Living the Charade

For years he’d truly believed he was unable to experience deep emotion, but now he realised that was just a ruse—because Miller had cracked him open and wormed her way into his head and his heart.

Damn.

Tino banged the steering wheel as the truth of his feelings for her stared him in the face. He loved Miller. Loved her as he’d never wanted to love anyone. And ironically he was now faced with his worst nightmare. Forced to face the same decision he’d held his father to account for so many years ago.

For so long he had resented his father for refusing to quit, but he’d had no right to feel that way. No right to stand in judgement of a man who’d been driven to please everyone.

Like Miller.

Tino felt a stillness settle over him.

He could hear tomorrow’s crowd already, smell the gasoline in the air, the burn of rubber on asphalt, feel the vibration of the car surrounding him, drawing him into a place that was almost spiritual. But despite all that he couldn’t see himself doing it.

He could only see Miller. Miller in the bar in her black suit. Miller tapping her toes by the car as she waited for him to pick her up. Miller completely wild for him on the beach, in his bed, staring at him with wide, hurt eyes in the ballroom as the light from the chandeliers lit sparks in her wavy hair.

God, he was more of an idiot than Caruthers. He’d had her, she’d been his, and he’d pushed her away. Closed her down as he’d done all week whenever the conversation had veered towards anything too personal.

Levering himself out of his car, he knew he was saying goodbye to a part of his life that had sustained him for so long, but one that he didn’t need any more.

He didn’t care what the naysayers would say when he pulled out of the race tomorrow. For the first time ever he had too much to lose to go out onto the track. For the first time ever he wanted something else more.

The signs had been there. Or maybe they hadn’t been signs, maybe they’d just been coincidences. It didn’t matter. When he closed his eyes and thought about his future he wasn’t standing on a podium, holding up yet another trophy. He was with Miller.

Miller who had stalked off with tears behind her eyes.

Where was she?

He doubted she’d organised the jet to fly back to Sydney at this late hour; she was too considerate to disturb his pilot.

Likely she was still at the hotel. But he’d bet everything he owned she’d arranged for another room by now.

* * *

Miller felt terrible. Beyond terrible. Walking away from Valentino’s offer to travel with him had felt like the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Even harder than leaving her father behind in Queensland all those years ago.

She was in love with Valentino and she was never going to see him again, never going to touch him again. There was something fundamentally wrong with that.

Travel with me. Come to Monaco next week.

Had she made a monumental mistake?

Miller looked down, half expecting to find herself standing on a trapdoor that would open up at any minute and put her out of her misery, but instead all that was there was designer carpet.

She sighed. This morning she had woken in Valentino’s arms and felt that life couldn’t get any better. TJ had signed Oracle to consult for his company before finding out what Valentino’s decision about Real Sport was, and the powers-that-be had requested a meeting with her first thing Monday morning. Which could only mean a promotion because, as Ruby had pointed out, no one got fired on a Monday.

But the idea of a promotion didn’t mean half as much as it once might have. Not only because her priorities had changed over the course of the week, but because she felt as if all the colour had been leached out of her life. Try as she might to pull herself together, it seemed her heart had taken a firm hold of her head and it was miserable. Aching.

She’d known falling in love would be a mistake, and boy had she ever been right about that. Love was terrible. Painful. Horrible.

She had accused Valentino of keeping himself safe from this kind of pain, but of course it was what she had always done as well. Keeping her hair straight, wearing black, hiding herself away at her work in an attempt to control her life. None of it had been real—just like her relationship with Valentino.

Only towards the end it had felt real with him. Had become real without her even noticing... She’d fallen in love and he hadn’t. Which just went to prove the law of relationships: one person always felt more.

And now, sitting on Valentino’s plane as his pilot ran through the preflight check, still wearing her beautiful, frothy dress, she felt like the heroine from a tragic novel.