but Abby knew that she’d lied to Matteo.

They didn’t really have a hope of making fifth place.

But they had to though.

Not just for the chance of Matteo investing in them.

Her breakfast was delivered and Abby decided to eat it in bed and, as she did, she took out her laptop and read the news.

The sports news, of course.

The Boucher team barely got a mention.

The Carter team were on form, she read, and the Lachance team got plenty of mentions too.

Or rather Hunter did.

She looked at him, dressed in his familiar yellow leather and wearing that cocky, arrogant smile, and if there was such a thing as pure hate, then Abby felt that now.

She wasn’t scared of him any more.

It had been nine years since that terrible night and now, instead of scared, she was angry.

And it was such an undiluted, white-hot anger that ravaged her that it required revenge.

Hunter was thirty-four now and, to date, the Henley cup had been his for nine of the past ten years.

The one year that he had lost it had been the night that Abby had chosen to end their brief relationship.

Foolish timing perhaps but she had arrived in Monte Carlo and had sat in a hotel room, knowing their time together had ended.

They had only been going out for four weeks but Hunter wanted to move things along.

He’d invited her to Monte Carlo.

There would be separate hotel rooms, Hunter had assured her, given he needed his space before a race, but Abby knew very well what was going to come after.

She had gone on the pill but even as she had flown there, Abby had known that the nerves she felt weren’t the ones you should be feeling when you were about to lose your virginity.

Hunter made her feel nervous, in a way that she couldn’t quite define.

It had been cars that that had drawn them together at first but it hadn’t taken long to realise he didn’t want a discussion.

Hunter talked and she was supposed to listen.

Everything she had said about cars he had dismissed.

Oh, at eighteen, who wouldn’t be flattered to be going out with a star and to be picked up and whisked off to Monte Carlo in his private jet?

Only the gloss had already worn off by then.

Abby hadn’t wanted to go but her father had been appalled when she’d suggested cancelling.

Hunter’s jet was already on the way!

And so, Abby had gone. She had had a few drinks for courage during the race and then back at the hotel, as Hunter had faced the press after his surprise loss, Abby had had a couple more.

He had phoned and said that he was back at the hotel and Abby had taken the elevator up to Hunter’s room to tell him that no, she didn’t want to go out tonight and neither did she want to stay in.

In fact, Abby had already booked a ticket and was flying home to New York that night.

As her father had later pointed out—you don’t tell a man who has just lost a cup that you’re breaking up with him.

So what? Abby had thought at the time.

She hadn’t wanted to sleep with him and if she’d stayed, then she knew how the night was expected to end. Abby didn’t want her first to be Hunter; it had been as simple as that.

And, her father had also added, Hunter’s lawyers would make mincemeat out of her, given that she’d gone to his hotel room after all.

Drunk.

‘Not drunk, Dad, I was just...’ But then she had stopped trying to describe how she had felt that night as she’d knocked on his hotel door.

Abby couldn’t really remember how she had felt before it happened.

She simply couldn’t remember who the woman was that had stepped into a man’s hotel suite and expected to be able to speak her mind.

Which she had.

They were over, Abby had told him.

‘Not quite,’ Hunter said.

She hadn’t fought enough, according to her father.

There wasn’t a scratch on Hunter after all.

Abby had frozen when first he had grabbed her and then she had tried to run but had only made it a few steps across his suite and he had pushed her into the bathroom.

And when it was over, when she lay on a cold bathroom floor and thought she could not be more broken both inside or out, Hunter had stood and then urinated over her.

Just to be sure.

Absolutely he had broken her.

Not now.

‘I’ll take that cup from you,’ Abby vowed and spoke to the screen. ‘You’ll go out the loser you really are.’

Matteo was right: it was all about mind games.

Today Hunter and the other teams would find out that Matteo Di Sione was considering coming on board.

And that would rattle them.

The Di Sione empire was amazing—from shipping, to apps, to computers, they had their hand in everything and had money everywhere.

Matteo was right again: she needed to ooze confidence, not dread.

Maybe now was not the time to be spending money on clothes when she was worried about the hotel bill but there were slim pickings in her wardrobe.

There was a dress that might have been handy for dinner yesterday but wasn’t suitable for a gala event.

And then there was the dress that Abby had sworn she would wear if they ever made it to the podium.

It was sexy; it was the colour of tarnished silver with a slight green hue and just way too much for today.

Truth be known, Abby could never see herself having the confidence to wear it—wherever they placed.

She knew that she would have to buy something for today.

Abby signed into her bank account and blinked when she saw the balance.

Oh, my God!

Matteo had meant what he said about ensuring they had every chance of winning.

Nervous, excited and more than a little bit relieved, instead of quickly dressing and hitting the shops Abby dealt with serious business first and rang down to Reception. Having made the necessary arrangements, she called Pedro.

‘Hi,’ Abby said when he picked up.

‘Abby, I don’t have time to talk.’ Pedro’s tone was clipped. ‘I am just going down to the pool and then I’m hitting the gym.’

‘About that,’ Abby said. ‘Pedro, I’ve just spoken with Reception and you’re being moved to a suite with its own lap pool and gym.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘I am. Someone’s already on their way to move your things.’

‘Abby, thanks,’ Pedro said. ‘This will really help with my training.’

‘Good.’

It seemed like an unnecessary luxury, but Abby knew that it wasn’t. The facilities in Dubai were stunning and she knew only too well that the other top teams would be utilizing them. Pedro would be out running in the midday heat. He would do everything he could to get his body prepared for the race and so it was very nice to be able to give him this.

Now she could concentrate on getting ready for today.

The shopping in Dubai was supposed to be amazing too but Abby really didn’t have the time or the inclination to explore. There were, though, some boutiques on the ground floor of the hotel and one had caught her eye when they checked in.

It wasn’t one of the famous international designers; instead it was a niche boutique from a local designer and tentatively Abby stepped inside.

The dresses were exquisite and, when the assistant found out where she was going today, she took Abby under her wing.

Abby had studied fashion for a year; she could mentally dress anyone so long as it wasn’t herself. Even though she had been pushed into it by her father, Abby had vaguely enjoyed it and knew what she liked—and understated was it!

‘This one,’ the assistant said, holding up a dress in pale coral. It was a very sheer fabric with a slip dress beneath and it was very feminine and floaty and really not the sort of thing Abby would choose.

‘What about this,’ Abby suggested and held up a similar dress in grey, but the assistant shook her head.

‘Try the coral one on.’

Oh, Abby hated this.

It felt as if she was dressing up for a family photo, she thought as she stepped into a large changing room. But reminding herself it was business, she put the dress on.

‘You look very elegant,’ the assistant said after she had asked Abby if she could see it on.

‘It’s a bit much.’ Abby shook her head, thinking of it with high heels, but the assistant was far more used to this type of thing and disappeared.

‘Try these,’ she said when she returned and handed Abby a pair of flat strappy sandals. They were thin jewelled straps and yet somehow very neutral, and when she tried them on the assistant was right—the dress looked more sophisticated than it would with high heels.

‘I like it,’ Abby admitted.

‘You need to get your hair smoothed out and then tied back,’ the assistant said and, remembering Matteo’s comments last night, Abby wondered if people in Dubai just spoke their mind.

‘I really don’t have time to get my hair done,’ Abby said, given that it was well after nine.

‘I can ring over to the salon,’ the assistant pushed, ‘if you are pressed for time.’

‘Sure.’ Abby gave a tight smile as she paid.

She then went into the hairdresser’s and had her hair smoothed and there she bought a lipstick that would go better with the dress.

Abby didn’t have time to be nervous; she was far too late for Matteo for that. But even so, she managed to be as she stepped into his hotel and saw him waiting in the foyer.

‘Wow!’ he said. ‘You’re worth the wait.’

Somehow he both welcomed her and told her off for keeping him waiting.

‘We need to get going,’ Matteo said.

He really had no idea of the effort she had gone to in order to get her looking like this and Abby kind of liked that about him.

Still, she wasn’t so much nervous as they walked to the car; rather she was incredibly aware, not of her unfamiliar attire, more of the man she was with.

Very, very aware.

That was the best way she could describe it.

She was aware of the dry warmth of his hand on her arm as he led her to the waiting car.

And aware of him as he stretched out beside her and then popped a couple of painkillers and took them without water.

‘Do you have a headache?’ Abby asked, guessing he must have hit the clubs after he had dropped her off last night.

‘My shoulder,’ Matteo said.

‘You should have worn the sling.’

‘I know.’ He just shrugged and obviously it hurt to do so because he winced, but then he turned the conversation to work as the car moved through the magnificent streets. ‘How’s Pedro?’

‘He’s being moved to a better suite as we speak,’ Abby said. ‘He’s much happier than he was this time yesterday.’

‘And if Pedro’s happy, we’re all happy.’

‘Thank you,’ Abby said. ‘Whether or not it makes a difference...’

‘Oh, it will make a difference,’ Matteo interrupted but then he saw the anxious dart of her eyes and guessed she was worrying what would happen if they didn’t place fifth. ‘Just enjoy the buildup to the race,’ Matteo said. ‘We’ll see what happens on race day and then we’ll speak after.’

The charity gala that his sister had organised was a huge event and must have taken a lot of work to plan.

There were beautiful people everywhere and no, Abby didn’t feel overdressed now; in fact, she was very relieved that she hadn’t gone for grey.

It was just such a beautiful summery day and they headed off to find his sister.

‘What’s she like?’ Abby asked.

‘Who, Allegra?’ Matteo checked and rolled his eyes. ‘She’s a goody-two-shoes. Don’t mention to her that I’ve hurt my shoulder.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’ll worry,’ Matteo said. ‘There she is.’

He called out and waved with his good arm, and an attractive woman came over and they greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek. ‘This is Abby,’ Matteo said. ‘My latest venture.’

‘Matteo,’ Allegra scolded.

‘Business venture.’ Matteo grinned. ‘How are you?’

‘Busy,’ Allegra admitted. ‘What have you done to your eye?’

‘I just knocked into a door.’

‘I don’t believe you for a moment,’ Allegra said. ‘And I can’t believe you’ve been here for more than a week and I haven’t seen you.’

‘Well, you had this to arrange.’

‘It’s been crazy...’ Allegra admitted but didn’t finish her sentence—someone was calling out to her and she gave Matteo and Abby an apologetic smile. ‘I really would love to stop and speak but I think it’s going to have to be later.’

‘Allegra,’ Matteo said. ‘I need to speak to you about Grandfather.’

‘Now?’

He nodded and Abby saw that his expression was completely serious. ‘He’s not doing too well.’

‘I know that,’ Allegra said. ‘Bianca and I have already spoken to him.’

‘I think you need to take some time and go and see him,’ Matteo said. Allegra closed her eyes and it was clear that she was upset.

‘I know he’s not well but...’

‘Come on,’ Matteo said to his sister and he took her by the elbow. ‘I won’t be a moment,’ he said to Abby as he led Allegra somewhere a little more private. Abby tried not to watch but she glanced over once and saw Allegra put her hand on Matteo’s shoulder and give it a squeeze.

His sore shoulder.

Oh, poor Matteo!

He didn’t wince; Matteo just took Allegra’s hand from his shoulder and gently let it go.

They were far from gushing with each other but Abby could tell, even from this distance, that they cared about what was being discussed.

It was so different from her family.

Annabel and Abby could go months without so much as a brief catch-up, and as for Abby and her father...

Maybe she should make the effort, Abby thought.

Yes, he had hurt her a lot when she had told him about Hunter’s attack but, trying to be fair to her father, though he hadn’t handled it well, maybe he had been grieving.

Never more than at that time had Abby wanted her mother, but she had been dead for three years by then.

Perhaps it was time to try and be family again?

She jumped a little as Matteo came back to her side.

‘Sorry about that,’ Matteo said. ‘Allegra already knows that my grandfather is ill but I don’t think she knew just how bad things have got.’

‘Is he very sick?’

Matteo nodded and for a moment, just a brief moment, he looked at Abby and wondered if he could tell her about the necklace and the real reason that he had made contact.

It almost felt as if he could.

But then he remembered the brittle woman he had met yesterday and decided that no, it was far too risky to chance it.

He was here for the team; he really was. There was no need to confuse things by bringing up the necklace just yet.

All that could wait.

‘Come on...’ Matteo said.

‘Where?’

‘To the sky.’

There were helicopter rides and he took her on one, and Abby, who apart from the racetrack had only seen one restaurant and one boutique during her time in Dubai, was treated to a bird’s-eye view.

Over the artificial Palm Islands they flew and Abby had never seen anything more stunning. And she also saw where Matteo had suggested they go to dinner. The city seemed to glitter gold and silver and they flew, too, over the racetrack where the first leg of the Henley Cup would be held.

This time next week, she’d be down there, Abby thought with a flurry of both nerves and excitement.

They stepped off the helicopter and Abby took a moment more than Matteo did to find her land legs.

‘It makes you dizzy, doesn’t it,’ Matteo said. ‘Let’s go and find something to eat.’

They didn’t have to look very far; there was plenty to choose from, and though they had lunch it was a quick one because, as Matteo leafed through a glossy program, he decided that he wanted to look at the racehorses that were being paraded.

‘Oh, look at that one...’ Abby said. It was a stunning, white, purebred Arabian stallion, so highly strung that he looked as if at any moment he might take off.

‘Bastard!’ Matteo said but didn’t get a chance to explain as someone tapped him on his shoulder.

The sore one.

‘Kedah!’ Matteo grinned as he turned around and saw who it was and he introduced them both. ‘Abby, this is Kedah. We studied briefly together in New York.’

‘Until you dropped out.’

‘I’m still standing,’ Matteo said. ‘And this is Abby, owner and manager of the Boucher racing team.’

‘It is very nice to meet you,’ Sheikh Kedah said. He was incredibly handsome, Abby thought. He was beautifully presented, dressed in a robe of pale gold with a keffiyah tied and skilfully draped but he had that same wild gleam in his eye as Matteo and they made an extremely good-looking pair. Abby could only imagine the sort of trouble these two got into. ‘Your driver did well here last year. Fifth, if I remember rightly?’

Abby nodded, surprised that he knew and pleasantly surprised also that Kedah didn’t mention that, after that race, Pedro had gone on to place nowhere.

Kedah turned to Matteo. ‘How is the shoulder?’

‘Still sore.’ Matteo smiled. ‘Black and blue...’

‘The doctor said you would bruise.’ Kedah nodded. ‘So do you still want him even after he threw you?’

‘Absolutely,’ Matteo said and then looked back to the stallion. ‘Abby and I were just admiring him.’

At ten minutes to three, two thoughts hit and both unsettled her.

That the horse Matteo had fallen off was a thoroughbred racehorse. What the hell would have possessed him to be riding that?

But she couldn’t dwell on it because another thought was invading.

She wanted to see his shoulder.

Abby, who just pushed down all thoughts of sex, who actually felt sick at the thought of intimacy, suddenly wanted to go back to the hotel and peel off his shirt and touch that bruised skin.

With her mouth.

‘Are you okay?’ Matteo checked, picking up on the sudden tension in her.

‘Sorry?’

‘Kedah was just saying he’d love to come to the race...’

‘Oh!’

‘We’re not allowed to talk to Abby on race day though,’ Matteo warned him.

‘I’d love to be there,’ Kedah said to Abby and then addressed Matteo. ‘If the Boucher team make the podium, you get the horse,’ the sheikh said and they shook hands.

‘Do you bet on everything?’ Abby asked when Kedah had gone.

‘Not everything,’ Matteo said and then he met her eyes and again stopped what he was about to say.

He’d never have put money on enjoying today.

Usually, often, always, he’d be bored by now and would have run out of things to say.

Usually, often, always, he’d be glancing at his phone and wondering if they went back to the hotel now and slept together, then he could drop her back and hit the town with Kedah.

Usually, often, always, he’d have said hi to his sister, stayed for half an hour and then said goodbye.

Instead today felt like the best of days and there was but one reason why.

‘What the hell were you doing riding him?’ Abby asked, tearing her eyes from his gaze and looking back to the magnificent stallion. ‘Do you ride?’

‘Not really,’ Matteo admitted.

‘When you say “not really...”?’ Abby checked.

‘No.’

‘You could have been killed,’ Abby said and she was far from joking. This beast would test the limits of the most experienced rider. ‘Why would you take such a risk?’

‘Do you say the same to Pedro when he stands on the gas?’

‘Pedro’s skilled and trained,’ Abby retorted. ‘You’re a bit tall to be a jockey.’

Her cheeks were that lovely shade of turned-on pink, Matteo thought, and he was quite sure that it had nothing to do with the sun.

He wanted to turn her around and speak into her ear and put on a high voice, just to make her laugh as he told her what a fabulous jockey he was. And then Matteo wanted to be warned that public displays of affection could not happen here.

And then...

‘Come on,’ Matteo said. ‘The fashion show’s starting. You used...’ He faltered; it had been her father who had told him that she’d once studied fashion.

‘Used to what?’

‘I thought I read somewhere that you used to study fashion?’

‘I did,’ Abby said. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘I can’t remember.’ Matteo shrugged. ‘I must have come across it when I was researching the team.’

He’d lied.

Matteo sat there beside her and he knew he’d lied, only not in the same way that he had to his sister—that had been about protecting Allegra, this had been about protecting himself.

It didn’t matter, Matteo told himself.

He and Abby weren’t going anywhere.

Even if they slept together, and from the heat between them that was becoming increasingly likely, he knew that they wouldn’t last.

Matteo meant it—he would never get close to another.

Abby didn’t notice the silence. It was actually so nice to be away from cars and she had never felt like that. Cars were both her work and her hobby but it was just nice to take a day off, but more than that, she knew it was because of Matteo.

They watched the fashion show and every second model who walked out onto the runway Matteo said, ‘You’d look good in that.’

And then out came the underwear and he made no comment.

Not one.

They were both trying so hard to behave and, for Abby, to even have to try to behave was a revelation.

Finally, with the fashion show over they decided to call it a day.

‘I just want to say goodbye to Allegra...’

‘Go,’ Abby said.

‘Thanks.’

He appreciated it.

She wasn’t needy and he liked that.

He liked her.

As they sat in the car on the way back to her hotel, he handed her his phone and Abby looked at a photo of the two of them, both laughing as they sat watching the fashion show.

Neither with a care in the world, it would seem.

Business or Romance? the headline said.

‘Oh, no,’ Abby wailed. ‘Why would they jump to that?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Matteo shrugged.

‘But we want them to think...’

‘Oh, they’ll be thinking,’ he said.

The car pulled up at her hotel and Abby wondered if he’d suggest dinner and she wondered if she might accept.

But Matteo, being Matteo, skipped entrée, main and dessert and, after such a lovely day, for him the ending was inevitable.

‘We could,’ Matteo said, ‘always go to mine.’

That delicious mouth moved in for the kill and what startled Abby the most was that she wanted to accept, to just close her eyes and give in to the bliss he offered, except she jerked her head back.

‘I’m assuming we’re not talking about the restaurant at your hotel?’

‘We’re not.’

For Matteo sex was as straightforward and as simple as that.

‘What happened to keeping it strictly business?’ Abby asked.

‘I can juggle both.’

He looked into green eyes that had been relaxed and smiling all day but now had turned to sleet.

‘I’ll see you on race day.’ Abby’s voice was tart—he could feel her anger and indignation emanating—and Matteo, who only ever played with the willing, leant back. ‘If you’re still interested, that is.’ She didn’t wait for the driver to open the door for her; instead she got out and slammed the door shut.

You’re not here to seduce, Matteo reminded himself as the driver took his rarely rejected passenger back to his hotel.

Matteo never misread signs.

Today the two of them had blasted a heat to rival a Dubai sun.

It was better this way, he conceded as he climbed out of the car and headed to his luxury suite.

If ever he’d been glad that he hadn’t told Abby about the origins of them, then it was now, because he was seriously interested in the Boucher team.

And, far more worryingly for Matteo, he was also seriously interested in Abby herself.

Which was, for a die-hard bachelor, very troubling indeed.

He was now terribly glad that Abby had said no.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOW HAD HE ever lived his life without this? Matteo wondered when racing day dawned.

It made the casino look like a playground.

The noise, the crowd, the scent, just the complete buzz was made all the better for having a stake in it, Matteo thought as he made his way to the Boucher shed.

He wondered as to his reception but soon found out he needn’t have.

It was quite refreshing to have no one remotely interested in him.

Pedro was playing video games and just blocking out everyone as he did what he had to do to get himself into the zone. Abby, dressed like some man in bottle-green trousers and top, with a baseball cap on, was doing some last-minute checks on the computer. The team were working on the car and Matteo knew when to stay back.

Of course she noticed him.

Abby had been wondering all week if she’d blown her chance with an amazing sponsor. Absolutely she knew she had been giving out mixed signals the entire time they spent together.

Matteo just didn’t need to know why.

Yes, it was a relief to see him and an even bigger relief when he left without demanding an update or even a minute of anyone’s time.

Matteo and Kedah went for lunch and then placed their bets. Matteo decided to bet on the Boucher team placing. But then, as the cars all took up their positions, and just before betting closed, just for the hell of it, Matteo placed a ridiculous amount on a win.

Dubai had turned it on and as the cars took off, the roar that went up combined with the engines and there was a new love in Matteo’s life.

Motor racing.

He looked to Abby; she was lost to him for the next couple of hours, her focus on the race, and Matteo was fine with that.

He’d apologise later, he decided, glad that she had drawn the line.

He could understand now her obsession with the sport. Neck and neck took on a whole new meaning when it went for two hours and Abby never broke her focus, not once.

They were going to place, Matteo thought as he glanced at the times and the top four came into the second-last lap.

Better than that, they might hit the podium.

Pedro overtook Evan just as they came into the final lap. The Boucher team was a split second behind Lachance. Pedro was biting at Hunter’s heels though, just waiting for that chance to take him.

And then, when Hunter refused to give him that chance, Pedro made his own.

Young, brave and foolish, at the final turn he took Hunter!

The roar from the Boucher team drowned the engines, and even Abby stopped working. There was nothing she could do from here except scream her lungs out.

Pedro gunned it.

He simply took the engine that she had designed, the car that she had built, the driver that she had nurtured and the team that should lose right into the history books, and Abby just stood there screaming as Pedro took her baby home.

They had won!

Not only that, Evan had overtaken Hunter, who had struggled to right his car from Pedro’s brave manoeuvre.

The noise was deafening but all Abby could hear was silence.

She was being thumped on the back, lifted up; she was screaming but she could not feel or hear a thing.

And then she saw Matteo, right there in front of her.

For the first time today, she properly saw him. He was wearing black jeans and a black shirt. Dark, dangerous and unshaven, the only safe thing about him was that those full blood-red lips were smiling.

At her.

‘You did it,’ he said, moving that final step into her space so that his voice was all she could hear.

Matteo didn’t even get what she had done—that she had finally beaten Hunter—but right now she didn’t even care about that.

‘I’m sorry about the other night,’ he said, his eyes intent on hers.

‘I am too,’ Abby admitted, to her own surprise.

Elation enabled honesty and with those words she admitted the truth she dared not, even to herself—she was sorry that she had said no.

And then there was no space between them. They were wrapped in each other’s arms and the mouth she had wanted from the night they had met was on hers, crushing hers. Had she imagined a kiss over the years it had always been a gentle one.

This was not that.

It was consuming, blatant and very fierce and, unthinking, her mouth opened in delicious reflex. His tongue was straight in, and yet she, too, sought his, like some exotic sword fight, where both were winners as they partook in the deepest, sexiest kiss.

God, he was shameless, Abby thought. He removed her cap and his hand pressed her head further in so she could feel the skin shredding on her jaw. Then he took the energy of their kiss and didn’t just sustain it; Matteo heightened it. He was hard and pressing into her and she could feel every delicious inch. His hands were now travelling down to her bottom and pulling her into him. Yet, rather than pull back, Abby was just as on fire and as sexed up as he.

And then they remembered the rules and pulled their mouths rather than their bodies back.

‘When we win...we kiss...’ Matteo said.

She could live with that.

They were breathing so hard just staring at each other.

‘When we place, we kiss,’ he said, kissing her cheek as if it were her mouth and that made her laugh. ‘And if we lose,’ he continued, making out with her ear, ‘then we have to commiserate...’

He was still hard and still there, nudging her stomach, and there was the beautiful absence of fear, even when he pulled back and looked right into her eyes.

‘What does it feel like to win?’ Matteo asked.

‘Better than sex,’ Abby said, no longer scared to throw a flirty line.

And she expected him to laugh or to haul her closer in for more of a feel of his erection but instead he looked deeper into her eyes.

‘Then someone hasn’t been doing you right,’ Matteo said.

He intended to remedy that later tonight.

CHAPTER FIVE

HUNTER SAW THEM.

He got out of his car and looked over and saw the woman he had left lying bruised and bleeding on a marble bathroom floor, and then pissed all over, now happy and free.

‘Whoa!’ The reporters shouted in several languages as Hunter kicked his car and threw his helmet down to the ground and then stormed off.

Abby and Matteo didn’t see a thing.

They were too busy laughing as Kedah informed them that Matteo was now the owner of an extremely temperamental horse!

‘Her name is Abby,’ Matteo said but she deliberately missed the inference.

‘I’m not temperamental.’

Or maybe she was, because Abby, who didn’t cry, almost did when she watched as Pedro stood in first place on the podium.

‘I almost want a glass of champagne,’ Abby admitted as Pedro sprayed the crowd with the same.

The Carter team was in second place and Evan grinned and waved and took the dousing.

Hunter attempted to do the same.

It was a good day.

A brilliant day.

And the world was waiting for the press conference.

Oh, they were an arrogant lot, Matteo thought as the drivers came in and took their seats.

Pedro sat there grinning; so, too, did Evan. Even Hunter had recovered from his hissy fit and that assured smile was back on his face.

‘I have to congratulate Pedro...’ They were the first words out of Hunter’s mouth.

He was charming, said a reporter standing to the side of Matteo and Abby.

‘Narcissists generally are,’ Matteo drawled.

He didn’t like him.

‘I lost my focus for a second,’ Hunter conceded, ‘and Pedro took his chance.’

Hunter made it sound like he had lost rather than that they had won and Matteo felt Abby tense beside him.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ Matteo said, without looking over to her. ‘You know you won.’ He then listened as a reporter asked Hunter a question.

‘What about your reaction after the race? You seemed pretty angry.’

‘Ha.’ Hunter shrugged and then spread his hands, holding his palm to the sky. ‘I guess I’m not used to it...’ And then he put down his hands and looked straight over to Matteo as he spoke on. ‘I tend to get there first.’

Matteo didn’t know that he had hackles till then, yet he felt them rise and he watched as Hunter’s gaze moved to the woman who stood beside him.

‘That was for me...’ Abby said and Matteo frowned because her voice was slurred.

His newly discovered hackles were still up and Matteo put an arm around Abby.

‘It’s okay.’ He didn’t know what was going on but he could feel Abby’s distress and he tried to reassure her.

But all she could hear was Wah-wah-wah...

The rest of what Matteo said she lost.

There was a roaring in Abby’s ears and her chest felt closed and she could feel that her lips were tingling.

‘I can’t breathe...’ she gasped.

‘Abby...’ Matteo said, but then she lost track of his deep smoky voice again and she made one last desperate plea.

‘Don’t let Hunter see me like this.’

Matteo got her out of the press conference and to a horrid plastic seat, where he sat her down and told her to cup her hands over her face. ‘You’re having a panic attack.’

He was just calm.

On the outside.

Matteo never let anyone glimpse his fear.

He went over to a guy who was walking past and tipped the man’s burger into his hand and returned to Abby with the paper bag. ‘Breathe into this...’ Matteo said and he just kept on talking in his lovely deep voice and telling her she would soon be okay. ‘It will pass soon,’ he assured. ‘My sister Natalia gets them and they pass. I promise.’

He just sat with her the entire way through it. Abby was sweating and white and her eyes were wide open and looking into his as she breathed in and out of the paper bag and then moved it aside.

‘He lost,’ Abby said and, with a sinking feeling, Matteo knew, he just knew, that they weren’t talking about Hunter losing the race today.

Matteo felt sick; he actually did but he just looked back at her.

‘He lost a race...’ Abby said. She could not do it in full sentences. ‘I was ending it. We’d only gone out a few times. We’d never...’

And he didn’t know what to say.

‘He got so angry.’

Matteo just didn’t know what to say.

‘I told my father. He said not to report it.’ She shook her head. ‘You see, I was drunk...’

And now Matteo did know what to say.

It was his first rule.

‘Then he should have seen you safely home.’

‘I was in his hotel room.’

No, he would not let her go there.

‘Then he should have checked into another or put you to bed and slept in the chair,’ Matteo said. ‘There’s no excuse for what he did.’

‘It was so violent.’ Abby relived it just for a second and she watched Matteo blink, not once but three times, and then he responded.

‘He should have treated you like glass,’ Matteo said.

‘It was my first time...’

‘Crystal glass, then,’ Matteo amended. ‘And that was not your first time—that’s not sex.’

‘It’s the only sex I know.’

And then her panic came back because they were coming out of the press conference. ‘He can’t see me like this.’

Yet she couldn’t stand.

‘What if we look like we were having an intimate moment—is that okay?’ Matteo gently checked and she nodded.

He just wrapped her in his arms and she saw the yellow leather of Hunter walking past and she heard the increasing thud, thud, thud of Matteo’s heart and his breathing firing into rapid. Abby felt the tension in him and she knew that Matteo wanted to drop her and run and do what her father should have all those years ago.

For her sake he didn’t.

But then, at the last moment, when he recalled Hunter’s “I tend to get there first” line, Abby felt the rip of tension in him.

‘Please don’t,’ Abby begged when she felt him move to run but then his arms came tighter around her.

‘I won’t.’

He wanted to though.

Matteo now could barely breathe.

Abby could feel him struggle to contain himself. Matteo even with a hangover in fierce heat did not break a sweat, yet he was swimming in adrenaline and his shirt was drenched and his breathing was coming fast and shallow.

‘I might need to borrow that paper bag...’ Matteo said.

Still he could make her smile.

And she waited for the questions to start but when her breathing was normal and she peered out from his chest, the only thing Matteo asked was if she wanted some water.

‘Please.’

He went off to a vending machine and got her a drink and Abby drank it down thirstily, and Matteo was right; the panic had passed.

‘Better?’ Matteo asked.

‘Much,’ Abby said, though she was now incredibly embarrassed at what she had told him.

‘So, where do you want to go now?’ Matteo asked.

‘Go?’ It was the last thing she’d expected him to ask her but Matteo squatted down in front of her and looked right at her when, embarrassed by her revelations, she could barely now look at him.

‘We’re still celebrating your win.’ Matteo was insistent. He looked briefly over to the team, who were all on their phones and buoyantly posing for the cameras and Kedah was with them. ‘I’m guessing that you don’t want to go out with that lot...’

‘No.’

‘But you won,’ Matteo said. ‘And you have every day since that bastard did what he did, and do you know what? You deserve to celebrate.’

‘I do.’

‘So, go and congratulate Pedro. Tell him it’s covered tonight, whatever he wants.’

‘Er, I don’t know if you know what you’re agreeing to.’

‘You’re talking to me.’ Matteo smiled. ‘I know what a wild night is. Seriously, with the bet I put on I’m even more loaded than usual. I’ll get Kedah to go along with them. He runs wild but he’s a good sort. He’ll keep an eye.’

Matteo didn’t, Abby thought, look at her like she had two heads; he just chatted away as if she hadn’t just told him her darkest shame. ‘You’re sure?’ she checked.

‘Of course,’ Matteo said. ‘Kedah will cover it and then I’ll see him right.’

He went to the vending machine again and bought a cola for himself and another water for her, and then Abby did what she properly wanted to do but hadn’t had a chance to until now!

‘Pedro!’ She went over and gave him a hug.

‘How good was that?’ Pedro grinned. ‘Hunter’s spewing.’

‘I know that he is. You were amazing, Pedro. I couldn’t believe it when you took him. I still don’t know how you did that.’

‘I’ll tell you in detail over dinner tonight,’ Pedro said.

‘Actually, I can’t make dinner. I’m going to go out and chat up our sponsor,’ Abby said. She saw a little flare of relief in her crew that she wasn’t coming out with him, though they did their best to hide it.

‘Oh, come on, Abby,’ Pedro insisted but she shook her head.

Yes, they all got on, but it was a very male world and she saw the tiny smiles as they realised that they wouldn’t have to behave as they always did around her.

And that thought brought a lump to her throat.

But these were nice tears that she was holding back.

They all did behave around her; she already knew that but she fully realised it then.

Abby’s team really were amazing.

‘Go and have the best night,’ Abby told them. ‘It’s all covered, whatever you want. Kedah will pick up the tab and Matteo will cover it.’

Pedro frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes! Now go and have a brilliant night!’ Abby said. ‘God knows you deserve it but,’ she warned, ‘remember that we’ve got an official breakfast tomorrow.’

‘Tell Matteo,’ Pedro said, ‘that I’ll take him out in the car next time.’

‘I shall.’ She gave Pedro another hug and then she turned and went back to Matteo.

‘Okay, where are we off to?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I do.’ Matteo had just decided. ‘First, though, we’ll swing by my hotel and I’ll get changed.’

‘I need to get changed too.’

He looked down at her oily bottle-green overalls. ‘Absolutely, you do!’

* * *

‘Buy a dress here...’ Matteo suggested as they pulled up at his hotel. ‘There are plenty of boutiques for you to choose from.’

‘No, I bought a dress ages ago and I promised that if we ever got on the podium...’ Abby shook her head. ‘I just never expected it to be tonight.’

She simply couldn’t believe it.

Podium would have been brilliant—it would have shown that they were serious contenders—but to have come first was beyond her wildest dreams!

For others it was a nightmare—the bookies were panicking, the other teams were regrouping. Tonight, only the Boucher team was floating on cloud nine.

As they got out of his car Matteo was about to ask if she wanted to come up and have a drink while he changed but then he decided against it. Now her comment that first day, about their meeting being held in the restaurant rather than his hotel room, made sense.

God, he could kick himself now for the other night but instead he saw her to a seat and gave her a smile.

‘I shan’t be long.’

Abby sat in the lovely foyer as he went and changed and as she did she saw that she had about fifty missed calls, some from her father, and loads of texts offering congratulations. Where had they all been prior to this victory? Abby thought.

She turned her phone off and then she looked up as a man who had been there for her came out of the elevator. He was wearing black pants and a white shirt and dark tie but he was carrying the jacket to his suit, and he’d shaved.

For her.

And she remembered their kiss and her response and there were just too many feelings for Abby to explore right now, and so she chose to just do her best to enjoy the night.

Matteo had ditched his car and they were driven to her hotel and, instead of sitting in the car while she changed, he came into the foyer.

‘My turn to wait,’ he said.

Matteo sat down as she headed off to the elevators but he watched as Abby was called back by the concierge and signed for something and then, a few minutes later, she was handed a parcel and took the elevator up.

Abby stepped into her room.

She was dizzy both from elation at winning and her revelations about Hunter but it was the kiss that had taken place between her and Matteo that had her slightly breathless with recall.

Being kissed by Matteo had been amazing, showing her a side to herself she hadn’t known existed.

Did it even matter, now that she’d told him the truth? That there had been no one before or after Hunter.

She thought about what he said, how Hunter didn’t count, and she liked that. Even if it made her a twenty-seven-year-old virgin.

She took the dress out of her wardrobe and, given today’s events, decided that the dress was too much.

Much too much.

It was seductive, provocative and sexy and it was everything Abby had hoped that she might one day be able to be.

Not yet though.

She was scared of her own sexuality, scared that if she dressed up tonight, then somehow Matteo might think she was leading him on.

To nowhere.

Oh, she was messed up, Abby knew.

She opened the package that she had signed for and her teeth ground together as a formal invitation from her father, inviting her to his fundraiser, fell out. It was written on a thick cream card but there was also attached to it a letter, or rather a note.

Abby.

As discussed.

No signature, no kisses, no Love from Dad. Just the reminder that if she wanted money to support her team, then it came with conditions attached.

She didn’t need the money so badly now but her decision not to go was starting to waver. Seeing Matteo and Allegra together, trying to do the right thing by their grandfather, had served as a very poignant reminder as to how far Abby’s own family had fallen apart, particularly since her mother had died.

Abby peeled back the paper to reveal a walnut box and she undid the tiny clasp and the lid sprung open. Her legs folded beneath her and she sat on the bed staring at her mum’s necklace...

With the silver metal, white diamonds and the green of the emeralds, it was, like her mother had been, beautiful. And, Abby thought, holding it up so it caught the late-afternoon sun, it was possibly the most perfect accessory for her dress.

It was like a sign—not that she should attend her father’s function; that decision she would make later—it just felt as if her mother had stopped by to tell her well done.

‘Oh, Mum.’

She thought of Anette, her mother, and how her marriage had been such an unhappy one.

Her father was a cruel, egotistical man and her mother, with all her family and support in France, just hadn’t found it within herself to leave. Anette had known that Hugo would have made her life hell if she did. So she had settled for a quieter version of hell—a marriage for the sake of the children.

Abby had loved her mother so very much.

She still did.

Had she been alive, Abby knew that what had happened with Hunter would have been handled differently. Oh, Anette had been weak where her father was concerned but not when it came to her girls.

Wear the dress, Abby.

She could almost hear her mother’s voice.

Be who you are, not who others dictate that you be.

Abby could hear her mother’s voice now.

She had been fifteen when her mother had died but now she remembered a long conversation they had had and her mother’s advice.

It hadn’t made sense; even in her darkest days, Abby hadn’t been able to unravel her mother’s words. Abby had tried to be herself and speak her mind and look where that had got her.

At twenty-seven those words made far better sense now.

Abby showered and then pinned up her hair and put on her make-up and with nervous hands pulled on some panties that were a touch too sensible for such an amazing dress but which were all that she had.

And then she slipped on the dress and the feel of cool silk on her skin had her face on fire. It was backless and so there was no bra that would work with it. She could see her nipples.

It wasn’t slutty; it really was incredibly beautiful.

She wore the flat jewelled sandals that she had worn to Allegra’s gala and they worked better with the dress than heels.

It didn’t need heels; what it needed, Abby knew, taking the necklace from the box, was this.

The necklace hung as if it had been designed solely for this night.

It drew the attention from thick nipples and it made her eyes a deeper green. Abby was almost scared of her own reflection because she looked sexy and wanton and she did not want to tease the tiger.

Yet she trusted Matteo not to bite.

It was the most contrary feeling in the world, given all she had been through, and with only instinct to guide her, Abby listened to her own voice now.

Both she and the dress would celebrate tonight.

* * *

Matteo waited.

Oh, he waited for way more than half an hour this time.

He wondered if Abby was having trouble getting into a denim dress and Doc Martens but just as he smiled at that thought the elevators opened and a shining, shy beauty stepped out.

She was in a dress that was a bruised shade of silver, just one polish away from gleaming, and around her throat was the reason Matteo had first made contact.

Not now.

Oh, he watched her walk towards him—too nervous and shy to be sexy. She was utterly gorgeous—and how the hell did he tell her the truth?

Never had he been more grateful for a goldfish attention span when it suited him. Matteo just dismissed the Lost Mistresses from his mind and dealt with now.

‘You look...’ What? Often Matteo stopped himself from saying what he wanted to with Abby; he didn’t tonight. ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.’

And he felt the most responsible that he ever had towards another.

This was her night.

* * *

It wasn’t a restaurant like any other that Abby had ever been to.

White, candlelit tables were set on a private beach. It was an outdoor restaurant that combined fine dining with a sunset that fired as pink as her cheeks as they were shown to their seats.

‘Champagne?’ Matteo asked, and it was as if they were starting again.

Which they were.

He knew the truth now and, more importantly, Abby felt safe to let down her guard with him. She knew, Abby just knew, that she could strip naked and dance like a banshee and still he would see her safely home.

‘That would be lovely.’

The champagne was poured and the first thing he did was raise a glass.

‘To the Boucher team. Well done, you!’

They ate delectable seafood and their fingers met in the fragrant bowls and they flirted a little but more than that they talked and they celebrated her win.

‘Pedro’s happy,’ Matteo said.

‘For now.’ Abby nodded. ‘I’ve been watching him for years, since he was about sixteen. I know he’s good and that he’s thrilled with the win but he’s not going to hang around for long and I can’t blame him for that.’

‘Is that why it has to be this year that you win the Henley Cup?’

That being Hunter.

Abby hesitated and then nodded.

‘He retires this year. I want my revenge,’ she admitted. ‘I know it’s supposed to be healthier to forgive...’

Matteo snorted, which told her what he thought of that!

‘You’re going to do it,’ he said. ‘But if not this year, there’s still next. Don’t make your life about him.’

‘I know.’

‘Concentrate on keeping Pedro sweet,’ Matteo said. ‘Spoil him. You’ve got winnings now.’

‘He placed fifth here last year,’ Abby said. ‘It was our first race and he should have been way back but, like today, something happened. He’s a genius and now everyone really knows it.’ She told Matteo something. ‘The next night, after he placed fifth, he took me out for dinner. He was just twenty then and I’m his manager and yet he got the bill and I knew that I was being served notice. He told me that he’d already been approached by the Lachance team. We came to a deal and I asked for this year, for the Henley Cup.’

‘Things are different now,’ Matteo said. ‘He’s part of a winning team and it is a team—a progressive one. The Lachance mob are sticking to the same old formulas. Remind him of that.’

‘I shall,’ Abby agreed. ‘Pedro wants to take you for a spin when we get to Milan.’

‘No, thank you,’ Matteo said, and Abby raised her eyes in surprise. She had thought, given his daredevil nature, that he would jump at the chance, but he’d shaken his head at the offer.

‘Thanks for today.’ Abby addressed what she had to, glad that it was getting darker and so he hopefully couldn’t see that her face was on fire.

‘For what?’

‘I’ve never had a panic attack before, not a full-blown one. I thought I was going to die.’

‘I told you that you wouldn’t.’

‘You said that your sister got them?’

Matteo nodded but said no more.

‘I didn’t expect to react like that. I’ve seen him around before, of course.’

Matteo didn’t like that and he frowned.

‘We’re on tour at the same time,’ Abby pointed out. ‘I always make sure that we’re in separate hotels. I only really see him trackside and usually I’m fine. Well, not fine exactly but I’ve never had that happen to me.’

‘He was angry today,’ Matteo said. ‘Even if he was trying to hide it.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I would expect that brought some stuff up for you.’

‘I guess,’ Abby said. ‘I hate how he’s messed me up.’

‘Messed up?’ Matteo checked. ‘Hardly! Your team just won—you’re coming into your own.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She had said way more than she had wanted to today but she had said it—there had been no one since Hunter.

‘It’s just a matter of time,’ Matteo said.

‘It’s been nine years!’

He actually grinned. ‘How the hell do you sleep?’ he asked. ‘I need a drink or sex, preferably both.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You’re not frigid. Had there not been one hundred thousand people watching on, I could have had you this afternoon.’

‘Exceptional circumstances!’ Abby said.

He just spoke about it in such a matter-of-fact way that it made the world a bit nicer but she shook her head at the impossibility. ‘He seriously messed with my head.’

‘We’re all messed up, Abby.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Of course I am. My whole family are.’

‘Because your parents died?’ Abby asked.

‘Because of how they lived.’

It was Abby who didn’t know what to say now.

Matteo never opened up to anyone. He could talk for hours and still reveal little about himself but with all she had told him today, well, it seemed wrong to hold back. He looked at her, so stunning on the outside and so churned up within, and it felt unfair to let her think that the polished, carefree man who sat before her didn’t have dark memories of his own.

‘Do you know why I said no to Pedro taking me for a spin?’

She shook her head.

‘Because the thought of having someone drive me around at high speed makes me ill.’

‘But riding a thoroughbred racehorse doesn’t?’ Abby frowned.

‘When I was five my father woke me up in the middle of the night. Now, when I look back, he was high on cocaine but I didn’t know about drugs then. I just knew there were times we avoided him and that this was one of those times. He’d won a car.’ Matteo sat there for a moment and remembered his bewilderment at being woken up. ‘We had loads of cars, but no, he had to show me this one. He took me into the garage and I remember that the car was silver. He told me how fast it went and just all this stuff and then he told me to climb in. I did...’ He looked at Abby, and Matteo was probably more confused in hindsight than he had been at the time. ‘Do you know, he didn’t even check if I was belted in? He just revved that engine and took off.’

‘To where?’ Abby asked.

‘Everywhere,’ Matteo said. ‘It was the longest night of my life, changing lanes, swerving, all the lights blurring. I wet myself,’ Matteo admitted. ‘He just kept going faster. He was laughing and shouting. I swear I knew we were going to die that night but somehow we made it home. A few weeks later there was a huge fight and my father got loaded. My mother got in the car, apparently to sort things out once and for all. They say the car skidded out of control but I always wonder...’

‘If she was as scared as you had been?’

‘Yep,’ Matteo said. ‘She’d got clean by then, well, apart from spending...’ He saw her slight frown. ‘Believe me, I almost wish she hadn’t though. I can’t stand the thought that she might have been as sober and as scared as I was that night.’

‘What do your brothers and sisters say?’

‘There are some things that you just don’t discuss. We talk about other things, but the past is there—we all know it. I’m sure they have their own memories and issues. I’ve never told anyone about that night.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘So, no—tell Pedro thanks but no thanks. I shan’t be taking him up on his offer.’

He tipped the last of the champagne into her glass.

‘Enough of the sad stuff,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating.’

They danced on the beach, a lovely long, slow dance, and Abby was celebrating not just the win, nor that she was out in her sexy silver dress and necklace, drinking champagne and relaxed, but turned on in his arms. But that this emotionally elusive man had told her something about himself.

Something that not even his family knew.

It was, without doubt, for Abby, the perfect end to the perfect day.

Matteo thought it less than perfect. Not the day, nor the night—more what he had found out. What had happened to Abby was criminal, not just the event but the effect that it had had on her.

For the first time that he could remember he wanted to step up, but that would mean offering more than he had sworn to ever do.

He remembered their kiss and could feel the attraction but the cruellest thing in the world would be to let her think he was capable of even a short-term relationship. And so, when the music ended Matteo did as promised.

He took her safely home.

CHAPTER SIX

ABBY WOKE AND stretched and looked over to her lovely silver dress that was draped over the chair and she was more mixed up than ever.

Matteo confused her almost as much she confused herself.

She wanted him.

Oh, my, she wanted him, and last night had been perfect.

Absolutely perfect except for one thing.

Unlike the sensual kiss they had shared after the win, at the end of last night, when he’d taken her back to the hotel, Matteo had briefly kissed her on the cheek like he was saying goodbye to some elderly moustached aunt.

Maybe all that she’d told him had been a bit too much.

And, Abby conceded, Matteo was way too much to be cutting her teeth on. He didn’t do relationships—he had made that blatantly clear—and Abby really was the last person to consider a casual relationship.

Except she was.

She was lying in bed, in pyjamas, and wondering what it would be like to have sex with Matteo.

In fact, since the first night they’d met she’d often found herself lying in bed wondering the very same.

Instead of dwelling on that lovely thought, when there was a knock at the door she pulled back the covers and answered it.

It wasn’t breakfast, just the coffee she had ordered, given that they had an official breakfast starting in less than an hour.

She wondered how the team would shape up this morning.

Abby got dressed. There were several issues being a woman in a very male world and the Boucher corporate wear was one of them.

Bottle-green men’s trousers.

Yum.

A bottle-green shirt and a black belt and lovely flat black shoes.

She headed down to the restaurant and there, looking very seedy but dressed in bottle-green, were her team.

‘How was last night?’ Abby asked.

‘Kedah’s a bad influence,’ Pedro said. ‘I can see pink elephants.’

‘Just keep smiling,’ Abby said.

‘Kedah wants to sponsor us too!’ Pedro told her.

Breakfast was long and there were an awful lot of photos and after that there were even more interviews for poor Pedro.

‘How’s Pedro doing?’ Abby jumped at the sound of Matteo’s voice.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.’

‘We’ll talk in a moment,’ Matteo said. ‘I just want to catch up with Pedro.’ He went over and whatever he had to say to Pedro took ages and then finally he came over to her.

‘Can we go somewhere?’ Matteo asked and Abby nodded; he had his business face on and looked tired.

They found a table and she ordered tea and Matteo did the same.

‘You don’t look like you’ve slept,’ she commented.

‘I haven’t,’ Matteo admitted. ‘And neither has my lawyer.’

Abby frowned.

‘I’m in,’ Matteo said.

‘Officially?’

‘Yes.’ He handed her a very thick contract. ‘In a nutshell, I’ll be your sponsor for the next eighteen months. You can back out at any time. I can’t. Take your time to go through it though.’

She skimmed the first couple of pages and saw the figures he was talking and, no, she couldn’t imagine backing out.

‘What do you get out of it?’ Abby asked.

‘The Di Sione name on your car and Pedro, as well as your disgusting shirt...’ He looked at her attire. ‘Can we add a clause about your clothes? You’re wearing the same as the men.’

‘We can!’ Abby smiled. ‘What else?’

‘That’s pretty much it. Abby, I love the racing world. I can see why you’re completely hooked.’

‘It’s not always this good,’ she warned. ‘In fact, it’s never been this good till now and it might not be again.’

‘I get that,’ Matteo said. ‘I’ve just spoken to Pedro and when we’re both in New York I’m taking him shopping for a car. I’ll deal with his ego,’ he said and Abby let out a breath of relief. ‘You can concentrate on the cars.’

It felt too good to be true and she waited for Matteo to reveal the catch as he carried on speaking. ‘Now, go through the contract and flag any concerns that you have but when you read it, know that I’m in, no matter what happens between us.’

Abby looked up from the contract she was reading.

It had been business but now he had sideswiped her.

‘Us?’

‘Do I have to spell it out?’

‘I think so.’

‘I don’t do relationships,’ Matteo said. ‘I never have and I never will but I think we both know we’re heading for bed.’

‘I don’t know that,’ Abby flustered.

‘Of course you do.’ Matteo stated it as fact. ‘And, as I said the day we met, I am very patient. So, don’t stress about cup-winning performances on that front either. We’ll take it slow, get you enjoying it. Just know that when we’re miserable exes, and loathe each other, I’ll still be here for the team.’

He meant it.

For the best part of the night and well into the morning he had been speaking with his lawyer and playing email ping-pong with him.

In between all of that though, he had been thinking about Abby.

A future for the two of them was impossible but a future for Abby he could envisage, and he knew that much he could help her with.

‘Matteo...’

‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I’m heading back to New York. I’ve got a big meeting tomorrow. I know no one thinks I do anything but I do work...’

He’d just offered her millions in sponsorship and a few sex lessons to boot and now he was dashing off.

‘Get yourself on the pill,’ he said. ‘I’ll do all the health checks.’

‘Health checks?’

‘They’re not really necessary,’ Matteo said. ‘I always wear a condom but I shan’t with you.’ He gave her a smile that had her thighs squeeze together at the top. ‘We don’t want a break in proceedings,’ Matteo said and in the most awkward of subjects still he made her smile. ‘No pit stops to change the rubber. We’ll just keep the momentum going.’

Pedro came over then. ‘Are you okay, Abby?’ He checked, no doubt, because her face was on fire.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Well,’ Matteo said in his best business voice. ‘I’ve given you a lot to think about, Abby. I’ll see you in Milan.’

It was a month away!

‘As I said,’ Matteo carried on. ‘I shan’t be breathing down your neck.’

He shook her hand, shook Pedro’s and then he was gone.

‘Matteo said I could have his jet at my disposal for a week if I bring in the Henley Cup,’ Pedro said. ‘He’s my man crush.’

Abby shot Pedro a look. ‘Hands off,’ she said and they both laughed.

It was the first time she’d laughed with a friend about something so basic and nice.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MATTEO DID EXACTLY as he had said he would and was completely hands off.

Abby was the recipient of several emails from some virtual assistant with flight itineraries and suchlike.

The contract was signed and countersigned.

Sheikh Kedah wanted to sponsor them too, but of all the amazing things that were happening, the one that had Abby reeling the most was that she was ankles in stirrups and having a pelvic exam and that she left the clinic with six shiny packets of contraceptive pills.

She still didn’t know what would happen between them.

And that wasn’t Abby being coy or naive. She was seriously crazy about Matteo but she was also seriously crazy about her work. Yes, the contract might be watertight but sniping at her sponsor she didn’t need.

And Abby would snipe.

Oh, the giddy high of being with Matteo would be wonderful, Abby knew, but she’d been clearly warned that it would only be temporary.

Abby was a sore loser; it was the reason she’d got as far as she had in the racing world.

Losing Matteo, or rather the flirting and friendship and fun of them...well, it was something she treasured and Abby wasn’t completely sure she wanted to mess with what they had.

And he was reckless.

The more she knew him, the more she read about him, the more debauched Matteo’s lifestyle appeared.

Still, it was bliss to know that the flights were covered, and with that weight off her mind the race ahead had never had greater attention.

Abby even found the time for coffee with her friend Bella one morning, while Matteo took Pedro out for that shopping spree. Given that Bella was an engineer on the Carter team they had a very strict no-inside-info rule, but it was lovely to catch up.

‘Are you still walking on air after Dubai?’ Bella grinned.

‘I think we’re all just trying to get our head in the game for Milan, but yes,’ Abby admitted. ‘It still feels brilliant.’

‘And how on earth did you land a Di Sione as a sponsor?’ Bella couldn’t help but pry. ‘I’m not sharing details but you must surely know that everyone is put out? Who wouldn’t want a Di Sione sponsor? Even one as wild as Matteo.’

Abby smiled. ‘Just luck. I think he likes taking risks and, given our new status, we’re the biggest risk of them all.’

‘I think he’s the risk rather than you,’ Bella said and rolled her eyes. ‘Front page again.’

Abby frowned and Bella groaned. ‘Sorry, I thought you would have already seen the news. It’s everywhere,’ Bella said and handed Abby her phone.

There was Matteo, staring at the camera, but instead of his regular suit or slightly bleary-eyed look as he came out of a casino, this image told her that he came in just under the six-foot-three line.

It was a mug shot.

Abby briefly scanned the article and found out that Matteo had been arrested last night after a fight in a very exclusive restaurant broke out and management had had no choice but to call the police.

Patrons were shocked and distressed.

‘That’s Matteo.’ Abby shrugged and handed back the phone, and she managed a wry smile and a roll of her eyes while on the inside her heart sunk.

He was supposed to be picking up Pedro now and her young driver had been looking forward to the day with Matteo so much.

It wasn’t just that he had let down Pedro that upset her. Matteo created chaos; a night in wasn’t enough for him, nor a nice meal by the looks of things. It had to be drama; it had to end on a dangerous high.

That was the man she was considering sleeping with!

Well, not any more.

Abby truly didn’t know what to say. She could hardly tell Bella how crazy she was about him, nor how disappointed she was in him too.

Instead she called Pedro but, unable to get hold of him, she gave up and Abby did her best to forget about Matteo and whatever the latest trouble he found himself in. They chatted about some of the other teams, leaving their own out, and Bella also told her that she was serious about someone.

‘In the racing world?’ Abby asked.

‘Oh, no!’ Bella shook her head. ‘I had to change the battery in his car.’ She laughed. ‘He hasn’t a clue and that suits me fine. I’m keeping romance well away from work—I’ve had my fingers burnt way too many times in the past.’

It would serve her well to remember that, Abby thought as she drove home.

Tomorrow they flew to Milan. Once there, the car, which had been pulled apart and shipped after the Dubai race, would be meticulously put back together again and training would begin in earnest—fine-tuning the car and ensuring it was perfect for the practice race, and then she would make the final modifications for the race itself.

Now though, there was one brief night to relax.

Not that she could.

Damn you, Matteo, Abby thought as she turned on the news and sure enough the first thing she saw was his mug shot.

Abby switched it off and, when the doorbell rang, she hauled herself from the sofa and there at the door stood Pedro.

A very different-looking Pedro.

His hair had been cropped and he was wearing a sharp suit and, judging by the set of keys he was waving, he was the new owner of a car fit for a soon-to-be racing legend.

‘Matteo made it to take you out?’ Abby put her own anger aside and smiled as she let Pedro in. ‘How was it?’

‘It was brilliant.’

‘I tried to call you,’ Abby said.

‘I left my phone at Bernadette’s. I’m just on my way there now.’

‘So what happened with Matteo?’ Abby couldn’t stop herself from asking. ‘I saw on the news that he’d been arrested...’

‘And released without charge.’ Pedro shrugged as he walked into her lounge. ‘Some guy was arguing with his wife and got heavy. Matteo stepped in and the guy took his mood out on him. Hey, Abby...’ Pedro said to his very distracted manager, who was blowing out a guilty breath at her own presumption. ‘I wanted to ask you something—can Bernadette come to Milan?’

Abby guessed Matteo had suggested that Pedro ask her.

Pedro had wanted to bring Bernadette last time but things had been so incredibly tight that there had been no room for wives and girlfriends.

Things were different now.

‘Sure.’ Abby nodded.

She wanted Pedro to linger, to tell her all about his day, or rather anything else Matteo had even loosely mentioned, but he was soon heading off to show Bernadette his new clothes and car and to tell her the news. Abby spent the rest of the night wondering if Matteo would call.

He didn’t.

And so, by the time the team were due to fly to Milan, Abby was in a state of high anticipation at seeing him.

She felt a bit like a schoolmistress at an all-male school as they boarded the Di Sione jet. Everyone was in high spirits, everyone except Abby, because there was no sign of Matteo.

Abby sat in a plush leather seat and rolled her eyes as Pedro looked around the jet.

‘Who gets the suite?’

‘You do!’ The attendant smiled.

It was then, Abby knew, Matteo wasn’t joining them.

* * *

Milan she glimpsed from the inside of a luxurious coach that took them from the airport to the hotel.

Abby knew the hotel the Lachance team stayed at and she had chosen another one, as she always did, which gave her one less thing to worry about.

Everyone was checked in but Abby lingered till they had all headed off to their rooms and then she asked the receptionist if there were any messages for her.

There weren’t.

‘Is Matteo Di Sione here yet?’ Abby made herself ask.

‘No.’

‘Do you know when he’s arriving?’

‘We can’t give out that sort of information.’

‘I’m a colleague,’ Abby attempted but she was no match for the tight security around the Di Sione name. ‘A close colleague.’

‘Then ask him.’ The receptionist’s smile did not waver. ‘Is there anything else that I can help you with?’

It was a busy week with little waking time to dwell on Matteo and when and if he would arrive.

Despite their amazing win, Abby did know it was unlikely to be replicated.

Pedro had raced the Dubai course but never Milan and, though they went over and over it and watched endless recordings of previous races, she could feel Pedro’s tension.

‘I shouldn’t have brought Bernadette,’ he admitted to Abby before he put on his helmet for the practice run. ‘She’s going to see me place last.’

‘Don’t think about that,’ Abby said.

‘I just got a text from Matteo, wishing me luck...’

It was more than she’d had.

‘I’ve a feeling I shan’t be getting his jet for a week.’

‘Listen,’ Abby said to Pedro. ‘You won last month. Nothing can take that away.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve got a whole lot more to prove now. Hunter reckons it was a fluke—he was talking in Reception loud enough for me to hear.’

Abby took a steadying breath. Apparently there had been a problem with the Lachance team’s hotel security and yesterday they had moved to the one Abby’s team were staying at.

Still, her own nervousness as to that wasn’t the issue now.

‘Don’t listen to anything Hunter says.’ Abby spoke firmly. ‘Don’t even look at him. Just give him the finger in your head any time you pass him. Maybe not today, but any time in your career that you pass him, then that’s what you’ll do.’

And so, too, would she.

The practice run didn’t go particularly well and Abby spent ages trying to soothe Pedro, who was seriously rattled, but finally at six he headed back to the hotel for an early dinner and then bed. Abby worked till late making modifications to the car.

By the time she got back to the hotel Abby was hungry, tired and certainly not looking the way she would want Matteo to see her, but there he was checking in at Reception.

Abby kept walking.

A month of no contact and she didn’t know where they were at and so she made her way to the elevator and pressed the button and stood.

‘Don’t you say hello?’ Matteo asked and she turned and smiled as he came and stood beside her.

‘I didn’t know if you’d just wanted to go up to your suite and crash,’ Abby admitted.

‘I do.’ Matteo yawned. It had been a very long day. ‘So, how’s the race preparation going?’ he asked as their elevator arrived and they stepped in.

‘It hasn’t been the best day.’ Abby sighed. ‘Pedro’s convinced that he’s peaked too soon, though he seems a bit calmer now.’

‘Yes, I saw the press conference,’ Matteo said. ‘He looked like he was about to throw up. What have you been doing?’

‘I’ve been working on the car.’ The elevator stopped at her floor. ‘Do you want to get dinner?’ Abby suggested.

‘I’m just going to get room service,’ Matteo said. ‘Do you want to come up...?’ He stopped. ‘Sorry, that was thoughtless of me.’ It had just seemed a natural solution—he was tired and hungry and he guessed, given the late hour, that Abby felt the same. He just didn’t want the bother of going down to the restaurant.

He thought she’d be offended but Abby just smiled at his discomfort.

‘Matteo, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘Room service sounds great. I’m starving.’

It was actually the nicest thing that he could have said to her, Abby thought—part of the difficulty of revealing such sensitive secrets was the aftermath.

She had been worried that he might look at her differently or think of her in different ways, but clearly it wasn’t at the top of his mind and that suited Abby.

They went straight up to his floor and to his suite and everything was better in Matteo’s world. Abby had thought she’d ordered the best suite for Pedro but clearly there were others tucked away for the likes of the Di Siones.

It was huge, more like a stately home than a hotel suite. The shutters were open to a stunning view of Milan at night but Matteo went straight over and closed them. ‘I’m sick of views,’ he said.

Matteo’s cases had already been brought up and the butler was putting his stuff away but stopped what he was doing and asked if he could get Matteo a drink.

‘Please.’ Matteo nodded.

Unlike the bar fridge in Abby’s room, here there was a crystal decanter, presumably filled with Matteo’s preferred cognac, but Abby shook her head when offered one. ‘I’d love a cola.’

‘And me,’ Matteo said, and before too long they had been served their drinks and were alone, Abby with a lovely iced cola, Matteo with both of his favourite brews. He drained the cola and then took the cognac more slowly as he asked about the practice run.

‘I have to say I’m not expecting a repeat of Dubai.’

‘Pedro knew that track,’ Matteo said and Abby gave a relieved nod, glad that he understood.

‘I am worried though. Now that we’ve had a win there’s so much expectation...’

‘Not from me,’ Matteo said. ‘I just called Pedro before and said he’s got the jet for a week whatever happens on Sunday. I suggested that he tell Bernadette that after the race, wherever he places.’

Matteo took off his jacket and kicked off his shoes.

‘You look tired,’ Abby commented.

‘I am. It’s been one hell of a week.’ Matteo yawned. ‘Family stuff.’

‘As well as getting arrested. How was lockup?’

‘Same old.’ Matteo shrugged.

He didn’t want to think about that night. Not the arrest, but the fight that he’d been privy to as he’d gone to the restroom.

Would he have turned away, if Abby hadn’t told him what had happened to her?

No.

He might have called management or...

Matteo didn’t know. All he did know was that he had seen red and pulled an angry man off his partner and told him to take his temper out on someone who stood a chance.

The bastard had taken him up on the offer.

Still it wasn’t just the other night and his family that were on Matteo’s mind though—even with an arrest and many nights out it had been a very long month.

A very tame month.

On many occasions he had wanted to pick up the phone and call Abby or step on a plane. He was walking a very fine line because sex was the easy part for Matteo.

Business he had taken care of through his lawyer and the contract was watertight.

It was the feelings he didn’t know how to handle. It was Abby he couldn’t get off his mind, Abby who he wanted to spend time with. Matteo knew his own reputation though, and he didn’t want to give mixed messages—such as how much he’d missed her, how she stayed on his mind.

Instead he stood up and flicked through the restaurant menu but looked up when Abby, who was wandering around the suite, caught sight of her reflection in a mirror and let out a little yelp—her face was streaked in oil.

‘I think I should go have a bath and get changed before dinner,’ Abby said.

‘Have a bath here...’ Matteo said and then grimaced. God, every time he said something it came out wrong. ‘I meant...’

‘I know,’ Abby said. ‘And I know, given all I’ve told you, that being in your hotel room should be awkward, but honestly, Matteo—’ she gave a tight shrug, unsure just how to voice it ‘—it isn’t.’

She just didn’t feel nervous around him. It was during times apart that she did.

‘Matteo?’ Abby checked because he really was behaving oddly. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘No,’ he admitted and came over to her. ‘This is how I wanted to say hello.’ He put his arms around her and it was the nicest place to be and he kissed her, a slow gentle kiss, the type that chased the day away. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘You could have called.’

‘I thought you said that you wanted a hands-off sponsor.’

He was very hands on now—they were resting on her waist and she could feel the weight of them and the heat of his palms.

‘You don’t just have to call about the team.’

‘I know that,’ Matteo said, ‘but then I’m not really big on the “how was your day” type of phone call.’ He was as honest as he could be about something he didn’t really understand, because he’d never really felt the need to be in touch with another, for no reason other than to be in touch. ‘And then if I call one week and then don’t the next...’ He gave a tense shrug. ‘I don’t do all that.’

And therein was the difference, Abby thought. Matteo was struggling to commit to a call a week! Their heads were in completely different spaces. The way Abby felt, a call an hour would barely do.

‘You’ve got oil on your face now,’ Abby said and they peeled apart enough to see the mess she had made of his shirt.

‘Have a bath,’ he said, because hell, he wasn’t letting that bastard change how he spoke to her or the things that he did. ‘Either go down and have one, or have one here, but I’m wrecked and I’m having dinner in bed, or rather on top of it, and you’re not getting on covered in oil.’

‘Didn’t you sleep on the plane?’

‘No,’ Matteo said. ‘I had some work to catch up on.’

He let her go and picked up the menu and read through it.

‘Sometimes all you need is a good steak,’ Matteo said.

‘Sounds great,’ Abby said. ‘I’ll have mine well done.’

‘Philistine.’

He rang and ordered as Abby headed off to the bathroom and, yes, it was so nice to peel off filthy clothes and step into a deep, fragrant bath and know that dinner was on the way and that Matteo was here.

Abby lay there, eyes closed, just enjoying the sensation of the water and the low sound of Matteo chatting on the phone on the other side of the door.

Then she heard a knock on the door to his suite and from the sound of it dinner had arrived. Abby hauled herself out of the bath.

It had done its magic.

She was clean and scented and all the tension of the day seemed to have gone, Abby thought as she pulled on a robe and opened up one of the hotel combs and ran it through her hair.

She came out of the bathroom and saw that he wasn’t in the lounge but it didn’t take long to find him. There was Matteo lying on the top of the bed with a large silver trolley by its side and he’d taken his shirt off.

‘It had oil on it,’ Matteo said as she tried not to look at his naked top half. ‘And,’ he added, ‘I have to sleep in this bed tonight—you don’t.’

‘I’m very used to the smell of oil,’ Abby said and, as he’d more or less told her that it would be closing time in the Di Sione suite soon, she relaxed. Dinner smelled amazing and she handed him his rare steak and she couldn’t help but look at his chest. He was slender but muscular and her eyes were drawn to his ribcage and she saw an old yellowing bruise there, she presumed from the fight the other night.

God, that body took a battering.

‘How’s the shoulder?’ Abby asked.

‘I have near-full range of movement,’ Matteo said.

Even that sounded suggestive as she took her plate to the other side of the bed and climbed on.

‘I love having dinner in bed,’ Matteo said, showering his steak in pepper.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever had it.’ Abby thought for a moment. ‘Well, unless I’ve been sick.’

‘You know that full feeling when you just want to lie down?’ he asked. ‘I was going to open a restaurant once, just beds. Dante and Dario talked me out of it.’

‘Your brothers?’ Abby checked.

‘They’re far more savvy than me. They started Libertine?’

‘The app for the wealthy?’ Abby had heard of it. His family really was everywhere!

‘Yes, it provides anything for anyone, just so long as you can afford it. Anyway, I accepted their advice that my bedside restaurant chain wasn’t the best idea, though I still think it could work.’

‘Nobody would ever leave.’ Abby smiled.

She didn’t want to leave.

‘What about...’ Matteo had been about to ask about her sister but he kept having to remind himself of what Abby had told him and what her father had. ‘What about you?’ he asked instead. ‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘An older sister,’ Abby said. ‘Annabel. We’ve never really got on.’

‘Because?’

‘Because I make things complicated apparently. She’s married to my father.’ Abby rolled her eyes. ‘Well, not my father exactly but...’

‘I get the picture.’

‘She’s pregnant,’ Abby said. ‘With her first. At the end of October I’ll be an aunt and I haven’t seen my sister in years.’

‘At all?’

Abby shook her head. ‘We talk on the phone at Christmas and things but I haven’t been home for a long time.’

‘Years?’

She nodded but didn’t elaborate.

Abby didn’t want to spoil this night with people who weren’t them.

It was just so nice to eat and then to lie there side by side and to talk.

And because it was so nice and they were both so relaxed Matteo tried to tell her some of what was on his mind.

The Origins of Them, as he called it.

‘Hey, you know your necklace...’

‘It’s not actually mine,’ Abby said. ‘It’s my father’s.’

‘Yes, but...’ He hesitated for a beat too long and Abby continued speaking.

‘My mother left it to him. He’s got a big do in July and has told me that he wants me there, looking presentable and wearing the necklace.’

Matteo swallowed.

‘I’m not going to go though.’

He breathed out a sigh of relief. ‘How come?’

‘We don’t really talk. Well, not since...’ She didn’t want to discuss it again and so she changed the subject a little. ‘There’s a huge party in LA on the same night. Anyone who placed in the Henley Cup will be there and so now I’ve got a legitimate reason not to go to my father’s function.’ She looked at him. ‘You should come.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re our sponsor...’

‘And?’

The relief that she wasn’t going to her father’s function, just the little rush of being let off the hook, had Matteo stop worrying about the problems that beset them, and he moved a little closer and started playing with the tie to her robe.

Yes, Matteo decided, he’d tell her about her father and the necklace but at a better time.

After the race, maybe?

‘Have you thought about what I said about us two?’

‘I have.’ Abby answered him as casually as she could—as if she hadn’t spent way too many hours poring over his words. Now was the time to say no, that it was perhaps the most stupid of ideas, yet, side-on facing each other, his fingers found the swell of her nipple, even through the thick robe, and he stroked it, just not enough for Abby.

‘And?’ Matteo asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Abby admitted.

‘Better than a no,’ Matteo said. ‘At least it’s something to work on.’

Which he was. She could feel his fingers at the very tip of her breast but as his lips found hers, Matteo’s hand flattened and the pressure of his warm palm was divine. It was a different kiss to the one they’d shared earlier; this was a sexy kiss and his naked torso she now explored beneath her hands and he let her. Odd that at twenty-seven it was more than she’d done with a man. His leg came over hers and then Matteo’s fingers were at the tie of her robe, but he held back from peeling it open.

Abby wanted him to.

God, she loathed that she tied double knots.

His lips moved from her mouth and to her neck and Abby’s hands drifted down, feeling his toned stomach right to the edge of his belt, and she wanted so much to move her hand farther down but resisted.

Matteo had endless patience but that didn’t make him blind to need and if she so much as moved to halt him, then he would, but instead they just carried on kissing as he made light work of her robe.

Now he peeled it open and so their chests were naked and touching, just enough to ensure it was not enough.

‘Don’t rush me,’ Abby said, which was contrary to how she felt.

‘I’m kicking you out in five minutes,’ Matteo said and then he took her hand and placed it where she wanted it to be. His tongue caressed hers and she explored him through the fabric, hard and straining, and she ached to set him free but opened her eyes and met his gaze.

Oh, she wanted.

But she wanted more too.

More than Matteo would ever give.

‘I don’t want to lead you on,’ Abby said, ‘if I don’t...’

‘You can lead me on any time.’

‘I’m going to go down,’ Abby said, her hand still on him and his smile made her smile. ‘I meant to my room.’

‘I know,’ Matteo said. ‘A guy can dream.’

He made her feel sexy, so much so that she wanted to do just what the suggestive air called.

He could actually feel her reluctance as Abby got off the bed and it felt like a win to Matteo. He’d never really got the saying “it’s worth the wait.” Matteo waited for no one, impulse never lasted that long and he went with them at whim.

She would be worth the wait though.

As Abby went into the en suite to retrieve her clothes Matteo called her back.

‘You can’t put those back on.’

‘Well, I’m not going down in my robe.’

‘Send the butler to get you a change of clothes, then,’ Matteo said and went to reach for the phone but Abby halted him.

‘No, he’ll think...’

‘Who cares what he thinks?’

‘I care.’

‘God, you’re a prude,’ Matteo said but not nastily. ‘I’ll go and get something for you to wear.’ He really was nice like that, Abby thought as he got out of bed and put on a fresh shirt. ‘I can have a little rummage through your underwear drawer while I’m there!’

She handed over her room card and Matteo headed out to the elevators.

He wanted her to stay, yet he didn’t want to push, Matteo thought as he pressed the button for the tenth floor.

And then, as the elevator stopped at the eighteenth floor and Hunter stepped in, Matteo changed his mind.

He wanted Abby in his room and the thought that she might be here, in this elevator dressed in her robe and alone with Hunter right now, had Matteo holding his breath.

He leaned back on the brass rail of the elevator as Hunter stared ahead and Matteo’s eyes never left his face.

Yes, Hunter knew who he was, Matteo knew, because he could see a muscle flickering in his cheek and the tension was near boiling point.

He could take him here now, Matteo thought.

Wipe him out of any chance of racing tomorrow, but Abby would hate that, he knew.

She wanted to beat him herself, in her own way.

The elevator stopped at the tenth floor, only Matteo didn’t get out; he didn’t want Hunter to even have a hint that this was Abby’s floor.

The doors closed again and it was then that Hunter spoke.

‘Problem?’ Hunter asked because Matteo’s stare could blister paint.

‘Just the smell,’ Matteo answered and then, as the elevator opened, when Matteo knew he should just let Hunter go, instead he offered a very choice word.

Hunter stiffened but he didn’t turn around; instead he carried on walking but there was a dangerous, unchecked energy between them and Matteo could feel his heart thumping as he pressed floors five through to twelve and the elevator started moving again.

Matteo got to Abby’s room.

The turn-down service had been and there was a chocolate on her pillow and it was all calm but his heart still thumped in his chest and so he poured a glass of water and took a drink.

Abby had told him that they always stayed at different hotels.

He closed his eyes and tried to tell himself to calm down. They were in the same profession, Matteo said to himself. Of course their paths would cross.

The self-talk didn’t reassure.

Matteo went to the wardrobe and pulled out a top and a skirt and then he went to her underwear drawer. Next he went over to the bed and wrote a silly note and left it on her pillow, then back up to his suite he went.

One look at his face and Abby knew something was wrong.

‘Here.’ He handed her her clothes; he was about to suggest that she get changed and then he would walk her down, or maybe that it wasn’t such a good idea for her to be staying at this hotel and that they could switch, but the long sentence sort of shrunk into three words.

‘Stay here tonight.’

‘Matteo?’

‘Hunter’s here.’

‘There was a problem with security and so they...’

‘No, no...’ Matteo wasn’t buying it for a moment. ‘Did you really think he was just going to let you take him down without a fight, Abby? Did you think, when you were hatching your master plan, that Hunter was just going to sit back and let you beat him?’

‘It’s not going to happen again,’ Abby said.

‘I’m not saying that it is,’ Matteo said. ‘But you’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest and he’s angry.’

‘Did you say anything?’ Abby demanded.

‘He knows that I know what happened.’

‘What did you say to him?’ Abby shouted. ‘Matteo, you didn’t do...’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ he snapped. ‘He already thought I knew at the press conference. I just let him know tonight that I did. Abby, that guy swaggers around... I swear that he’s going to do whatever it takes to mess with your head.’

‘He’s already messed with Pedro’s,’ she admitted.

Matteo was right, Abby realised—it was no accident that Hunter was here.

‘Stay,’ Matteo said. ‘I’m not going to try anything.’ And then he shouted, nicely if that was possible, ‘I just want you in my bed with me!’

‘Matteo, you’re not always going to be around,’ Abby pointed out.

But he was the master of instant fixes. ‘Let’s just get through tonight.’

Matteo was shaken, in a way that he never had been about another.

Sex really was the last thing on his mind tonight.

It wasn’t anything to do with that.

In fact, for Matteo, it was more concerning than that, because when he stripped off and got into bed, he just needed her skin beside his.

Abby stood there as Matteo stripped off.

Completely.

She guessed it wouldn’t enter his head to get into bed any other way.

She could ask for pillows between them, or get into bed, her robe tied and her reluctance evident, only she wasn’t reluctant.

It was her feelings for Matteo that scared her.

Not him.

She took off her robe and got in beside him and he switched off the light and just rolled into her.

He kissed her shoulder, the back of her hair and he ran a hand the length of her thigh and to her waist and then the thump, thump of his heart slowed and Abby lay there, listening to him sleeping with his hand resting on her stomach.

Abby slowly acclimatised to the feeling of sharing a bed with someone. She kept waiting for his hand to move, or for Matteo to change his mind about not trying anything. But Matteo was sleeping the sleep of the dead and so she found out what it was like to be held naked through the night with no expectation.

It was possibly the nicest gift of all and in that moment her world was the nicest place.

In the dark, next to him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AT FIRST ABBY thought that she had jolted awake but then realised that the movement had come from Matteo.

He was still asleep but Matteo just had the familiar sensation of falling.

Only it wasn’t him falling from a tree this time.

He was standing at the door to an elevator and watching the carriage drop down with Hunter and Abby in it and grabbing out for the cable and missing.

Yes, he jolted but then in that same instant felt her warm next to him and knew it was a dream and straight back into deep sleep he went.

Abby lay there, not thinking of the race ahead today but instead the man next to her now, and she didn’t want the alarm to go off.

Of course it did.

Matteo groaned at the intrusion and pulled her closer into him.

Their temperatures matched, their muscles were loose and relaxed and she felt him slowly harden and the nudge of him at the back of her thigh, which seemed to Abby to be at odds with his regular breathing.

Her breathing wasn’t in the least regular. She could feel his hand on her stomach and she lay locked in private thoughts and aching with want. She lay in a body that was finally ready to commit, next to a man who never would.

Abby turned over to face Matteo and his arms, even in sleep, moved to accept her.

He really was asleep.

All the tension from last night had left and his mouth was just a little open and she was so close to leaning over and kissing him awake, just giving in to and exploring the want that hummed through her now.

The snooze alarm went off and she watched his face screw up and his hand reached for a pillow, pulling it over his head and, in that moment, Hunter left every equation.

There were no more thoughts of revenge, no past to overcome, just the quiet of morning and a feeling of peace as she lay next to a man who plucked the strings of her heart.

Just that.

Abby rolled over and turned off the alarm and he pulled her back to his side. ‘Matteo, I’ve got to go.’

He fought to wake and the events of last night started to filter in. ‘I’ll walk you down,’ he mumbled and moved to sit up.

‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard.’

She just needed him; yet Abby knew Matteo had checked out on love.

‘Go back to sleep.’

She went and had a quick shower and dressed in the clothes that he had fetched for her last night and then came back into the bedroom, where he lay awake now, looking at her. He looked sulky and angry and she knew why—Hunter was around.

‘You’re going tomorrow, Matteo. I’m here for a few more days, dismantling the car and then straight on to Monte Carlo, so it seems a bit stupid to be walking me to my room today.’

He said nothing.

Matteo didn’t know what to say.

Abby was right—tomorrow at six in the morning he’d be gone and, more to the point, he had never been another’s shadow.

Silence hung between them.

It wasn’t a row; it was Check.

His heart was under threat of capture and Matteo didn’t like that feeling in the least.

‘Good luck today,’ Matteo said but it came out in a rather forced voice.

So, too, was hers. ‘Thanks.’

He lay there when she had gone. Yes, tomorrow he would be back in Manhattan and, Matteo decided, he was going to go and get laid.

It had been...

He didn’t really want to do the math. Matteo didn’t want to admit that since their first dinner in Dubai, he’d lost interest in that half of the world population that had once been his playground.

No, he wouldn’t be getting laid any time soon.

Matteo knew he was lying to himself. Instead the next couple of weeks were going to be spent stressing at the thought of her in Monte Carlo with that animal around.

He reached for the hotel phone.

* * *

Abby stepped into her hotel room to change into her lovely bottle-green outfit. She opened the chocolate that was on her pillow and as she popped it into her mouth she picked up the note that was beside it.

Dear Abby,

You need new underwear. Shall I take you shopping or can I choose?

Matteo

And then her phone rang.

‘Did you get my note?’ Matteo asked.

She knew he was ringing to check that she’d got back okay, but it was nice that he didn’t have to admit it.

‘I did.’ Abby smiled. ‘You can choose.’ And then she was serious. ‘Nothing’s going to happen today, Matteo. All anyone is thinking about is the race.’

‘I know and I meant what I said, even if I didn’t say it very well—good luck today.’

‘Thanks.’

Matteo had quite a morning in a very lavish boutique.

A few women nudged and laughed but he cared not and amassed quite a collection, which he asked to all be wrapped and then sent up to her room. Then Matteo had lunch and finally he took himself trackside.

The streets were packed and lined with spectators and when he finally made it to the Boucher sheds he, as always, stayed back, though Pedro stopped playing video games and came over and they chatted for a few moments.

Abby saw Pedro was smiling at something Matteo had said, and whatever her personal feelings were towards Matteo, she was very glad to have him as their sponsor. He was very good with Pedro, unlike the sponsor they had had last year who had demanded far too much, especially before a race.

But then, as the race commenced, there were no thoughts of Matteo, nor revenge—all Hunter was, was the car that was ahead of them.

As were eight others.

For the next two hours the team worked intently, working out the best refuel times. Matteo watched Abby relaying instructions and giving Pedro some insights as to the cars ahead of him.

The Italian crowd were even more vocal than in Dubai and it was a loud, exciting couple of hours and by the last three laps Pedro had inched the car into fifth place.

Hunter’s experience on the course showed, yet Evan pushed him hard and suddenly a roar went up as Pedro overtook into fourth.

Matteo found that he was chewing his nails.

And then it was into the final lap.

He looked over to Abby, whose face was pale but she was talking very calmly to Pedro through her mouthpiece, even though she must be feeling frantic. Hunter was well ahead of Pedro, Evan was in close second; it was a battle for third and, holy smoke, Matteo thought as Pedro accelerated out of the turn, he was going to get there.

Abby was right; this kid was a genius. The pale, sickly faced twenty-one-year-old that had climbed into the car, sure he would place last, got out a triumphant third, as the Boucher team cheered and embraced.

And no, Matteo wasn’t on her mind right now because Abby nearly broke her neck just to get over to a jubilant Pedro.

‘What the hell!’ she screamed at him, her face split in a shocked smile.

‘She flew!’ Pedro roared back, simply elated. ‘She just took off.’

And they were back to talking about the car as if she were a person. This third was even sweeter than placing first.

The press conference was very different to last time. Abby and Matteo were out and stood hand in hand as Hunter droned on and on about his experience. Evan, a man of few words, just shrugged when asked his predictions for the final race.

They were neck and neck—it could be any one of the three.

Pedro sat with a satisfied grin.

‘We’ll just have to wait for Monte Carlo,’ was not just the gist but practically all Pedro said.

Yes, it was a different type of celebration tonight.

The Boucher team filled a gorgeous restaurant. Abby didn’t have time to change but no-one cared. She had the best squid pasta she had ever tasted and Pedro made a speech and said that she, the car, was perfection.

It was wonderful; the party was moving on now to wild and Abby and Matteo decided to head back to the hotel but, before they did, Matteo pulled Pedro aside and had a word.

‘Another shopping spree?’ Abby checked but Matteo just shrugged.

Oh, he’d been speaking with Pedro but about something rather more serious than shopping, not that he’d tell Abby that.

Yes, things felt different tonight and as Abby and Matteo got out of the elevator at the tenth floor Matteo reminded her of their deal.

‘What happens when we make podium?’ Matteo asked and, because there was no one around, he reminded her what happened with his mouth.

Hot and sexy, they were straight back to where they had been in Dubai as he kissed her up against the wall.

Only this time there wasn’t the surprise element of his kiss, just hungry need, and she held his cheeks in her hands and kissed him back, her shoulders digging into the wall but her groin pressed hard into his.

It seemed miles to her hotel room and so they continued to kiss while walking—a hungry, laden kiss that had them tripping over a tray the next room had left out until finally they fell into her room.

‘Hell,’ Matteo said as he backed her to the door, undoing the black belt and buttons on her men’s bottle-green trousers, and as he looked down he even laughed. ‘This feels wrong...’

It felt pretty right to Abby.

He just kissed her until they stood, breathless and facing the other and both half-dressed.

‘I’m not ready.’ She was panting, feeling a tease but consumed with want.

‘For what?’ Matteo checked, slipping his hands into her trousers and feeling her as damp as he knew she would be. He stroked her clitoris through her panties and resumed the kiss, probing her mouth with his tongue for a moment and feeling the tightening of Abby’s thighs. He pulled back his mouth but not his hand as she simmered nicely.

Oh, Abby simmered. She wanted to, she wanted, wanted, wanted, but she was more scared of losing her heart than her control.

‘How about a fashion show?’ Matteo said and she glanced over his shoulder and saw for the first time all the parcels lying on her bed as his hand remained between her legs, his finger lightly stroking her and teasing her, while teasing himself, but then he removed it.

It was do up her trousers or take them off and Abby chose the latter.

‘You’re quite neat, aren’t you,’ Abby commented as he picked up her shoes and trousers and threw them in the wardrobe.

‘A bit,’ Matteo admitted. ‘But I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life and I’ll scare the hell out of myself if I wake up tomorrow and see them by the bed.’

He made her laugh.

Matteo made her feel fine, just fine, to be wearing nothing except ugly panties and the dark green shirt.

She opened the parcels one by one as he did the same with the buttons to her shirt.

Some of the underwear he had chosen was the colour of summer—gorgeous lemons and pale mint greens—while others were the shades of sin.

‘Do you know why I chose those,’ he said, having peeled off her shirt so she was down to her bra as Abby held some dark violet panties.

‘Because they’re crotchless?’ Abby laughed when she poked her fingers through the hole.

‘Actually, I didn’t know they were,’ Matteo said. ‘I chose them because they’re not just velvet on the outside.’

They weren’t. The inside was just as soft and hidden-seamed.

‘I thought they might feel nice.’ Matteo explained his thought process.

Abby swallowed.

‘Put them on.’

‘I’m not ready to sleep with you, Matteo.’

He just shrugged and removed her bra so that her breasts dropped that aching inch and he toyed with her nipples, stretching them out. ‘A lovely come would be nice though.’

He said it as if he were choosing from the restaurant menu, only some things weren’t as easy as picking up the phone.

Or were they?

She thought of this morning—how turned on she’d been and how turned on she was now—and Abby handed herself over to him and nodded.

Even a little come would be a miracle!

Slut that Matteo was, the second that Abby nodded her consent he was happily stripping off and turning the heating up to rival Dubai at midday.

And then he told her that was his intention exactly! ‘Remember that fashion show we had to sit through?’ he reminded. ‘I kept picturing you in all the underwear they were parading. Most uncomfortable half hour of my life...’ He gave her a smile that had her nearly rock on her heels as she knelt on the bed. ‘You were my Dubai fantasy—look how far we’ve come.’

Clearly they were here for the night.

He was almost clinical about it.

It was a very sexy clinic she was in though, Abby thought as Matteo chose a brandy from her minibar and then lay on the bed, naked, his erection lifting off his thigh, and she took her underwear and headed to the bathroom.

‘Take some heels with you,’ Matteo called.

Yes, look how far she’d come! Abby stood in the sexiest underwear in the world and added said heels. She even clipped up her hair and put on some lipstick.

It was a game to him and that helped Abby—why, she didn’t know, but it just did.

Maybe because it was about fun, rather than Matteo throwing in sentiments that could never be met by the cold light of day.

And so she came out of the bathroom and as she did, Matteo remembered the shy, nervous beauty who had walked out of the elevator in a silver dress.

That woman had gone for good now.

Abby stepped out and briskly walked the length of the room and then turned.

Nervous but not shy.

‘They walk more with their hips,’ Matteo said and took a sip from his bottle as she crossed the room. ‘That’s better, but more slowly.’

‘Are you going to model for me?’ Abby checked, strutting her stuff.

‘Any time,’ Matteo agreed and she looked at his erection and that he was playing with himself and her lips pressed together, wondering if she could ever lie there and do the same with him.

God, it was hot.

‘Take off your bra.’

Even with double velvet her nipples were sticking out, and as she took off her bra he could see the spread of colour on her chest and that her stomach was taut with desire, and he could wait no more.

‘Get here.’

She nearly ran.

To him.

Matteo guided her so that she sat on his stomach and he poured the last of the brandy onto his hand and then rubbed it into her breasts.

‘The only way to drink brandy.’

She knelt over him as he made sure there was no brandy left on the left. Abby’s thighs were shaking, her neck was arched. One hand was on her hip as the other went straight for the kill. His hand slid past her exposed clitoris, leaving his thumb there while his fingers burrowed deep inside.

He changed breast.

She nearly lost her mind.

He just worked her as skilfully as she’d tune an engine. It hurt, the nicest hurt, and then he left her swollen, wet, slightly bruised breasts and his free hand started stroking himself again.

‘Matteo...’

‘I’m not going to.’

Abby’s head lowered, just to watch them. Who was this woman, in obscene panties and loving it?

‘Oh...’ She just moaned as his fingers and thumb seemed to meet in the middle of a wedge of intimate flesh. He stroked her deep on the inside; he exerted pressure on the outside till her stomach seemed to meet her spine.

And yet, she couldn’t—she let out a sob, borne of desire and frustration, and then felt as if she were choking, because everything in her tightened as Matteo started to come.

He had felt her tip—thank God, he thought, because it was past the point of no return, but he had never enjoyed himself more in the bedroom. Or anywhere else come to that.

Abby closed her eyes, regretting that she had no choice but to, because the feel of him hot and pulsing against her was surely a sight to be seen as everything that had been missing spasmed.

Then she opened her eyes to the lovely sight of him pulling out the last of his come and then stroking it into her and she sank down on him rather than pull back. The intense feelings were better shared and then Abby sat back on her thighs and tried to drag in air.

Half an hour ago, she had glimpsed what it might be like.

Now she knew.

‘What does it feel like,’ Matteo asked, remembering the power of his own first come.

‘Better than sex,’ Abby said as he pulled her down, but to the side of him.

He knew how to do her right.

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