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“Not put her in the middle? Cristiano, you’ve already put her in the middle! You’ve been sneaking her to the track—”
“There’s been no sneaking. I don’t sneak around. This is my life. This is what I do.”
“But a child!” Sam couldn’t believe it, couldn’t accept it. “Cristiano, you’ve pushed it too far. You’ve behaved recklessly, thoughtlessly—”
“Marcelle,” Cristiano shouted to the young woman where she stood by the wall. “Would you mind taking Gabby home for lunch?”
“No problem, Monsieur.” Marcelle hurried toward them, swept Gabby into her arms and dashed away.
Sam waited for Marcelle and Gabby to disappear before continuing. “You can take risks with your life but you’ve no right to take risks with hers.”
“I’m very careful with her, Sam. I don’t drive fast when she’s in the car, but driving, racing, it’s part of her, Sam, part of who she is and who her father was—who her brother is.”
“No more. You can’t bring her here anymore. You can’t take her in your car—”
“I’ve spent five years trying to get her back.”
“Not very hard it seems. Where were you when she was born? Where were you when she was one?”
“I was in a hospital, Sam. I was hurt, and learning to walk again. And yes, it was a driving accident that burned me, and yes, it was a driving accident that killed my father, but I’m here now and I’m not going away.”
“How can you say that? You could be killed in two weeks in Australia, and if not Australia, then Malaysia after!”
He was silent, his features hard, defiant. “You can’t change me, Sam. You can accept me but you can’t change me.”
“Well, I can’t accept you. I can’t accept you’d risk everything—me, Gabby, your future—for a sport!”
“It’s not a sport, it’s my career.”
“Your career.”
“And just how strongly do you feel about this, Sam?” His voice had dropped, become ice-cold.
She felt the distance yawn between them, the distance greater now than it’d ever been.
Sam was too upset, too angry, too heartsick to even cry. It had all come down to this. The worries, the fears, the anxiety had been building in her since she discovered just what it was he did professionally, but it was about to explode out now. “I’m not…I can’t…”
“Can’t what?” he demanded, voice clipped.
“Do this.”
“Do what? Live with me? Love me? Accept me? What?”
Her eyes burned. Her chest burned. She burned all the way through and she could only imagine the agony Cristiano felt when his body really was on fire. “All of the above.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CRISTIANO stared at her, hearing the words she said but unable to believe it. “Do you even know what you’re saying, Sam?”
Paling, she nodded. “I know I can’t live worrying about you every time you get behind the wheel of a car.”
“Then don’t worry. I’ve been driving since I was eleven. Won my first kart race at thirteen. Sam, I’ve made mistakes, some I have to live with forever, but I’m not reckless.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just stared at him with those blue eyes, anxiously pushing loose hair back from her face. “Why hasn’t Gabby ever told me you’ve brought her to the track? Gabby tells me everything. Why didn’t she tell me that?”
That’s when Cristiano knew they’d turned a corner, headed a direction that might take them places they hadn’t ever wanted to go. “I asked her not to.”
How quickly her stormy blue gaze turned cold. “Why?”
“Because I told her you were afraid of cars and it might scare you, and I didn’t want to upset you.”
“And telling a five-year-old to cover the truth—essentially lie to me—wouldn’t upset me?”
He was angry, too. Angry and tired. He’d slept like crap last night, his gut in knots, heart heavy. He didn’t want to fight. He hated fights. All he wanted today was to have things better. “I thought your fear was irrational,” he said finally, wearily.
