Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease (19 page)

“
Did you miss me?” he whispered into her
ear.

“
No.”

“
Liar.” He slid his hands down her back and
pinched her bottom.

“
Ouch!” she shrieked.

“
Cut!” Todd yelled and walked over. “Nick,
the trick is to look relaxed, almost slouching, and then hold her
in a loose grip. Crimson, bend backwards. Arch your spine. That’s
right. Nick, lean over her. Almost touch your mouth to hers, but
not quite, as if you were just about to kiss her. That’s it. With
the next take, when you have Crimson in your arms, I want you to
keep that position until I call
cut
. Got it?”

“
Got it.” Nick held the pose, breathing in
her scent.

“
Nick, we don’t have all day,” Todd said,
laughter in his voice. “Let her go.”

Nick released Crimson and they took their
starting positions
again. On the next take, he was better prepared for the
impact and managed to hold her just right. He bent over her, one
arm firm behind the small of her back, anchoring her close to him,
his other hand fisted in her hair.

“
Did you miss me?” he asked, his lips
almost gazing hers.

“
No.”

He twisted a blond curl around his
forefinger and gave it a
tug.

She yanked her head back.
“Ouch.”

“
Cut!” Todd yelled. “Crimson, you have to
keep the position. And be quiet.”

By now, she’d caught on to
his little game. Her brown eyes
glittered with rebellion, but Nick could tell she was struggling
not to smile. They started again. This time, the take was ruined by
the train of Crimson’s flimsy dress getting snagged on his
sleeve.

“
Did you miss me?” Nick asked, holding on
to her, even after the increasingly annoyed Todd had yelled
cut
.

“
No.”

He released her and adjusted his
cuffs.
“I can keep this
up all night.”

“
So can I,” she shot back. “The ballet
sequence is only two minutes long and I get to rest between the
takes.”

“
Wait!” Kathy stepped forward with a little
jar and a brush. “I need to touch up Crimson’s lip
gloss.”

Nick watched as Crimson tipped her head
back and pouted her lips. The tiny brush glided along them. The
full, plump bottom lip. The bowed upper lip.
He felt a few beads of sweat pop up on his
brow. His unruly body rose to attention.

“
Wait,” Kathy called out again as Crimson
settled in her starting position. “I need to take the shine off
Nick’s skin. And…” She cleared her throat. “His trousers do, as
they say in that raunchy book, hang
that way
. Are we okay with that? Or do we need to strip
him back to his boxers and cool him with a bucket of
ice?”

Nick kept his best poker face.

“
I don’t know.” Todd turned to Sohaila.
“You’re our resident innocent, aren’t you, honeybunch? Does it
offend your sensibilities to see him straining in his
pants?”

Sohaila coaxed
a fanfare out of her violin. “Not at all,” she
said. “It’s good to provide evidence that he has a big gun and is
prepared to use it.”

“
All right.” Todd raised his arm.
“Action.”

“
No,” Kathy shouted. “Crimson’s
gone…
crimson
. Let her
cool down.”

Afte
r a five minute break, Nick had his erection under control,
Crimson’s color had mellowed to a pretty pink, and the others had
conquered their giggles.

Action. Lights. Music.

And
then he had her in his arms again. He could feel her
breasts flatten against his chest, could feel the heat radiating
from her skin, flushed from the physical effort of the dance. The
lip gloss must be flavored, for when he bent his mouth to hers he
caught the faint scent of strawberry. Unable to resist, he brushed
his mouth against hers. Crimson let out a sound of pleasure, a
light as a rustling sigh, and melted against him. Her head came to
rest on his shoulder without breaking the feather-light contact of
their lips.

“
Cut,” Todd yelled.

Nick lifted his head and studied Crimson.
“Did you miss me?”

“
You know I did.”

“
I know,” he told her. “But I wanted to
hear you say it.”

****

Crimson
gave up all resistance as Nick propelled her
toward the corridor. How could she say no to him? She was in love
with him. It had started by stealth, with Uncle Stephan talking
about him with such longing. Then, she’d seen him in the flesh…and
that encounter in the boardroom still had the power to make her
toes curl…and Nick had proved to possess some very solid
qualities…for example, the way he had nursed her through an asthma
attack.

Kathy called out after
them
, “Hey, I need the
clothes back.”

Nick didn’t slow his steps.
“They fit me. I’ll keep them.
Bill me.”

“
What about the cars? Jorge shouted. “Shall
we put them back?”

“
Tomorrow’s soon enough,” Nick replied over
his shoulder.

In the covered walkway that connected with
the office block, a dozen vintage racing cars stood in a neat row,
as if lined up for a starting grid. Crimson edged ahead in the
narrow passage left free beside the cars. She turned back to look
at Nick, using conversation as an excuse to admire him in his
formal clothing.

“
We had to move the cars out to make room
for me to dance.”

He
reached out, caught her hand and tugged, transforming her
backward glance into a spin that gathered her against him. Crimson
started to say something. What, she had no idea, but some panicky
instinct made her want to break the sudden spell of intimacy that
had wrapped around them.

Nick silenced her with his mouth. Warmth
flooded her, just as it had flooded her every time she danced into
his embrace. And now, his strong arms anchored her even closer,
welding her whole length to his.

For six weeks, ever since Nick had kissed
her in the kitchen at Longwood Hall, Crimson had dreamed of kissing
him again. Now, the reality of it crashed over her, drugging her
senses, sending curls of heat spiraling through her. She opened her
mouth, inviting him to deepen the kiss. He tasted her, a greedy
invasion, fulfilling the promise that had tantalized her as they
shared a chaste touch of their lips in front of an
audience.

Nick
lifted his head for a fraction of a second. “I have rental
car.” His voice was urgent, rough. Then his mouth was on hers
again, kissing, tasting, tongue probing deep.

“
No. Not…Longwood Hall…my mother…your
mother…are there…” She breathed out the words between
kisses.

Nick broke away from her
. Crimson rose on her toes, trying to hold
on to the kiss, but Nick seemed to have snapped out of the sensual
haze that they’d plunged into. Determination glittered in his dark
eyes. “Your office,” he said. “I’m not waiting a bloody second
longer. The motel is a rattrap, my condo is too far, and I’m not
risking those two old broads listening in the next room with a
champagne flute pressed against the wall.”

The image made her giggle. Crimson
couldn’t remember ever feeling
so lighthearted about sex in her entire life. So carefree. Crazy,
she thought as she let Nick push past her and haul her along by her
hand, past the antique vehicles that must have seen some naughty
frolics in their heyday. It had to be a topsy-turvy world when a
girl felt carefree just when she was about hand her heart out to be
broken.

They hurried
past Anna’s desk. “She might come up,” Crimson
said.

Nick bundled her through the
open doorway into her office.
“We’ll keep the lights off. That’s the beauty of a building with
glass walls. You can make love in starlight and still be warm.” He
wrestled with the lock on the door, made it click into place. Then,
with a strange deliberation, he strode up to her, each step filled
with purpose.

“
I missed you,” he said softly as he
reached for her. “China was hell.”

China. China
. Alarm bells went off in her head.
Suddenly, beyond the wall of windows, the sky pinpricked with stars
looked vast and cold and scary. She resisted Nick as he tried to
pull her into his arms. “I need to ask you something before…before
we go any further.”

He studied her
panicked expression. “What is it,
Crimson?”

“
I read…in a gossip rag…that Marcela
Ballard is in China…has been for weeks…and that her marriage is on
the rocks.”

“
I see.” Nick’s voice was cold, as cold as
the black sky outside. A blank, forbidding look settled on his
face. “What do you want to know?”

“
Did you…” She drew a deep breath. “Did you
see her? Sleep with her? Are you still in love with her? Did she
follow you to China? Are you why her marriage is breaking
up?”

Without a word, Nick
propelled her toward the chair behind her
desk and nudged her down into it. “No, no, no, and no.” One corner
of his mouth dipped into a smirk. “Was that the right number
of
nos
?” he asked.
“I didn’t count your questions.”

“
You owe me one more
no
.”

“
No.” With a restless motion, he picked up
a pencil from the desk beside him, flipped it like a baton between
his fingers, then put it away again and exhaled a sigh. Immaculate
in his dinner suit, tousled dark curls spilling over his collar, he
crouched on his heels before her and took both of her hands in
his.

“
It’s no secret that I was engaged to
Marcela Ballard,” he told her. “Or Marcela Aceves, as she was
called then. But, I swear, I haven’t seen her since the day she
broke it off eight years ago.”

Crimson thought she saw a
flash of pain in his eyes.
Before she had a change to tell him that she was sorry for
mentioning the topic, or to assure him that she believed him, Nick
had pushed up to his feet and walked over to the window, where he
halted, staring out into the darkness of the night.

“
We’d been engaged just over a year. We
were in Japan. It was the last race of the season. I was in the
lead for the championship. David Ballard was one point behind me.
It was going to be one of those down-to-the-wire finishes. The
final race would decide the outcome of the entire series. I had a
contract in my pocket to drive for a Formula One team the next
season, but I still wanted to win. Obsessively so. You don’t become
a champion racing driver unless you have an obsessive will to
win.”

“
You don’t…need to explain…”

Nick shot her a glance
at her over his shoulder. A smile curved
his lips—a sad, somewhat rueful smile. “Don’t look a gift horse in
the mouth. Or would a better proverb be a gift car under the hood?
Whatever. I’m telling you something that I’ve never told a single
living soul. Don’t ruin it by saying you don’t want to hear
it.”

“
I’m sorry.”

He nodded and went on.
“I had—still have—a lucky penny. I always
put it in a small pocket sewn into the waistband of my racing suit.
I’d forgotten it, and I went off to collect it from the team motor
home. To get out of the pits, I had to go through an underpass,
beneath the grandstand. In a shady corner, I saw Marcela in the
arms of David Ballard, her head resting on his shoulder. I froze.
Went icy cold. I started to pull back, but I must have made some
sound, because Marcela turned around. She looked at me with so much
guilt in her expression that I knew it wasn’t just a couple of
friends exchanging good luck wishes. She walked away from David, to
me, just a few steps, but I remember it seemed to take
forever.

“
She told me she was sorry, pulled my ring
from her finger, and held it out to me. I must have taken it. I
can’t remember. I must have put it somewhere. I thought I put in
that little pocket on my suit, because I never made it to the team
motor home. I went back to the pits. On the first lap of the race,
I crashed, taking a tight hairpin curve at nearly eighty miles an
hour. I don’t remember any of it. Not getting in the car, not
starting on the grid, not losing control of the car or slamming
into the safety barrier. I remember walking off and refusing to see
a doctor. Later, I had cause to regret it. The next day, I couldn’t
move my legs. I had a long period of rehabilitation, and I was left
with a weakness in my spine. Another crash, even at a moderate
speed, and I might never walk again. It was too big a risk to take,
so I chose to give up my racing career.”

Crimson watched him
. He remained standing by the window,
shoulders rigid, gaze locked on the night outside. He lowered his
voice. “Marcela was—is—a devout catholic. No sex before marriage.
While we were engaged, I was faithful to her. I was twenty-four,
living in a world full of glamorous women. Glamorous, available
women. It made me bitter to think that all my honorable abstinence
had been for nothing. For a couple of years, I went off the rails
with women. Made up for lost opportunities.”