Chapter 4 #2
“Yeah, right. You were too busy staring at her to even notice me,” Inigo said.
That was another thing about Marielle: she drew attention the way an engine needed fuel.
She seemed to enjoy it too. She dressed to impress.
He understood from Scarlet and Bianca that clothing, hair and makeup were all tools in the viral social world.
He got that. But there was a part of him that couldn’t help feeling that she wanted that online life and didn’t care what happened off the web.
“True. She’s hot,” Dante said.
“She is,” he said, as the car drew to a stop. They got out and went into Malcolm’s hotel. Inigo tucked his idea of revenge away while he waited for Malcolm to answer the door of his suite. But he liked it.
It would give him a chance to get some closure for Bianca and for himself.
Because until that moment that they’d seen Bianca and he’d realized who Marielle was, he’d felt.
..well, that didn’t matter. He wasn’t a man who got emotionally involved, as Dante had just pointed out.
Soon it would be time for him to focus on the upcoming season, and revenge might help him to get Marielle out of his system for good and keep a clear focus going forward.
Malcolm opened the door and invited them in, but there was worry on his face. Inigo wondered if Malcolm was going to be able to do what they were asking of him. He was just getting over his gambling addiction, and asking him to return to that world was a big favor.
Malcolm wanted to impress his fiancée and prove that the past was truly behind him. Facing his demons head-on was one way to prove it. But when Inigo and his friend from Moretti Motors arrived at the hotel suite, he had doubts.
Helena had gone out to have coffee with a college friend, so he’d been waiting for the men alone.
Like all addictions, his sort of flourished when he was by himself.
He knew that he could reach out to Mauricio, Inigo’s older brother and his best friend, for help, but at the same time he wanted to prove to himself and to his friends and family that he had this. He wasn’t going to keep failing.
“Hey, Inigo, great to see you.”
“Great to see you too,” Inigo said. “This is Dante Peterson, one of the engineers who works on my team. He’s going to be monitoring the input to see if there is any tampering.”
Malcolm shook hands with both men and led them to the sitting area of the suite, which overlooked Central Park.
The room that Moretti Motors had provided for him was impressive and spoke to the money the company had invested in their Formula One racing program, which didn’t surprise him.
When men were wagering the kind of money that had been talked about, the stakes had to be high.
“So...what is it that they want me to do?” Malcolm asked after he’d offered both men a drink and they’d declined.
“Place some bets. My teammate and I are going to be using the new state-of-the-art indoor racing simulator in secret today. They want to establish a base time before the public practice to confirm their suspicions about sabotage,” Inigo said.
“If anyone decides to look into your finances, we are going to funnel the money into an account through Hadley to Helena and then you can use it.”
“That’s fine. I have my own resources, if that would be better,” Malcolm said.
“Let me talk to the Moretti Racing team and I’ll let you know,” Inigo said.
“Fair enough. Should we be meeting and talking like this?” Malcolm asked.
He had wondered about the same thing, but because they were related by marriage, no one thought that it would arise suspicion.
“For now, I think it’s okay. When you go to place the bet tomorrow, you should say that we are related by marriage and that I was bragging about being really fast this year.
Like you sort of have the inside track,” Inigo said.
“Are you a braggart?” Malcolm asked.
“He does think the world revolves around him,” Dante said.
“Ha. Not really. I mean, I am a good driver, and I’m not going to pretend that winning isn’t my focus. And we have put together a plan that is bound to deliver.”
“That’s all I need. Should we have dinner in public so that the saboteur can see us socializing?” Malcolm asked. He wanted Helena by his side through this process as much as she could be. She was the one who was keeping him strong, and he didn’t want to let her down.
“I’ll let you know later,” Inigo said. “I’ll text you.”
The two men left a few minutes later, and Malcolm walked around the empty suite.
This was why he’d started gambling in the first place, to give Helena the luxe life.
He made good money as a Realtor in Cole’s Hill, but he wanted her to have this kind of life.
And he hadn’t wanted to have to wait until they’d been married five or ten years.
He wanted to give it to her from the beginning.
Instead he’d lost their savings and almost lost her.
He walked to the windows to stare out at the skyline, but all he really saw was himself sleeping in his car and avoiding the love of his life because he had fallen so far down.
He hadn’t been able to find a way out of it until she’d stepped in and demanded to know what was going on.
He’d told her reluctantly. It had been difficult to lie to Helena. He’d been in love with her since the moment he’d seen her that first day of high school. Sure, he’d known her before that, but when she’d walked into AP US history, he’d really seen her for the first time.
Everyone had said that high school crushes don’t last, but there had always been a bond between the two of them.
They’d dated and gotten engaged believing the future that they wanted would be easy to achieve.
But Helena’s family was seriously wealthy—a ranching family that had been in Cole’s Hill for a long time.
And Malcolm had always known that he was going to have to work extra hard to give her the life—
“I’m back,” Helena said, walking into the suite and interrupting his thoughts.
He turned and smiled at her. She wore one of those knitted hats with a faux fur pom-pom on top. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. She was so beautiful his breath caught in his chest.
She was his. The doubts that had plagued him weren’t quieted, but they sort of subsided for a moment. He couldn’t lose her. He’d do whatever he had to in order to be the man she needed him to be.
Not an addict who gambled away all of their money, but a man she could be proud to call her own.
“Babe?”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?” she asked, putting her purse on a chair and coming over to him, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his chest.
“Yeah. I am now,” he said, holding her. He felt the cold that lingered on her jacket and on the tip of her nose when he bent down to kiss her.
Holding her centered him. His addiction sponsor had warned him about turning to another person or thing to replace gambling, but in his heart, he knew that holding Helena and relying on her made him stronger.
And he didn’t regret that.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom to make love to her. That always centered him and made him remember why he was staying strong.