Chapter 12
Rosie
Ilean my head on my steering wheel and let out a moan as I turn the key again. My engine whirs, then dies.
Of all the places for my car to remind me it’s a bucket of crap I can’t afford to fix, it chooses the car park of a Formula One racing team. I glance at my phone. One missed call and one message from a number I don’t recognise.
I can’t work here, not that I have the option anymore. Niki won’t work with me.
I bang my head against the steering wheel.
I can’t work anywhere but the carpet company.
Every other sports team I tried to get a job with wouldn’t give me more than a poorly paid intern role.
I’d also have to work weekends and evenings, the times I spend with Tabi.
She’ll start school in six months, and I refuse to lose any more time with her than I have to.
A knock at my car window makes me wince. It’s probably a security guard here to tell me to get off the property before they remove me. I open one eye.
Niki Coulter’s dark blue eyes stare back at me. I hunch my shoulders, but there’s nowhere to hide.
He makes a circular motion with his finger, asking me to wind the window down, but I shake my head. “If I wind it down, I can’t get it back up.”
He yanks the door open, so I end up shouting the last few words in his face.
“Let me look at it. I used to tinker with cars for fun,” he replies as if he hasn’t nearly been caught in my spittle shower. “We could include a car in your contract.”
My laugh sours. “The contract I ripped up?”
At his smile, I try not to remember our kiss, but it’s as if I can feel his soft lips flush against mine.
“It’s being rewritten. Can we talk? I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.” He makes the same face as Tabi when I’m halfway through a packet of crisps and she wants the rest. Big, earnest eyes and a soft smile. “Just a chat.”
I yank at the hem of my itchy skirt, a move he catches before quickly averting his eyes.
“Lift the bonnet. I promise to find a way to get you out of here, whether you talk to me or not. I’ll make your car better than ever.”
He’s practically begging. If my car is fixed, I could take Tabi to the farm park this weekend without worrying we’ll break down.
I drop my shoulders and nod.
“Yes,” he whispers as I pull the release lever of my bonnet. I raise my eyebrows, and he blushes, which makes me smile despite everything.
“The bonnet catch is a bit shit…” The words die on my lips as he opens it instantly, propping it up on its rod.
I suck at the water bottle in my car. I don’t know how long it’s been there—the water is turning green—but I need to do something with my hands.
“Don’t you need gloves?” I ask after a couple of minutes.
He waggles his plastic glove–covered hands at me, big fucking hands that I remember splayed across my back before sliding into my knickers as we bobbed in the sea. “I had them in my pocket to stop the dirt. I’m only looking quickly for anything obvious.”
“Okay,” I mumble. My heart races as I leave the car to stand beside him.
He smells of a combination between hand sanitiser and woody aftershave. Instantly I’m transported back to Greece and the kiss that’s filled every fantasy since. I swallow desperately, trying to get saliva into my dry mouth.
Heat radiates off him, and I count my breaths in and out to stop from staring at him.
Since Tabi, I’ve developed Mum Vision—being able to see what’s going on without showing it. As he fiddles with a couple of cables, unscrewing caps I didn’t even know came off, his tongue peeks out his mouth and rests in the corner of his lips.
I clear my throat as I fiddle with the cuffs of my blouse, stepping away from him.
I can’t work with this man. I can’t even stand next to him without facing a rush of memories.
I gave Niki my knickers six months ago. I step away and lean against my car door.
Even at this distance, I can smell him, although that says less about how much aftershave he’s used and more about my ability to seek out his scent.
I should go. There’s nothing he can say that will convince me to work for him. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a liar. He doesn’t know the real me or what my days consist of.
I pull my shoulders back and ready myself to tell him that I’ll find a way to get home and that I can’t stay any longer when he shouts, “Yep, I can see the problem.”
He looks around the corner of the bonnet at me. Flutters hit my chest. “What is it?” I stutter.
“Your car is a piece of crap, Bella,” he replies with a wink.
“But lucky for you, some of the best mechanics in the world work here, and although their skills are with race cars, most of them grew up pissing about with their parent’s old bangers.
I’ll call my mate Jacs to take a look. She’s our chief mechanic. ”
“You really don’t have to.”
“It’s the least I can do for the woman who got me to return home. We can either wait here”— as if on cue, a raindrop hits my eyelashes—“in the car together, or we can head to the coffee shop and chat.”
The close proximity of my car where all I can do is breathe him in or a coffee shop where I can sit at a distance?
“Coffee shop,” I blurt. “And you can tell me about the job.”
Because prolonged silence where I’ll end up reminiscing about his mouth against mine will be a hundred times worse.
“I need you,” Niki says as soon as I’m seated in Coulter Racing’s coffee lounge.
I swear my belly warms. I’m used to my parents, Tabi, and Sasha needing me, but when he says it, I’m reminded of the man with the softest lips who makes me feel like I can offer him something no one else can.
I’m not just another person who can file paperwork or tie braids.
I’m talented, powerful, and valuable as me.
I bite the inside of my mouth. I shouldn’t think this when I’m preparing to decline his job offer.
“Let me rephrase, because that sounded creepy as fuck,” he says.
When Niki smiles, it’s like the sun hitting oil and forming rainbows.
I can’t help but smile back. “Yep, you thought it, too. Clearly, I need you as my assistant because you understand where my head is. I’ll reach my point eventually. ”
I nod my encouragement. I’ve got hours until Tabi comes home from preschool. Everything from his intermittent eye contact to his wringing hands suggests he needs to speak.
“But before I do, can I ask what was true when we met? Your name is Rosabella, hence Bella, and you were a rugby player and not a coach—”
I hold up my palm to stop his rambling. “Niki—that’s your name, right?”
He nods. “Not Liam.”
“That night, I intended to have a quiet drink on the last night of my holiday. I wasn’t expecting to be hit on by fuckwits or be called someone’s wife.”
He chuckles. I resist the temptation to touch the chain around my neck. I need to return it.
“I also wasn’t expecting to chat to someone struggling with their future or dive into the ocean with him.”
“While we only wore underwear,” he replies.
My cheeks heat. Does he still have my knickers?
“Yeah, we don’t need to remember that part.” Even if I’ve imagined his beautifully muscled chest while playing with myself many times since. “That night, I pretended to be the person I wanted to be if life hadn’t got in the way. I don’t share much of my personal life with strangers.”
“For safety?”
I nod. “Mostly. I don’t share much about myself at work either, not that I’m accepting the job.”
“But—”
“You don’t want me as your assistant. You made it clear in Senna’s office. We’ve started in too difficult a situation. Besides, I don’t know anything about cars.”
“But you know about professional sports. You understand psychology and people. And you understand me.” The way he whispers me pulls on my heart, as if I can be the person to help him fight his demons.
“Before I give you my pitch, I want to be clear that you can take another role here so you don’t have to work under me. ”
I barely ignore the under me part. I’m the only one remembering that kiss. The whisper of his lips against mine as his arms encircled me, his hands slipping under—
“And you could travel and get involved in all parts of the business. You might find it too awkward to work with me. You wouldn’t even have to see me.”
But I want to see him. I want to help him. He can’t focus on me without wringing his hands. His anxiety comes off in waves. My stomach is in knots with the desperation to help him and be the person he needs.
“One more question. Well, two,” he stammers, and I nod. “When we met, you didn’t tell me your age but said you were older than you looked. I saw your résumé. You graduated last summer, which means—”
“I’m just twenty-three. I’m sorry about lying. I was role-playing a confident, savvy coach that night.”
“Fuck. I kissed someone who’s nearly nine years younger than me.”
So he does remember the kiss.
“Sorry.” I hold my hand out, but he doesn’t take it. I pull it back, remembering where I am. “I’ve no clue how you got a kiss out of me when you were wearing those ugly sliders.”
“Hey.” He chuckles, and his shoulders relax a little. “I bought them at the airport when I landed.”
“When you walked on the beach, it imprinted the words ‘Mad Sex’ on the sand because the words were embossed on their soles.”
His laugh is loud, and he slams his fist on the table. People glance over, and he curves into himself. I don’t want him to react that way to people looking at him. I need to help him.
He leans in, and I do the same as he says, “It actually said ‘Sex Mad’.”
I cover my mouth. “I’m such a doofus.”
He smiles back. “Last question, I promise. You definitely didn’t take this job just to get in my pants? I’m only asking that because a lot of the people I interviewed wanted to, and…I sound like such a knob. You ran as soon as you saw me. Of course you didn’t apply for that reason.”