The Price Of Desire: The Price of Success / The Cost of Her Innocence / Not For Sale. JACQUELINE BAIRD
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off the engine testing results, which she’d pored over half a dozen times in between listening out for the sound of the helicopter.
Catching herself doing so for the umpteenth time, she shoved away from the table, ran upstairs to her suite and changed into her gym clothes.
Letting herself out of the side entrance, she skirted the pool and jogged along the lamplit path bordering the extensive gardens. Fragrant bougainvillaea and amaranth scented the evening air. She breathed in deeply and increased her pace until she spotted the floodlights of the race track in the distance. Excitement fizzed through her veins.
A few hours from now she’d start her journey to clear her father’s name. To prove to the world that the Fleming name was not dirt, as so many people claimed.
Fresh waves of sadness and anger buffeted her as she thought of her father. How his brilliant career had crumbled to dust in just a few short weeks, his hard work and sterling dedication to his team wiped away by vicious lies.
The pain of watching him spiral into depression had been excruciating. In the end even his pride in her hadn’t been enough …
Whirling away from her thoughts, and literally from the path, she jogged the rest of the way to the sports facility half a mile away and spent the next hour punishing herself through a strenuous routine that would have made Charlie, her physio, proud.
Leaving the gym, Sasha wandered aimlessly, deliberately emptying her mind of sad memories. It wasn’t until she nearly stumbled into a wall that she realised she stood in front of a single-storey building. Shrouded in darkness, it sat about half a mile away from the house, at the far end of the driveway that led past the villa.
About to enter, she jumped as the trill of her phone rang through the silent night.
Hurriedly, she fished it out, but it went silent before she could answer it. Frowning, she returned it to her pocket, then rubbed her hands down her arms when the cooling breeze whispered over her skin.
Casting another glance at the dark building, she retraced her steps back to the villa. Her footsteps echoed on the marble floors.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
Marco’s voice was amplified in the semi-darkness, drawing her to a startled halt. He stood half hidden behind one of the numerous pillars in the vast hallway.
‘I went to the gym, then went for a walk.’
His huge frame loomed larger as he came towards her. ‘The next time you decide to leave the house for a long stretch have the courtesy to inform the staff of your whereabouts. That way I won’t have people combing the grounds for you.’
There was an odd inflection in his voice that made the hairs on her neck stand up.
‘Has something happened?’ She stepped towards him, her heart taking a dizzying dive when he didn’t answer immediately. ‘Marco?’
‘Sí, something’s happened,’ he delivered in an odd, flat tone.
He stepped into the light and Sasha bit back a gasp at the gaunt, tormented look on his face.
‘Rafael … It’s Rafael.’
FEAR pierced through her heart but she refused to believe the worst. ‘Is he …?’ She swallowed and rephrased. ‘How bad is it?’
Marco shoved his phone into his pocket and stalked down the hall towards the large formal sitting room. Set between two curved cast-iron balconies that overlooked the living room from the first-floor hallway, a beautifully carved, centuries-old drinks cabinet stood. Marco picked up a crystal decanter and raised an eyebrow. When she shook her head, he poured a healthy splash of cognac into a glass and threw it back in one quick swallow.
A fire had been lit in the two giant fireplaces in the room. Marco stood before one and raked a hand through his hair, throwing the dark locks into disarray. ‘He’s suffered another brain haemorrhage. They had to perform a minor operation to release the pressure. The doctors …’ He shook his head, tightly suppressed emotion making his movements jerky. ‘They can’t do any more.’
‘But the operation worked, didn’t it?’ She didn’t know where the instinct to keep talking came from. All she knew was that Marco had come looking for her.
He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘The bleeding has stopped, yes. And he’s been put into an induced coma until the swelling goes down.’
She moved closer, her heart aching at the pain he tried to hide. ‘That’s good. It’ll give him time to heal.’
His eyes grew bleaker. He looked around, as if searching for a distraction. ‘I should be there,’ he bit out. ‘But the doctors think I’m in their way.’ He huffed. ‘One even accused me of unreasonable behaviour, simply because I asked for a third opinion.’
The muttered imprecation that followed made Sasha bite her lip, feeling sorry for the unknown hapless doctor who’d dared clash with Marco.
She sucked in a breath as his gaze sharpened on her.
‘Nothing to say?’
‘He’s your brother. You love him and want the best for him. That’s why you’ve hired the best doctors to care for him. Maybe you need to leave them alone to do their jobs?’ He looked set to bite her head off. ‘And if he’s in intensive care they probably need to keep his environment as sterile as possible. Surely you don’t want anything to jeopardise his recovery?’
His scowl deepened and he looked away. ‘I see you not only wear a psychologist’s hat, you also dabble in diplomacy and being the voice of reason.’
Although Sasha did not enjoy his cynicism, she felt relieved that his voice was no longer racked with raw anguish. ‘Yeah, that’s me. Miss All-Things-To-All-People,’ she joked.
Eyes that had moments ago held pain and anguish froze into solid, implacable ice. ‘Sí. Unfortunately that aspect of your nature hasn’t worked out well for my brother, has it? Rafael needed you to be one thing to him. And you failed. Miserably.’
‘I tried to talk some sense into him …’
Rafael hadn’t taken it well when she’d pointed out the absurdity of his out-of-the-blue proposal. He’d stormed out of her hotel in Budapest the night before the race, and she’d never got the chance to talk to him before his accident.
Marco turned from the mantel and faced her. ‘Don’t tell me … You were conveniently unsuccessful?’ he mocked.
‘Because he didn’t mean it.’
He pounced. ‘Why would any man propose to a woman if he didn’t mean it?’
When she didn’t answer immediately, his scowl deepened. In the end, she said, ‘Because of … other things he’d said.’
‘What other things?’ came the harsh rejoinder.
‘Private things.’ She wasn’t about to deliver a blow-by-blow account. It wasn’t her style. ‘I thought he was reacting to his last break-up.’
He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘Rafael and Nadia broke up two months ago. Are you suggesting this was a rebound?’ Marco asked derisively. ‘My brother’s bounce-back rate is normally two weeks.’
Sasha frowned. ‘Rafael’s changed, Marco. To you he may have seemed like his normal wild, irreverent self. But—’
‘Are you saying I don’t know my own brother?’ he demanded.
Slowly, Sasha shook her head. ‘I’m just saying he may not have told you everything that was going on with him.’
Her breath caught at