When he didn’t say anything, she skirted his big frame and put her hand on the door-handle. As she started to open the door, Taz spoke. ‘It’s not your job to defend me, and I don’t appreciate you gossiping about my private life.’
Millie stiffened, and heat climbed up her neck and into her face.
‘Do it again and you will be fired.’
Yes, there was the demanding ass who paid her salary.
CHAPTER TWO
ONSUNDAY, RACE-DAY, Millie stood at the back of the De Rossi hospitality suite, her eyes on the huge screen in front of her. She could’ve gone down to the paddock to watch the race, but, like most sports, you got better coverage by watching and listening to the race on the TV.
She pulled her De Rossi–branded black-and-pink polo shirt off her clammy body. She’d tucked the shirt into her favourite black skinny jeans and wore high-top black trainers because being on her feet for long stretches made her feet ache. She’d pulled her mass of curls into a haphazard bun on the top of her head and had bitten off all her lipstick long ago.
Watching a race wasn’t her favourite thing to do—a result of Ben’s deadly crash at the Imola Circuit—but she didn’t usually have such a tight knot in her stomach or a lump in her throat. Why did she feel like she was waiting for an axe to fall? Sure, Taz had been in a filthy mood since Thursday, biting off heads and stripping skin, but that wasn’t unusual. He wasn’t a sunshine-and-roses guy, and she’d learned not to take his moods personally. How could she when she spent minimal time with him? So why was she feeling so uptight, so incredibly tense? What was wrong with her?
Millie kept her eyes fixed on the TV screen, which showed Taz had an extensive lead over the rest of the field. She continued to be impressed at his total control of a projectile speeding down the track at three hundred-plus miles per hour. It took intelligence, guts and incredible reflexes to handle the multimillion-dollar car. Racers required a warrior-like attitude, lots of verve and a certain amount of arrogance to be world champions.
Taz roared up to a slower car, one he was lapping and veered right to overtake. The driver of the other car, a rookie driver according to the race announcer, tried to tuck himself in behind Taz as they approached a sharp corner, and he touched his brakes a millisecond too late. His front fender clipped the back of Taz’s car and sent both cars spinning across the track. Millie lifted her clenched fists to her mouth, praying neither car would hit a barrier. Eventually both cars stopped, and everyone in the room, in the pit, on the stands and watching around the world on millions of screens let out a collective sigh of relief. Because the drivers reached impossible speeds, safety was paramount in Formula One. Everyone knew serious injury or death was a possibility.
But not today, not with Taz. But there was no chance of him winning the Shanghai race now. It was okay: He could afford to lose a race or two. But she knew that wouldn’t matter to him. Winning was everything.
Millie slumped, tuning out the curses at the rookie driver, the aspersions cast on his driving and his team. Closing her eyes, she hauled in a couple of deep breaths, grateful Taz wasn’t hurt. Was she shaking because his crash reminded her of the deadly injuries Ben sustained when he went careening off the track? Maybe.
The sport was exciting, but it was also exceedingly dangerous.
The volume of noise rose. Millie opened her eyes and, on the screen, saw Taz’s car limping into the pits below them. The car door opened, and Taz climbed out and ripped off his helmet. The camera zoomed in on his face, and Millie caught his deep frown and bright eyes. Fury rolled off him in waves.
Ignoring his mechanics, he stomped out of the pit and half jogged down the concourse, the cameras following his progress to the rookie driver’s pit. The race announcer’s voice sped up, his words nearly indistinguishable as Taz stormed up to the driver. There was no doubt he knew his mistake had cost Taz the race.
Taz called his name, and the rookie winced, panic evident on his face. The next few seconds were a blur as Taz lifted the rookie to his toes and backed him into the wall. Millie watched, stunned, as Taz yelled at him. Taz ignored the hands pulling him away, but when a burly mechanic wrapped his beefy arm around Taz’s waist and hauled him off, Taz finally backed down. The cameras panned in, and Millie caught his ultra-brief what-the-hell-am-I-doing expression before his frown returned. He batted away the mechanic and, as if making a point, punched the wall next to the rookie’s shoulder. Dropping his hand, he stalked away, his head held high and his eyes blazing.
Millie rubbed the back of her neck and grimaced. Well, if he was in a bad mood before, he was going to be in a worse one now.
Coming down from a massive adrenaline spike, Taz left the pit and stalked into his driver’s room, slamming the door behind him. To make sure he wasn’t disturbed, he twisted the lock and headed to the small bar fridge behind a cupboard door. He pulled out a bottle of water, cracked it open and drank it down. Tossing the empty bottle into a trash can, he drained another before reaching for the bottle of Macallan he’d stashed away in another cupboard. He removed the lid and took a hefty swig straight from the bottle before pouring three fingers into a glass. Sure, whisky wasn’t on the dietician’s list of approved food and drinks, but right now, he didn’t give a damn. His arms ached from steering, and his neck was tense from holding his head upright in the corners.
He was exhausted. And he’d messed up. Badly.
Taz sat on his leather couch and rested his forearms on his knees, the whisky bottle dangling from his hand. He’d allowed his temper to override good sense today, and he would have a price to pay for his loss of control. He would, at the very least, face censure from the officials, maybe even a race ban.
He pushed his finger and thumb into his eye sockets and cursed. He had a good lead over his arch-rival, but it would quickly be erased if he wasn’t allowed to compete. When he returned, he’d have to fight for the title, harder than he’d expected to. He’d put blood in the water, and the sharks were swirling.
Losing his temper had been moronic, and at thirty-five, he knew better. Was better. Even if the rest of the world didn’t see it. Even if he didn’t let them see it.
Taz took another sip of whisky, recapped the bottle and placed it on the floor. He’d had a couple of awful days, but today’s crash was a highlight. He should’ve accelerated faster and made allowances for the rookie’s inexperience. But, because he’d allowed his attention to drift, he hadn’t.
When his two main rivals had retired earlier in the race, one with an engine failure and one after a crash at the start, he’d gone on autopilot, doing what he did best while allowing his brain to wander into territory it shouldn’t have while guiding a bullet around a twisty track. He’d been driving from muscle memory and experience, with thoughts of his press officer drifting in and out. He didn’t give anyone that privilege, that mental space, not when he was racing. So why Millie?
She wasn’t glamorous, nothing like the sophisticated women he slept with. A spray of freckles covered her nose and cheeks, and in the sunlight her honey-coloured curls held hints of strawberry. Her mouth was full and wide, her chin stubborn and her body curvy. The slight rasp in her voice set his nerve endings alight.
But her far-too-beguiling looks weren’t his only distraction. He’d remembered how she defended him the other day, for standing up for him when everyone else assumed he was dating Meredith. When was the last time someone had spoken up on his behalf? His mum, maybe? Sometime before her death shortly after he turned five? He genuinely couldn’t remember and didn’t think his father or brother ever did that for him. He was, after all, the family afterthought, the spare to the heir, ignored and neglected. He was the owner of this team, and the principal driver, only through death and fate.
If Alex hadn’t died, sending their father into a spiral of despair that had led to a series of strokes, he might still be the De Rossi family outcast. Not worthy enough to take a seat at the table.
On the track, while overtaking the rookie, he’d been thinking of how nice it was to have someone standing in his corner, if only for a minute, imagining how it would feel to have someone like Millie, someone genuine, standing by his side supporting him. A second later he heard the thud and started to spin.
He’d risked everything, put his all-consuming goal of winning his fourth championship in jeopardy because he’d lost focus, because Millie hadn’t, like everyone else, jumped to conclusions about him. Because she’d looked deeper beyond the image the world had of him. Not that he’d done anything to challenge the public’s perception of him… If anything he’d gone out of his way to perpetuate the myth of being unapologetically confident, brazenly selfish and boldly carefree. He’d rather be hated than pitied, loathed than looked down on.
Nothing came between him and what he needed to do on the track, and he was mortified, furious that he’d let a woman—his press liaison officer, for God’s sake—get under his skin. What was wrong with him?
