“Nothing,” he said. “There is nothing.”
She reached up with shaking fingers and touched his sweat-soaked hair. “I’m sorry. I seem to say that quite a lot, but I don’t know what else to say.” She let her hand drop to his shoulder, squeezed. “I think you should take a pain pill. And then you should call your doctor.”
“No doctors,” he said. “No pills.”
Frustration pounded into her. “You can’t just endure it,” she said, trying to reason with him. “At least take a pill.”
He pushed himself upright and her heart twisted as she got a look at him. His eyes were glazed, as if he’d been on the edge of tears.
“Does it hurt that badly?”
He gave a poor imitation of a laugh. “Worse.”
Faith swallowed the lump in her throat. “Please consider taking a pain pill.”
“Give me some of those pills from your purse,” he said. “Maybe that will do the trick.”
She didn’t think so, but she dutifully complied, finding bottled water in the refrigerator built into the sleek counter on one wall. He’d removed his gloves by the time she returned to him, and he took the pills, draining half the water, then leaned back in his chair, one hand spanning his forehead as he sat with his eyes closed.
“How was the Viper to ride?” she asked. “Was it everything you’d hoped?”
He actually smiled. “It was glorious, cara mia. Almost perfect. There are a few tweaks required, but she’ll be ready to go when it’s time.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Except, of course, Renzo would insist on riding the motorcycle himself instead of giving it to one of the racing team to ride. “What happened when you got off the Viper, Renzo?”
She wasn’t sure he would tell her, but then he sighed. “My leg started to cramp on the final few laps. And that last turn was a bit hard on the knee. The pain was … surprising, I suppose.”
“You promised not to push it,” she said tightly. “I wish you would at least see a doctor. He might be able to help.”
His blue eyes were piercing when they snapped open. “No. I’ve seen doctors. There is nothing they can tell me that I do not already know.”
“Do you really think you can ride the Viper for an entire season? How will you explain it if you can’t stand up when they hand you the trophy?” She could think of far worse scenarios, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them. He knew the possibilities as well as she did.
His voice was as hard as diamonds. “I can ride, Faith. There is no other choice.”
She swallowed the fear and bitterness roiling in her belly. “I don’t understand that, Renzo. You have an entire racing team at your disposal. Men who know how this is done as well as you do.”
“They don’t know,” he snapped, before muttering something in Italian. “I am one of the top-ranked riders in the world. And I know my motorcycles. It has to be me. This is the Viper’s debut. It has to succeed, and for that to happen, I must be the one riding. The sponsors are counting on it. The company is counting on it. Do you wish to find yourself downsized because the Viper fails?”
She knew how much it meant to him, how proud he was, and yet she didn’t believe it was as dire as he made it out to be. Yes, they might lose sponsors and, yes, the newest production model might not sell as well as hoped if the Viper was a disaster. Gavretti Manufacturing might even gain the upper hand on them, which would no doubt anger Renzo a great deal.
But so what? He would be alive and able to bring the company back from the edge of whatever misfortune they might teeter upon. “D’Angeli isn’t going to go broke if the Viper doesn’t smash records,” Faith said firmly.
He looked at her darkly for several moments. And then he stood, his face whitening briefly as he clutched the edge of the desk. “I’ll shower and change and then we can go back to the villa.”
Faith ground her teeth in frustration. Typical man. He didn’t want to talk about it when she pointed out the flaws in his logic.
He started to limp toward the adjoining bath, but she hurried over and slid an arm around his waist. He might be stubborn, but she couldn’t watch him suffer.
“Grazie,” he said, leaning on her as she helped him into the bathroom. It was a luxurious room, outfitted in exotic African hardwoods and sleek chrome fixtures. There was a huge shower at one end, entirely encased in glass, complete with a bench and several nozzles up and down the walls on three sides, as well as one overhead.
“Sit,” she told him when they reached the leather couch in the dressing area off to one side.
He did as she said, and then she bent to take his boots off even though he had not asked her to. But how could he manage it when his leg still hurt? She got one boot off, and then the other before tackling the knee sliders, which were separate from the leathers because they had to be replaced so often. These were scraped pretty badly from his contact with the track, and it made her shudder to think again of how he lay almost flat on his side every time he went around a curve.
The barest slip of control and he and the bike would go their separate ways. At two hundred miles an hour.
Faith shuddered again. The leathers were made for protection, with Kevlar and titanium in the most vulnerable spots, but the last thing she wanted was to see firsthand how good the protection they provided was.
How was it that one of the other talented riders on the D’Angeli team couldn’t ride the Viper? She didn’t believe it for a moment, no matter how good Renzo was. With Renzo as a teacher, how could his team fail? He was simply too proud, too stubborn, to admit he couldn’t do this any longer.
She got the sliders off and then lifted her head to look at him. The last thing she expected to see was the jut of an impressive arousal against the leather. Her gaze flew to his.
He smiled crookedly. “I could see down your shirt,” he said, not the least bit apologetic. “It’s a nice view.”
“You’re in no shape to be thinking about my breasts,” she told him somewhat prudishly, her cheeks flaring with heat.
He laughed. “Cara, I’d have to be dead not to think about your breasts. I assure you I’m quite capable of thinking about them. Of thinking of every centimeter of your body, I should add.”
Faith got to her feet and stood stiffly, in spite of the fact her body was doing that softening-melting-aching thing again. “I think you can do the rest yourself,” she said. “I’ll wait in the office.”
He stood, his face less tight now, and tugged at the zipper that held the leathers in place. It was like having that magazine ad come to life, she thought, as her breath caught and held while the zipper slid downward. Unlike in the magazine, there was a tight shirt beneath the leather, but it was still one of the sexiest things she’d ever seen.
“I’ll be, um, in the office,” she said, turning away as he laughed.
“You
