Taken by the Highest Bidder

“Irrational?” Sam’s jaw jutted furiously. “I’ve lost everyone I’ve loved in car accidents, and you have the gall to say it’s irrational?”

“I’m not your parents, and I’m not Charles—”

“Cristiano! Have you looked at your legs? Have you seen what racing has done to you? How can you think you’ve escaped unscathed?”

He laughed, and it was a brutal sound. “I’m well aware of the risk, and the price we pay. But I’ve accepted it and I deal with it, and if you want a life with me you have to deal with it, too.”

Tears filled her eyes. “No. I don’t have to deal with it. I won’t deal with it. I love you, but I can’t live like this. It’ll destroy me—”

“Because you’re letting it destroy you. Make a different choice—”

“Why don’t you make a different choice? Why don’t you compromise? Why should I be the one to have to change?”

“Because this is what I love to do more than anything else in the world.”

And that just about said it all, she thought, holding her breath and looking at him.

He did love his cars and racing more than anything else. He loved the danger and the adrenaline. He loved competition. He loved to win.

But he had to also understand how she felt about him, how frightened she was of losing him. He had to know that life would be unbearable for her and for Gabby if something happened to him now.

She turned her head and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time in a long time, taking him in as if trying to remember. There was so much she loved about him, so much she loved in his face—the shape of his jaw, the quirk of his mouth, the lips that felt so right on hers…

“I’m sorry, Cristiano.” She felt the tears well but she wouldn’t let them fall, not today, not this time. She didn’t understand this emotion, didn’t understand what was making her feel so fierce, so wild, so volatile. Was it love? Hate? Was it something else?

She didn’t know, and what she did know was that she craved peace. Peace for her heart, peace for her mind. Peace from the chaos rioting inside her. Love, hate, whatever it was—she didn’t want it anymore. She just wanted relief. “I’ve lost my parents in a car accident, Charles in a car accident, and I’m not going to lose you, too. Not that way.”

He made a rough, guttural sound in the back of his throat. “No, you’ll just lose me another way.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

He gave her a long hard look. “Sam, I’m beginning to think you don’t even know who I am.”

“I know who you are.”

“Then you know what I do.”

“How can you love your work more than—”

“Don’t even go there. You can’t say that. I won’t let you.”

Maybe he didn’t love his work more, but he did love the danger. He lived for the adrenaline rush. He was a risk-taker, a thrill-seeker, a man that thrived on pushing his limits over and over again.

He wanted to be great. Wanted to be famous. He wanted to make a name that equaled—if not eclipsed—his father’s. But men became famous in one of two ways—they did something death defying, or they died. Either way it was dangerous. Either way, those who loved him would suffer. And Sam didn’t want to suffer anymore. She didn’t want to fear, or worry. She didn’t want to go to bed alone, or wake up alone, and miss. She was so sick of missing.

Life had to get easier.

It had to get easier.

“I won’t give up racing, Sam,” he said quietly. “I won’t give it up for you, won’t give it up for anyone. If you care for me, you accept me for who I am…not for who you want me to be.”

“Fine. Don’t give up racing. But I’m not going to another funeral, and in your sport—profession—people die. Maybe not every race, but every year, and these aren’t old men, Cristiano. They’re young. They’re twenty-four, twenty-seven, thirty, thirty-four, thirty-seven…they’re fathers, brothers, husbands, lovers. They’re men just like you.”

“Sam, there’s risk in everything.”