Chapter Twelve
MASSIMO SET UP his workstation. Angrily. Dictated messages. Scanned documents. Studied the spreadsheets. Angrily. Only he was happy to be alone, back into normal routine. He would not remember her quietly turning her back and boarding his jet. Alone.
Her stoicism infuriated him. She’d taken nothing else into consideration.
She’d been so extreme—allowing one detail to destroy everything.
They could have worked out. They could have found an arrangement that would be perfectly acceptable.
Instead, she’d overreacted about his real reason for boarding that cargo plane.
It had been a spontaneous impulse to ensure she wasn’t a threat to his cousin, and that had been more about Emiliano than her, and within two seconds of boarding she’d been a total threat to him.
He abandoned work and made arrangements for her instead—seeing he couldn’t shake her from his mind he might as well get all the ideas into action.
He sent a deluge of tasks to his assistant in England.
Then he glanced out the window, but Berlin couldn’t hold his attention.
He rolled his shoulders and turned back to his screens.
He damned well just needed to get on with it. Work was always the answer.
Lily had reckoned he kept ridiculously busy.
But the periwinkle debate was the frivolous tip of an endless, urgent to-do list. He’d always been determined to eliminate distraction because when moving at speed distraction was dangerous, but now he wondered if work itself was the distraction.
The perfect tool to avoid everything else.
Because to his horror nothing on his list now seemed to matter all that much.
And now that he had nothing to fill his head anymore, he was left alone with…
Fucking feelings.
He paced away from the screens, circling the room. He’d had a completely tolerable life until she’d shown up and thrown her damned spanner in his works. She’d made him spin like an out-of-control car hitting one barrier after another.
He did everything fast, all the time to avoid stopping.
Because when he stopped, the feelings caught up to him and the feelings weren’t stopping now.
Everything uncomfortable and emotional slammed into him.
He tried to breathe through the spate of memory fragments and facts he’d not allowed himself to consider in forever.
Feelings he never, ever wanted to dwell on.
Loss. Loneliness. Desolation. Guilt. All so damned inconsolable.
Lily had looked unconsolable three days ago when she’d implied that any suffering she might feel was because of him.
But if she really felt anything serious for him, how could she end everything so easily?
Because she’d been looking for a reason to and he’d been looking for a reason to let her.
He’d taken the push and turned it into a shove.
He’d let her flee, not fought to stop her, because when she’d directly asked what he wanted, he’d frozen.
His inability to answer had been answer in itself.
He’d stepped back the second he could and she wouldn’t ask again because she’d been hurt before.
Lily was the only woman who’d not just kept up with him, but moved even faster than he did.
She’d beaten him in several ways. She’d certainly beaten him to understanding his own damned deficiencies.
She’d questioned what he really wanted—just for himself.
He couldn’t answer because he couldn’t ever consider that he could have what he really wanted. Now he made himself face why.
He wasn’t worthy of having what he wanted. How could he take happiness when he’d wrecked so much in the past?
He was unforgivable. He couldn’t ever get his parents’ forgiveness. Nor could he forgive himself for what had happened that day. He couldn’t ever make it right. Intolerable shame burned through him. But now it was worse because he’d let Lily down, too. Lily, who was carrying his baby.
He’d lost so much and been left with so little, because he’d not let anyone else in. Nor had she. They’d both worked to prove themselves. But where he deserved his lonely hell, she didn’t. She should have what she wanted. The problem was she wanted him.
He gnawed the inside of his cheek, hating the dilemma. If he was what she wanted, then maybe he needed to make himself worthy of her. Only he didn’t know how. Because she was everything he wanted and he wanted her so much it terrified him.
Suddenly, he was so sick of himself. Hell, he was actually so needy. So much for being strong; he was problematic as hell. He needed fixing. That was more important than anything else on his damned list.
He’d been navigating everything alone for a long time. She was right; he’d done a great job in the professional aspect of his life, but he’d avoided the personal entirely.
He could bury himself in work all over again—like he’d done for more than a decade—or he could sit with the horrible ache of regret—feeling isolated and deprived—and try to forgive himself.
He lasted about five minutes before he realised that sitting and doing nothing wasn’t going to work, either. He needed to take action. He just had to work out what. But maybe he didn’t have to do this alone at all.
He flew to Budapest for the next P1 race.
He made himself go into the garage, barely withstood the death stare Shane shot him nor the pointed coolness from all the other mechanics.
Great. As it was, he was trying not to feel her absence as a physical pain.
She should have been able to keep working for a while yet but he’d wrecked that for her.
He went in search of his cousin. He’d not wanted Emiliano to face the Hearnshawe pressure alone so he’d put a team in place around him, yet he’d kept a personal distance and he shouldn’t have.
He found Emiliano studying the track on a computer simulation in his suite. He glanced up, surprised when Massimo slumped into the seat next to him. ‘You okay?’
Massimo’s facade of complete capability crumbled. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘Does anyone?’ Emiliano fully turned, then switched the screen off. ‘What’s wrong?’
Massimo swallowed but the tightness in his throat didn’t ease. ‘Lily’s gone.’
‘Yeah, Shane isn’t happy.’
‘She’s pregnant.’
‘Oh.’ Emiliano’s eyes widened. ‘Congratulations.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’ He didn’t want to admit that he’d let her go. That he’d let her down.
Emiliano fiddled with a tag on his racing suit. ‘Is it all that complicated?’
Yeah, it sure as hell was. ‘She thinks I only want to marry her because of the baby.’
Emiliano’s eyebrows shot up. ‘And is that true? Because if it’s not, then you need to tell her whatever the actual truth is.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘Because you’re afraid you won’t get the reaction you want?’ Emiliano pulled a face. ‘Talk to her so you don’t have to live with the eternal regret of not trying.’
Eternal regret? Massimo shook his head. Yeah, he had enough regret already. The terrible mistakes he’d made would always haunt him. He couldn’t make more. Which meant doing more—doing better. Because Lily was worthy, he had to try—and keep trying.
‘When did you get so smart?’ he grumbled. ‘You’ve only just turned nineteen.’
Emiliano puffed his chest playfully. ‘My psychologist is a genius.’
‘Yeah? I’m glad.’
‘Seriously, I have a really good team around me, thanks to you.’ Emiliano reached out and patted his shoulder. ‘I know you got this, bro.’
Bro? Massimo chuckled, but at the same time was suddenly overcome. He’d arranged Emiliano’s team but thought he was on the periphery of it. He should be closer to his cousin. He wanted his own personal team, too—with Lily as his co-pilot.
He rubbed his chest. He was so tired of being without her. ‘Would you mind very much if I miss this race? I think I need to go home.’
‘I don’t mind as long as you bring Lily to the next. I’d like her tyre expertise.’
Massimo almost smiled. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Emiliano was right; honesty was at the heart of it.
Lily wouldn’t live a lie. She had integrity far beyond most people.
She’d withstood enormous pressure from those closest to her—her family—and resisted.
She was true to herself and she needed honesty from others if she were to let them close.
No wonder she’d been furious with him for not being honest about who he was on the plane.
But he’d done worse to her by not being honest about how he felt.
He didn’t want to marry her because of the baby.
Not for reputation or security or any other reason other than the plain fact that he wanted her in the very centre of his life.
Whether she could forgive him, whether she still wanted him, didn’t matter.
The very least she deserved was the truth.