Pride After Her Fall

What remained was the fact he’d blown off two meetings to spend time with a woman he didn’t know, and it was time to play catch up. He hadn’t got anywhere without being single-minded. He needed to get his focus back where it belonged.

He dressed, made the calls necessary to bring the people who could make things happen together.

Santo’s Bar. Half an hour.

* * *

It was a quick drive from his apartment to the waterside bar. Nash, however, found himself taking the scenic route, driving down the glittery Monaco boulevards, remembering the first time he’d raced here. The narrow grid, the excitement of the danger inherent in this course above all other road circuits... He’d won and his life had never been the same again.

It had been an extraordinary ride—that race and all the races that had come before and after it, building up his motor-design business, Blue, the journey to this town, to this moment. It had happened against the odds, given his beginnings. He’d come from a background of squanderers. Money, talent, opportunity—all squandered on drink and women and bad bets. And that was just his old man.

Success had come quickly to him. Probably too quickly. He’d had a raft-load of hangers-on at the beginning of his career whom he’d bailed out financially. His father, his brother, old friends... They’d all viewed him as a lucky bastard, but he knew different. He’d worked bloody hard to get where he was, and he had learned to hold on to what he’d earned. He damn well didn’t need another person who wanted something from him...

And just like that he was thinking about Jack. His brother.

He wasn’t risking it again.

His expression hardened and he told himself if his gut was tied in knots it was only because Lorelei St James was clearly a premium lay and he wouldn’t be having any. Animal attraction. It was why even now he swore the scent of her was still in the car, making him restless, angry, and making it hard to remember why he was denying himself.

* * *

Had she simply imagined it?

Had he really blown her off?

How had he phrased it? She had a media profile.

It was the trial. It could only be the trial.

Lorelei sank down onto the chaise in her bedroom and thought hard. What else could he have discovered? It wouldn’t be difficult. She knew she had a social profile. She never Googled herself but she was aware that, like her friends, her name came up on different gossip websites.

She’d dated some known names in the past, but not seriously. She’d never been serious...or only once, when she was still a young girl and had thought a man telling you he loved you was reason enough to start planning a future—until you discovered he loved what he imagined was your trust fund. She’d never had one. Just a well-to-do grandmaman who’d kept her on a short leash and a small inheritance now gone.

Grandy had left most of her fortune to her charities. Lorelei knew she wouldn’t have been human if she didn’t sometimes think wistfully of how useful even a fraction of that money would be now, but she understood that Antoinette was punishing Raymond and not her. She had known one day Lorelei would be bailing him out.

Inevitably that day had come to pass. Unfortunately it had put the one thing Grandy had left her at risk: the villa.

But she wasn’t thinking about that now. She needed to think about filling her evening, seeing as Nash Blue had changed his mind...

Possibly because he’d found a better option. A woman who was happy to go to Paris with him.

Lorelei’s eyes narrowed. She snatched up her phone and began scrolling through the address book. Two could play at that game. She had simply masses of people she could call up...men who would break their necks tearing up the hill to take her to dinner. Her thumb hovered over names. Her heart fluttered hard in her throat. Why couldn’t she just call?

Because... Because...

Fifi jumped up onto her lap, trying to climb her chest.

‘Because I didn’t want to be with anyone but him tonight,’ she said, burying her face in her baby’s warm fur. ‘Dammit, Fifi, I was looking forward to tonight. I was... Oh, I’m being ridiculous. I’ll make a call.’

She pressed Damiano Massena’s number and he answered almost immediately. Clearly he didn’t have a problem with her being a so-called distraction! But then, they had known each other for years on the party circuit. He was in town. He knew of an opening. It was always fun to go to an opening, and she knew he wouldn’t press for anything more than her company. They’d sorted out that little crease in their friendship years ago. He was a womaniser and she was strictly hearts and flowers—not his type. He’d pick her up in an hour.