Page 20 of Fast-Track Fiancé

‘You’re close with your mother,’ she said tiredly, her eyelids drooping as she fought off sleep. ‘I have no idea what that must be like. That kind of...easy love. I didn’t have that with mine. We’re too different, I think.’

‘It’s not always easy,’ he said honestly. ‘Back then it was even easier, when we had my uncle to play referee between us. But yes, we were always close.’

She didn’t miss the furrow in his brows at the mention of his uncle, nor the way he quickly got up off the bed and set about ordering them both a copious amount of dessert from room service. She focused on staying awake as long as she could, but eventually not even the sugar or her favourite romcom could do the job.

She slid into a dream-filled sleep where Tristan watched over her like a guardian angel, his strong hands gently petting her hair while he whispered passionate words in his native tongue. Dream Tristan smelled just as divine as the real-life version and she allowed herself to burrow her face into his skin, breathing him in with a groan of approval. How easy this would be to get used to, she mused as she crawled up higher against his solid male chest and felt his low rumble of amusement as her lips clumsily pressed against his.

‘You make me wish this were real,’ she murmured, half on a sigh. ‘Making me...want you.’

‘I’m right here, mi querida,’ her dream lover whispered against her mouth. ‘I’m yours.’

Tristan opened his eyes to the sight of sunlight streaming in through the windows and Nina fast asleep in his arms. He’d managed to sleep the whole night through somehow, despite the little minx’s determination to press every inch of her lithe body against his. Testing his muscles, he was pretty sure he hadn’t moved once through the night. A quick look at his watch showed it was just dawn.

He had done his best to keep Nina awake and talking for as long as possible until her eyes had begun to droop and she had become completely unintelligible. Once he was sure that her sleep was safe and not one born of deep concussion, his own body had eventually begun to relax. That was, until she’d begun mumbling and moaning in her sleep, seemingly determined to have her way with him. Her clumsy kiss and sleep-induced longing had kept him awake far longer than he’d like to admit as he pondered his own tangle of emotions. Adrenaline really was the best form of sleeping tablet and he’d eventually fallen asleep with her nestled safely in his arms.

But now that he was awake, the anxiety from the day before came back in full force. After Nina had hit the wall and everyone had gone into a panic, Tristan’s anxiety had taken over and he found himself needing to retreat so as not to do something reckless. He never knew when his panic would impede his day-to-day life. It had become such an immovable part of him over the past decade since the accident that had ended his uncle’s life prematurely. His beloved uncle, who had been such an important father figure to him, as he’d never known his own. A man who’d fallen apart after the death of his wife, a wonderful woman Tristan had also loved dearly. He’d never been able to reach his uncle through the years of deep grief that had followed. His disengagement with life meant he should never have been flying the plane he’d crashed, killing himself but thankfully not Tristan, the only passenger on board. He closed his eyes, feeling the familiar tension in his chest rising as his ears imagined the sound of screaming jets and rushing air.

His post-traumatic stress disorder was something he managed, but not something he would ever be free of. The aeroplane accident would always be a part of him, even if it had taken him a number of painful years to accept that. Still, old wounds flared up hard and he was using every one of the tools and strategies he’d ever learned to keep himself in check.

Carefully, he disentangled his arm from beneath Nina’s head and slid backwards until he could quietly slip out of bed. He still wore his clothing from the day before minus his shoes and coat, but the collar of his shirt felt too tight and he resisted the urge to rip it off himself in one move.

He hardly remembered getting on the phone and bellowing at his own private doctor in Paris for a second opinion on Nina’s injuries. The small number of executives who had followed him from the guest spectators’ suite had looked upon him with shock and possible fear, he’d likely seemed so unhinged. It was a part of himself he’d worked hard to keep under wraps, so uncomfortable he was with the unpredictability of his own reactions once he’d been triggered. And so Tristan had been forced to leave the paddock to calm down, once he knew that Nina would be following him quickly enough.

Making his way through to the living room area of his suite, he quietly called through to the concierge and ordered coffee and breakfast to be sent up shortly. Nina would need to wake in order to take her medication and she couldn’t do that on an empty stomach. The domesticity of that thought made him pause but strangely, for once, it didn’t make him want to scream and run. He wanted to care for Nina in a way that he had never felt the urge to care for anyone before. It was a feeling that he couldn’t quite explain away with simple sexual attraction.

Sure, he very much wanted to bed her at his earliest convenience, but he also wanted to make sure that she was eating enough and that she wasn’t working too damned hard. She was too independent for her own good, and was always thinking of the team and her charity, never about herself.

She could have died yesterday.

And yet all she’d been worried about once she’d emerged from that car was missing out on the damned podium place. It had made him feel so furious and helpless—two emotions he greatly disliked feeling. Well, he’d taken control of himself now and he’d decided she was going to be forced to rest and to prioritise herself for once. Even if she fought him tooth and nail the entire time—in fact, he hoped she would. He loved it when she fought him.

This tangle of thoughts held him frozen in place on the balcony as he stared out at the sun rising above the city of Barcelona. He almost didn’t hear the terrace door sliding open behind him until Nina appeared by his side, wrapped in a fluffy white robe.

‘I wasn’t going to wake you until breakfast arrived,’ he said, gesturing for her to take a seat alongside him.

‘It’s gorgeous.’ She sighed, her eyes glued to the sky putting on a show as the dawn broke fully. ‘It’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘It really is,’ Tristan murmured in agreement, his eyes not leaving her face. She turned to look at him, a slight blush creeping to her cheeks.

‘How’s the pain?’ he asked, scanning her face for traces of discomfort.

‘I feel rather how one would expect to after slamming into an immovable object at high speed.’

Tristan winced, turning back to look out at the domes of the roofs in an effort to distract himself from the overwhelming urge to demand she never set foot in a race car again.

‘Sorry, Tristan, I’m honestly fine. I’ve never hit the wall before, not that hard anyway. But we are trained to encounter all emergencies, so I knew what to do to keep myself safe. The cars are safe, our apparatus is safe... I’m safe too.’

‘Luckily,’ Tristan growled. ‘This time.’

Her lips pursed tight. ‘Luck does have a part to play in it. But I’d also like to think that my skill and my commitment to using the correct techniques at all times are also in my favour. For the number of races I’ve started, I’ve got an exceptionally low damage record.’

‘I’m not saying that you’re not skilled, Nina. You didn’t cause that incident yesterday. I’ve already asked the team principal to issue a protest to the stewards to get that bastard suspended.’

‘You did what?’ She gasped, wincing a little at the pain in her shoulder as she turned to face him.

‘We all saw how he attacked you, recklessly trying to move ahead when he didn’t have the room. He will be severely penalised, if I have my way. He’s lucky if that’s all he gets away with. I just don’t understand how you can get back in the driver’s seat after an event like that.’

‘Because it’s my job, Tristan.’ She tilted her chin up defiantly. ‘I just as easily could have miscalculated during an overtaking manoeuvre and caused them to hydroplane. Would you seek to have me suspended from the sport if that were the case?’

---