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‘Where did it happen?’
‘On the racing track in León. Eight years ago. I walked away unscathed. My father has never walked since.’
This time when she lifted her hand he caught it before she could lower it and twined his around her slender fingers. The surge of pain diminished a little when her fingers tightened.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured.
His smile felt broken. ‘You don’t want to know whose fault it was?’
‘I’m not going to force you to relive the emotional pain, Rafael. Like you said, I’m not that type of therapist. But one thing I do know is that, contrary to what you might think, your family...your father, from what I saw, is more forgiving than you realise.’
His father might be forgiving of Rafael’s role in making him wheelchair-bound, but the other, darker reason would be more unthinkable to forgive. Hell, he hadn’t even dreamed of seeking forgiveness. He deserved every baptism of hellfire he lived through every morning when he opened his eyes. ‘That’s the problem with family. Forgiveness may be readily provided but the crime is never forgotten.’
‘Unfortunately, I wouldn’t know. Dysfunctional doesn’t even apply to me because I had two people who were connected to me by genetics but who were never family.’
The car was drawing up to the villa when he lifted their entwined fingers to his lips. A soft gasp escaped her when he kissed her knuckles. ‘Then count yourself lucky.’
* * *
Two hours later, Rafael stretched and held in a grimace of pain when he tried to rise from his chair. He eyed the walking stick leaning against his desk and with an impatient hand he reached for it.
Pelvis, fractured in three places...broken leg...multiple cracked ribs...severe brain swelling...lucky to be alive.
The doctor’s recital of his injuries when he’d woken from his coma should’ve shocked him. It hadn’t. He’d known for as long as he could remember that he had the luck of the devil. He’d exploited that trait mercilessly when he was younger, and then honed it into becoming the best racing driver around when he was older. No matter how many hairy situations he put himself in, he seemed to come out, if not completely whole, then alive.
Recalling his conversation earlier with Raven, he paused in the hallway. I’m not going to force you to relive the emotional pain.
Little did she know that he relived it every waking moment and most nights in his vivid nightmares. He might have cheated death countless times, but his penance was to relive the devastation he’d brought to his family over and over again.
His phone pinged and before he glanced at it he knew who it was.
His father...
He deleted the message, unread. Dios, even if they wanted to grant it, who was he to accept their forgiveness—?
The sound in the library next to his study attracted his attention.
Raven’s lusciously heady perfume drew him to the room before he could stop himself. ‘It’s almost midnight. What are you doing up?’
‘I was looking for something to read. The only reading material I have upstairs is boring clinical stuff, and my tablet is charging, so...’
He glanced down at the papers in his hand. He had no idea what he was doing, no idea where this project would take him but... He debated for a few seconds and made up his mind. Closing the distance between them, he stopped in front of her.
‘Here.’ He tossed a bound sheaf of papers at her, which she managed to catch before they spilled everywhere.
‘What is this?’
One corner of his mouth lifted in a dangerous little half-smile that always made her forget to breathe. ‘Two articles for X1 Magazine...and something new I’m working on.’
‘Something new? I didn’t know you wrote outside of your monthly CEO’s Snippets.’
He shrugged. ‘Three months ago—while I was trussed up like a turkey in a hospital bed—I was approached by a couple of publishing houses to write my memoirs.’ He laughed. ‘I guess they figured a has-been like me would jump at the chance to lay it all out there before the moths set in.’
She glanced down at the thick inch of paper between her fingers. ‘And you agreed?’ she asked as she started to leaf through the pages.
‘I said I’d think about it. I had time on my hands after all.’
She read, then read some more. On the third page, she looked up. ‘This isn’t your memoirs, unless you were a girl who grew up in Valencia in the late forties.’
‘Bonita, you’re getting ahead of yourself. Por favor, contain yourself and let me finish.’
She stared up at him. Rafael gave himself a mental slap against the need to keep staring into those mesmerising eyes. ‘I started writing and realised fiction suited me much better than non-fiction. I told them no to the memoir.’
