Chapter Three
STARTLED BY HIS raw admission—gratified—Lily almost slipped on the tarmac.
‘Careful.’ His hand clamped just above her elbow and he steadied her with a too-firm grip.
She was so flustered she could melt marshmallows on her flaming cheeks.
Because she was hardly about to forget it, either.
She risked a glance up, confused by the leashed lethality of both his tone and touch and the underlying need that remained in each.
The dull light hit his stubbled face. Lily blinked but it took her too long to process the piercing blue of his eyes.
The familiarity of those piercing cornflower-blue eyes.
She froze. Right in the middle of the tarmac.
No. Her jaw dropped but no sound emerged. It wasn’t possible. It was absolutely not possible that the man who’d travelled with her was—
A doppelganger. A lookalike. Anyone but him.
‘Keep moving,’ he clipped roughly, dropping her arm to reposition his cap while she gaped in appalled astonishment.
His hair was uncharacteristically mussed because she’d twisted her fingers in it while he’d kissed up the inside of her thigh. And again while he’d screwed her into a brainless, blissful mess. This was such a mess.
‘Come on. Do you want someone to see us?’ His authoritative order shocked complete realisation into her.
He clearly didn’t want to be seen and definitely not with her.
Because he wasn’t some on-board courier who dealt with paperwork.
He was Massimo Hearnshawe, the squillionaire CEO of Hearnshawe Auto Group.
He was the man in charge of not just the elite motor racing team, but the enormous luxury car manufacturing company plus all the other add-on businesses within the massive conglomerate.
There were layers and layers of management between them, but at the end of the day, this man was ultimately her boss.
He owned everything. He had more money in his personal bank account than several small countries combined.
As a result, he was the most eligible bachelor connected to P1 Global—in pretty much the world, actually.
And that was before factoring in his stunning looks.
He had more than that blessed body; he had the face of a freaking angelic aftershave model.
She’d felt the angularity and symmetry of that chiselled jaw.
Now she saw it in the early-morning light and yeah, cue the heavenly choirs.
But she also knew while Massimo Hearnshawe looked hot, he was actually ice-cold.
Ruthlessly ambitious, legend had it he’d changed the locks on his own grandfather.
The poor old guy had been out at his birthday lunch and come back to find he couldn’t get into the company headquarters he’d presided over for forty-three years.
Massimo had taken over everything. But since he’d been in charge, the company had thrived and the racing arm had become competitive again for the first time in decades.
She knew the man was famously private, allowing the public only the smallest glimpse into his rarefied world.
He was barely seen in the garage on race weekends, preferring to watch from the privacy of his corporate suite—safely beyond the reach of the great unwashed and overly sycophantic.
He was racing royalty—and driver Emiliano Costa’s cousin.
No wonder he’d been able to go along with all that stupid motoring innuendo.
And this was absolutely the worst thing that could possibly have happened.
‘Seriously, Lily. Let’s go.’
That order shocked her into stillness all over again. ‘How do you know my name?’
Because she’d never told him who she was, not in the entire time they were on that plane. He’d certainly never mentioned his, either.
He actually winced. ‘We’ll talk inside.’
‘No.’ She stayed still on the tarmac. ‘You owe me an immediate explanation.’
‘I’ll give you that. Inside,’ he repeated tightly.
She locked her muscles, refusing to fall in line, but as she glared at him, the pilots passed behind them with a deliberately wide swerve.
She glanced to the side and saw the ground crew watching—waiting—to unload the plane.
She turned and moved forward, furious at having to concede.
She would get her answers the second they were alone.
But the brief wait for customs processing gave her enough breathing space to realise she didn’t actually want a conversation. There was nothing that could be said to fix this. It was simply catastrophic.
He’d not told her who he was. But she’d not told him things, too.
Massimo might basically be aristocracy, but Lily came from a wannabe criminal dynasty.
Where he was notoriously private, her family was small-time notorious.
No one at P1 Global knew because Jones was a blessedly common name.
She hid in plain sight—kept her head down and let her work speak for her—not only because she was one of the few females on the garage floor, but also because she didn’t want anyone to become too curious about her or her background.
She’d been so focused for so long and she’d worked too hard to allow anything to threaten her work ethic or her reputation, because her career was literally all she had left.
But what had just happened on that plane threatened her actual job.
She had to fight for it. Somehow, she needed to shut this down and somehow, she needed to swerve past the intense disappointment that while it would be impossible to forget, it could never happen again.
She was completely unsuitable for him to be connected to.
But Massimo Hearnshawe still had her duffel bag and he didn’t relinquish it.
The customs officer smiled at them as if they were a couple. ‘Nothing to declare?’
Speechless, she shook her head.
Massimo had barely answered before the customs officer waved them through and she strode towards the exit.
He could keep her bloody bag. She probably wasn’t going to need her team uniform anymore anyway—he wouldn’t want her to work for his team now.
Questions flooded her mind. Why was he even on that plane?
How did he know who she was? What had he really wanted? Would he offer to pay her off now?
Her father would advise her to extract every penny she could, but he was callous enough to get whatever he could from whomever he could and didn’t give a damn about the damage he left behind.
He certainly didn’t give a damn about Lily.
She’d been cut off when she’d not complied with his family orders.
Maybe that was the only answer to this situation as well—complete distance.
‘I’ll give you a lift.’
Lily’s rage mounted as Massimo had the temerity to put her bag into the car waiting for him before she’d even agreed. Because he was that accustomed to getting everything he wanted. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Get in the car.’
‘Absolutely not, and you cannot force me to.’ She bitterly smiled at the prospect of him trying to manhandle her into it. ‘Do you know I actually thought you were ex-Special Forces?’
‘You thought what?’ A quizzical expression lit his face.
‘I thought you were some kind of high-security courier.’
‘Why on earth would you think that?’
‘Because you’re built like one.’ She waved a hand at his towering physique. ‘Tough and lean and you didn’t have baggage. I thought there was important paperwork in the fancy leather satchel.’
Plus, he’d admitted paperwork took a lot of his time.
But now, in the cold light of day, now she could see him properly, she realised how fully far-fetched her assumption had been.
She glanced down and clocked his shoes. He wasn’t wearing worn trainers like her, but leather loafers.
Soft-looking, probably hand stitched, definitely expensive.
Then she noticed the watch on his wrist. She didn’t really know high-end watches, but the drivers wore them as part of their sponsorship deals, and this looked like one of those—expensive.
She was the biggest idiot on the planet. ‘I thought you were someone who knew something of sacrifice. Of service. Of putting someone else first.’
‘Didn’t I do exactly that?’ he murmured softly.
She hadn’t meant sex. And while he’d seemed generous then, he was selfish as hell underneath.
‘Sorry that I’m not the hero you wanted.’ Bitterness darkened his eyes.
She didn’t want or need a hero.
‘You were only supposed to be the cherry on top of my perfect weekend,’ she said stiffly. ‘Instead, you’ve poisoned everything.’
All future possibility of her brand-new career. Because she hadn’t hit the apex of a thrilling corner; she’d hit the apex predator himself. The most powerful guy in her world, who would kill her career with a blink.
He sighed. ‘It’s not that big of a deal—’
‘No?’ She flinched, stung by the dismissal even though she desperately wished she could agree. ‘Then why didn’t you tell me who you were before we…we…’
‘Enjoyed ourselves?’
She had to acknowledge that she’d hardly been seduced. She’d been in the driver’s seat with her foot flat hard on the accelerator. She’d barely spoken in those moments because she’d not wanted anything to stall those intense sensations. But what he’d held back had been serious.
She glared at him frigidly. ‘Why lie?’
‘I didn’t lie. I certainly never said I was ex-services or a courier.’
But he’d omitted vitally important information and that had been deliberate.
‘What exactly was your intention when for all that time you knew who I was?’ she asked. ‘When you knew all along that I worked for you?’