“I’ve missed something important,” Connor mumbles as Senna shouts at me to come back.
I can’t lose an assistant who understands me and who I can be honest with. I haven’t fought for anything over the last year, but I can fight for Bella.
As I run down the stairwell, I tell myself it’s because I need a good assistant and not because she’s the one person who’s made me feel more than empty and broken since I nearly died in the hospital.
CHAPTER 12
Rosie
Ilean my head on my steering wheel and let out a moan as I turn the key again. My engine whirs, then dies.
Of all the places for my car to remind me it’s a bucket of crap I can’t afford to fix, it chooses the car park of a Formula One racing team. I glance at my phone. One missed call and one message from a number I don’t recognise.
I can’t work here, not that I have the option anymore. Niki won’t work with me.
I bang my head against the steering wheel. I can’t work anywhere but the carpet company. Every other sports team I tried to get a job with wouldn’t give me more than a poorly paid intern role. I’d also have to work weekends and evenings, the times I spend with Tabi. She’ll start school in six months, and I refuse to lose any more time with her than I have to.
A knock at my car window makes me wince. It’s probably a security guard here to tell me to get off the property before they remove me. I open one eye.
Niki Coulter’s dark blue eyes stare back at me. I hunch my shoulders, but there’s nowhere to hide.
He makes a circular motion with his finger, askingme to wind the window down, but I shake my head. “If I wind it down, I can’t get it back up.”
He yanks the door open, so I end up shouting the last few words in his face.
“Let me look at it. I used to tinker with cars for fun,” he replies as if he hasn’t nearly been caught in my spittle shower. “We could include a car in your contract.”
My laugh sours. “The contract I ripped up?”
At his smile, I try not to remember our kiss, but it’s as if I can feel his soft lips flush against mine.
“It’s being rewritten. Can we talk? I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.” He makes the same face as Tabi when I’m halfway through a packet of crisps and she wants the rest. Big, earnest eyes and a soft smile. “Just a chat.”
I yank at the hem of my itchy skirt, a move he catches before quickly averting his eyes.
“Lift the bonnet. I promise to find a way to get you out of here, whether you talk to me or not. I’ll make your car better than ever.”
He’s practically begging. If my car is fixed, I could take Tabi to the farm park this weekend without worrying we’ll break down.
I drop my shoulders and nod.
“Yes,” he whispers as I pull the release lever of my bonnet. I raise my eyebrows, and he blushes, which makes me smile despite everything.
“The bonnet catch is a bit shit…” The words die on my lips as he opens it instantly, propping it up on its rod.
I suck at the water bottle in my car. I don’t know how long it’s been there—the water is turning green—but I need to do something with my hands.
“Don’t you need gloves?” I ask after a couple of minutes.
He waggles his plastic glove–covered hands at me, big fucking hands that I remember splayed across my back beforesliding into my knickers as we bobbed in the sea. “I had them in my pocket to stop the dirt. I’m only looking quickly for anything obvious.”
“Okay,” I mumble. My heart races as I leave the car to stand beside him.
He smells of a combination between hand sanitiser and woody aftershave. Instantly I’m transported back to Greece and the kiss that’s filled every fantasy since. I swallow desperately, trying to get saliva into my dry mouth.
Heat radiates off him, and I count my breaths in and out to stop from staring at him.
Since Tabi, I’ve developed Mum Vision—being able to see what’s going on without showing it. As he fiddles with a couple of cables, unscrewing caps I didn’t even know came off, his tongue peeks out his mouth and rests in the corner of his lips.
