pulled into a space, but made no move to turn off the car or get out. “It’s not a curse like that.”
“What kind is it?”
“As I said, it’s one that involves women.”
“From where I’m sitting, you seem to do okay with women.”
“I do. But I never fall for a woman.”
“So, do you want to fall in love?” she asked. She wondered if he was lonely like she was at times. It didn’t matter how full his life was. Because of her grandmother, he could only be lucky in business or in love. Never both. And since he’d chosen business, that meant a lonely life.
“No,” he said with a smile. “I’m still young and have my life ahead of me.”
“Indeed. What about racing? Are you going to retire?”
“Not for another few years,” he said, turning off the ignition and looking at her.
The smell of his aftershave and the leather of the seats overwhelmed her, and she was very aware of the fact that she’d made small talk to cover her nervousness about being alone with Marco again.
This was something she hadn’t planned for. Being with Marco again wasn’t going to be easy, because each time she was with him she didn’t want to leave. But more than that, she realized that he wanted answers from her, and she was going to have to keep on her toes to stay one step ahead of him.
Marco led the way upstairs to his apartment. He hated staying in hotels, and since Moretti Motors always had a driver in F1, over the years the company had bought residences in all of the major cities where the races were held.
He was trying to be genial and laid-back, though he really wanted answers. But after that one passionate outburst he’d had back at the track, he knew he needed to rein himself in.
He didn’t want Virginia to realize how much she’d gotten to him. And she had. Until he’d seen her again, he hadn’t realized that he’d been searching for her in every crowd—that he’d been waiting for her at each race. And that each win and each loss was marked by the fact that she wasn’t there.
He’d never let anyone have that kind of power over him. He didn’t think he’d “let” Virginia. For some reason, she was the one woman who could make him react this way. Only finding out every detail of who she was would give him the peace he needed.
Dinner had yielded few answers. She was very clever at keeping the conversation off herself and on him. But he was determined to learn more about Virginia, and he wanted to do it without asking her flat out for the answers. She’d set the rules of their game by disappearing and by the very mystery of who she was.
“You’re staring at me,” she said.
“You’re a beautiful woman. Surely I’m not the first man to stare at you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not really beautiful.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I find you captivating.”
“Marco.”
“Yes?”
“Please don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll be tempted to believe you, and you just said that you weren’t interested in any woman for the long term.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not really interested in the long term, either, are you, Virginia?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
He had no idea what she meant by that comment. Maybe she was just as confused about what was happening between them as he was. But she’d left after one night. Most women didn’t do that.
He wasn’t being a chauvinist or anything like that. His experience had shown him that women stuck around for a while. That only when they were convinced a man wasn’t going to be the right one for them to spend their lives with did they move on.
“A woman who leaves while a man is sleeping surely isn’t looking for ‘happily ever after’…though I thought most American women were.”
“Why would you ever think such a thing? American women are independent.”
“My mother watches Desperate Housewives.” To be honest, he wasn’t too sure about that show as a standard for American women. But Elena was American, and she wanted to be married.
“That’s a TV show.”
“Television shows are made popular by the way they exaggerate real life.”
“Marco, that makes no sense.”
“You are simply saying that because you don’t agree with my theory.”
“Okay, if you’re right about TV echoing life, how do you feel about movies?”
“I think that, to a certain extent they reflect the view of what they are representing. You know, I’m not saying that movies and television programs are real life, simply that they mirror an attitude of the culture that produced them.”
She was so bubbly with her passion for discussing this. He liked it because he could tell that she wasn’t planning what she would say to him. She wasn’t keeping this conversation all about him, the way she had during dinner. This was something real. An indication of the woman who was Virginia.
He still didn’t know her last name, but he would before morning. He hoped to spend this night uncovering all of her secrets.
He would know everything about her body, of course—he was already intimately acquainted with the sounds she made when her body was suffused with pleasure. Now he wanted to know what made her mad. What made Virginia cry? What made her laugh and smile? He needed that knowledge and he would be ruthless about getting it.
“Did you see the movie Talladega Nights?” she asked him.
“Yes. It was quite funny, with that Will Ferrell.”
“Um…by rights I should assume you are like the French driver in the movie.”
It took him a moment to figure out that she was trying to say he might be gay. He saw the sparkle in her eyes. She was teasing him. He knew he shouldn’t feel good about that fact, but he did.
He closed the distance between them, tired of not holding her in his arms. The last month had been too long. He’d focused on racing and on the promo events that went with the Formula One season, but every night he’d had passion-filled dreams of Virginia and he wanted to make them a reality.
“I think I’ve proven that I’m more interested in women than men,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “But perhaps you need another demonstration?”
She put her hands
