Becoming The Boss

She’d been horribly selfish, hating the social scene, knowing she didn’t fit in, so she’d told him to go, to have fun.

‘If I’d gone out with him he wouldn’t have asked you.’ Misery poured from her heart. ‘I was such a coward.’ Oh, God, could it have been her fault?

Finn surged forward, raised his arm and brushed a lock of hair from her brow so tenderly her heart throbbed.

‘You can’t take responsibility for someone else’s actions, baby. He was old enough to make his own decisions.’

‘Well, then I should’ve persuaded him to take professional swimming lessons—’ Her voice cracked. ‘Something. Anything.’

‘Again, you can’t make people do what they don’t want to. You think he’d honestly want you to blame yourself like this?’

‘No,’ she whispered. Tom would go crazy if he saw her right now.

Crazy? She gave a little huff. If Tom knew she was being cruel to Finn he would go berserk. Finn had been his hero. He’d talked about him constantly. And hadn’t that driven her insane too? Ensuring he was never far from her mind. Taunting her. Creating more anger. Powering more hate. But that wasn’t Finn’s fault. It was hers. Because she’d never understood her unruly all-consuming reactions to such a wild player. He was anything but safe.

‘How did it happen?’ she asked, suddenly weary. ‘Were you there? All I want to know is that he didn’t suffer.’

A muscle ticked in his jaw and he took a large step back, filching her heat. ‘I was…asleep. It was the middle of the night.’

A black blend of torment and bone-wrenching guilt stole the colour from his beautiful face and from nowhere she wanted to throw her arms around him. He was hurting so badly. Like a wounded animal. It was like being tossed back in time, staring at her own reflection. She couldn’t bear it.

Trembling, she reached for his hand, the despair and loneliness she’d suffered in the last months calling to her—reaching out for his, to share it. To comfort and be comforted. A craving she’d stifled for months.

All the torment. The guilt suffocating her. Suffocating him. When she’d thought he didn’t care she’d wanted to punish him endlessly. Yet he’d buried it just as she had. And where was it getting them? Fate had dealt them a cruel card and unless they moved on all she could see lining the road ahead was endless misery.

Let it go…

Her fingers met his skin and as if she’d zapped him with three thousand volts he jolted backwards.

‘I’ve already warned you once tonight, Serena,’ he said roughly. ‘You touch me right now and I’ll lose it. Won’t be able to stop myself from wanting more.’

The memory of him crouched before her, his hot gaze locked on her lower abdomen, his warm breath teasing over her flesh, sprang up in her mind’s eye and heat drenched her body like a deluge of tropical rain.

‘I…I don’t understand you. Are you still trying to distract me or something? Because you’re wasting your time, Finn, I’m not going anywhere.’

He rubbed at his temple as if she was giving him a migraine. ‘I’m beginning to realise that.’

‘Good. But I still can’t fathom why you want more from me. I’m not—’

His turbulent gaze crashed into her. ‘Not beautiful? Yes, you are. Sexy? More than anyone I’ve ever met.’

Yeah, right. ‘I meant I’m not a woman. Not feminine—stuff like that.’

‘Of course you are—’

‘Er…hello? Slippers?’ While he looked wicked and gorgeous in his devilish tux.

‘In your own unique way.’

‘No. I’m not.’ Was she? ‘Nor do I want to be.’ Unveiling that secret part of her would only bring more vulnerabilities. Weakness.

Finn shook his head, his mouth shaping for speech. Then he seemed to think better of it. ‘Listen; while the best place for you is far away from me, we have to work together, boss-lady. At least until the end of the season.’

Was he saying he wasn’t staying with the team? He must know her dad would want him to.

‘I know that.’ The strike of her conscience made her wince. ‘About the boss thing…’

The ghost of a smile softened his sinful mouth. ‘A slight exaggeration on your part, Miss Scott?’

‘Could’ve been,’ she posed lightly.

‘You’ve got balls, Serena, I’ll give you that.’

Their eyes locked once more and she held her breath. Wishing she could read him better. Hating her lack of experience. By the time he tore his eyes free she felt dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

‘Regardless, we’ll still be seeing a lot of each other, so I suggest we endeavour not to end up alone. Unless…’

‘Unless?’

He shifted on his glossy feet. ‘Unless you ever need…a friend.’ He scrubbed his nape with the palm of his hand. A bit uneasy. A whole lot handsome. ‘That’s what you said, wasn’t it? That you’d lost a friend too? So if you ever need one I’ll be there.’

Oh, great. Now he was being all thoughtful. A little bit wonderful. The last thing she needed.

Friendship was a terrible idea. They clashed like titans. But she wasn’t about to throw his offer in his face. She didn’t have the heart. ‘Okay. It’s a deal.’

With a brief nod he turned to walk away.

‘Finn?’

‘Yeah?’

Am I truly beautiful to you? Did you mean it?

‘Don’t forget,’ she said. ‘You owe me a wish.’

Finn stripped his jacket from his body, yanked the black tie from his collar and slung them across the caliginous suite. Then he flopped atop the bed, face down, his insides raw and aching from being clawed to shreds.

Withholding the truth hammered at his conscience, making his temples pound until his vision blurred and he prayed for peaceful slumber. Not that he deserved it. The past was catching up with him, slowly but surely.

He’d been so close to telling her everything. Battling with a promise made, an investigation that could blow wide any day, and an insight that she’d been through her own version of hell.

What had happened to his brave little tigress? She’d cleverly derailed him and he’d never met anyone who’d managed that feat. Were they talking emotional or physical hurt, here? Though in reality maybe it was best he didn’t know.

The imagery taunting his mind made him want to snarl and lash out—vicious, savage with the need for revenge. It made his guts ache with a peculiar primal need to take her in his arms and hold her to him, protect her. Kiss her tenderly, passionately, over and over—make her feel like a real woman.

How was he going to keep his hands off her if she took his offer of friendship?

Exhaustion pulsed through his bones and darkness called to him like an old friend, dragging him into the depths where only nightmares pulsed to life…

Singapore, September, eight months earlier

‘Wakey-wakey, pretty boy.’

Derision leaked from the hoarse oriental twang as the sound of heavy boots clomping over concrete, cracking the grit and filth beneath inch-thick soles, penetrated the lethargic smaze in which his mind wandered.

Hair like the heart of a ruby…fire in its most dangerous form…

The twang grew louder. ‘How are we feeling today?’ But it was the jangle of a loaded key ring slapping against a military toned thigh that finally roused his head from its cushioned spot on the exposed brick wall.

His backside numb from sitting on the damp floor for hours on end, he conspicuously flexed the legs outstretched in front of him, knowing what was to come.

After all, he could set his watch by these guys—if he still had it. As it was, the rare platinum timepiece now graced one of the guard’s thick, brawny wrists.

Four and a half million he’d been paid to wear that watch—to have his face plastered on every billboard from here to Timbuktu.

Easy money.

Exactly what these men wanted from him. He could have coped with that if it wasn’t for the kid in the next cell. If that kid hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time and got dragged into this godforsaken mess.

He smacked his head off the pitted brick, wondering once again if they’d get out of here alive. Wherever ‘here’ was. Some place near the ocean, if the sporadic bites of salt water were anything to go by.

He craved a glance at the skyline. Light. Space. Or, better yet, an endless track to drive down, to escape from reality. As it was, he had too many hours to think—an overrated and highly dangerous pastime. If he wasn’t imagining the peaceful waters of stunning grey eyes regrets suffocated him as they shadowed his mind like tormented souls.

The mistakes he’d made in his life. The hearts he’d broken in his youth. The way he’d abandoned his mother and Eva. What if he never had the chance to say sorry?

Chest so tight he could scarcely breathe, he stuffed the lot to the back of his mind, where all the other emotional garbage was, and let it fester. Concentrated on what he was capable of dealing with—Mr Happy in the khaki combats, who seemed to be snarling at him.

‘There is something wrong with your tongue?’

Yeah, as a matter of fact there was. It hadn’t tasted water for two days. But he’d guess Brutus, here, just wanted his answer.

How was he feeling? As if he’d had his insides scooped out and then shoved back in. With a blunt spoon.

‘Great. Never felt better. Your hospitality is second to none.’

The you’ll-pay-for-that smirk should have made him regret his smart mouth, but he had to keep their focus on him. Always on him.

‘I am pleased to hear it.’ The guard paused outside the kid’s cell and Finn felt the familiar toxic churn of foreboding right in the pit of his empty stomach. ‘And your friend?’

Already halfway up from his cosy spot on the floor, Finn almost lost his precarious stance. ‘He’s sick. Can’t even walk. So leave him alone.’ Then he smoothed the edge off his harsh tone and kicked up his lips, offering the legendary St George smile as he straightened to his full height. ‘It’s me you want, anyway. Isn’t that right?’

Another smirk. Another churn of unease and sickening revolt in his stomach.

‘Boring when they don’t fight back.’

‘There you go, then. Let me out of here.’ He jerked his chin towards the kid. ‘The view is depressing.’ Or it would be for the kid pretty soon.

‘Finn?’ Tom croaked. ‘Let me—’

‘Shut up, kid.’ Every muscle in his body protested as he coerced his legs forward as if two of his ribs weren’t cracked and his shoulder wasn’t dislocated. Piece of cake. ‘I’m feeling cooped up in here.’ His door swung wide. ‘Give him some water, would you?’

The guard grinned, flashing a less than stellar set of teeth, eyes brimming with calculation. As if he knew something Finn didn’t. As if the last four days had been foreplay to the main event.

Darkness seeped through the cracks in his mind and threatened to rise like some ugly menacing storm. ‘You leave the kid alone—you hear me? Or no money.’

The laugh that spilled from those blood-red lips made his guts wrench tighter.

‘Boss says the only thing I leave alone is your pretty face,’ the guard said, and slapped said face with enough force to sting. ‘Get moving.’

‘Speaking of my generous host, I want to talk to him again.’

‘Your wish is my command.’

Somehow he doubted that. Nevertheless, ten minutes later a big palm pushed on his shoulder—the dislocated one, thank you very much—and he fought the wince as he was slammed down into a black plastic chair in the corner of a room that looked like an interrogation hotspot out of a gritty cop show. But, nope, this was no TV set. Proof of which sat in the chair opposite, with a rickety steel-framed table separating them.

Face-to-face with his captor, it wasn’t in Finn’s nature to beat around the proverbial bush, so he kicked off today’s festivities.

‘Let’s barter,’ he managed to say through a throat that felt serrated with sticks. ‘I’ll trade you another five million if you let him go. Now.’

Eyes as black as his soul and sunk into a battered, rock-hewn face stared back at him. ‘That’s quite an offer, Mr St George. But I was thinking of a different kind of bartering altogether.’

‘I’m getting tired of these games. What exactly is it you want?’

‘Right now I want you to make a choice, racer-boy. The first of many.’

Behind him, the iron door ground open with a chilling squeal and a frigid bite swept through the room—so cold his bones turned to ice. The kid was behind him. He knew it.

‘Forget choices. Make it another ten mill and let. Him. Go.’

‘You don’t like him being touched, do you, pretty boy?’ he said silkily—in striking contrast to the sharp crack of knuckles that caromed around the room. ‘So shall I play with him? Or will you?’

Finn’s breath sawed in and out of his lungs. ‘Twenty. That will be sixty million, transferred from my Swiss bank account within the hour. You can do what the hell you like with me. Deal?’

Chapter Seven

MONTREAL BASKED IN the warmth of a glorious dusk, the sky a canvas of fluffy spiralling ribbons tinged with orange and red, with only a blaze of yellow on the curve of the earth, where the sun kissed the horizon.

Its beauty failed miserably to improve her ugly mood.

‘You’d better be in, Finn,’ Serena muttered as she stormed across the endless blanket of tarmac towards his glossy black motor home.

Never mind the prescient darkness that had clung to her skin for two weeks since Monaco, like some kind of impending doom, Michael Scott—aka dear old Dad—had just pulled a number on her! As if the day hadn’t been enough of a stress-fest.

The day? Who was she kidding? The last two weeks, working with Mr Death-Defyer, had been a roller coaster named persecution; emotions had dipped and dived all over the place, to stretch her patience endlessly. Was it any wonder she could hear the clang of looming disaster?

Still, she’d never forget this afternoon as long as she lived.

Another close shave as Finn scraped second place after going silent on the pit-lane channel for over two minutes. Heart in her throat, she’d snatched the headset from the chief engineer in the end. Not exactly the done thing, but she’d had to snap him out of it somehow.

He was getting worse. Darker. Harder. Taking unnecessary risks no other man would dare to chance. Why? She couldn’t understand it. Unless… Unless Serena had made him worse. By storming into his life and throwing Tom’s death in his face when he’d been trying to deal with the loss in his own way. Burying it. Just as she had.

It boggled the mind to think they had something in common.

God, she felt sick.

But had he been worried when he’d nearly obliterated himself? Heavens, no. While she’d popped migraine pills like chocolate drops he’d supplicated and beguiled the masses with his glib tongue and legendary rakish smile, standing atop the podium as if life was a fun park and darker emotions were aberrant to him. When she knew they were anything but!

Then—then he’d swaggered into the Scott Lansing garage, again, and drawled in that sinfully rich, amused voice, ‘What do you think, baby? Was I awesome?’

As if he hadn’t just phased out while driving at over two hundred miles per hour!

Fist balled, she stomped up the metal steps and rapped on his door until her knuckles stung.

If she was an ace at burying pain and masking it with a brave face he was a pro—a grand virtuoso. But now Serena could see it. Feel his darkness more acutely.

Oftentimes behind the charming, irrepressible smile lurked a guilt-drenched agony she still couldn’t bear.

Last night hadn’t helped matters either. Bored—okay, plain nosey—she’d searched the internet for a peek of his sister and got a lot more than she’d bargained for. Not only was Eva Vitale the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen, but together with Finn she ran a huge charity for breast cancer in honour of their mother. Another death that must have crippled him.

By the time she’d trawled through all the articles and spotted the Silverstone driving day he held every year for sick and disabled children she’d cringed at all the heartless, dishonourable comments she’d perpetually tossed in his face.

The thought that she’d been so prejudiced against his type, his Casanova proclivities—enough to use him as an easy scapegoat for Tom’s death—was making her seriously dislike herself.

The door opened on a soft swish to reveal the man himself, wearing a deep red polo shirt—yum—and a pair of washed-out stomach-curling jeans riding low on his lean hips.

As her gaze touched his bare toes that delicious drawl rumbled over her. ‘Do I meet with your approval this evening, Miss Scott?’

Her heart thundered like a freight train through her chest and she crossed her arms over her breasts before it burst through her skin. ‘You’ll do.’

The ghost of a smile softened his sinful mouth—only to veer into a scowl as he searched her face. ‘What’s wrong? Has something happened?’

Yeah, I feel wretched.

This was a stupid, stupid idea, she thought for the millionth time. Fair enough doing practice laps and talking designs, but to come to his trailer? She was making their awkward truce personal and she knew it.

‘Can I come in?’

His eyes said, Do you have to? His mouth said, ‘Sure.’

Unconvinced, she battled with the urge to turn around and flee. But he’d offered, hadn’t he? To be a friend if she needed one? And maybe, just maybe, he needed one too.

She was worried about him. Her conscience pleaded with her to help him before he well and truly did some harm. She just didn’t know how. While she knew tons of men, she hadn’t felt ready to spontaneously combust with any of them as she did with Finn. So just ignore it, like you have for the last four years!

Sucking in a courageous breath, Serena followed him into the spanking new motor home—all sharp lines of glass and steel alongside huge cushy leather sofas.

‘Nice place. Biggest and best on the lot. If I hadn’t heard the endless man-muck around the pits—’ she was not about to admit he was dubbed the world’s greatest lover ‘—I would think your penchant for size compensated for some kind of deficiency.’

He flashed his sexy suggestive smile and her knees turned to hot rubber. ‘Nothing lacking in that department, I promise you.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ she muttered. Meaning it. Only to curse blue when her traitorous mind provided her with an image of the first time she’d ever seen him in the flesh, bar-boxer-shorts-naked, strolling into his bathroom. Where Serena had been… Oh, God.

A tingling flush crept up her neck until she felt impossibly hot. And the idea that she looked like some gauche ninny made her vibrate with pique.

‘Uh-oh. I sense trouble.’ Finn leaned against the slash of the kitchen bench, gripped the ledge on either side of his hips and crossed one ankle over the other. ‘Okay, baby, spill it.’

Baby. Baby. She had to stop dissolving in a long, slow melt when he called her that!

‘I’m…’ Shifting on her feet, she eyed the door. South America was wonderful at this time of year. Maybe—

‘Enraged? Incensed? Hopping mad? Splenetic? Thoroughly bent out of shape?’

‘You swallowed a thesaurus, or something?’

‘Nah, it’s that school I went to. You know—the one that specialises in breeding the most arrogant and annoying people ever?’ he said, flinging her words back at her.

‘As you can see, I’m rolling around the floor laughing.’

He grinned.

She sighed. Glanced at the door again. Wondered why she felt hideously exposed. Sharing woes and asking for help wasn’t weak or too feminine, was it? She didn’t enjoy giving men the impression she was weak—it was like hand-delivering an invitation to be messed with.

Oh, to hell with it. ‘My dad just decided not to launch the prototype at Silverstone.’

‘Why not?’

A tinge of anger fired in his eyes. One that made her feel infinitely better. Even though her bad funk was technically his fault.

Because Finn here had officially earned the title ‘too wild and problematic’ to handle her multimillion-pound prototype. And she was angry. Noooo. She was upset. There—she’d admitted it, and miraculously the sky hadn’t caved in.

‘Doesn’t matter the reason. His decision is final.’

Next year wasn’t so far away. It felt like forever. It wasn’t as if it would never happen. There was really no need for her to be so…devastated. ‘Point is, he has a brunette over there, and I refuse to play nice when I feel—’

‘Like someone peed in your biker boots?’

‘Exactly.’

One side of his mouth kicked up ruefully before his focus drifted to the window, far into the distance, as if he’d virtually left the room.

Angst crawled through her stomach and Serena gnawed her top lip.

Yes, she was crushed, but she could easily have gone to a hotel. It was a convenient excuse and she knew it. Somehow she had to slide him back on track.

Letting go of a long, soft sigh, she sprinkled some candour on her remorse.

If she’d been courageous enough to look into her heart, to face her own fears, she would have accepted that culpability lay with fate. Otherwise she couldn’t possibly have kissed Finn with everything she was. And, if she wanted to be brutally, painfully honest, blaming him had been a grand excuse to hate him even more. Since the moment she’d laid eyes on him he’d stirred a hornets’ nest of inadequacies to sting her pride and spawn desires that defied logic. Reason.

Inadequacies she’d been slammed up against from when she was nine years old—ribbed for being ‘too girly’ to play—and had stolen a pair of blunt scissors to hack off her hair.

Desires she’d always had to force, coerce, to do her bidding. Determined her past would not define her.

Disaster.

Until Finn. Who had never failed to spark every female cell in her body to ignite. The sexual pull of his velvet gaze roving over her when he thought she wasn’t looking jacked her pulse. Made her dream about the firm, sinful stroke of his hands moving over her skin and the hot drive of his tongue between her lips. Then came the heat, spearing through her veins like arrows of fire.

She didn’t want her heart to thump when he was near or for weakness to spread through her limbs. He was still a Casanova. A prolific player.

He took a long, sensual pull of water from a tall glass bottle and she watched his smooth jaw work, his sexy throat convulse, and knew this was a stupid, stupid idea. Tough.

‘So, can I stay here?’

‘No!’ he choked. A distressed noise followed by a splutter. A cough. A hard swallow and watering eyes. ‘I don’t do sleepovers.’

Her mouth going slack, she wasn’t sure which to process first. The fact that he didn’t do sleepovers with his women or the fact he thought she wanted to ‘sleep’ with him!

‘I didn’t ask you if you did. I asked you if I could hang out here while you go out and do your Lothario thing.’ Okay, she was digging for info, but right now she didn’t care. ‘You know—borrow your place. Like friends do.’

Wincing inwardly, she hung on his reaction as she played the friend card, unsure if the tight knot in her stomach wanted him to pick it up or discard it.

‘I was planning on staying in most of the night.’

‘Oh.’

Come to think of it, of late there’d been no kiss-and-tell stories. No rumours of orgies or nightclub antics. Half of her gloried in the idea that he was abstaining from his playboy shenanigans and the other half hated the suspicion that he was becoming reclusive, withdrawing from the world even more.