Pride After Her Fall

Douleur bonne, she might never have had a one-night stand before, but she certainly wasn’t going to make a fool of herself by airing her messy female emotions now.

Non, she was a St James.

She lifted her chin. It had happened. Best to move on. She wasn’t going to create a scene. From the tense silence emanating from Nash he was clearly expecting one.

The turn-off to her villa couldn’t come quickly enough.

Nash barely had the Veyron at a standstill when she was fumbling for the door.

She swore, knowing that if she didn’t get out of there fast she was going to embarrass herself. The door gave and she shot out.

‘Lorelei.’

Nash’s voice was peremptory—the voice she imagined he used on the track, with his pit crew, not a tone you used with a woman you had held in your arms and made love to.

Made love? It had been sex. What else could it be? They didn’t know one another. She was a fool for expecting anything else...

She gave him his moment, not really expecting anything at this point, her hand still on the door.

‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ He actually sounded concerned—which was a joke.

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘What’s the point?’

Lorelei slammed the car door, and then wished she hadn’t as she strode as fast as she could around to the front of the house. She rarely used the front entrance, but anger had blurred her thoughts. It had also blinded her, so she’d almost reached for the lion’s paw front door handle before she saw the large padlock.

What on earth?

She gave it a tug. Was this some sort of joke? She seized hold of it with both hands and rattled. Then she banged even as she knew it was no use. She slammed her palms against the doors and then let them slide down and lowered her head, because it had finally happened.

Almost as an afterthought she noticed the large vellum envelope wedged under the door. She knelt down and picked it up, tore it open. She read slowly, the words like sticky toffee in her head. Was this even legal? The fact she didn’t know was all the more damning. She should have known. She should have researched these possibilities. She should have been aware.

What had she been doing for the past months? Rien. Running around, blocking out reality, not making herself available to the people who could have helped her. Her solicitor, her accountant...her friends. And where had she been yesterday when this was happening? Pursuing a man. Sleeping with a man who didn’t care a jot for her. She should have known!

Lorelei found she was trembling.

Non, she could deal with this on her own. She just needed to think logically.

Terese and Giorgio.

They would have some understanding as to what had happened here.

Fumbling in her bag, she dug out her phone.

The phone she’d been ignoring for days.

Sure enough there were several missed calls from the Verrucis and a message from Terese, she had rescued Fifi. Dialling, she got Terese’s voicemail.

Fine—she’d ring for a taxi. Except she didn’t do that. She dropped her cell into her bag and sank down onto the flags, her back pressed up against the door now bolted against her.

Strangely, she just felt like laughing. But she knew if she started it would end in tears, and crying wasn’t going to change anything.

The worst had finally happened, and it was her own decision to delay and prevaricate that had brought her to this point. This was rock-bottom.

Until she heard the crunch of gravel, the tread of footsteps and slowly looked up.

Nash.

Mon Dieu, it just got worse. Could she just once have a personal disaster and not have this man witness it?

Yet something instinctive leapt in her body the moment she saw him.

‘Lorelei?’

She clambered ungracefully to her feet, brushing herself down.

‘What’s going on here?’

‘Rien.’ She walked towards him, trying to divert him from the door.

Those blue eyes narrowed on her. ‘Clearly. I don’t respond well to games.’

‘Fine,’ she said, her voice high and airless. ‘No more games. We had our fun. I need you to go.’

He was frowning down at her, and for a moment something about his anger penetrated the fog that seemed to have dropped around her. He was pounding out big, frustrated male and apparently she was the cause.