Her Last Night of Innocence

Adrenaline burned through Cristiano’s veins as he ran down the casino steps.

The cool air with its whisper of pine and the sea felt good, tasted better than the champagne he’d avoided all evening, and out in the street-lit darkness the pounding inside his head was less intense. He didn’t care about anything except finding Kate Edwards.

She had gone into the Hotel de Paris when she’d run out of here. Standing in the middle of the marble floor, still reeling from the realisation of who she was, he had watched her crossing the square, dodging in front of a car in her haste to get away.

He nodded curtly at the doorman, who leapt forward to open the door for him, as Suki’s words came back to him. ‘She wasn’t your type at all…Seriously plain and boring…’

She was right about the first bit at least—Kate Edwards was entirely different from the women he usually bedded. And yet the experience had been worth remembering.

Worth repeating.

About the Author

A self-confessed romance junkie, INDIA GREY was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon® Writers’ Guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she gained a degree in English Literature and Language from Manchester University, and in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of romance met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!

Recent titles by the same author:

EMILY’S INNOCENCE*

POWERFUL ITALIAN, PENNILESS HOUSEKEEPER

SPANISH ARISTOCRAT, FORCED BRIDE

To Michelle Styles, with love and gratitude for listening, advising and believing.

Prologue

A HAZE of heat hung over the tarmac. The air was thick, acrid with the smell of hot rubber and high-octane fuel. The starting grid was thronged with reporters brandishing microphones and news crews shouldering cameras, as well as pit crews wearing overalls in their team colours and promotions girls carrying flags and wearing hardly anything at all.

Cristiano picked up his helmet and gloves and stepped out of the shade of the garages into the blazing Côte D’ Azur sunlight. The noise of the crowd instantly doubled and reporters swooped, holding out their microphones to him. He kept his head down.

His body felt loose and heavy with the memory of last night’s pleasure. It wasn’t unusual for him to work off the residual adrenaline and testosterone from the qualifying session in the willing arms of one of the paddock club hostesses or pit lane beauties the night before a big race; sex was a good way of easing both the mental and physical tension of a Grand Prix weekend.

But last night hadn’t just been sex.

‘Ciao, Cristiano. Good of you to join us.’

Silvio Girardi, Campano team boss, came forward, perspiring heavily beneath his baseball cap as he slapped Cristiano’s shoulder. A stocky, grey-haired Neapolitan, rapid-fire sarcasm was his default setting. Right now the dial was turned to maximum. ‘Why you not take an extra half-hour in bed, huh? Make sure you were really rested for the race?’

Cristiano took a mouthful of water and grimaced. ‘If I’d had an extra half-hour in bed the last thing I would have been doing is resting.’

Silvio rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air in a gesture of elaborate exasperation. ‘I hope that whichever cocktail waitress it was last night knows better than to kiss and tell. Our new sponsors were most particular that they don’t want any scandal. Clearspring—it’s water, Cristiano, not bourbon. Clean living, wholesome, for kids—comprendo? Did you see the guy from their marketing department yesterday?’

‘It wasn’t a guy.’

‘Huh?’ Silvio frowned. ‘They said they were sending their head of marketing—a Dominic someone. You’re telling me Dominic isn’t a guy’s name in England?’

‘His wife went into labour unexpectedly. They sent his as sistant.’

‘A girl?’

A ghost of a smile touched Cristiano’s lips as he pulled on his gloves. ‘A girl.’

Oh, yes. Kate Edwards was very definitely a girl.

Nervously repositioning his baseball cap, Silvio gave a snort of contempt. ‘Well, I hope you were nice to her—no funny business. I need the money. You get paid millions just for showing up and sitting in a car it costs me millions to build for you. Think about it—how is this fair?’ He was pacing around the low emerald-green car with its Clearspring banners. ‘Now—time for you to do some work and show what this beauty can do. You’re in pole position. You can’t lose.’

With another slap on the back, he moved off to talk to the mechanics and engineers. Cristiano turned round, combing the crowd for a honey-coloured head amongst the peroxide blondes and polished brunettes.

Slim, brown arms twined around his neck, and he was enveloped in a familiar musky perfume.

‘Good luck,’ his PA whispered huskily in his ear.

Fighting irritation, he pulled away and looked over her shoulder. ‘Thanks, Suki.’

Where was Kate?

‘How was the interview yesterday evening with the girl from Clearspring? I hope it didn’t drag on too long. She looked a little bit…’ Suki’s glossy lips twitched into a smirk ‘…serious.’

‘It was fine.’ As far as he was concerned, it hadn’t dragged on nearly long enough. ‘Have you seen her?’

Suki raised one dark, perfectly arched brow. ‘This morning? Why would I have? Is she here?’

‘Si.’ Cristiano’s gaze moved restlessly over the PR girls, posing and pouting for the cameras in their team colours, and the journalists jostling for last-minute interviews. The excitement of the crowds of people packed into the grandstands and on every balcony and rooftop overlooking the street circuit was reaching fever-pitch, and the yachts sounded their horns plaintively out in Monaco harbour.

Suki shrugged her narrow shoulders in the tight-fitting Campano T-shirt. ‘Well, if I see her I’ll tell her you said hi,’ she said coolly. ‘But it’s pretty much time for you to get in the car.’

For a second he looked at her blankly, as if what she was saying meant nothing to him. Then he shook his head curtly. ‘I know.’

He turned away, thrusting his hands into his hair, gritting his teeth against a sudden urge to walk away, tear off his overalls and keep walking until he found her.

The television crew who had been talking to the team next to him on the grid finished their interview and began to head in his direction. Cristiano felt black despair pulling at him. The seconds were ticking away, and he could hear the crowd chanting his name. It was too late.

And then he saw her.

She was standing in the middle of the milling hordes of people in the pit lane, looking around. Her head was turned away from him, her face obscured for a moment by the curtain of her dark-blonde hair, but there was no mistaking the length of her legs in the faded jeans she wore, the swell of those breasts beneath the navy T-shirt she’d picked up that morning from his bedroom floor.

He was smiling as he walked towards her, wondering how he could have missed her. Amidst all the painted pedigree grid-girls, she looked like an abandoned golden retriever puppy. He’d noticed her as soon as he had pulled into the pit lane after qualifying yesterday, because she was so different from the standard Grand Prix girl groupies. In her businesslike grey suit, with her hair pulled back, she’d reminded him of the clever girls at school. The ones who’d always had clean, neat uniforms and who had done their homework on time and been held up as a shining example by the nuns.

Instead of being a waster. A no-hoper. Like him.

‘Oh…’

She turned then, her full lips parting in a gasp of surprise and relief as he took her hand and dragged her into the shadow of the pit lane garages.

Kate felt heat explode inside her, spreading upwards to her cheeks and downwards to her knickers. ‘I couldn’t find you,’ she said a little breathlessly, ducking her head and leaning it against his chest as he pulled her into his body, hiding her fiery blush.

‘I’m here.’

‘I was beginning to think that I’d imagined it all.’ Oh, God—did that make her sound needy? Desperate? She laughed, but there was a slight break in it. ‘Or that it had all been a dream.’

‘Which bit of it would you like me to reassure you was real…?’ He lowered his head and spoke lazily into her hair, his husky voice with its outrageously sensual Italian accent sending shivers of bliss down her spine as his hands gripped her waist. ‘The bit in the swimming pool…or the bit in the bedroom? The kitchen floor this morning…?’

‘Shh…’ She was laughing, gripping the edges of his racing overalls with their Clearspring logos, her face buried in his chest. ‘Someone might hear.’

‘Would that be so bad?’

The laughter died and her smile faded. ‘It’s not my usual style.’ That had to be a strong contender in the ‘Understatement of the Year’ competition. ‘We only met yesterday—I came to interview you…’

‘And to think I’ve always hated interviews,’ he drawled softly. ‘I’d have agreed to do more if I knew they could be so much fun.’

Kate frowned. ‘I hardly know you.’

He took her chin between his fingers and tilted her head up so she had no choice but to look into those dark, bitter-chocolate coloured eyes. Famous eyes, familiar to her from television and magazines, from the countless photographs they had of him in the office, the poster on her younger brother’s bedroom wall…

‘After last night you know me better than anyone.’

His tone was ironic, but his swarthy pirate’s face with its high, hard cheekbones and finely shaped mouth was suddenly bleak. He shook his head slowly, thrusting a hand through his dark, deliciously untidy hair. ‘Gesu, Kate, I’ve never…bared my soul like that before.’

‘Me neither.’

Kate’s voice was just a whisper as her mind flickered back over the last twelve extraordinary hours. There had been the sex, of course, and that had been…magical. But they had also talked. Her heart contracted painfully and her breath hitched in her throat as she remembered how he’d lain in her arms, his voice oddly toneless as he told her about his past, the difficulties he had experienced in school that had driven him to seek success at all costs. And he had seen past the professional veneer she’d so painstakingly constructed to the secret void of grief and terror beneath. He’d told her that a life lived in fear was no life at all. And he’d shown her how to shut off the anxiety and live for the moment…

From outside the garages the noise of the crowd seemed to swell in the heat, pressing against the fragile walls of their private world. He pulled away from her, his expression suddenly blank.

‘I have to go.’

Kate nodded quickly and took a step back, desperate not to appear needy. ‘I know. Go. But remember—you don’t have to prove anything, Cristiano.’ She managed a crooked smile. ‘Drive carefully.’

For a heartbeat she saw a flicker of pain in his eyes, and then it was gone, and he was pulling on his gloves, giving her that wry, mocking smile that turned her inside out. ‘Tesoro, this is the Monaco Grand Prix. Driving carefully isn’t really the idea.’

She laughed, pushing back the panic that swelled inside her. ‘OK, fair point.’ She wasn’t going to be that person anymore—he had shown her how to live for the moment, to seize happiness, not to cling to fear. Even so, as he turned to go it took a massive effort to keep the smile in place and not let him see how this terrified her.

He was at the mouth of the garage now. Catching a glimpse of him, the crowd outside had begun to roar again. He turned, looking at her for a moment with dark, opaque eyes.

‘This isn’t over, you know. Last night was just the beginning.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Wait for me.’

And then he was gone, striding out into the shimmering haze of heat and petrol, his broad shoulders very straight. A strang er again.

The click of the harness was the signal Cristiano used mentally to switch off the outside world. From that moment there was nothing but the track, the car, the race.

He was first on the grid. The Monaco circuit was ridiculously narrow, making overtaking almost impossible, and the crowd was so close that at times you could count the gold fillings in the teeth of the billionaires on their yachts, and read the labels on the designer bikinis of their mistresses and trophy wives.

The first few laps melted away. Coming into the Grand Hotel Hairpin on the fourth—or was it the fifth?—a good half-second ahead of the competition, Cristiano changed gear smoothly, allowing his mind to pan out a little from its minute focus on the track. Silvio had done well. The car was performing perfectly. The conditions were ideal. The race was his—another win to add to his impressive record.

You don’t have to prove anything…

Darkness engulfed him as he plunged into the tunnel. The soft voice in his head was so real that for a moment it was as if she was in the car with him, and he could almost smell the cool scent of her skin. His focus wavered and he blinked hard, almost dizzy with longing.

The mouth of the tunnel was ahead of him. As he came out the sun was in his eyes, the taste of her skin was on his lips, the echo of her words in his ears, and suddenly he had the oddest sensation of everything making sense. The barrier in front of him was too close, coming too fast, but it felt almost unreal because in that moment he knew…

And then there was an explosion—pain, fire, blackness.

Nothing.

Chapter One

Four years later

CLEARSPRING WATER, as the marketing department was keen to point out, was sourced from an ancient spring deep in the green heart of the Yorkshire Dales. Its offices, however, were situated in a hideous 1960s building on an industrial estate on the fringes of a grey Yorkshire town.

They were pretty depressing at the best of times, but on the first Monday morning in January the drooping paper chains and balding Christmas tree in Reception that no one had quite got round to removing made them feel more than usually grim. Standing in the cell-like kitchen at the end of the corridor, waiting for the kettle to boil, Kate stared at the calendar on the wall in front of her.

New year, new calendar. New set of photographs of the Campano racing team.

Pulling the sleeves of the rather unflattering polo-necked jumper her mother had given her for Christmas down over her fingers, she turned her back on the calendar and leaned against the worktop, repeating her New Year’s resolution in her head like a mantra. This year I am going to stop waiting. I am going to give up dealing in maybes and what ifs; stop obsessing over what I haven’t got, and make the most of what I have—a gorgeous, happy, healthy three-year-old boy.

Her fingers tingled. She wasn’t going to look. Wasn’t going to pull the stupid calendar off the wall and flick through in search of a photo of Cristiano Maresca like some obsessed teenage fangirl.

As she had last year. And the one before.

Cristiano Maresca hadn’t raced since the accident that had almost killed him at Monaco, but if anything his status as a celebrity heart-throb had only increased. He was more elusive than ever, but rare snatched paparazzi photographs of him looking lean and menacing were reproduced endlessly in newspapers and magazines, along with speculation about whether he’d ever return to the circuit.

Why was the kettle taking so long to boil?

She took down mugs from the cupboard, threw a herbal teabag into the one that said ‘The Boss’ on it, and spooned coffee into ‘I’d rather be in Tenerife’. The kettle was just beginning the throaty splutter that was a prelude to its great crescendo as it reached boiling point. Kate’s gaze flickered back to the calendar.

January’s photo was harmless enough, showing two of the Campano cars—Clearspring banners clearly visible—racing side by side. Surreptitiously, as if it had a mind of its own, she felt her hand come up, lifting the page so she could see the picture underneath.

‘July.’

The voice from behind her made her jump. Kate snatched her hand back as Lisa from the art department stuck her head round the door.

‘Don’t pretend you weren’t looking for Maresca.’ She grinned. ‘We all have. He’s July. Roll on summer!’

The kettle reached its final death rattle in a billowing cloud of steam as Lisa disappeared down the corridor. Grimly, Kate sloshed water into the mugs and followed, allowing herself a brief moment of triumph as she knocked on the door of Dominic’s office.

She hadn’t looked, and she had until July to get her life together and move on. Or give up coffee.

‘What the hell is that?’ Dominic peered suspiciously into the mug as she set it down on his desk and then gave a groan. ‘Oh, God—it’s a conspiracy. Don’t tell me Lizzie’s got you on board with this appalling New Year detox idea?’

Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘Happy New Year to you too,’ she said sardonically, turning and heading back towards the door. ‘And you’re welcome.’

‘Wait—sorry,’ Dominic sighed. ‘A whole week in the company of my mother-in-law seems to have brought out my petulant side. Let me try that again, in the manner of a civilised human being who is delighted to be back at work at the start of an exciting new year.’ He beamed comically, gesturing to the chair squeezed into the gap between the window and the filing cabinet opposite his desk. ‘Have a seat and tell me about your Christmas. I take it you weren’t buried beneath an avalanche of pink plastic like we were?’

Cupping her coffee in both hands, Kate sat down. Nine months older than her son, Dominic’s daughter Ruby was both Alexander’s best friend and his nemesis. Between them, they seemed to have dedicated their lives to proving any child psychologist who claimed that gender roles weren’t programmed from birth an idiot.

‘Nope, it was wall-to-wall cars with us,’ Kate said ruefully. ‘Alexander’s favourite by miles is the Alfa Romeo whatever-it-was from you.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘He even takes it to bed with him. Thank you.’

‘My pleasure,’ Dominic said with a wistful sigh. ‘It’s a Spider, you hopeless girl. An Alfa Romeo Spider—and Alexander’s quite right. It’s one of the most iconic cars ever made. I’d go to bed with one if I could.’

‘Does Lizzie know about this?’

‘I’m sure she wouldn’t be surprised,’ Dominic said wryly, putting down his mug with a little grimace of distaste. ‘An Alfa Romeo Spider would never make me go on a detox programme.’

‘Serves you right. You shouldn’t have partied so hard over Christmas.’

Dominic leaned back in his chair. ‘Yes, well, you know what this job’s like. Clients to entertain, staff parties to organise.’ He looked at her pointedly over his glasses. ‘Even though some staff didn’t bother to turn up.’

Kate rolled her eyes, suddenly taking a great interest in rearranging the Post-it notes stuck all over the filing cabinet into tidy lines. ‘Come on, we’ve been through this before. I couldn’t get a babysitter, OK?’

‘Your mum was out clubbing again, was she?’

The unlikeliness of the image made Kate smile briefly in spite of herself. ‘I can’t ask her all the time. She already does enough, looking after Alexander for me when I’m working. It’s not as if I can afford to pay her or anything.’

‘She wouldn’t take it even if you could. You know she loves having him. It’s been a lifeline for her after Will…’

‘I know, I know.’ Kate pressed her finger down on the corner of a Post-it note that stubbornly refused to stick. ‘Having a little boy around again takes her back to happier times, I guess, when both Will and my dad were alive. But I still don’t like to rely on her too much. I got myself into this situation, and as far as possible it’s up to me to deal with it on my own.’

Dominic took another unenthusiastic sip of herbal tea. ‘You didn’t get into it entirely on your own,’ he observed dryly. ‘Not unless it was an immaculate conception.’

It was pretty perfect, Kate thought bleakly, staring out over the grey, rain-soaked car park and thinking of a warm swimming pool, a quiet pine-and-lavender-scented night. But then she hadn’t had anything to compare it to—before or since—and, given that she hadn’t been out for an evening without Alexander in over six months, that wasn’t likely to change any time soon. She really must buy some decent clothes and go out with Lisa and the other girls next time they invited her. If they hadn’t given up asking her.

‘Hell-lo?’ Dominic’s voice, sounding distinctly tetchy, cut through her thoughts. ‘Are you listening to a word I’m saying?’

‘Sorry,’ she muttered, dragging her gaze away from the car park and her attention back to Dominic. ‘Immaculate conception. Getting into this on my own.’

Dominic sighed. Leaning forward, he put his elbows on the desk, rubbing his hands over his face and pushing his glasses up. ‘That’s the point—you didn’t get into it on your own, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it on your own either. Parenting is bloody hard work. It takes two people to make a baby for a very good reason.’

Kate’s heart sank as it began to dawn on her that Dominic was steering this conversation in a specific direction, and it wasn’t one that Kate wanted to go in. ‘I’m doing my best,’ she said defensively. ‘I know it’s not ideal, believe me, but I’m doing all I—’

‘I’m not saying you’re not,’ Dominic interrupted gently. ‘You’re a fantastic mother.’

Kate put her mug down carefully on the desk. Her heart had started to beat a little faster, and she had an odd sensation, as if something cold and heavy was pressing on her chest.

‘But?’

‘It’s been four years, Kate, and you’re still holding on—hoping that a tall, dark Italian racing driver is going to come roaring down the high street and pull you into his arms.’

Kate got to her feet with a bright smile. ‘OK—coffee break over. I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a load of work to do on the Healthy Schools account, so if you’ll—’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Dominic had got up too, his hands held up in a gesture of surrender, although he had also moved to one side of his desk so that he was effectively blocking her exit. ‘I’m not handling this very well, am I? Lizzie and I are worried about you, that’s all. The Christmas party was the last in a long list of Kate no-shows, and it just seems like you’ve been frozen in the same place for too long.’

Kate really didn’t want to ask, but couldn’t see that she had much choice. ‘What place?’