His Ultimate Prize

Relief rushed through him as he entered his motor home and slammed the door shut behind him.

‘Rafael?’

Dios mío. Had he lost it so completely he was now hearing her voice in his head? Bile surged through his stomach and leapt into his throat. He barely made it to the bathroom before he retched with a violence that made his eyes water.

For several minutes he hunched over the bowl, feelings coursing through him that he couldn’t name. No...he knew what those feelings were, it was just that he’d never allowed them room in his life.

He was a racing driver. Racing was his lifeblood. Therefore he had no room for despair or fear. He was used to success, to adrenaline-fuelled excitement. To pride and satisfaction in what he did. So why the hell was he puking his guts out while fear churned through his veins?

Because, diablo, he had finally parted ways with reality.

With a stark laugh and a shake of his head, he cleaned up after himself, rinsed his mouth thoroughly...

And turned to find Raven in the doorway, her face deathly pale and her gorgeous eyes wide with panic.

‘Madre de dios. What the hell are you doing here?’

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘ARE YOU ALL right?’ Raven asked, making a small movement forward.

Rafael instinctively stepped back from her. If she touched him, she would know. And whatever else he was...or wasn’t, the last thing he wanted Raven Blass, this infuriatingly bright, mind-bendingly sexy woman, to see was his fear.

He took another step back, feeling more exposed than he’d ever felt in his life.

The water he’d splashed over his face chilled his skin. ‘Am I all right? Sure. I puke my guts out after every race. Didn’t you know that?’

‘No you don’t.’ She took another step closer and, instantly, another more urgent need surged to the fore. The need to grab her, plaster her warm, giving body against his, use her to stem the tide of icy numbness spreading over him.

Use her...

Bile threatened to rise again and he swallowed hard. He stepped past her, entered the bedroom and started to undress.

‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

Rafael glanced down at his hands and realised they were shaking. The realisation stunned him so completely, his whole body shuddered before he could control himself. The idea that he was losing control so completely, so unstoppably, made irrational anger whip up inside him.

‘Stop it, Raven. Stop trying to save me. You’ve done your penance.’

‘Excuse me?’ Her voice was hushed but strong.

‘That’s what you’ve wanted since you phoned me up two months ago, isn’t it? To hear that I forgive you for what you think you did to cause my accident?’

‘What I think...’ She sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Are you saying you remember why you crashed?’

He firmed his lips. Brava, Rafael. ‘Perhaps I do. Or perhaps I’m just tired of watching you fall on your sword over and over again. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was why you gave me your virginity, considering you didn’t like me much before then.’

He felt like the lowest form of life when her colour receded completely. But, dios, admiringly she rallied.

‘You’re trying to push me away by being hateful. But I won’t leave until you tell me what happened out there today.’

‘What do you mean, what happened? I raced. I came second. Considering I’ve been out of the game for nearly a year, I think that’s a commendable start, don’t you?’

He shucked his suit and peeled off the fire-retardant long-sleeved gear. Her eyes darkened but she didn’t lose her determination.

‘Aside from the fact that you didn’t hydrate nearly enough, why did you not pass Matteo the half a dozen times you had the chance?’

‘What are you talking about? After he recovered his mistake in Sector 4 there was never a chance to pass Matteo...’

‘Of course there was. He damaged his front wing when he went too close to the pit wall on his exit but you stayed behind him when you could’ve passed. And many times you came close to passing him but you pulled back every time. Your race engineer tried to talk to you but you didn’t respond.’

He froze, scrambled around to supply the adequate information to refute her words and came up blank. Panic cloaked his skin, sank its claws deeper into him.

‘Are you saying you don’t remember?’ she almost whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

Rafael couldn’t breathe. ‘I...no, I don’t remember.’

The black haze crowded his mind, encroaching rapidly with each excruciating second. He knew he was in deep trouble when he didn’t stop her from touching him, from pulling him down to sit on the king-sized bed.