LITMIR.BIZ

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a slow spin the black and white blur landed in front of him, hitting the glass with a soft smack. Then the only sound in the luxurious office on the Scott Lansing yacht was Serena’s choppy breathing and the foreboding thump of her heart.

      ‘No pacing. Yet,’ he grated, dipping his chin to lock his sharp graphite eyes on hers.

      Well, now... She had the uncanny notion that after hours of musing over the true genesis of her three a.m. wake-up call she was about to discover exactly why she’d been dragged from her warm bed in London to globetrot to the Côte d’Azur. And if the suspicion snaking up her spine was anything to go by she wasn’t going to like it.

      ‘I have no idea what you’re worried about,’ she said, perfectly amiable as she folded her arms across the creased apple-green T shrouding her chest. ‘Finn is performing to his usual sybaritic standards, if you ask me. Fraternising with God-knows-who while he parties the night away, drinks, gambles, beds a few starlets and crashes a car for the grand finale. Nothing out of the ordinary. You knew this two years ago, when you signed him.’

      ‘Back then he wasn’t this bad,’ came the wry reply. ‘It’s not only that. He’s...’

      That familiar brow furrowed and Serena’s followed suit.

      ‘He’s what?’

      ‘I can’t even explain it. He goes on like nothing’s happened but it’s like he’s got a death wish.’

      She coughed out an incredulous laugh. ‘He hasn’t got a death wish. He’s just so supremely arrogant he thinks he’s indestructible.’

      ‘It’s more than that. There’s something...dark about him all of a sudden.’

      Dark? A sinister shiver crept over her skin as the past scratched at her psyche, picking at the scab of a raw wound. Until she realised just who they were talking about.

      ‘Maybe he’s been overdoing it on the sun deck.’

      ‘You’re being deliberately obtuse,’ he ground out.

      Yes, well, unfortunately Finn St George brought out the worst in her—had done since the first moment she’d locked eyes with him four years ago...

      Serena flung her brain into neutral before it hit reverse and kicked up the dirt on one of the most humiliating experiences of her life. Best to say lesson learned. After that, what with her engineering degree, working alongside the team’s world-famous car designer in London and Finn’s thirst for media scintillation—which she avoided like the bubonic plague—face-to-face contact between them had been gratifyingly rare.

      Until—just her rotten luck—their formal ‘welcome to the team’ introduction, when he’d struck at every self-preservation instinct she possessed, oozing sexual gravitas, with challenge and mockery stamped all over his face. Hateful man. She didn’t need reminding she was no femme fatale—especially by a Casanova as shallow as a puddle.

      Add in the fact that his morals, or lack thereof, turned her stomach to ice, from the outset they’d snarled and sparked and butted heads—and that had been before he’d stolen the most precious thing in the world from her.

      A fierce rush of grief flooded through her, drenching her bones with sorrow, and she swayed on her feet.

      ‘Look,’ her father began, tugging at the cuff of his high-neck white team shirt. ‘I know you two don’t really get along...’

      Wow, wasn’t that an understatement?

      ‘But I need your help here, Serena.’

      With an incredulous huff she narrowed her eyes on the whipcord figure of Michael Scott, also known as Slick Mick to the ladies and Dad when in private, or when she was feeling particularly daughterly, as he rocked back in his black leather chair.

      Nearing fifty, the former racing champion reminded her of a movie icon, with his unkempt salt and pepper hair, surrounding a chiselled face even more handsome than it had been at the peak of his career. The guy was seriously good-looking. Not exactly a father figure, but they were friends of the best kind. At least they usually were.

      ‘This is your idea of a joke, right?’ It was hard to sound teasing and only mildly put out when there was such a great lump in her throat. ‘Because, let me tell you, I have more of a chance to be Finn St George’s worst nightmare than his supposed...saviour.’

      The idea was ridiculous!

      Visibly deflating, he shook his head tiredly. ‘I know. But I find myself wondering if you have a better chance of getting through to him. Because, honestly, I’m running out of ideas. And drivers. And cars.’ Up came his arm in a wave of exasperation and the pen in his hand soared over the toppling towers of paperwork. ‘Did you watch that crash last month? Zero self-preservation. The guy is going to get himself killed.’

      ‘Let him.’ The words flew out of her mouth Serena-style—that was before she could think better of it or lessen the blow. One of her not-so-good traits that landed her in trouble more often than not...

      ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said, with the curt ring of a reprimand.

      Closing her eyes, she breathed through the maelstrom of emotions warring in her chest. No, she didn’t mean that. She might not like the man, but she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Much.

      ‘What’s more, I refuse to lose another boy in this lifetime.’

      The hot air circling behind her ribs gushed past her lips and her shoulders slumped. Then, for the first time since she’d barged in here twenty minutes ago, she took a good look at Michael Scott—a real look. Her dad might be all kinds of a playboy himself, but she’d missed him terribly.

      Inspecting the grey shadows beneath his eyes, Serena almost asked how he was coping with the loss of his only son. Almost asked if he’d missed her while she’d been gone. But Serena and her father didn’t go deep. Never had, never would. So she stuffed the love and the hurt right back down, behind the invisible walls she’d designed and built with the fierce power of a youthful mind.

      Yeah, she was the tough cookie in the brood. She didn’t grieve from her sleeve or wail at the world for the unfairness of it all. Truly, what was the point? She was this man’s daughter, raised as one of the pack. No room for mushy emotions or feminine sentimentality spilling all over the place.

      So, even though she now had a Tom-sized hole in her heart, she had to deal with it like a man—get up, get busy, move on.

      It was a pity that plan wasn’t working out so well. Some days her heart ached so badly she was barely holding it together. Don’t be ridiculous, Serena, you can hold up the world with one hand. Snap out of it!

      ‘Anyway, you can’t stay in London all season, fiddling with the prototype. I thought it was ready.’

      ‘It is. We’re just running through the final testing this week.’

      ‘Good, because I need you here. The design team can finish the trials.’

      I need you. Wily—that was what he was. He knew exactly what to say and when.

      ‘No. You need me to try and control your wild boy. Problem is I have absolutely no wish to ever set eyes on him again.’

      ‘It wasn’t his fault, Serena,’ he said wearily.

      ‘So you keep saying.’

      But exactly which part of Finn taking Tom to Singapore on a bender and Finn coming back first-class on his twenty-million-pound jet whilst her brother returned in a box wasn’t his fault? Which part of Finn taking him out on a boat when Tom couldn’t swim and subsequently drowned wasn’t his fault? He hadn’t even had the decency to attend the funeral!

      But she didn’t bother to rehash old arguments that only led her down the rocky road to nowhere.

      ‘So you want me to...what? Forgive him? Not a chance in hell. Make him feel better? I don’t. So why should he?’

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