Pride After Her Fall

Let them watch, she thought miserably, casting a longing look back at her car...and then at Nash, who had let the guy go and was using his phone.

Possibly to call in the men with the straightjacket for her before he made excuses to reverse right out of her life. She’d pretty much made a fool of herself, and from experience she knew that whilst men enjoyed the effort she put into her pretty packaging they didn’t have much patience for her more high-octane behaviour. Not that she made a practice of causing scenes in public streets—no, that was a little more to do with the stress she was under at the moment. But Nash wasn’t going to buy that. All he’d seen was crazy.

Serves you right, Lorelei St James, she thought as she picked her way across the road in bare feet.

She let herself into the car and forced herself to sit up dead straight, not slide down the seat and hide. She’d been doing enough hiding of late. It was an uncomfortable thought she quickly shoved out of her mind. But this was pretty bad. She’d behaved like a lunatic...

But, oh, her car.

Nobody would understand, but it was all she had left in her own name. It was the one thing she hadn’t sold off to pay all the creditors. It was ridiculous, running a gas-guzzling monster like that, but when she drove it she felt like a queen in her castle—important, invincible...

All the things she had discovered recently she wasn’t.

She watched Nash coming across the road. He looked so calm and in control. More things she wasn’t.

He slid in alongside her, slamming the door, belting up, checking the lights as he fired up the quiet engine.

Lorelei fumbled for her cell.

‘You don’t need to make a call.’

She forced herself to look at him. Stupidly, her eyes went to his mouth and she relived the moment she had impulsively kissed him. ‘Au contraire. I need to track my car. They’ll impound it, and last time it took over a week to get it back.’

‘Last time?’ His eyes flicked over her.

Lorelei assumed a facsimile of a haughty expression but her heart just wasn’t in it.

‘I admit it has happened before,’ she said wearily.

He didn’t respond.

‘It’s such a large car,’ she found herself explaining. ‘I find it difficult to park.’

‘You parked in a loading zone,’ he inserted dryly.

Lorelei worked some invisible creases out of her silken lap. ‘Yes, perhaps. I’m a little short-sighted when it comes to parking. It does happen.’

‘Yeah, to you I’m guessing a lot.’

Lorelei didn’t answer. What could she say? Oui, I’m a mess on heels. Oh, her Louboutins. Could she ask him to...?

She glanced sidewards. Non...

‘Nash,’ she said slowly, ‘could you be a darling and fetch my shoes...?’

He shifted around in the seat, his expression not encouraging.

‘They’re very expensive,’ she murmured with a hopeful upwards look. Would it help if she fluttered her eyelashes? Showed him the receipt from the shop in Paris?

Without a word he swung the sports car out into the traffic and Lorelei shrieked as he did an abrupt U-turn. She grabbed her seat, holding on for dear life.

He braked with a screech.

‘Don’t move,’ he uttered, punching open the door.

No, she wouldn’t be doing that. Although she might just have lost a couple of years off her life...

He returned with both shoes, dropping them into her lap. He didn’t even look at her, just pulled the Veyron into the light traffic and drove away from the scene of her crime. Lorelei craned her neck to try and work out what was going on with her car.

‘You’ll have it back in the morning,’ he informed her abruptly.

She stared at him stupidly.

‘It’s not being impounded. A mechanic is going to have a look at that stop-start engine of yours. They’ll run it up to you tomorrow.’

Lorelei plucked at her shoes, too stunned even to check for damage.

‘Merci,’ she said inadequately, wondering how she was going to begin to apologise and thank him. It had been so long since someone had done something just for her.

But what did it mean? This went beyond some silly flirtatious nonsense about a race and a trophy and him being out to win. He’d just done something very nice for her, and she couldn’t enjoy it because she knew she had probably put the kybosh on this going any further.