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But exactly which part of Finn taking Tom to Singapore on a bender and Finn coming back first-class on his twenty-million-pound jet whilst her brother returned in a box wasn’t his fault? Which part of Finn taking him out on a boat when Tom couldn’t swim and subsequently drowned wasn’t his fault? He hadn’t even had the decency to attend the funeral!
But she didn’t bother to rehash old arguments that only led her down the rocky road to nowhere.
‘So you want me to...what? Forgive him? Not a chance in hell. Make him feel better? I don’t. So why should he?’
‘Because this team is going down. Do you really want that?’
She let loose a sigh. ‘You know I don’t.’ Team Scott Lansing was her family. Her entire life. A colourful, vibrant rabble of friends and adoptive uncles and she’d missed them all. But the entire scene just brought back too many memories she was ill-equipped to handle right now.
‘So think of the bigger picture. Read my lips when I say, for the final time, it wasn’t Finn’s fault. It was an accident. Let it go. You are doing no one any favours quibbling about it—least of all me.’
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if to stem one of his killer migraines and guilt fisted her heart.
He was suffering. They were all suffering. In silence. Let it go...
But why was it every time they spoke of that tragic day, when the phone had shrilled ominously through their trailer, she was slapped with the perfidious feeling she was being kept in the dark? And she loathed the dark.
It didn’t matter how many times she asked her father to elucidate he was forever cutting her off.
‘Tom wouldn’t want to see you like this,’ he said, irritation inching his volume a decibel higher. ‘Blaming Finn. Doing your moonlit flit routine. Holing up in London. Burying your head in work. You’ve done all you can at base—now it’s time to get back in the field. Quit running and stop hiding.’
‘I haven’t been hiding!’
He snorted in disbelief.
Okay, maybe she’d been hiding. Licking her wounds was best attempted in peace, as far as she was concerned. But honestly...? How far was solitude getting her on the heart-healing scale?
Serena’s heavy lids shuttered. God, she was tired.
She’d lost her brother, her best friend, and she kept forgetting she was supposed to carry on regardless. This was tough love and she’d been reared on it. Admittedly the vast majority of the time she’d appreciated Michael Scott’s particular method of parentage. You needed skin as thick as cowhide to trail the world for ten months of the year in the company of men. Not the best way to raise two children, but she’d genuinely loved her life. Honest.
If she’d often stared at other children with their mothers, wondering what it would be like to have one of her own, to live in a normal house and walk to an actual brick-built, other-children-present school every morning, she’d just reminded herself that her life was exciting. And if she’d prayed for a mum all those years ago when her adolescence had been shattered, leaving her broken and torn, she’d comforted herself that she had Tom. Tom had been her rock.
But now he was gone. Nothing was exciting any more and there was no one to hold her hand in the dead of night when the shadows loomed. You don’t need your hand held. You’re stronger than that. Snap out of it!
She swallowed around the lump in her throat, forcing the overwhelming knot of grief to plunge into her chest. Buried so deep her stomach ached.
‘If what you say is true and there is a problem,’ she said dubiously, ‘how can I possibly help?’
‘Get him to take an interest in the prototype or work on your latest designs... I don’t know—just get him to focus on something other than women or the bottom of a bottle.’
Impossible.
‘I’m a woman.’
‘Only in the technical sense.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ As if she needed reminding.
Then again, the last thing she wanted was to be like one of Finn’s regulars. They were the skirt to Serena’s jeans. The buxom bombshells to Serena’s boyish figure. The strappy sandals to Serena’s biker boots. The super-soft, twice-conditioned spiralling blonde locks to Serena’s wild mane of a hue so bizarre it defied all colour charts.
Which was wonderful. Inordinately satisfying. Exactly the way she liked it.
‘The last thing he needs is another bedmate,’ he muttered wryly. ‘He needs a kick up the backside. A challenge. And, let’s face it, you two create enough spark to fire a twin-stroke. Therefore I am asking—no, you know what...? I am telling you to help. You’re on my payroll. You move back in here and you chip in.’
Tough love.
Then his graphite gaze turned speculative. Calculating. An expression she didn’t care for that nailed her to the wall.
‘Or you can kiss the Silverstone launch of your prototype goodbye.’
A gasp of air hit the back of her throat. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’
Yeah, he probably would. He didn’t believe the racing car she’d designed would be anything special and she’d do anything to prove him wrong.
That prototype was her baby. Three years of hard work. Her and Tom’s inspiration. Launching at Silverstone had been their dream. The only tangible thing she had left of him.
‘Low, Dad,’ she choked out. ‘Really low.’
Averting his eyes, he scrubbed a palm over his face. ‘More like desperate.’
Serena sighed. Nailed. Every. Time.
‘Fine. I’ll try...something.’
Unease began to hammer at her heart—she had no idea how to handle the man. None.
‘But I know Finn will make it up. He had a slow start last year. The sponsors will forgive and forget once he starts playing to his fans. Monaco is in the bag. He always wins here. What happened in qualifying sessions today? He’s in pole position, right?’
Her father’s expression turned thunderous—one that boded only ill. ‘He screwed the engine.’
He blew the engine? ‘So he’s at the back tomorrow? In one of the slowest and hardest circuits in the world?’
‘Yep.’
Pop! Up came a vision in her mind’s eye—the scene she’d bypassed as she’d hauled her motorbike along the harbour—and her stomach fired, anger swirling like a tornado. Sparking, ready to ignite.
Raising her arm, she pointed one trembling finger in the general direction of Finn’s floating brothel. ‘And he’s along there, in that...that yacht of his. Engaging in some kind of...drunken debauched sex-fest to celebrate his latest cock-up?’
One weary hitch of those broad shoulders was all it took to light the fireball raging in the pit of her stomach.
‘What in the blue blazes is he doing? Doesn’t he care at all? In fact, don’t answer that. I already know.’
The man cared for no one but himself! And this was a newsflash? Obligation and decency had clearly been disowned in that gene pool.
‘I’ve had it with him.’
Bullet-like, Serena shot out through the door, her biker boots a clomp-clomp on the polished wooden floors as she raced through the galley. ‘I’m gonna kill him. With my bare hands.’
‘Serena! Watch your temper. I need him.’
Yeah, well, she needed her brother back—and that was about as impossible as keeping her mitts off Finn St George’s pretty-boy face. She’d had enough of that man messing with her family. Her team. Her life. Her brother was dead, the championship was heading for the toilet, and her dad was aging by the second as Finn continued to yank at his fraying tether!
How selfish could one man be?
Well, she was stopping it all. She was taking control.
Right now.
CHAPTER TWO
SERENA DUCKED AND dived around the loved-up couples milling on the harbour, her sole focus on the Extasea, rising from the water, formidable and majestic.
Even moored among some of the finest vessels in the world, Finn’s super-yacht was in a class of her own—a one-hundred-and-sixty-foot, three-decker palace—reminding Serena of the resplendent seven-star hotels he favoured in Dubai and certainly more regal ocean liner than bordello.
Still, opulence aside, she had the acumen to know that appearances were deceptive, and the fact that she’d been lowered to this chafed her pride raw. But there was no backing out now. She was going to say her piece and he was going to listen.
The bravado felt wonderful. Freeing. Cleansing. She should have done this months ago, she realised—had it out with him instead of letting everyone sweep her under the carpet like some bothersome gnat, as if her feelings were of no importance. Her grief had been so all-consuming that she’d allowed it to happen. Well, not any more.
Closer to the yacht now, she felt the balmy air cling to her skin and the thud of her boots become drenched by the evocative beat of sultry music. As she marched up the gangway the splash of water from the hot tub on the sun deck followed by intimate squeals of sexual delight made her trip over her size fives.
Flailing, she gripped the rail on both sides. Then a tidal wave of apprehension crashed over her and she stood soaked with a keen embarrassment. She was about as comfortable with this scene as she would be treading water in the company of killer sharks.
You don’t belong here, Serena. Surrounded by sex and women who exuded femininity. Don’t think about it. Just get in there, find Finn, and make him clean the decks himself!
Hovering a few feet from the top, she inhaled a deep wave of saltwater air to reel back her bravado.
In every direction—whether it was left, towards the luxurious seating area abounding with plush gold chairs, or right, towards the outer dining suites—there were bodies, bodies and more bodies. Wearing as little clothing as possible.
She shivered, chilly just looking at them.
One step further and still no one seemed to notice the impromptu arrival of an uninvited guest. No ravaging lips ceased to kiss. No fervent hands slowed their bold caresses of sun-kissed flesh. No flutes of champagne paused on their way to open mouths and the laughter rolled on in barks of joyful humour that only served to remind her of the last time she’d laughed—which made a scream itch to peal up her throat.
Why should Finn and his entourage be laughing when she was still unable to cry? Unable to shed one solitary tear? Because boys don’t cry...
Indignation launched her the final few feet and out of nowhere a sinister-looking figure loomed and grabbed her wrist in a manacled grip.
‘Ow!’ Pain shot up her arm and she flipped her hand in an attempt to dislodge the hold—even as she was flung back in time and any lingering panic was ramped up into bone-shattering fear. ‘Get off me!’
Except the more she struggled, the tighter the hold became—until the knife-edge of terror scored her heart and her vision swam in the blackest waters...
A rough yet familiar voice shattered the obsidian glaze. ‘Hey, let her go. She’s okay.’
Mr Manacle released her so fast she stumbled backwards. Her only conscious thought was that she was taking up self-defence classes again. Pronto.
Righting her footing, she glanced at the owner of that masculine rumble.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, her voice disgustingly fragile as she rubbed at her wrist to ease the throb of muscle and friction burn.
‘You okay, Serena?’
Vision clearing, she focused on the handsome, boyish face of one uneasy chocolate-haired Jake Morgan. Scott Lansing protеgе and an apparent star in the making. She’d never watched him drive. For some reason he always got a bit tongue-tied around her, and the fact that he was Tom’s replacement gave her heart a pang every time she looked at him. Not his fault, Serena. Let it go.
‘Peachy. Since when does Finn have security?’
‘Had them on and off all season. Mainly for parties when there’s a big crowd.’
Translation: when he needed to fend off gatecrashing bombshells.
‘Where is your dissolute host?’ she asked, somewhat surly and unable to care. She was shaking so hard she had to cross her arms over her chest to stop her bones rattling.
‘Not sure.’ Jake’s Adam’s apple bobbed and his eyes jerked to a door leading to what she guessed was the main salon. ‘I haven’t seen him for a while.’
Oh, wonderful. He was covering for Finn. ‘Forget it. I’ll find him myself.’
The sensation of copious eyes poring over her wild mane and crumpled clothing made her flesh crawl and she had to fight the instinct to race across the polished deck. Ironically, the door to the devil’s lair suddenly seemed very appealing and she slipped inside with a bizarre sense of relief.
The lavishness of the place was staggering, and way too gold-filigree-and-fussy for her. She might have a DNA glitch but it didn’t even suit Finn. Granted, he’d purchased the mega-yacht from some billionaire, but at least a year had passed since.
After ten minutes of being creeped out by cherub wall sconces she was standing in a corridor surrounded by more doors. It was all like a bad dream...
Moaning, purring, steamy and impassioned noises drifted from the room at the far end of the panelled hallway, licking her stomach into a slow, laborious roll.
Pound-pound went her heart as she edged further towards the sounds, her gaze locked on the source as if drawn by some powerful magnetic force.
Her hand to the handle now, a wisp of a thought passed through her brain: did she really want to catch Finn the notorious womaniser in flagrante with his recent squeeze? She had enough nightmares to contend with at the best of times. Except...she could hardly roam around here all night, could she? If he was in a drunken stupor she only had sixteen hours to clean him up, and she was not leaving this place without some answers!
Astounded at what she was about to do, she pressed her ear up against the door panel in an effort to decipher voices.
Rustle went the sheets and creak went the muffled bounce of springs, as if bodies were interlocked and undulating in an amorous embrace. Cries of rapturous passion bloomed in the air and her blood flushed hotly, madly, deeply, in an odd concoction of mortification, inquisitiveness and warmth.
Jeepers, what was wrong with her?
Focus.
Ignoring the anxious thump in her chest warning that exposure was imminent, she leaned further in and relished the cool brush of wood against her fevered flesh.
The woman, whoever she was, was clearly glorifying in what was being done to her. No subdued cries or awkward silences while she wished it were over. Just murmurs of encouragement in a deep velvet voice that made the damp softness between Serena’s legs tighten.
Not Finn. She would recognise that seductive rasp of perfect Etonian English laced with the smattering of an American drawl any day. A distinct flavour from the time he spent in the off season, presenting a hugely popular car show in the States.
Not that she liked his testosterone-and-sex-drenched tone—not at all.
Edgy, she licked her arid lips and told herself to back away before she was nabbed. So why couldn’t she move? Why did she strive to imagine what was happening behind this door? Wonder how, precisely, Mr Velvet Voice adored his lover’s body for her to reach such hedonistic heights that she became paralysed, unable to do anything but scream in wanton pleasure and abandon—?
‘Has she come yet?’
