His Ultimate Prize

‘I’m not trying. I’m telling you I’m not a great bet for you. I always escape unscathed but everyone I come into contact with sooner or later suffers for it.’

‘You make yourself sound as if you’ve got a contagious disease. Stop it. And no one suffered today. You still need to address exactly what happened during the race but no one had an accident.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. At the start, when I realised I was getting squeezed out, I contemplated a move that would’ve taken Matteo out. For a moment, I forgot that I was supposed to be his teacher. I forgot the reason I’m staging the All-Star event in the first place. In that cockpit, I was just a racer, programmed to win.’

‘But isn’t that what racers do?’

‘He’s only nineteen, Raven! And I came within a whisker of taking him out. Do you know his mother is here today? Can you imagine how devastated she’d have been if I’d crossed that line?’

‘But you didn’t cross it. You pulled back before you did any damage.’

‘Yeah, and you know how I felt? Nothing. No remorse, no victory, no sympathy. I felt nothing.’

‘Because there was something else going on. You say you remembered your crash in Hungary but then you blanked out the rest of the race. That could be a form of PTSD.’

He raked a hand through his hair. ‘Santo cielo! Stop trying to make excuses for me. Stop trying to make me the sort of man you’ll fall for. There is nothing beneath this shell.’

Raven’s heart lurched, then thundered so hard she was surprised it didn’t burst out of her chest. Surprised she managed to keep breathing, to keep standing upright despite the knee-weakening realisation that it was too late.

She had fallen hard. So very, very hard for Rafael.

‘And if I don’t fall in with your plan to drive me away? You know me well enough by now to know I’m no pushover.’

He speared her with a vicious look meant to flay the skin from her flesh, and maybe a few weeks ago she’d have heeded the warning, but she’d found, when it came to Rafael, she was made of sterner stuff than that.

‘No, but I’m a complete bastard when I’m pushed to the edge, chiquita. Are you prepared for that?’ he parried.

‘You’ll have to do more than throw words at me. I know you, Rafael. I see beyond your so-called shell. And I know, despite what you say, you love your family and would do anything for them. I also know that you’re pissed off right now because you’re terrified of what’s happening with you. But I’m not walking away, no matter how much you try to push me. I won’t let you.’

Anger hissed through his teeth. Rising from the bed, he stalked, albeit with a barely visible limp, to the drawer that held his clothes and pulled it open. ‘A few days ago, you were counting the days until this thing between us ended. Now I’m trying to end it and you’ve suddenly gone ostrich on me?’ He returned with a handful of clothes.

‘I’m not burying my head in the sand—far from it. I’m trying to understand. What have you done that’s so viciously cruel that you think I’ll walk away from you?’

He froze before her, his whole body stiffening into marble stillness. Only his lips moved, but even then no words emerged.

A chord of fear struck her. ‘Rafael?’

‘What does your mother mean to you?’ he rasped.

Although she wondered at the change of subject, her answer was immediate. ‘Everything. She’s the only family I have. She may think I’m her enemy half the time because she doesn’t want to be where she is, and she may blame me some of the time, imagining I’m the reason my father doesn’t want her, but the times she’s lucid, she’s a wonderful human being and I love her unconditionally, regardless of what persona she is on any given day. The thought of her, safe and a phone call away, makes me happy. I’ll do anything for her...’ Her words drifted to nothing when she saw the look on his face. He’d grown paler with each word she’d uttered, the jeans he’d pulled from the drawer crushed in his vice-like grip. His face, hewn from a mask of pain so visceral, made her step towards him.

He stepped back swiftly, evoking a vivid image of carrying the contagion she’d accused him of seconds ago.

‘Well, stay away from me, then, and enjoy that luxury. Because once you have me in your life, you may not have her for long.’ His voice came from far away, as if from the shell he’d referred to moments ago.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘You know I put my father in a wheelchair eight years ago. But, even before that, my life was on a slippery downward slope.’