Living the Charade

After a few quick stretches Miller set off at an easy jog along the dark, wet packed sand left behind as the tide went out, sure that Valentino would get bored and surge ahead. But he didn’t. And then she remembered that he’d complained about his knee and wondered if she had hurt him this morning.

Feeling hot already, Miller turned her head to look at him, her ponytail swinging around her face. ‘I didn’t really hurt your knee, did I?’ she panted between breaths.

He glanced across at her, only a light sheen of sweat lining his brow, his breathing seemingly unaffected by his exertions. ‘No. The knee is fine.’

‘Was the accident very bad?’

When he didn’t respond, she flicked her eyes over his profile, just in time to see him tense almost imperceptibly.

‘Which one?’

‘There’s been more than one?’

He glanced towards the ocean, and she didn’t think he’d answer.

‘Three this year.’

She wasn’t sure if that was a lot for his profession. She imagined they must crash all the time at the speeds they drove. ‘The one where you hurt your knee?’

He didn’t look at her. ‘Bad enough.’

His voice was gruff, blunt. Very unlike his usual casual eloquence. ‘Was anyone else hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wh—?’

‘I thought you said you didn’t like to talk while you ran?’

It was pretty clear he didn’t want to tell her about it so she let the subject drop. But of course her curiosity was piqued. Dexter’s comment about his next race being the race of the decade was making her wonder if it had anything to do with his accident. She really didn’t know anything about Valentino Ventura, other than the fact that he was called Maverick and he dated legions of women, but she wouldn’t mind knowing what secrets she was beginning to suspect lay behind his devil-may-care attitude to life.

* * *

Tino had never run with anyone before. Not even his personal trainer. Running was meditative, and something he liked to do alone, so he hadn’t expected to enjoy Miller’s company as much as he was.

Despite his large family he wasn’t the type to need others to be close to him. He was a loner. Maybe not always, but certainly since his father’s death. And, yeah, he knew a shrink would say the two were connected but he was happy with the way he was and saw no reason to change. If he died one day pushing the limits, as his father had, and Hamilton Jones had last August, at least he knew he wouldn’t be leaving a devastated family behind him.

The image of Hamilton’s wife and two young daughters—teary and slightly accusing at the funeral, because he’d survived and their father hadn’t—caused guilt to fluctuate inside him.

Survivor guilt.

The team doctor had warned him about it afterwards, and while he’d never admitted to feeling it he knew that on some level he did. But he also knew it was something that would wear off if he didn’t think about it. Because the accident hadn’t been his fault. Hamilton had tried to overtake on one of the easiest corners on the track, but had somehow managed to clip Tino’s rear wheel and hurtle them both out of control.

Hamilton had lost his life and Tino had missed three of the following races due to injury. And he’d failed to finish the last two races due to mechanical issues.

He wasn’t superstitious, and he didn’t believe in bad luck, but he couldn’t deny—at least to himself—that there seemed to be a black cloud, like in a damned cartoon strip, following him around at the moment.

A sudden memory of the moment his mother had returned from the bathroom and he’d had to tell her that his father—the love of her life—had just been involved in a hideous accident clamped around his heart like an iron fist. No one knew what had caused the accident that had ended his father’s life—engine malfunction or human error—but the pit crew had said his father hadn’t been himself that morning, and Tino remembered overhearing his mother urge his father to pull out of the race. But the old man had ignored her and gone anyway.

Tino swiped a hand through his hair. Had that been what had killed him? His mother’s soft request? Tino shuddered. It was a hell of a position for a man to be put in.

Refocusing on Miller’s steady rhythm, he was surprised that he didn’t have to temper his speed all that much for them to remain together.

Waking up beside her, he hadn’t meant to have his hands all over her, and now he decided that it would be best to play the relationship game her way. So what if Caruthers had the hots for her? It was none of his business, as she had rightly pointed out. Now that he knew he wasn’t being used as a patsy to hide an affair it shouldn’t mean anything to him that the other man wanted her.