Her Last Night of Innocence. India Grey

       Adrenaline burned through Cristiano’s veins as he ran down the casino steps.

      The cool air with its whisper of pine and the sea felt good, tasted better than the champagne he’d avoided all evening, and out in the street-lit darkness the pounding inside his head was less intense. He didn’t care about anything except finding Kate Edwards.

      

      She had gone into the Hotel de Paris when she’d run out of here. Standing in the middle of the marble floor, still reeling from the realisation of who she was, he had watched her crossing the square, dodging in front of a car in her haste to get away.

      

      He nodded curtly at the doorman, who leapt forward to open the door for him, as Suki’s words came back to him. ‘She wasn’t your type at all…Seriously plain and boring…’

      She was right about the first bit at least—Kate Edwards was entirely different from the women he usually bedded. And yet the experience had been worth remembering.

      

      Worth repeating.

      

      Her Last Night of Innocence

      By

      India Grey

      

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      About the Author

      A self-confessed romance junkie, INDIA GREY was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon® Writers’ Guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she gained a degree in English Literature and Language from Manchester University, and in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of romance met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!

       Recent titles by the same author:

      EMILY’S INNOCENCE^*

      POWERFUL ITALIAN, PENNILESS HOUSEKEEPER

      SPANISH ARISTOCRAT, FORCED BRIDE

      To Michelle Styles, with love and gratitude for listening, advising and believing.

      Prologue

      A HAZE of heat hung over the tarmac. The air was thick, acrid with the smell of hot rubber and high-octane fuel. The starting grid was thronged with reporters brandishing microphones and news crews shouldering cameras, as well as pit crews wearing overalls in their team colours and promotions girls carrying flags and wearing hardly anything at all.

      Cristiano picked up his helmet and gloves and stepped out of the shade of the garages into the blazing Côte D’ Azur sunlight. The noise of the crowd instantly doubled and reporters swooped, holding out their microphones to him. He kept his head down.

      His body felt loose and heavy with the memory of last night’s pleasure. It wasn’t unusual for him to work off the residual adrenaline and testosterone from the qualifying session in the willing arms of one of the paddock club hostesses or pit lane beauties the night before a big race; sex was a good way of easing both the mental and physical tension of a Grand Prix weekend.

      But last night hadn’t just been sex.

      ‘Ciao, Cristiano. Good of you to join us.’

      Silvio Girardi, Campano team boss, came forward, perspiring heavily beneath his baseball cap as he slapped Cristiano’s shoulder. A stocky, grey-haired Neapolitan, rapid-fire sarcasm was his default setting. Right now the dial was turned to maximum. ‘Why you not take an extra half-hour in bed, huh? Make sure you were really rested for the race?’

      Cristiano took a mouthful of water and grimaced. ‘If I’d had an extra half-hour in bed the last thing I would have been doing is resting.’

      Silvio rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air in a gesture of elaborate exasperation. ‘I hope that whichever cocktail waitress it was last night knows better than to kiss and tell. Our new sponsors were most particular that they don’t want any scandal. Clearspring—it’s water, Cristiano, not bourbon. Clean living, wholesome, for kids—comprendo? Did you see the guy from their marketing department yesterday?’

      ‘It wasn’t a guy.’

      ‘Huh?’ Silvio frowned. ‘They said they were sending their head of marketing—a Dominic someone. You’re telling me Dominic isn’t a guy’s name in England?’

      ‘His wife went into labour unexpectedly. They sent his as sistant.’

      ‘A girl?’

      A ghost of a smile touched Cristiano’s lips as he pulled on his gloves. ‘A girl.’

      Oh, yes. Kate Edwards was very definitely a girl.

      Nervously repositioning his baseball cap, Silvio gave a snort of contempt. ‘Well, I hope you were nice to her—no funny business. I need the money. You get paid millions just for showing up and sitting in a car it costs me millions to build for you. Think about it—how is this fair?’ He was pacing around the low emerald-green car with its Clearspring banners. ‘Now—time for you to do some work and show what this beauty can do. You’re in pole position. You can’t lose.’

      With another slap on the back, he moved off to talk to the mechanics and engineers. Cristiano turned round, combing the crowd for a honey-coloured head amongst the peroxide blondes and polished brunettes.

      Slim, brown arms twined around his neck, and he was enveloped in a familiar musky perfume.

      ‘Good luck,’ his PA whispered huskily in his ear.

      Fighting irritation, he pulled away and looked over her shoulder. ‘Thanks, Suki.’

       Where was Kate?

      ‘How was the interview yesterday evening with the girl from Clearspring? I hope it didn’t drag on too long. She looked a little bit…’ Suki’s glossy lips twitched into a smirk ‘…serious.’

      ‘It was fine.’ As far as he was concerned, it hadn’t dragged on nearly long enough. ‘Have you seen her?’

      Suki raised one dark, perfectly arched brow. ‘This morning? Why would I have? Is she here?’

      ‘Si.’ Cristiano’s gaze moved restlessly over the PR girls, posing and pouting for the cameras in their team colours, and the journalists jostling for last-minute interviews. The excitement of the crowds of people packed into the grandstands and on every balcony and rooftop overlooking the street circuit was reaching fever-pitch, and the yachts sounded their horns plaintively out in Monaco harbour.

      Suki shrugged her narrow shoulders in the tight-fitting Campano T-shirt. ‘Well, if I see her I’ll tell her you said hi,’ she said coolly. ‘But it’s pretty much time for you to get in the car.’

      For a second he looked at her blankly, as if what she was saying meant nothing to him. Then he shook his head curtly. ‘I know.’

      He