Chapter Five
Miami
IT WAS A beautiful spring day in Florida, hot and blue, and when the stewardess opened the jet’s door, a stream of hot air rushed into the air-conditioned plane. Taz unclipped his seat belt and stretched, wishing he’d slept for more than a few hours last night.
He shouldn’t have accepted an invitation to meet some friends at Lily’s last night.
But after reports started surfacing that he was hiding away because he couldn’t handle criticism and was sulking, social media influencers started echoing the nonsense.
Millie sent him a message telling him to get out and about and to look cheerful while doing it.
He’d thought about ignoring her directive—he wasn’t the kind of man who let anyone, least of all inconsequential voices online, dictate how he lived.
He did what he wanted when he wanted. Always had.
But then he remembered how hard Millie was working—some of her emails were time-stamped after midnight her time—to salvage his tarnished reputation.
He rubbed the back of his neck, slightly concerned, and feeling a little guilty that he might’ve handed her a poisoned chalice.
After Shanghai, he’d needed to retreat, to nurse his self-inflicted wounds, to mentally beat himself up in private.
He’d put everything he and his team had been working for in jeopardy and had torpedoed his personal, private goal of being a better racer than Alex, the only competition he could win against his dead, seemingly perfect brother.
But the longer he was alone, the louder whispers of past failures, the brutal echoes of his father’s harsh words and Alex’s casual dismissal of his talent became.
Sometimes solitude wasn’t peace, and sometimes the only way to evade the past was to drown it in bars and clubs, pumping with too-loud music and shouted conversations.
So he’d gone to Lily’s in London, and naturally he’d run into the press.
And Phoebe, who’d tried to renegotiate her way back into his bed. He’d sharply and succinctly shut her down. He’d told her when they first started sleeping together that he didn’t make long-term connections, but she thought she could change his mind and that she would, eventually, take his name.
Not happening. Besides, being a De Rossi wasn’t as marvellous as the world thought it was.
All his life, he’d been looked at through the Alex lens and been found lacking.
As a result, he’d gone out of his way to be as different from his brother as he could be.
And if you were always acting, then how could anyone get to know the real you?
Any personal connections were false because nobody knew him.
On the surface, he had everything anyone could want: the houses, the money, the cars, the clothes…
but no one to share them with. And that was how he liked it.
He’d been his mum’s kid, and after her death, neither his father nor his brother knew how to, or wanted to, handle a grieving child.
They’d pushed him away, and he’d spent the rest of his childhood and teens desperately trying to catch up, to reach the ever-increasing bar they set for him.
His only hope of beating his brother at anything was on the racetrack.
Once he won his fourth championship, the world would have to admit that he was a better driver than Alex.
In their eyes he’d never be as good a man.
He’d never taint the De Rossi brand by telling the world who Alex really was, but he’d revel in being known as the better driver.
But he’d put that in jeopardy by losing his temper in Shanghai.
He’d apologised and approved a short press statement publicly apologising to the rookie, the FIA and his fans.
Millie’s statement made him sound authentic without being obsequious.
She’d also talked him into a press conference in—he glanced at his watch—an hour.
The first since his crash and where he’d announce his community service plans and put forward the charities he’d be supporting.
He should be practising, talking, breathing cars. But he was now sitting on the sidelines.
Taz pulled his aviator sunglasses onto his face and jogged down the plane’s steps to the waiting SUV.
The driver opened the door, and he pulled back on seeing Millie sitting in the far corner, her face pale.
She wore a brightly coloured patterned sleeveless sundress that hugged her curves.
Her hair, as usual, was piled up on her head, and she’d smudged her eyeliner and mascara. She looked…beautiful.
And therein lay his other problem. For the last two weeks, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about their kiss, wishing that it had lasted longer, that he’d pushed for more.
Her mouth had been sweet, her hair soft.
Her perfume was light, and her fingers on his jaw and her hands on his body had felt so damn right.
He rubbed his hand over his jaw, thinking that recently Millie had come into proper focus for him.
Oh, he’d been attracted to her from the moment he met her—he was a sucker for the combination of blue eyes and reddish-gold hair—but because of that and because she worked for him, he’d thrown up more shields than he usually did.
With Millie, lust and work collided, and it was as frustrating as hell.
He wanted her, and that night, after one of the worst days in a long, long time, he’d lowered his control and given in to the temptation of kissing her.
It had been better than he’d imagined, and he had a damn good imagination.
He shook his head at his wayward thoughts as he climbed into the car. She worked for him and was off-limits.
‘Millie? I didn’t expect to see you here,’ he said, shutting the door. He wondered when last she’d had a decent night’s sleep. She looked…stressed. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Oh, I’m peachy,’ she muttered. She glared at him. ‘Could you not have stayed out of trouble for a couple of weeks, Taz?’
He was a grown man, someone who owned and operated a racing team and all its subsidiaries, a company worth billions.
Nobody told him what to do or how to act.
Especially someone whose salary he covered.
Despite that, he enjoyed her annoyance, liked the way it pushed colour into her cheeks and the light of battle in her eyes.
He knew she preferred negotiating to arguing, so he admired her attempt to venture out of her comfort zone.
‘Lie low, I said. It wasn’t that big an ask!’
Right, she’d run out of rope.
‘Check your tone, Millie,’ he suggested, keeping his voice low. He raised the privacy screen between them and the driver. ‘Would you like to tell me—calmly—why you are angry?’
‘You went to Lily’s last night.’ She pushed her iPad into his hands.
He didn’t bother to look down. ‘So?’
‘The bad press was finally beginning to die down, but your partying at Lily’s last night has the press once again questioning your sincerity.
There are over a dozen stories today, all insinuating that you aren’t sorry, that having a good time is more important to you than racing and that you’re not taking your career seriously. ’
Racing was the only thing that meant anything to him. Taz ran his hand through his hair, his back teeth grinding. He wanted to justify his actions, something he never did. ‘You told me to go out!’
‘I meant for you to go for coffee or visit a friend! I did not say that you should go to Gossip Central!’
He struggled to hold on to his temper, knowing he wouldn’t bother if this was anyone other than Millie. What was it about this woman that had him checking his words and reining in his temper? Why her? And why, for God’s sake, now?
‘I got to Lily’s shortly after eleven. I’d been working, and I couldn’t sleep. So I went out. I went into the VIP section where I had two whiskies and then left.’
‘Phoebe was there.’
Taz clenched his uninjured hand.
‘She’s quoted as saying that you’ve lost your interest in racing and that you have a temper. And she’s seen you lose it. She tossed gas on the already-fiery press reports.’
Taz gripped the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He could not catch a break. After last night’s hopefully final last rejection, he could see Phoebe lashing out. But insinuating he’d lost his temper with her? That was low.
Would this drama ever end? And why did he feel so unbalanced? Was it because he wanted Millie to believe he was better than he was portrayed? And why was he worried about what she thought?
She was nothing like his usual women; she was grounded and down to earth.
Impatient with nonsense. He liked her. More than he liked most people.
But this conversation proved that she, like everyone else, couldn’t see him clearly.
Perhaps her astute observation back in China that there was nothing between him and Meredith had been a fluke.
He felt irrationally disappointed.
‘Look, I know it’s nonsense, but the world doesn’t.’
Her words doused the fire under his temper, and a measure of calm returned.
‘I’ll admit I’m impatient when things don’t go my way or when my orders are not followed.
But I have never, ever lost my temper with a woman.
’ He never cared enough to expend that amount of energy.
He nodded at her iPad, resentful at having to explain.
‘I ended it, permanently, at the beginning of the season. She’s now stirring the pot, unhappy because I rejected her again last night. ’
‘She wants you back?’
He lifted one shoulder and shrugged. ‘Phoebe doesn’t take no for an answer.
Last night’s no was final and emphatic. She understood that, was angry and wanted her revenge.
’ Last night he couldn’t help comparing Phoebe to Millie, and the ex-model came up very short.
How? He didn’t know. He couldn’t define his attraction to Millie, but it didn’t make it less potent.
‘By calling tabloid journalists at midnight?’