Chapter 5

Liam

The air in the garage was cold as ice.

I stared at the top of her lowered head, and the fingers hanging at my side couldn't help but curl inward.

The warmth of her waist still lingered in my palm. Through that thin black T-shirt, it had burned like fire, searing up along my skin all the way to my chest.

Three years.

For three whole years, I hadn't touched her once.

I'd thought enough time had passed—enough to forget the sun beating down on the Los Angeles slums, to forget the roar of engines on the underground tracks, to forget the shards of light in her eyes when she laughed.

But just now, in the instant my arm wrapped around her, my heartbeat spun completely out of control.

That heavy, violent pounding slammed against my ribs.

It wasn't fear. It wasn't the adrenaline surge that came with two hundred miles per hour on the track.

I knew better than anyone—it was because of her.

This heart of mine had beaten so madly for one person, and one alone, since the very first day I met Nina.

The realization filled me with a groundless shame and fury.

Reason screamed inside my skull.

I should loathe her. I had to loathe her.

Three months ago I'd claimed a new trophy in Monaco; three years ago I'd won the first grand prix of my life right here—and how had she treated me?

She'd taken the ten-million-dollar check from the Cranston family. She'd smashed the trophy I treasured like my own life into the mud, looked at me with the most contemptuous eyes, and said she was sick of a life reeking of engine grease, that she'd fallen for someone rich, that I should get lost.

She'd abandoned me. On the very day I'd been overjoyed, ready to propose, she'd ground my dignity into dust.

And now, she was standing in my garage.

To mask the flicker of feeling and the loss of composure I'd just betrayed, I yanked out my silk handkerchief and wiped at my chest in disgust.

I hurled a string of the most vicious, cutting words at her. I mocked her as a compulsive liar, sneered that her techniques for seducing men had improved.

I was trying to vent the resentment and pain I'd hoarded for three years. I wanted to tear her disguise to shreds with my words. I wanted to see her bare her teeth and claws.

In my memory, Nina had never been a woman who understood submission.

In those lawless slums, if anyone had dared insult her like this, she'd have grabbed a wrench and broken their bones long ago, or jabbed a finger in their face and cursed back with the filthiest slang.

She was a wild wolf—proud, fierce, never bowing her head.

I craved her defiance.

I wanted her to glare at me the way she used to, to scream and fight with me.

As long as she fought back, I could crush her with my new identity and status, could humiliate her. I could tell her coldly that ten million couldn't buy away the poverty in her bones. I could return her old heartlessness a thousandfold.

I wanted to see her driven to a dead end. I wanted to see her weep with regret over the betrayal.

But she didn't.

She didn't grab the tool at her hand, didn't fire a retort back at me.

She only took a step backward, reaching out to grip the edge of the workbench, hard. The skin over her knuckles blanched pale from the force.

And then, she bowed her head.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Cranston."

Her voice was faint, hoarse, threaded with a faint tremble.

There was none of the anger I'd imagined in it—only a strange, deeply groveling servility and submission, something I didn't recognize.

"I slipped by accident. It won't happen again. Please forgive me."

Mr. Cranston.

Those words struck like an invisible fist, slamming square into my face, and my mind went blank with a ringing hum.

She used to call me Liam. Call me an idiot. Call me champion.

Now she used this most formal, most distant address from the business world.

With that single sentence, she'd drawn an uncrossable chasm between us.

The only sound in the garage was the occasional metallic tick of the LaFerrari's engine cooling after shutdown.

I stood where I was, glaring coldly at her face.

Her head was bowed low, her blond ponytail slightly disheveled.

From the corner of my eye I caught sight of her cheek, and suddenly I saw her eyes clearly.

Those eyes, once bright and stubborn, were badly reddened now. A film of moisture pooled in them, held back only by the way she bit down hard on her lower lip.

She was crying.

That Nina—the one who would sooner bleed than shed a tear—had gone red-eyed after nothing more than a few harsh words from me.

A groundless irritation swelled violently in my chest, burning, battering against my reason.

Playing the victim.

That was the first thought that surfaced in my mind.

She knew me too well.

In all those years we'd known each other, she had been my fatal weakness. All it took was one furrow of her brow, one reddening of her eyes, and no matter what decision I'd made, no matter what we were fighting over, I'd surrender instantly. I'd stuff every last cent I had into her hands, take all the blame on myself, just to make her stop crying.

She was betting I was still that soft-hearted fool from back then.

She knew she needed this contract. She knew the million dollars Kyle had offered was her only lifeline now.

So she'd tucked away all her pride and claws and switched tactics.

She was using tears, using flustered displays of weakness, even this hypocritical apology, to test my limits.

This was another one of her techniques for seducing rich men, wasn't it? When she found the hard approach useless, she started playing the helpless victim, using it to awaken an old lover's laughable pity.

You think that'll make me forget what you really are? I heard myself sneer inwardly, asking myself the question.

I shouldn't fall for it again.

I was the heir to the Cranston family. I was a Wall Street investor. I was a world champion on the F1 circuit.

I was no longer the orphan from the slums that she could twist around her finger.

I had to trample her pride ruthlessly.

I would tell her this act had stopped working on me long ago.

I would dangle that million-dollar fee as bait, make her suffer every humiliation right here, make her admit with her own mouth that abandoning me for money back then had been the stupidest, most regretted decision of her life.

I opened my mouth, ready to say something crueler.

I wanted to say: Stop putting on this act. How long can ten million last a spender like you? Out of money, so now you remember the old man you once ground under your heel?

But my gaze slid over her right hand.

There, on the hand gripping the edge of the workbench, was a coil of coarse, clean white gauze.

It was dressing from the first-aid kit the maid had brought her earlier.

And now, at the center of that white gauze, a thread of crimson blood was faintly seeping through.

She was hurt.

Before coming here, or perhaps just now when she slipped, her wound had split open.

The bloodstain spread wider and wider, set against her pale skin, glaring—as if it were mocking my cruelty.

In that moment, I thought of the days we'd spent digging for parts in the used-car salvage yard.

She was only seventeen then, her palms often sliced open by rusted sheet metal. I'd always scold her first, then cradle her hand gingerly and disinfect it with antiseptic, blowing on it while my own eyes reddened with the ache of it.

I'd sworn that once I made money, I'd open the finest, safest custom shop in all of Los Angeles for her, so she'd never take another injury.

In the deathly silence, I watched a single tear finally give way under its own weight and fall from her lashes.

It dropped into the seam between the floor tiles and vanished in an instant.

All the venomous words I'd prepared in my throat turned to ash in that split second.

I couldn't say a single one. My chest felt tight, as though I'd lost all supply of oxygen.

The cruel disguise peeled away. My resentment and rage toward her drained off like an ebbing tide, pulled clean away in an instant.

In their place surged a mountainous, overwhelming tenderness and heartache.

That pain stabbed at the tip of my heart and spread to every limb, until I could barely keep my footing.

I shouldn't be like this. She'd betrayed me. She was a swindler who'd abandoned love for money. I shouldn't waver in the slightest over a woman who'd wounded me so deeply.

But my body wouldn't obey.

My right hand lifted half an inch on its own, the fingers curling stiffly.

I wanted so badly to close the two steps of distance between us.

I wanted to wipe hard at the tears lingering at the corners of her eyes with my thumb. I wanted to pull that thin body into my arms without a care and hold her tight, tight. I wanted to lower my head and kiss her slightly cool lips, to run my fingers through her blond hair and murmur in the gentlest voice against her ear: "Don't be afraid, Nina. Whatever trouble you're in, whatever wrongs you've suffered out there, I'm here. I'll take care of everything."

If she'd only nod, if she'd only lean against my chest, I could wipe away every past betrayal with a single stroke.

I could let go of the ten million. I could stop asking who the hell had bought her away.

I only wanted to protect her, only wanted to stop her trembling, only wanted to see that proud, fearless light rekindle in her eyes.

I had never once won against her.

That single realization sent me plunging into an abyss.

So it turned out that in this reunion after three long years, the one who'd lost wasn't her—the woman bowing her head in apology—but me, the man who crumbled into total defeat at the sight of a single tear from her.

No.

Reason let out one last despairing roar from the depths of my mind.

What are you doing, Liam? Have you forgotten how heartlessly she walked away years ago? Have you forgotten burning with fever on that rainy night, waiting outside her door all night long, only to get a bucket of cold water poured out at your feet?

If you go to her now, if you hold her now, if you show your hand now, you'll become nothing but her joke. She'll discover you're still a fool she can toy with as she pleases. She'll keep up the act for that million, and then, once she's wrung you dry, she'll walk away again without a shred of mercy.

You can't get close to her. You can never again play that dignity-less dog begging for scraps.

My breathing turned rapid and ragged.

I didn't dare look at her reddened eyes again, nor at the white gauze wrapped around her palm.

I knew I was standing at the very edge of losing all control—that one more glance and the hatred I'd guarded for three years would collapse completely.

I dropped my gaze and stiffly withdrew the hand I'd started to reach out, shoving it hard into the pocket of my racing suit. My fingertips clenched into a fist, nails digging deep into the flesh of my palm, and the pain granted me a fleeting sliver of clarity.

I gave no response. I didn't accept her apology.

While Nina still stood there, head bowed, waiting for my next assault or my verdict, I abruptly stepped back.

I turned, threw my long legs into motion, and strode almost disgracefully toward the garage door.

My steps were fast, weighted even with a heavy panic.

I trampled over the play of light and shadow on the ground, leaving behind the woman with her lowered head, the deep-blue race car, and that faint reek of blood and engine grease in the air that was driving me mad—leaving it all behind me.

I must have looked like a coward fleeing in defeat.

In this battle I'd meant to use for revenge and humiliation, before I'd even truly launched my attack, I'd been beaten—stripped of armor and helmet by a single tear of hers—and sent running.