Pride After Her Fall

It wasn’t hard to pick out Nash when he emerged through one of the gates from the track offices. It wasn’t just his height but the way he moved—heavy, purposeful and a little intimidating.

There was a flutter of female speculation and Lorelei saw women literally pushing their way up to the barrier next to the track to get a better look. Fortunately big macho sportsmen had never done much for her.

Nevertheless, she fumbled in her handbag and touched up her lipstick with her compact, removed her scarf, knotted it around her neck and shook out her hair. A woman needed all her weapons about her, entering this arena.

Weaving her way through the crowd, she caught glimpses of Nash with the kids. He wore a black overall with white and green stripes and lettering and carried a bunch of helmets which he was handing out. The parents looked as star-struck as their offspring. The crew were crawling all over the cars in preparation, and there was a faintly vivifying smell of petrol fumes in the air.

She vaguely recognised another racing driver, Antonio Abruzzi, but only because she’d scanned the charity’s internet site on the subject of today this morning, to avoid walking in blind. The lanky Italian was saying something to the media crew set up trackside.

Lorelei found she was quite close to the barrier and a little space had opened up. She slipped in and looked out across the track.

Nash had his back to her and was hunkering down to fit a helmet over the head of a young girl of about ten or so, with long dark hair. She had that po-faced look on her face Lorelei recognised from her young students when they were about to mount up for the first time.

He said something to her and she smiled, let him settle the helmet over her small dark head, and even from this distance Lorelei could see the care with which he buckled up the strap under her chin.

Something fluttered strangely in her chest, and she found herself unconsciously touching the back of her neck where he’d stroked it yesterday.

He straightened and put his hand lightly behind the child’s shoulders, ushering her towards the crew who were going to strap her in. Almost casually Nash glanced over his shoulder and their eyes met, locked.

Time seemed to slow down. The noise and jostling died away and Lorelei faced the undeniable truth that wild horses couldn’t have stopped her coming down here today. As she ate him up with her eyes he turned around, those wide shoulders thrown into relief by his arms hanging at his sides—a typical masculine pose.

Vaguely Lorelei was aware of cameras going off around her as people lifted their phones to frame what anyone with an eye could see was a great shot. A male athlete at the top of his game, with the racing car just over to the right and Nash filling the foreground with his presence. Bigger, stronger, more impressive than just about any other athlete on the world stage.

His eyes were on her.

Lorelei lifted her chin. Now she knew what Simone was talking about.

He was a legend.

She’d just been distracted by the man.

* * *

Nash saw the defiance in her fine-boned chin as it poked in the air and thought, No, you don’t, mate. That little number is off the menu.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. After the incident with Massena last night he’d figured he had her pretty much read. She was a beautiful, privileged woman used to being pursued by wealthy men. Cullinan’s tacky information had got her wrong. He’d been looking at the bottom of the survival chain when it came to women living by their wits. Lorelei St James was very definitely at the top.

He would have expected her to have moved on. Yet here she was, poised like a lily of the field behind the safety barrier, amidst a crowd of onlookers, looking as if she’d stepped out of Vogue.

In jeans.

But very expensive couture jeans, wrapped around a pair of impossibly long slender legs, lithe hips and a perfect peach of a derrière. She had a jaunty short blue scarf tied around her neck.

Despite the American accent he could hear underlying her voice she was every inch the Frenchwoman this afternoon. She’d dressed for a day at the marina, not a racetrack. This was probably as far inland as she’d ever been.

A golden girl in every sense of the word.

And she was gazing at him as if she expected him to stroll on over, swing her up into his arms and carry her off like the prize she was.