'Rafael knew there was no way I'd get involved with him romantically.'
Marco's grip tightened, his gaze scouring her face as if he wanted to dig out the truth. Sasha forced herself to remain still, even though the touch of his hands on her branded her-so hot she wanted to scream with the incredibly forceful sensation of it.
'Do you know the last thing I said to him?' he rasped.
Her heart aching for him, she shook her head.
'I told him to stop messing around and grow up. That he was dishonouring our mother's memory by treating life like his own personal playground.' His eyelids veiled his gaze for several seconds and his jaw clenched, his emotions riding very near the surface. 'If anything happens to him-'
'It won't.'
Without thought, she placed her hand on his arm. Hard muscles flexed beneath her fingers. His eyes returned to her face, then dropped to her mouth. Sharp sensation shot through her belly, making her breath catch.
Sasha felt an electric current of awareness zing up her arm-a deeper manifestation of the intense awareness she felt whenever he was near. Comfort, she assured herself. I'm offering him comfort. That's all. This need to keep touching him was just a silly passing reaction.
'He'll wake up and he'll get better. You'll see.'
Face taut and eyes bleak, he slowly dropped his hands. 'I have to go,' he said.
She stepped back, her hands clenching into fists behind her back to conceal their trembling. 'You're returning to the hospital?'
He shook his head. 'I'm going to Madrid.'
Her belly clenched with the acute sense of loss. 'For how long?' she asked lightly.
'For however long it takes to reassure my father that his precious son isn't dying.'
* * *
The state-of-the-art crash helmet was no match for the baking North Spanish sun. Sasha sat in the cockpit of the Espíritu DSI, the car that had won Rafael the championship the year before. Eyes shut, she retraced the outline of the Belgian race track, anticipation straining through her.
Sweat trickled down her neck, despite the chute pumping cold air into the car. When she'd mentally completed a full circuit she opened her eyes.
They burned from lack of sleep, and she blinked several times to clear them. She'd been up since before dawn, the start of her restless night having oddly coincided with the moment Marco's helicopter had lifted off the helipad. For hours she'd lain tangled up in satin sheets, unable to dismiss the look on Marcus's anguished face from her mind. Or the heat of his touch on her body.
Firming her lips, she forcibly cleared her mind.
She wrapped fireproof gloved hands around the wheel and pictured the Double S bends at Eau Rouge, and the exact breaking point at La Source. Keeping her breathing steady, she finally achieved the mental calm she needed to block out the background noise of the mechanics and the garage. She emptied every thought from her mind, the turmoil of the past few days reduced to a small blot. She welcomed the relief of not having to dwell on anything except the promise of the fast track in front of her.
Her eyes remained steady on the mechanic's STOP/GO sign, her foot a whisper off the accelerator.
When the sign went up, she launched out of the garage onto the track. Adrenalin coursed through her veins as the powerful car vibrated beneath her. Braking into the first corner, she felt G-forces wrench her head to the left and smiled. This battle with the laws of physics lent an extra thrill as she flew along the track, the sense of freedom making her oblivious to the stress on her body as lap after lap whizzed by.
'You're being too hard on your tyres, Sasha.'
Luke's voice piped into her earphones and she immediately adjusted the balance of the car, her grip loosening a touch to help manoeuvre the curves better.
'That's better. In race conditions you'll need them to go for at least fifteen laps. You can't afford to wear them out in just eight. It's early days yet, but things look good.'
Sasha blinked at the grudging respect in Luke's voice.
'How does the car feel?'
'Er...great. It feels great.'
'Good. Come in and we'll take a look at the lap times together.'
She drove back into the garage and parked. Keeping her focus on Luke as he approached her, she got out and set her helmet aside.
He showed her the printout. 'We can't compare it with the performance of the DSII, but from these figures things are looking very good for Spa in three weeks' time.'
Reading through the data, Sasha felt a buzz of excitement. 'The DSII is great at slow corners, so I should be able to go even faster.'
Luke grinned. 'When you have the world's best aerodynamicist as your boss, you have a starting advantage. We'll have a battle on the straight sections, but if you keep up this performance we should cope well enough to keep ourselves ahead.'
Again she caught the changed note in his voice.
Although she'd tried not to dwell on it, throughout the day, and over the following days during testing, Sasha slowly felt the changing attitude of her small team. They spoke to her with less condescension; some even bothered to engage her in conversation before and after her practice sessions.
And the first time Luke asked her opinion on how to avoid the under steering problem that had cropped up, Sasha forced herself to blink back the stupid tears that threatened.
* * *
Marco heard the car drive away as he came down the stairs. He curbed the strong urge to yank the door open and forced himself to wait. When he reached the bottom step he sat down and rested his elbows on his knees, his BlackBerry dangling from his fingers.
Light footsteps sounded seconds before the front door opened.
Sasha stood silhouetted against the lights flooding the outer courtyard, the outline of her body in tight dark trousers and top making sparks of desire shoot through his belly.
Clenching his teeth against the intensity of it, he forced himself to remain seated, knowing she hadn't yet spotted him in the darkened hallway. Her light wrap slipped as she turned to shut the door, and he caught a glimpse of one smooth shoulder and arm. Her dark silky hair was tied in a careless knot on top of her head, giving her neck a long, smooth, elegant line that he couldn't help but follow.
He found himself tracing the lines of her body, wondering how he'd ever thought her boyish. She was tall, her figure lithe, but there were curves he hadn't noticed before-right down to the shapely denim-clad legs.
Shutting the door, she tugged off her boots and kicked them into a corner.
She turned and stumbled to a halt, her breath squeaking out in alarm. 'Marco! Damn it, you really need to stop skulking in dark hallways. You nearly scared me to death!'
'I wasn't skulking.' He heard the irritation in his voice and forced himself to calm down. 'Where have you been? I called you several times.'
She pulled the wrap tighter around her shoulders, her chin tilting up in silent challenge. 'I went for a drink with the team. They're all flying out tomorrow morning and I wanted to say goodbye. I know that wasn't part of the deal-me socialising with the team-but they kept asking and it would have been surly to refuse.'
Annoyance rattled through him. The last thing he wanted to discuss was his team, or the deal he'd made with Sasha Fleming. Dios, he wasn't even sure why he'd come back here. He should be by his brother's bedside-even if the doctors intended to keep him in his induced coma until the swelling on his brain reduced.
'And you were having such a great time you decided not to answer your phone?'
'I think it's died.'
'You think?'
'You're annoyed with me. Why?'
Sasha asked the question in that direct way he'd come to expect from her. No one in his vast global organisation would dare to speak to him that way. And yet...he found he liked it.
Rising, he walked towards her. A few steps away, the scent of her perfume hit his nostrils. Marco found himself craving more of it, wanting to draw even closer. 'Why bother with a phone if you can't ensure it works?'
'Because no one calls me.'
Her words stopped him in his tracks. For a man who commanded his multi-billion-euro empire using his BlackBerry, Marco found her remark astonishing in the extreme. 'No one calls you?'
'My phone never rings. I think you were the last person to call me. I get the occasional text from Tom, or Charlie, my physio, but other than that...zilch.'
Marco's puzzlement grew. 'You don't have any friends?'
'Obviously none who care enough to call. And, before you go feeling sorry for me, I'm fine with it.'
'You're fine with being lonely?'
'With being alone. There's a difference. So, is there another reason you're annoyed with me?'
She raised her chin in that defiant way that drew his gaze to her throat.
He shoved his phone into his pocket. 'I'm not annoyed. I'm tired. And hungry. Rosario had gone to bed when I arrived.'
'Oh, well, that's good. Not the tired and hungry part. The not annoyed part.' She bit her lip, her eyes wide on his as he moved even closer. 'And about Rosario...I hope you don't mind, but I told her not to wait up for me.'