the top. At the first opportunity he was going to get the hell out of the party and drive up to Courchevel.
As he zipped up the bag he allowed himself a twisted smile. For once in his life he was going to do as he was told. Because he intended to beat this memory loss and start winning again.
Whatever it took.
“Night, Mummy.’
‘Goodnight, darling. Sweet dreams…I’ll phone again in the—’
There was a muffled click and then a high-pitched tone that told her that Alexander had hung up already. He’d sounded in great spirits, and although she wasn’t confident he and Ruby would be asleep any time soon, she wasn’t worried about him being miserable either.
That was just her.
She listened to the tone for a few seconds more, unwilling to sever the tenuous connection that had for a few minutes stretched across all the dark miles that separated them. Then with massive effort she pressed the button, tossed her phone into her black velvet evening bag and stood up. Her face in the brightly lit hotel mirror was ghostly pale. Her eyes—by contrast—were enormous and glittering feverishly. Her hair, newly washed, hung loose around her face to her shoulders, kinking horribly because it had dried long before Lisa had finished hogging the hairdryer. Lizzie had shown her how to coil it up and pin it into one of those sexy, wispy styles that other women always seemed so good at, but when Kate had tried earlier her hands had been shaking so much she’d had to give up. Oh, well, it was good to have something to hide behind anyway.
She carefully applied the dark red lipstick Lizzie had made her buy at outrageous expense in the cosmetics hall of Harvey Nichols, and stood back to look at the effect. Oh, God, she had just gone from ghostly to vampire. Dead to undead, she thought, reaching for a tissue and scrubbing it off again. It was no good. Lizzie might have lectured her endlessly on the need to make the most of herself and stand out from the crowd, to maximise the chance of Cristiano Maresca noticing her, but it really wasn’t her.
And last time he’d seen past the terrible prim grey suit and noticed her. No make-up, no cleavage-displaying dress, no killer heels. He’d seen her—the real her—with all her dark fears and anxiety that she spent her whole life trying to hide. And he’d talked to her too, telling her things about himself and his past that had made her heart turn over.
Gesu, Kate, I’ve never…bared my soul like that before.
And that, thought Kate bleakly, pulling open the door and going out into the corridor, was why she had spent the last four years waiting for him. Because when he had told her those things a link had been forged between them that went deeper than the physical. Before she’d met him she’d had so many misconceptions and prejudices about him, and what he did for a living, but he had smashed them all to pieces and let her see the truth.
She got into the lift, trying not to look at her reflection in its mirrored interior in case the longing that was suddenly raging inside her was written all over her face. She mustn’t allow herself to get her hopes up. She had enough to lose tonight without adding her dignity and her composure to the long list.
Alexander, for example.
‘Bonsoir, mademoiselle.’ The young doorman stood aside for her with a flourish, and a blast of icy air made her shiver. ‘Can I get you a taxi?’
‘No, thank you,’ she murmured, looking across the square to where the Casino’s twin turrets pointed upwards at the inky sky. ‘I’m just going…over there.’
‘To the Campano party? Bien, mademoiselle. Enjoy your evening.’
That, thought Kate, going carefully down the steps of the hotel in her high-heeled shoes, was extremely unlikely. But then, she hadn’t come here to enjoy herself. She’d come here for closure.
The square was quieter now. The party inside the Casino had already started, and the photographers Lisa had watched gathering around the entrance earlier, to capture the arrival of celebrities and sports personalities, had dispersed, leaving only a few ambling, curious tourists. Blue lights from the Casino’s entrance bounced off the shiny paintwork of the Bentleys and Ferraris and Lamborghinis that were lined up outside like the forecourt of Alexander’s fantasy garage.
As she picked her way across the wet cobbles, holding her skirt up so it didn’t drag on the ground, she could see through the open doors to rows of marble columns, glowing like gold in the lamplight inside, and hear music—the sexy, high-tempo whine of electric violins.
Oh, God. And now she had to go in there…
It would almost be funny if it weren’t so awful. This wasn’t her world, and she didn’t even want it to be. Much as she grumbled about Hartley Bridge, and the fact that its one shop closed for an hour at lunchtime and sold malt vinegar rather than balsamic, it was where she belonged.
Where she felt safe.
The shivering had turned into a violent trembling that was nothing to do with the cold. High above Monte Carlo, beyond the lights and the noise, the hills were barely distinguishable from the black sky. Somewhere up there was the big empty villa where, on a warm, pine-scented evening in May, her whole life had changed in ways she could never have imagined.
Resolutely she raised her chin. Dominic was right. It was time to take control of things. Things had a habit of happening to her—things out of her control—that served to remind her time and time again of how precarious life was, how fragile and fallible. It was high time she took matters into her own hands for once and faced up to her fears.
Clutching her evening bag in front of her like a shield, she went up the steps and into the gilded and opulent interior.
‘So, what do you think? Do you like it?’
Handing him a glass of champagne, Suki came to stand beside Cristiano at the gallery rail. Above the frantic swell of electric violins he could hear the note of triumph in her voice as she looked down on the scene below.
Like it?
A pulse beat in Cristiano’s temple, out of time with the music. He felt sweat break out on his forehead.
The party was well underway, and the ornate and imposing salon was filling up with guests—some of whom Cristiano knew well from the racing circuit, and others whose faces he knew only from glossy magazines. At the foot of the wide staircase that swept down from the gallery a raised platform had been erected, on which four ravishing beauties with Perspex electric violins prowled and writhed around two cars.
The Campano car that the team would be running during the forthcoming Grand Prix was being unveiled to the public for the first time tonight. A study of design and engineering perfection, its paintwork glittered in the light of the chandeliers like polished emeralds, and its sleek lines were reminiscent of some crouching, predatory beast.
But it was the other one that people had gathered to look at. The obscene lump of distorted metal that had once been a car and had nearly been his coffin.
‘Whether I like it is irrelevant,’ Cristiano said tonelessly, dragging his gaze away from it. ‘Everyone else seems to be fascinated.’
With a hiss of scarlet satin Suki turned, looking at him from under lashes
