Just when she’d thought he might be evolving into a halfway decent conversationalist and boss, he’d proved her wrong—yet again. The memory of their kiss still lingered, but she was determined to be professional and courteous.
Taz was a master at being difficult. He was also exceptionally good at testing her patience.Deep breath, Millie.
‘Have a good flight. I hope your recovery goes well.’
She smiled, and when he didn’t say anything she turned her back to him and walked to the hallway and the front door of his palatial suite.
‘Millie…’
She slowly turned. He sat on the arm of the couch, and she could feel the intensity of his stare. ‘That kiss…’
She thought they’d dodged that landmine, that his silence on the subject was his way of telling her that it meant nothing. Heat crept up her face. She had no idea what to say or what he wanted from her, so she hugged her iPad to her chest as a bead of sweat ran down her spine.
He kept looking at her, and it took all her willpower to keep her from bolting out of the door. When the tension became too much, the silence too weighty, she spoke. ‘I work for you,Mr De Rossi. What happened was against company rules.’
‘I know. It’smycompany. But it was a truly excellent kiss.’
She wanted to grab his shirt and shake him, not that she’d be able to make his muscular frame budge an inch. This man, she was convinced, was born to drive her mad. ‘I think you enjoyed it as much as I did,’ he stated, his tone silky and deliberately provocative. Was he trying to get a rise out of her?
Be sensible, Millie. Do not let him goad you into being reckless or admitting to your attraction.‘I don’t get involved with people I work for, Mr De Rossi. It would be highly unprofessional. Besides, you have a girlfriend, and she would scratch my eyes out if she found out.’
‘I thought I explained that Phoebe is no longer in my life. I dislike repeating myself.’ Should she ask whether he was certain Phoebe had received the message? No. He’d already clocked her interest; she didn’t need him to know that hefascinatedher.
Millie lifted her chin and gathered her courage. ‘Apart from not dating bosses, I don’t date bad boys. I don’t dateat all.’ Well, not anymore.
‘Pity,’ Taz drawled.
Millie gripped the door-handle and twisted it with more force than necessary. She needed to get away from Taz before she did something really stupid. Like dropping her possessions and walking into his arms. Hauling that T-shirt up his chest, kissing his neck…
Leading him into his bedroom. She shook her head at her lust-coated thoughts, not recognising herself. She wasn’t a lose-her-clothes, roll-around-the-bed-with-a-billionaire woman.
Besides, there was too much at stake for her to risk making such a mistake. Taz had the power, wealth and influence to recover from his mistakes…
But she did not.
CHAPTER FIVE
Miami
IT WAS Abeautiful spring day in Florida, hot and blue, and when the stewardess opened the jet’s door, a stream of hot air rushed into the air-conditioned plane. Taz unclipped his seat belt and stretched, wishing he’d slept for more than a few hours last night.
He shouldn’t have accepted an invitation to meet some friends at Lily’s last night. But after reports started surfacing that he was hiding away because he couldn’t handle criticism and was sulking, social media influencers started echoing the nonsense. Millie sent him a message telling him to get out and about and to look cheerful while doing it. He’d thought about ignoring her directive—he wasn’t the kind of man who let anyone, least of all inconsequential voices online, dictate how he lived. He did what he wanted when he wanted. Always had. But then he remembered how hard Millie was working—some of her emails were time-stamped after midnight her time—to salvage his tarnished reputation. He rubbed the back of his neck, slightly concerned, and feeling a little guilty that he might’ve handed her a poisoned chalice.
After Shanghai, he’d needed to retreat, to nurse his self-inflicted wounds, to mentally beat himself up in private. He’d put everything he and his team had been working for in jeopardy and had torpedoed his personal, private goal of being a better racer than Alex, the only competition he could win against his dead, seemingly perfect brother.
But the longer he was alone, the louder whispers of past failures, the brutal echoes of his father’s harsh words and Alex’s casual dismissal of his talent became. Sometimes solitude wasn’t peace, and sometimes the only way to evade the past was to drown it in bars and clubs, pumping with too-loud music and shouted conversations.
So he’d gone to Lily’s in London, and naturally he’d run into the press.
And Phoebe, who’d tried to renegotiate her way back into his bed. He’d sharply and succinctly shut her down. He’d told her when they first started sleeping together that he didn’t make long-term connections, but she thought she could change his mind and that she would, eventually, take his name.
Not happening. Besides, being a De Rossi wasn’t as marvellous as the world thought it was.
All his life, he’d been looked at through the Alex lens and been found lacking. As a result, he’d gone out of his way to be as different from his brother as he could be. And if you were always acting, then how could anyone get to know the real you? Any personal connections were false because nobody knew him.
On the surface, he had everything anyone could want: the houses, the money, the cars, the clothes…but no one to share them with. And that was how he liked it. He’d been his mum’s kid, and after her death, neither his father nor his brother knew how to, or wanted to, handle a grieving child. They’d pushed him away, and he’d spent the rest of his childhood and teens desperately trying to catch up, to reach the ever-increasing bar they set for him. His only hope of beating his brother at anything was on the racetrack. Once he won his fourth championship, the world would have to admit that he was a better driver than Alex. In their eyes he’d never be as good a man. He’d never taint the De Rossi brand by telling the world who Alex really was, but he’d revel in being known as the better driver.
But he’d put that in jeopardy by losing his temper in Shanghai. He’d apologised and approved a short press statement publicly apologising to the rookie, the FIA and his fans. Millie’s statement made him sound authentic without being obsequious. She’d also talked him into a press conference in—he glanced at his watch—an hour. The first since his crash and where he’d announce his community service plans and put forward the charities he’d be supporting.
