Page 26 of Mistress for a Month

Amy was reaching for a red, blown-glass bud vase that she’d bought Aunt Tate in Venice when a loud knock boomed at the thick front door. Next, Remy’s compelling baritone echoed through the house. Her heart began to race. Without even bothering to wrap the bud vase, she flung it into a box. Then she ran barefoot through the dark house.

The front door stood slightly ajar—he’d arrogantly pushed it open. Not that he was anywhere to be seen.

“Hello?” When she peered out the door, a shrill burst from the cicadas greeted her.

Had she only imagined his voice? Hating that she looked such a mess, she ran her hands through her hair and smoothed her blouse as she tiptoed outside onto sunbaked stone.

“So, you refuse to sell—until you talk to me?”

She jumped.

“I would have thought you’d never want to see me again,” he said.

“I’m not too smart—especially where men are concerned,” she said dryly.

He laughed. He was leaning against the wall wearing aviator sunglasses with impenetrable reflective lenses. His tall, dark figure was drenched in brilliant, lemony light that caused his elongated shadow to slash across the warm flagstones.

With difficulty she squared her shoulders. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other as if he, too, felt on edge. Then he fell back into his slouch against the stone wall.

“If this isn’t a good time, I’ll go.”

His low, guarded tone caused her heart to race all over again. Obviously he was eager to run.

“No…it’s a great time.”

She squinted against the warm glare. He wore stone-washed jeans and a long-sleeved, white shirt rolled to his elbows. He looked good, too good. Taking a breath, she wet her dry lips with her tongue.

He whipped off his glasses with a defiant smile. “I should have told you who I was in London.”

His hard stranger’s voice made her chest knot. She swallowed, hoping that the fist in her chest would ease. Maybe she should confess that she’d known who he was almost from the first. Instead, she stared at him in sullen silence.

“I won’t blame you for hating me,” he said.

“But I don’t…” She shook her head. “Not that I think what you did was right.”

“You’re too generous,” he continued. “I’m not the most admirable person.”

Guilt gnawed at her.

“But I expect you know that by now. I did warn you that you’d regret—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t overestimate my virtue. And please stop with the apologies. I don’t know what I feel, okay? I read a few newspapers, a few unflattering stories about you.”

“I was charged and found guilty of murder by the media.”

“Your steering mechanism failed.”

“I killed my best friend. I have former friends and even family members who won’t speak to me. André’s father was my father’s mechanic. As a kid I loved hanging out with him in the garage. He taught me about cars, about girls, about everything because my own father never took the time.” His brilliant eyes pierced her. “And you and I…know why. Maurice Lafitte despises me now.”

“It was an accident,” she said softly, feeling a strange need to soothe him. “The track was wet.”

“I was stupid, reckless, arrogant. I pushed myself and the car to the max. Beyond the max. I was out of control on and off the track.”

“Who taught you to drive like that? André’s father?”

Remy moved toward her. “And for what? Surely not to kill his son!”

“To win.”

“Yes! I had to win! It was the most important thing in the world to me then, because I had to prove…” He stopped. “I had to prove to a man who wasn’t even my father, a man who was dead, that I mattered.”

As she had in the garden seventeen years ago, she felt the heaviness of his pain and fought the need to throw her arms around him. “It was your career. You were paid to win races.”

“Tell that to André and his father!”

He came so close that she caught her breath. When he raised his hand, she thought he might touch her.

But he lowered it, instead, and swallowed tightly. “I’m sorry. I have no right to want anything from you. If you’re smart, you’ll forget you ever met me. I have nothing to offer you. Not even friendship. I regret how I treated you.”

“So you want to be as harsh and condemning of yourself as the newspapers?”

“My old life is over now,” he said bitterly. “Fame. Easy fortune. Women. Funny, some part of me thought those glory days would last forever. They never do, though. Now I have to find a new path. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past year.”