He mumbled something low and pithy under this breath. And then he kissed her.
A long while later, stretched out alongside Marco’s warm length on the back seat of the car, she finally acknowledged her feelings.
She was happy. It was a happiness doomed to disaster and a short lifespan, but no matter how delusional she wanted it to last a little while longer.
Glancing down, she noticed Marco’s wallet had dropped onto the floor of the car. Spying a picture peeking out, she picked up the wallet and peered closer.
The long, unruly hair was unfamiliar, as was the small gokart in the background. But the determination and fierce pride in those hazel eyes looked familiar.
‘This picture of you is adorable. Now I know what your children will look like.’ She tried not to let the pain of that thought show on her face. ‘I bet they’ll be racers just like you and Rafael.’
Marco stiffened, his eyes growing cold and bleak. ‘There won’t be any children.’
The granite-like certainty in his voic
e chilled her soul. ‘Why do you say that?’
For a long, endless moment he didn’t answer. Then he took the wallet from her. Reaching for his trousers, he opened the car door, stepped out and pulled them on.
‘Come with me.’
Despite already missing his arms around her, she sat up. ‘Where are we going?’
The look in his eyes grew bleaker. ‘Not far. Put your clothes on. I don’t want to get distracted.’
She was all for distracting him if it meant he wouldn’t look so cold and forbidding. But she did as he said.
Marco led her to the far side of the garage. Keying in a security code, he threw open the door and stepped inside, pulling her behind him.
With a flick of a switch, light bathed the room. Sasha looked around and gasped at the contents of many glass cabinets.
‘These are all yours?’ she whispered. Walking forward she opened the first cabinet and lifted the first trophy.
‘Sí.’ Marco’s voice was husky with emotion. ‘I started racing when I was five.’
There were more trophies than she could count, filling four huge cabinets. ‘I know.’
He walked to the farthest cabinet and picked up the lone trophy standing in a case by itself. ‘This was my last trophy.’
‘You never told me why you gave up racing,’ she murmured.
When he tensed even more, she went to him and grasped his balled fists.
‘Tell me what happened.’
His eyes bored into hers, as if judging her to see if he could trust her with his pain. After an eternity his hand loosened enough to grasp hers.
‘I got my first contract to race when I was eighteen. By twenty-one I’d won two championships and acquired a degree in engineering. I was on the list of every team, and I had the choice of picking which team to drive for. A week after I signed for my dream team I met Angelique Santoro. I was twenty-four, and foolishly believed in love at first sight. And even by then I’d had my fill of paddock bunnies. She was … different. Smart, sexy, exciting—far older than her twenty-five years. All I wanted to do was race and be with her. She convinced me to sack my manager and take her on instead. Six months later we were engaged and she was pregnant.’
A shiver of dread raced over Sasha. Deep inside her chest a ball of pain, buried but not forgotten, tightened.
There won’t be any children.
‘You didn’t want the baby?’ she whispered in horror.
He laughed. A harsh, tortured sound that twisted her heart. ‘I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.’
Sasha frowned. ‘But … what happened?’