CHAPTER ONE
August 2nd
Monza, Italy
“GOOD night, Cesar. I’ve had a spectacular time.”
After the party downstairs with his Formula I racing team, Cesar walked Olivia to her hotel room, but it irritated her when he looped his arms around her neck outside the door.
Since he never drank before a race, she knew for a fact it couldn’t be the effect of alcohol making him amorous all of a sudden.
Twenty-nine-year-old Cesar de Falcon, known as Cesar Villon when he used his paternal grandmother’s maiden name Villon to race, was all flash and excitement, the ultimate charmer, albeit one who was still too obsessed with his career to be taken seriously.
Neither during the night of the Monaco Grand Prix in June, or throughout the last two days in Monza prior to tomorrow’s race had Olivia led him to believe there was anything but friendship between them. There couldn’t be.
She was painfully in love with his elder brother, Lucien de Falcon.
Though that love wasn’t reciprocated, it didn’t matter. With her emotions involved elsewhere, she couldn’t let go with Cesar and kiss him for the sheer fun of being out with one of Europe’s most eligible and sought after playboys. Especially not this particular one.
When she’d come to Europe with her sisters in June, the highlight for Olivia had been to watch the Monaco Grand Prix where the legendary Cesar Villon had taken second place.
It was an absolute fluke that Cesar’s cousin, Max, had ended up marrying Greer, one of Olivia’s sisters, thus throwing their families together under the most unlikely and unexpected circumstances.
Because of her fascination with Formula I racing before meeting Cesar, she’d been thrilled and flattered by the famous driver’s eagerness to show her around. How many times in life did one get a chance to see firsthand what went on behind the scenes of the racing world? Especially with someone as well-known?
“I’ve had an even more wonderful time, ma belle. There’s no reason why it can’t continue now that we’re alone.”
“Yes, there is.” She averted her face in an attempt to prevent him from kissing her. “You have a big race tomorrow and need your beauty sleep.”
“Beauty sleep?” He chuckled before brushing his lips against the side of her cheek. “I intend to get some, but not by myself.” So saying, he trapped her against the door and kissed her.
Cesar was an attractive man, very persuasive, but she broke away before he could deepen the kiss. The look of surprise on his face let her know few women had ever resisted him.
“You’re not going to invite me in?” He gave her that wounded look so typical of Max, her new, all-Italian brother-in-law.
She smiled, needing to handle this with grace and discretion considering the fact that he was now Greer’s cousin-in-law. It wasn’t as if she could risk offending him by her rejection, knowing she would never see him again in this lifetime.
“No, cousin,” she said the word deliberately. “I’m not. I always sleep alone.”
“Always?” He looked shocked to the foundations.
“Always.”
“Not even with Fred?”
The mention of her ex-boyfriend, the one who’d followed Formula I racing on TV and had gotten her interested in the sport in the first place, made her chuckle. “Especially not Fred.”
“But this is unbelievable.”
Olivia burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it. “My sisters and I were taught to wait for marriage.”
“You mean to tell me Greer and Max—”
“Didn’t until their wedding night,” she finished the sentence for him.
Now it was his turn to laugh. “Then she lied to you.”
“No.” Olivia shook her head. “I would stake my life on it.” When she could see he wasn’t convinced she said, “Tell you what. After they’re back from their honeymoon, you can ask Max. He’ll tell you the truth.”
Cesar grinned. “What if you’re wrong?”