She Who Dares (2 page)

Sebastian combed a hand back through his hair, as if the silky strands that fell over his forehead annoyed him. This close, she could see that it wasn’t black, but a gorgeous chocolatey-brown. He tugged back his sleeve and checked his watch. ‘Why is the place closed at this time on a Wednesday morning?’

‘I’m not sure that’s any of your business,’ Nic dodged to one side, set shaking fingers to the edge of the Corvette’s open door and whacked it shut, then clumsily locked it. ‘Now I’m sorry, but like I said, we’re closed. If you’re looking to buy a car there are several dealerships in Truro I’m sure would be happy to help.’

‘I’m not looking to buy a car.’ He stuck out his thumb, gestured over his shoulder, grinned. ‘I’ve got transport.’

Nice transport, too. The flashy motorbike parked up outside the vet’s was all wide tyres and blood red paintwork ‘Then what do you want?’

He sauntered round the Corvette, skimming a hand over the roof, down past the windscreen and onto the long bonnet, tracing the sleek gold curves that concealed the brutal engine. He moved to the pointy front end, which always reminded Nic of a stag beetle, slid his fingers under the edge, and popped the hood. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked, as he bent over the engine.

She watched as he touched the fan, the cables. His hands were tanned, his fingers wide and his nails as short as her own. A single thick vein trailed its way along the back of his hand, and the sheer masculinity of it made her forget how to think. ‘Pardon?’

‘I get the impression we’ve met before. Have we?’

Nic knew the second she opened her mouth that she’d regret what she was about to say, but she was too embarrassed to care. Whatever Sebastian Prince was doing here had nothing to do with her. She’d probably never see him again after this anyway. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘No, we haven’t met.’

‘But you know who I am.’

‘Every car mad little boy in the country knows who you are. You’ve been plastered all over the papers for the past month.’

He regarded her thoughtfully, and for an awful moment she thought he’d remembered, and was going to call her on it. That he knew she was Ella’s awkward, skinny stepsister. ‘That’s what happens when you spin your car off the track and spend two days unconscious.’

He said it as if it was nothing, but Nic felt suddenly cold. She opened her mouth to say something. He cut her off. ‘I like this,’ he said, that half smile back in place. ‘Tell Ella I’ll be back at two for a test drive.’ He dropped the hood. It locked in place with a clang.

‘But…’ she began, but he was already striding off towards the bike.

‘And next time, you might want to let the hairdresser finish before you run out onto the road and start yelling,’ he called back over his shoulder.

Her hair! Nic’s hands shot up. The foil rustled as her fingers closed over it. The bike engine roared into life, the noise wrapping around her on the quiet street, and she watched as he pulled away, telling herself it was the bike that made her tingle. The bike.

Because it couldn’t possibly be the man riding it.

No, the tingle didn’t puzzle her. But Sebastian Prince turning up in Lostwithiel did. Why would Ella’s ex be in their little town in Cornwall? Why wasn’t he in Monaco, chasing supermodels and avoiding tax, or whatever it was the rich and famous did over there?

Unless he was here because he wanted to get back together with Ella. Was that why Ella had left? To avoid an awkward reunion? Nic couldn’t imagine Sebastian Prince as a man women would normally want to run away from, but then she didn’t exactly understand her stepsister right now.

Mulling that over, Nic strode back into the hairdressers, which was alive with a loud, buzzing chatter. She plonked herself back down into her chair. Her fingers straightened, and she saw the key fob, and the deep pink indent the little silver shoe had made in her palm.

The stylist reappeared with a mobile phone glued to her ear and a long strand of golden syrup hair curled around a manicured finger. Her plump face was bright and animated, her glossy mouth spewing words at a hundred miles an hour. Nic didn’t need to ask what the key topic of conversation was. Lostwithiel got a celebrity visitor about once every five hundred years, and Sebastian was definitely a celebrity. Everyone here was fascinated with him, she thought. Hell, she was secretly a little fascinated herself.

But he wouldn’t turn up at two, she decided, staring at herself in the large, illuminated mirror, and that would be a good thing. She flicked at the shiny rectangle of foil that drooped down over her scruffy left eyebrow. He’d probably just said he wanted a test drive to be polite. It happened all the time, heat of the moment stuff, tempered by reality as soon as people stepped off the forecourt. She’d probably never see him again.

‘I am not bothered,’ she told herself sternly. It was curiosity, plain and simple. She’d no desire to spend any time in the company of Sebastian Prince, especially given that she’d pretended they hadn’t met before. She had more important things to worry about, like saying goodbye to Nic Sinclair, the girl who hadn’t hit puberty until she was fifteen, and hello to Nicola Sinclair, purveyor of glamour, sex and vintage cars.

Time to get the morning back on track. Nic turned in her chair and zoomed in on the stylist, who was leaning against the glass, staring longingly out at the street. ‘Excuse me,’ Nic called, ‘can you check my hair?’

The woman jumped back from the glass like it had just burst into flames. ‘I totally forgot!’ She tucked her phone into the side pocket of her loose black trousers, grabbed a rat tail comb from a pot on the side, and started to peel back the foil.

‘Unh,’ the stylist said awkwardly. Nic found it suddenly hard to breathe. She instinctively knew that the verdict wasn’t going to be good. ‘I don’t know how to say this, but I think Scandinavian Blonde might have been a bad idea.’

Nic closed her eyes. ‘Just tell me you can fix it.’

‘I can fix it,’ the woman said, with all the fake cheer of a kid’s TV presenter. ‘But you can’t keep the blonde. To be honest, I wasn’t convinced it was going to work anyway.’

‘So what do you suggest?’ Nic wasn’t sure she wanted to take advice from someone who only decided something was a bad idea after it had gone horribly wrong, but what else could she do? She’d promised herself a professional hair colour for the first time in her life, and that’s what she was going to get.

‘How does chocolate cherry sound?’

‘Like a pudding.’ There was nothing else to say. Nic felt like her lungs were being crushed in a vice, and what air she could get in tasted of hairspray. She gripped the edge of her seat and bowed her head. The next few minutes were spent in silence as the rest of the foil was stripped away. Her hair was washed, more cold goop was brushed onto it, another coffee delivered, this one with two Amaretti biscuits instead of just one. Clean cotton wool was tucked behind her ears, her head wrapped up in a cling film turban, and she was set under a heater to cook.

‘Cheer up,’ the hairdresser said, giving Nic’s shoulder a squeeze and meeting her gaze in the mirror. ‘Didn’t you tell me you were getting a new business partner? Maybe he’ll be astonishingly fit and have a thing for brunettes.’

‘Yes, and he’ll spend all his time stripped to the waist and smeared with oil, showing off his ripped torso.’

‘Really?’

Nic sighed. ‘No. Most likely he’ll be middle aged and wearing slip on shoes.’

‘Don’t you want him to be fit?’

An easy question, Nic knew, when you were glamorous and preened. She’d bet this woman hadn’t double-stuffed her bra all the way through secondary school, and didn’t have to get undressed in the dark. ‘I don’t care, as long as he knows one end of a car from the other.’A horrible thought sneaked into her head at that, but she pushed it away. Had Ella sold her share of the garage to Sebastian? No. It couldn’t be. The idea was nuts. Either the chemicals slathered on her scalp had seeped into her brain, or the heater had fried it. Okay, so he was Ella’s ex, and he had turned up at the garage asking for her stepsister by name, but that didn’t mean anything.

Sebastian was the last person Ella would sell to. Wasn’t he?

‘The house has six bedrooms, four and a half baths. The swimming pool is heated, of course, and there is also a fully equipped kitchen and wine cellar.’

Sebastian unzipped his jacket and strolled towards the back of the house, leaving the rental agent scrambling to catch up with him. The thick white carpet silenced his steps as he wandered through into what he assumed was the living room. A leather sofa that looked like a giant marshmallow sat to one side, leaving plenty of space for the marble podium and stripper’s pole that rose out of it, and the pink velvet drapes sparkled.

‘Is it all like this?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said the rental agent blandly, smoothing down his tie.

Perfect. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘Do you want to see the rest of it first?’

‘No.’ Sebastian moved across to the sofa, dropped on to the seat. ‘I want a three month lease.’ He fixed his gaze on the man, daring him to argue. He didn’t. ‘Starting today.’

‘Absolutely, Mr Prince. There’s just the small matter of references, and a deposit, and…’

Sebastian held up his hand to silence the man. ‘I’ll pay for the three months upfront. In cash.’

Within ten minutes, the rental agent was gone and he had the keys in his hand. Funny what happened when there was cold, hard cash on the table. Shrugging out of his jacket, Sebastian tossed it on to the marshmallow sofa and set about exploring the rest of the house. As promised, there was more pink, more leather, and more tacky. Lots more tacky. Naked gold mermaids frolicked in the bathrooms, the master suite had the obligatory mirror over the bed, and there were love hearts everywhere.

He’d been off the circuit for a month, and it was time to do something about it. His attempts to persuade his boss, Fernando, to give him a drive had so far proved unsuccessful. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Fernando had hired Morgan as the team’s psychologist, and she was refusing to budge and say he was fit to drive.

Sebastian cursed, but the thought of his bossy little sister made him grin, as always. He wondered what she’d make of the pink palace he’d just rented for himself, what Freudian spin she’d put on it. Probably say it was a desperate attempt to return to the womb or something equally stupid.

No, he had no desire to return to his childhood, thank you very much. But he did want to get back in the driver’s seat, and as Fernando had proven as immoveable as Mount Everest, he’d decided to try a different tack.

One look at their poster boy working at a backwater garage in a tiny village in Cornwall, living in a pink porno palace, and the team sponsors would freak out. It was not an image which sold aftershave, or watches, or designer suits. No way would Fernando risk having the sponsors pull the plug.

Sebastian found his way to the kitchen, which was shockingly normal, apart from the huge wall mural of two tiny dogs with huge alien eyes and big pointy ears. He filled a glass with ice cold water from the tap, downed it in one.

Although he had every intention of working the situation to his advantage, Ella’s phone call had come out of the blue and he couldn’t help wondering if she was in trouble. Her absence from the garage only compounded that feeling. And why had she left that scatty woman in charge? He couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew her from somewhere, but he was damned if could place her. Those big dark eyes and buttermilk skin were oddly familiar.

They’d also had a striking effect on his libido.

He hadn’t come to Lostwithiel with a woman on his to do list. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for one. Okay, so their first interaction hadn’t been smooth. Between the tinfoil helmet, that big cape thing she’d been wearing, and the flash of strong, toned legs, he’d found himself a little distracted. He remembered the way she’d smelled when she’d leaned in to take the keys. Subtle and natural, with a hint of the metallic top note that he associated with hot metal and oil. Sebastian shook his head. He’d probably been imagining it. Only fantasy women smelled like a V8 engine.

With a bit of luck, Ella would be at the garage when he went back at two and he’d be able to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. She was the exact opposite to her mysterious acquaintance, he thought. The light to the dark.

And then it hit him like a bolt of lightning.

He knew those eyes. And those legs. She’d come stumbling into the bar at the motor show where he’d first met Ella, hugging an alloy wheel to her chest. Ella’s sister.

Nic. Who, according to what Ella had said, was a very talented mechanic.

She’d lied when she’d said they hadn’t met.

Now why on earth would she do that? Checking his watch, Sebastian considered his options. Hang around the porno palace or go back into the village and find out the answer to that question?

It was a no brainer.

He wouldn’t come back. Definitely not. Straightening the last spanner in the tray, Nic gently pushed it closed and pulled out the one underneath. A set of polished steel sprockets gleamed up at her, reflecting her face and her new, dark curtain of hair.

Her heart kicked a little at the sight of it, and she wondered how long it would take to get used to. The colour emphasised her pasty complexion and made her look like an alien, all black bug eyes and pointy chin.

And it didn’t match the Corvette one iota. If she was going to win Misses and Motors, it wouldn’t be with that particular hair and car combo. A rethink was on the books. As soon as she could think, that was. Seeing Sebastian again had completely addled her brain.

She put her palm against the top of the tool box, leaned her head against her hand and shut her eyes. Just make it past two o’clock, she told herself. As soon as she was certain he wasn’t going to show up, her heart would stop thundering and her stomach would finish its gymnastics routine. She’d be able to stop thinking about Sebastian and Ella, get rid of the sick jealousy that always swamped her whenever she thought about the two of them together, and get on with her job.