His Ultimate Prize(66)

'Oh, now you're just threatening me with a good time.'

'Dios, woman. Your mouth...'

'You want to kiss it?' It was more of a plea than a question. Her head rose off the seat in search of his.

He pulled away. 'It's a weapon of man's destruction.'

She groaned. 'You can always kiss me to shut me up. I can't promise I won't blow you away, though.'

He mumbled something low and pithy under this breath. And then he kissed her.

A long while later, stretched out alongside Marco's warm length on the  back seat of the car, she finally acknowledged her feelings.

She was happy. It was a happiness doomed to disaster and a short  lifespan, but no matter how delusional she wanted it to last a little  while longer.

Glancing down, she noticed Marco's wallet had dropped onto the floor of  the car. Spying a picture peeking out, she picked up the wallet and  peered closer.

The long, unruly hair was unfamiliar, as was the small go-kart in the  background. But the determination and fierce pride in those hazel eyes  looked familiar.

'This picture of you is adorable. Now I know what your children will  look like.' She tried not to let the pain of that thought show on her  face. 'I bet they'll be racers just like you and Rafael.'

Marco stiffened, his eyes growing cold and bleak. 'There won't be any children.'

The granite-like certainty in his voice chilled her soul. 'Why do you say that?'

For a long, endless moment he didn't answer. Then he took the wallet  from her. Reaching for his trousers, he opened the car door, stepped out  and pulled them on.

'Come with me.'

Despite already missing his arms around her, she sat up. 'Where are we going?'

The look in his eyes grew bleaker. 'Not far. Put your clothes on. I don't want to get distracted.'

She was all for distracting him if it meant he wouldn't look so cold and forbidding. But she did as he said.

Marco led her to the far side of the garage. Keying in a security code,  he threw open the door and stepped inside, pulling her behind him.

With a flick of a switch, light bathed the room. Sasha looked around and gasped at the contents of many glass cabinets.

'These are all yours?' she whispered. Walking forward she opened the first cabinet and lifted the first trophy.

'Sí.' Marco's voice was husky with emotion. 'I started racing when I was five.'

There were more trophies than she could count, filling four huge cabinets. 'I know.'

He walked to the farthest cabinet and picked up the lone trophy standing in a case by itself. 'This was my last trophy.'

'You never told me why you gave up racing,' she murmured.

When he tensed even more, she went to him and grasped his balled fists.

'Tell me what happened.'

His eyes bored into hers, as if judging her to see if he could trust her  with his pain. After an eternity his hand loosened enough to grasp  hers.

'I got my first contract to race when I was eighteen. By twenty-one I'd  won two championships and acquired a degree in engineering. I was on the  list of every team, and I had the choice of picking which team to drive  for. A week after I signed for my dream team I met Angelique Santoro. I  was twenty-four, and foolishly believed in love at first sight. And  even by then I'd had my fill of paddock bunnies. She was...different.  Smart, sexy, exciting-far older than her twenty-five years. All I wanted  to do was race and be with her. She convinced me to sack my manager and  take her on instead. Six months later we were engaged and she was  pregnant.'

A shiver of dread raced over Sasha. Deep inside her chest a ball of pain, buried but not forgotten, tightened.

There won't be any children.

'You didn't want the baby?' she whispered in horror.

He laughed. A harsh, tortured sound that twisted her heart. 'I wanted it more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life.'

Sasha frowned. 'But...what happened?'

'I rearranged my whole life around that promise of a family. I designed  the Casa de León track so I could train there, instead of going away to  train at other tracks. My parents moved here. My mother was ecstatic at  becoming a grandparent.'

The note of pain through his voice rocked her.

'Angelique wasn't satisfied?'

'She wholeheartedly agreed with everything. Until I crashed.'

Her hand tightened around his. 'I don't understand. Your crash was serious, yes, but nothing you couldn't come back from.'

'I was in a coma for nine days. The team hired someone else to replace  me when the doctors told my parents and Angelique it was unlikely I'd  race again.'

'They must have been devastated for you.'

'My parents were.'

Sadness touched her soul. 'I'm sorry. I can't imagine what you must have gone through.'

He slid a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his, an echo of  pain in his eyes. 'Nor would I want you to. But this...' he pulled her  closer, his gaze softening a touch '...this helps.'

With a smile, she lifted her mouth to his. 'I'm glad.'

Their kiss was gentle, a soothing balm on his turbulent revelations.

When they parted, she glanced again at the trophies. 'Is that why you  don't let anyone in here? Because it reminds you that your racing career  is over?'

'When I accepted that part of my life was over I locked them away.' He pulled her away from the cabinet.                       
       
           



       

'Wait. You said your parents were devastated? What about Angelique?'

He stiffened again, his gaze turning hooded as he thrust his hands into  his pockets. 'When it turned out I was destined for a job designing cars  instead of racing them, she lost interest,' he said simply, but his  oblique tone told a different story.

'That's not all, is it?'

Pain washed over his face before he could mask it. 'Before I crashed  Angelique was almost three months pregnant. When I woke from my coma she  was no longer pregnant.'

Sasha's horrified gasp echoed through the room. 'She had an abortion?'

His eyes turned almost black with pain. 'Sí. Two months later she married my ex-team boss.'

A wave of horror washed over her. 'Are you even sure she was pregnant in  the first place?' Considering how heartless the woman had been, Sasha  wouldn't be surprised if she'd faked the pregnancy.

Marco's movements were uncharacteristically jerky as he reached for his  wallet. Beneath the photo, a small grey square slid out. In the light of  the trophy room Sasha saw the outline of a tiny body in a pre-natal  scan.

Tears gathered in her eyes and fell before she could stop them. With  shaking hands she took the picture from him, the memory of her own loss  striking into her heart so sharply she couldn't breathe.

'I was there the day this was taken. The thing was, all along I  suspected Angelique was capable of that. She was extremely  ruthless-driven to the point of obsession. But since she channelled all  that into being my manager I chose to see it as something else.'

'Love?' she suggested huskily.

His jaw tightened. 'I blinded myself to her true colours. My mother  tried to warn me, but I wouldn't listen to her. I almost cut her out of  my life because of Angelique.' He sucked in a harsh breath. 'I lost my  child...she lost her grandchild...because I chose to bury my head in the  sand. She was devastated, and I don't think she really got over the  damage I did to our family.'

Brushing a hand across her cheek, she asked, 'Why do you keep this?'

Marco took the scan and placed it back in his wallet. 'I failed to  protect my daughter. This reminds me never to fail my family again.'





 CHAPTER ELEVEN

MARCO LEFT AGAIN the next day and didn't return for another two. When he  returned Sasha met him in the hallway. His dragged her into his study  and proceeded to kiss her with brutal need.

His confession in the garage had afforded her a glimpse into the man he  was today. She now truly understood why he was so ferociously protective  of Rafael. And why she couldn't afford for him to find out the true  depth of her feelings.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to vocalise what she'd been too afraid to say over the phone the night before.

'Marco, I think I should leave. You can stay in Barcelona and not keep  flying back here to see me. I can use the race track back home to  train.'

His face clouded in a harsh frown. 'What the hell are you talking  about?' Roughly he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again.  'You're not going anywhere.'

She tried to pull back but he held her easily. 'But-'

His smile was strained through tiredness. 'Rafael woke briefly last  night. Only for a few minutes. But he appeared lucid, and he recognised  me.' The relief in his voice was palpable.

Sasha smiled. 'I'm glad. But I think that's even more of a reason for  you to stay in Barcelona. What if he wakes again when you're not there?'

Setting her free, he stabbed a hand through his hair. 'He's been moved  to a private suite and I've set up video conferencing so I have a live  feed into his room. Nothing will happen to him without my knowledge.  I've also hired extra round-the-clock staff for when he comes  home-including that nurse who was fired from the hospital in Budapest.  So, you see, I'm not a total ass.'

'I know you're not. But you're splitting yourself in two when it's really Rafael who needs you most now.'