Her Last Night of Innocence

He stopped.

For a moment he was absolutely still, as if turned to stone. Kate had to remind herself to keep breathing. Slowly, stiffly, he turned back to face her.

‘Kate Edwards.’ His voice was soft, his tone completely neutral, but his face looked as if it had been carved from ice. ‘You interviewed me the night before the Monaco Grand Prix four years ago.’

‘Yes.’

So he knew. He knew who she was and yet he stood there, looking at her across the cavernous space with eyes that glittered with some emotion she couldn’t read, but which certainly wasn’t love. Or happiness, or excitement, or relief—or any of the other things she had felt when she saw him again. Her heart was beating very hard, very fast, shaking her whole body and pounding in her head as she began to back towards the door.

‘I’m glad you’re well again. I’m glad you’re back—i-if that’s what you want…’ Her skirt twisted around her legs, slowing her down. She managed a smile, though it felt as if her face might crack. ‘It was nice to see you again.’

She was almost at the door. She could feel the cold night air at her back, and she turned round and covered the remaining few feet as quickly as she could in her agonising high heels. She didn’t slow down until she had reached the door of the Hotel de Paris opposite.

It was only then that she remembered the letter in her evening bag.

Silvio’s speech was mercifully short. As the crowd clapped and cheered, Cristiano made his way round the back of the platform to where Suki stood.

‘I slept with her, didn’t I?’

‘Who?’

Suki looked up at him with deliberately blank eyes. Cristiano had to grit his teeth, steadying himself against the feeling of panic that was closing in on him. The whole evening had taken on a kind of nightmarish quality, so that he wasn’t sure what was real any more.

‘Kate Edwards,’ he rasped. ‘From Clearspring Water. I slept with her the night before the crash. Why didn’t you tell me?’

Suki’s blank gaze slid away again and she shrugged. ‘What does it matter? You slept with everyone.’

Cristiano jerked backwards, raising his hand so that for a moment Suki thought he was going to hit her. He thrust it into his hair and swore, and then swung round and began to push his way through the crowd.

Except me, she wanted to scream after him, watching his massive shoulders as he walked away, and the way people moved aside to let him through. Everyone except me.

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 been avoiding all evening—and out in the street-lit darkness the pounding inside his head was less intense. He knew that Silvio would be looking for him now, wanting him to stand in front of the two cars on the platform while the flashbulbs of hundreds of press photographers exploded all around, but he didn’t care.

He didn’t care about anything except finding Kate Edwards.

She had gone into the Hotel a 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.

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