Pride After Her Fall

‘How can I help you, Officer?’

The scent of her hit him, swarmed through his senses like a hive of pretty bees, all honey and flowers and female.

Expensive, a steadying voice intervened. She smells and looks expensive.

Like any other rich girl on this coast. A dime a dozen if you’d got a spare billion in the bank.

He folded his arms. ‘Going to tell me what’s going on?’

He actually saw the moment the flirtatious persona fell away.

She gave a little shrug. ‘There seems to be a problem with the engine. I accelerate but I lose speed.’

He nodded and headed for the front of her car.

Lorelei found herself following him, hands on her hips. He got the bonnet up with no trouble—something she never could. He leaned in.

‘It’s the original,’ he told her in that deep, male voice.

‘Are you a mechanic?’

‘Near enough.’

Lorelei looked down the road as a couple of cars swished past, then back at the man leaning into the business end of her car.

Her eyes dwelt on the tail of an intricate dragon tattoo running down his flexed left arm, on his muscled shoulders, shifting under the fit of his close-weave black T-shirt, broad and imposing as he bent low, drawing attention to the strong, lean length of his torso and tapering to a hall-of-fame behind—all muscle. Prime male.

She snagged her bottom lip contemplatively, stroking him up and down with her eyes. She couldn’t get over how thick and silky his dark brown hair looked, the wavy ends caressing his broad neck. She wondered how they would feel tangled between her fingers. She wondered what he would say if she apologised, if she told him she wasn’t always this out of control...

‘Whoever looks after it deserves a medal.’

Lorelei wondered a little hopelessly if he was ever going to look up—look at her. She gave a little inner sigh. Probably not. She’d burnt her bridges with this man.

‘What was it?’ he prompted. ‘A gift?’ When she didn’t reply he straightened up and gave her a speculative look. ‘I’d say from a guy who knows his engines.’

Lorelei cleared her throat, aware she’d been staring at him and that he was probably aware of it. ‘I bought it myself. At auction.’

He looked so sceptical her hands twitched all over again on her hips.

‘You need a specialist to run some tests on the engine.’ He was looking at her steadily, as if he expected her to be writing this down. ‘It’s in good nick, so I assume you’ve got a specialist mechanic.’

She found herself recalled to her usual good sense. ‘Oui. I’ll call him.’

‘Everything else looks to be in order.’

As he spoke he set the bonnet down carefully, checked it was locked in place. His movements were assured and methodical and, oddly, Lorelei felt soothed by them. He treated her car with respect. Which was more than she had done with his employer’s Bugatti, a little voice of conscience niggled.

‘What will happen with the Bugatti?’ she found herself asking.

‘I expect the man who owns her will have some questions for you.’

Lorelei shoulders subsided.

‘Do you want me to follow you back?’

No, most definitely not. Because she wasn’t going back. She’d been running the Sunbeam like this for weeks, but she got the impression her handsome stranger would not be best pleased. He might not think much of her, but he was clearly in love with her car.

‘Mais non. You stopped.’ She pushed back a rogue curl dangling over the left side of her face. ‘It’s more than most people would have done. Merci beaucoup.’

Nash hesitated. He hadn’t seen her like this before—calm, almost subdued—and it suited her. She wasn’t quite as young as he’d first assumed—maybe thirty—and there was a maturity about her that he’d missed in all the glamour-girl theatrics.

‘Right. Take care of her. She’s a beauty.’

He ran his hand lightly over the paintwork and for the life of him couldn’t work out why getting back into his car was so hard. Except she was just standing there, looking a little uncertain.

He sat in the Veyron, waiting, watching as she climbed into the sapphire-blue roadster, waiting for her to start the engine, waiting for her to pull out, all the while waiting to feel relief that she was off his hands. She gave him a simple wave and drove slowly back down the road.