Page 10 of The Millionaire's Mechanic

The business mogul who graced magazine covers was a handsome suit. Yes, Rainer was young and had striking features, but he was no different from the pretty men who graced the gossip rags at the checkout counter. Before meeting him, she’d thought his charity work was the most attractive thing about him.

However, in person, Rainer Torsten was devastating. No picture could convey the impact of those cheekbones or the intensity of his dark eyes. Someone like that didn’t belong in an office. A master artist had carved every line, but what would have been cold perfection was softened by a generous mouth and sun-kissed skin with its own portable luminosity.

Rainer could have walked into a dark room, and she would have known where he was by the subtle glow he seemed to emanate.

Was it any surprise that Georgia’s composure had crumbled? One look at the flesh-and-blood man and her stomach had nosedived to her feet, weakening her knees along the way.

She had never understood the word ‘dumbstruck’ until that moment. Georgia had been paralyzed under his hands, lips parted as she stared at him like an idiot. Judging from the amusement in his dark eyes, he’d been aware of her reaction. In his defense, it must have been hard to miss. But it still embarrassed her in retrospect.

She told herself it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if she were ever going to see the man again—not even to offer the car. Instead, she could call his office and ask for Mr. Powell. The security man could function as a go-between if Rainer still wanted to buy the Talbot.

But her plans to offer the car to the venture capitalist had a major flaw.

Ephraim finished chewing his large bite of spaghetti. “Absolutely not,” he said, coughing and reaching for his drinking glass. “I gave that car to you.”

Georgia opened her mouth to argue, but Ephraim’s lined face sagged. He reached over, squeezing her hand.

“Georgia, I was never sorry that you didn’t get a degree, because cars are your life. But that’s why you have to keep the Talbot. I couldn’t pay for your college, but you will have a legacy from me. The Talbot stays in the family.”

And that right there was what Mack had never understood about Ephraim. He wasn’t just a foster father. To him, the relationship was real. To Mack, it had always rung false. But Georgia knew Ephraim considered her a daughter in every sense of the word. It was why she’d do anything for him.

From experience, she also understood that his tone meant ‘case closed’.

“All right, Dad,” she whispered, tears that she wouldn’t let him see making her eyes burn. “We won’t sell the Talbot.”

CHAPTERSIX

Georgia set her body hammer down on the garage floor and knelt to stroke the Talbot’s door panel. It had taken most of the afternoon, but it was finally as smooth under her fingers. Humming she walked around the car, inspecting it from every angle. A little switch in her head flipped, a pleasing rush of endorphins sweeping through her brain as she admired her handiwork.

She had spent every spare minute of the last week beating out the last lingering dents in the Talbot’s body. Even though she had agreed not to sell it, she felt an urgency to get as much work done on the vehicle as quickly as possible. The prominent ‘For Sale’ sign that now graced the lawn was the reason.

Georgia turned her back to the offensive square of corrugated plastic, focusing on the sleek steel curves in front of her. If she hurried, she had just enough time to sand the hood and front panels before dinner. The rest of the car would have to wait for the weekend because she was pulling a double shift at Elite tomorrow and the next day—a string of oil changes and a tune-up.

Hopefully, there would be no overflowing toilets today.And no criminals, she tacked on mentally.

Georgia had cleaned the showroom bathrooms multiple times since overhearing the kidnapping plot. At first, her heart had pounded, her body tense as she expected the men she’d overheard to come back and punish her for foiling their plans.

In reality, Georgia knew there was little chance of that. They hadn’t seen her, and had no way of knowing she warned Torsten, but she hadn’t been able to help her reaction. Georgia had been fight-or-flight ready, imagining every person who came in was them.

It had taken three or four shifts that included bathroom-cleaning duty for her to stop expecting a confrontation. The men hadn’t returned.

Georgia still had no idea who they had been or if their plans had been real. However, as time went on without Rainer Torsten mentioned in the news, she grew increasingly convinced the security man had been right. There might have been a plan, but the parties involved had chickened out. More likely, there had never been a genuine intent to carry it out.

In retrospect, she was embarrassed to have gone to Torsten with the outlandish claim. She’d replayed the scene in her head every night since, dying a thousand deaths every time she’d crashed into the man’s long, hard body. Even worse was the way her brain had shut down, leaving her gaping at him like a lovestruck fangirl.

As it turned out, he had quite a few of those.

After her visit, Georgia had done an internet deep dive on all things Rainer Torsten. In addition to all the glowing business profiles, there were dozens of mentions on celebrity gossip sites, the ones that stalked the rich as well as the famous.

There she’d seen pictures of Rainer at movie premiers and entering nightclubs, always with a gorgeous woman on his arm. She assumed they were models from their perfect bodies and faces. Meanwhile, Georgia was a short, skinny nobody, her body boyish in comparison to the often-voluptuous vixens Rainer preferred. Only one thing about them surprised her. More often than not, the models Rainer dated were women of color—mostly black.

From her search, it was also clear Rainer had a legion of female followers who tracked his every move, or they tried to. This last explained a great deal about the treatment Georgia had gotten from the security guys. She was surprised they’d bothered to hear her out at all.

It didn’t help that her overactive brain dissected every word they’d exchanged, repeatedly and on a loop. Georgia had spent more than one night hugging a pillow as she talked herself down. Even if it had been a false alarm, she had done the right thing by reporting the threat. Wasn’t ‘see something, say something’ still a thing?

Even if you did sound a false alarm, you weren’t wrong to go.Yes, the security men had been suspicious, but they hadn’t laughed her out of the room.

Georgia kicked one of the spare tires stored in the corner.That’s because they waited until you left.Another wave of heated mortification swept over her, but she didn’t have time to wallow. The past was the past. Even if she’d made a fool of herself, she’d done it for the right reasons. Which was why she now counted to ten, pushing the memory of Rainer’s smirking mouth away.

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