And, as I’d discovered two months later, pregnant with his child.
I refused to let them resurface now just because he was even more handsome and compelling at thirty than he had been at twenty-five.
I was twenty-four now and I’d survived what he’d done to me. And I had a wonderful son whom I adored.
I struggled to quell the old yearning which shivered through me at the sight of him. A yearning I’d never been able to feel for any other man.
Heat careered into my cheeks as I watched him stiffen, the knowledge of who I was hitting him as hard as it had hit me a few moments before.
Good, I was glad. I wanted him to feel as raw as I did.
But, as soon as the ungenerous thought occurred to me, another horrifying realisation hit me—bringing with it the guilt I had struggled with for five years.
Oh, no! My cousin, Jessie, was bringing Cai—my son—to meet me at the track this afternoon.
I’d known it was a risk, agreeing to come to Barcelona to test drive the car I’d helped develop in my role as Camaro’s fuel-efficiency expert for their R&D department in the UK. But Renzo, my boss, had been quite insistent and I had checked to make sure the Galanti team weren’t scheduled to be at the test track today.
Cai loved the cars and the trip had been a special treat for him. But I didn’t want him to come face to face with his father—or vice versa.
I’d never contacted Alexi to tell him about his son. I’d been in a daze, still struggling to cope with the loss of Remy, not to mention my job and my life in Monaco, when I’d discovered I was pregnant five years ago.
I hadn’t had the courage or the strength to face Alexi then and as my pregnancy had progressed I had quickly begun to justify my cowardice to myself.
Alexi had made it very clear he hated me, that he blamed me for Remy’s death. He’d told me he never wanted to see me again, that he’d have me arrested if he did. He’d called me a whore and implied I was a gold-digger. He probably wouldn’t even have believed the child was his, so what would have been the point?
And, in the years since Cai’s birth, it had become easier and easier not to make that call. My sweet, beautiful, smiley little boy, who looked so much like his father but would always be mine, would never know the cynicism, the coldness, of the man who had sired him. Really, I was just protecting my son.
I’d seen reports of Alexi’s love life in the press, in gossip columns and celebrity blogs, over the intervening years too and had convinced myself Alexi wouldn’t want to be a father. That I was doing him a favour by not divulging to him he had a son. Surely he wouldn’t want to be tied down, to have his rampant womanising and glamorous social life hampered by a toddler?
But, now I was faced with the possibility of him meeting Cai for the first time, all my justifications began to crumble
.
The guilt combined with the inappropriate yearning in the pit of my stomach made me plummet into the black hole I remembered from the last time I’d seen him—creating a wave of pure, unadulterated panic.
I’d always told myself that one day—when Cai was older, and I had become the foremost R&D specialist in the Super League and had some serious professional clout—I would get up the guts to inform Alexi of his son’s existence.
But this wasn’t that day. I wasn’t ready to face that reality. Not yet. And neither was Cai. I hadn’t prepared Cai for this news. And I doubted Alexi would even care if he had a son.
‘I need you to leave,’ I said, my voice firm, even though I was shaking inside from fear and the heat that would never die as long as I was in the same room as this man.
He hadn’t said anything, he’d been rooted to the spot, but he controlled himself a lot faster than I did, the naked shock on his face masked by the cynical expression I remembered from our graveside parting. Although the heat in his gaze told another story, a heat I recognised from that fateful night when we had conceived Cai.
How could we still want each other when we both hated each other so much? I wondered vaguely, as my frantic mind tried to grasp the logistics of how I was going to avert the disaster galloping towards me with each tick of the clock.
Calm down, Belle, and don’t show him any weakness.
I had twenty minutes. They weren’t due here till three. I had time. All I had to do was get Alexi to leave before Jessie and Cai arrived. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard, now he knew who I was? After all, he had been prepared to pay thousands of euros five years ago so he’d never have to see me again.
‘The offer still stands,’ he said at last.
‘I... What? You can’t be serious,’ I said, stunned. Surely he couldn’t believe I would want to spend any time in his company, let alone work for him?
‘I’m deadly serious. I need a reserve driver and I want you... You should be on the track, not behind it. Once you’re signed with Galanti we can discuss the possibility of getting a full driver spot for you, maybe next season. I’ll make it worth your while to break your attachment to Camaro...’ His gaze dipped, his perusal swift but no less insulting, and the heat ignited in my cheeks as I saw the spark of desire and realised he thought Renzo and I were lovers.
I knew rumours were rife on the track and in the Camaro team that I was sleeping with the boss. Renzo had been instrumental in advancing my career, hiring me for his R&D team straight after I’d finished my masters in bioengineering and alternative fuel technology last year. He had been remarkably flexible about my childcare commitments on the job, had befriended Cai—who idolised him—and I did sometimes wonder if he thought of me as more than an employee and a friend... But he had never stepped over that line and I certainly hadn’t encouraged him.
‘I’m not for sale,’ I said flatly, determined not to let my hurt at Alexi’s insinuations show.