New Year at the Boss's Bidding

She murmured and he turned to look at her, but thankfully she didn’t wake. As the glow from the fire began to reach the darker corners of the room, it caressed her partially uncovered body. Her golden hair was spread out around her and her face was serene and peaceful.

In an effort to ensure the fire would last as long as possible he put more logs on and made his way back to their makeshift bed.

‘Xavier?’ Her throaty whisper, totally unexpected, almost froze him to the spot.

‘Scusi,’ he apologised as he got back beneath the covers. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

She gave him a sleepy smile and looked into his face as he lay next to her, his head propped on one elbow. ‘How did you hurt yourself so badly?’

Her words slammed into him, instantly killing the lust that had begun to course through him once more. He didn’t want to tell anyone about it, least of all Tilly and certainly not here, not in this haven from reality, where emotions he’d thought dead were being revived.

‘There is nothing to tell.’ He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, keeping his words soft, aiming for distraction, trying to pull them back into the clutches of desire.

It almost worked. Her eyelashes fluttered closed and he relaxed just a little, then she opened those big blue eyes and looked into his, sympathy—or was that pity?—in hers. ‘I’ve seen, Xavier, just now...’

Her words faltered to nothing as he glared at her. ‘Just now what?’

‘I saw the scars. It must have been a really bad accident.’

‘Sì, it was.’ He bit back the anger and guilt cocktail that rushed into his bloodstream at the memories. He could hear again the crunching of metal and the sickening thud that haunted his dreams. He could feel his body being thrown around, smashing into barriers with ferocious force. Pain had robbed him of consciousness, but when he’d come round in hospital it had been to the most dreaded news. He’d made it. Paulo hadn’t. And it had been his fault.

The usual pain spiked his legs and he bit down hard against it. He was naked and exposed before her, every emotion as vulnerable and bare as his body. This was exactly the situation he’d avoided since that day in hospital when Carlota had been so revolted by his injuries. Guilt racked him because he’d sent her away. Frequent dates had earned him a playboy reputation, but Tilly was the first woman he’d spent the night with since the accident.

He still didn’t know if it was his battered body or the guilt hanging over him like a storm cloud that made him cold and uncaring. He didn’t deserve anything remotely warm like affection and sympathy. And Tilly deserved better.

‘What are you doing?’ He growled the question out, moving quickly as Tilly pulled the throw away from his legs. There was no point in hiding any more. She’d already seen the marks left on him from that day, so why not let her know it all?

‘Showing you it doesn’t upset me.’ The firmness in her voice only irritated him further. ‘There was no need for darkness, no need to put out the candles.’

He stayed still, ice curling through him as she looked at the livid scars on his legs, the constant reminder that he didn’t deserve happiness after he’d taken it from Paulo’s family with his selfish desire to win.

The silence stretched between them. She was shocked. He could see it in her eyes. Damn it, she couldn’t even find the words to voice her disgust, but after what she’d just given him he owed this much to her.

Slowly she knelt up and trailed her fingertips down his thigh, over the ugly and gnarled skin. He held his breath as she moved below his knee where the pins held him together.

Anger surged through him. He was no longer in control. He was now the vulnerable one. ‘Those scars are nothing compared to the fact that I lived and another man died—and it was my fault.’

Her hand froze and slowly she looked at him, shock in her eyes, in the lift of her delicate brows and those soft sensual lips. The disbelieving whisper of her words told him all he needed to know. ‘Your fault?’

‘I wanted to win—at any cost,’ he said, and scowled at the memories, wanting to shock her, punish her for seeing him like this. ‘It’s my fault. Paulo died because of me, because of my selfish need to be number one. I killed my friend.’

‘No.’ She pulled her hand away from him and sat back against the sofa, clutching one of the throws against her nakedness.

‘It’s not just my injuries that mean I can no longer race. It’s the guilt that another man will never be on the track again.’