Pride After Her Fall. Lucy Ellis

like being tumbled out of bed by a handsome man and lectured to,’ she shot out rapidly, her words scrambling over one another, ‘I do have an appointment and this is all getting rather complicated.’ She gave him a haughty look. ‘If there is any damage to the car, add it to the bill, why don’t you?’ She zipped up her bag and muttered something about it being just one more thing to add to the list.

      She wasn’t stupid, Nash thought, looking down at all those bright pretty curls, but her sense of self-preservation was clearly running on zero. Didn’t she realise if she was a man he would have hauled her out of that car and done what was necessary?

      Maybe she did. Maybe she was relying on her woman status to keep her out of harm’s way.

      He reached in and palmed her keys.

      ‘Hey!’

      He levelled her with a look and had the satisfaction of seeing her back up in her seat.

      ‘Yeah, about that. The world doesn’t run on your timetable, princess.’

      Her expression was hidden behind those shades, but the pulse at the base of her slender throat was pounding and the old bloke’s accusation about her being a nice woman and him frightening her returned full strength.

      He dropped the keys into her lap.

      ‘Just as a matter of interest—mine, not yours, doll—how did the car end up in the garden?’

      She fumbled to start her engine and he frowned. He wanted her to understand the consequences of her carelessness, but he didn’t bully women.

      She started up the engine, not looking at him.

      ‘I think that would be when I left the handbrake off,’ she responded, and without another word reversed fast in a cloud of dust.

      Douleur bonne, what did she think she was doing?

      Lorelei held on tight to the wheel as she tore up the drive, her heart pounding out of her chest. She just had to get away before the handsome stranger wrecked everything.

      Alors, she could have just offered up a standard apology and volunteered to pay for all repairs. A more prudent woman would have done just that. But prudence wasn’t her forte lately …

      She just wanted today to be a nice day.

      One more day.

      Was it too much to ask?

      She licked her dry lips, dragged her bag over as she drove, fumbled for her lipstick.

      Don’t think about it, she told herself, swiping her lower lip with the crimson colour, making a mess of it.

      She braked, dropped the lipstick, fished it from her lap and hooked off her sunglasses impatiently to restore her face with a tissue in the rear-vision mirror.

      For a moment all she saw were her eyes, huge and dilated and vulnerable.

      Taking a deep breath, she put herself back in order and forged onto the highway, determined to put this behind her. Oui, she’d had a bad start to the day, but that didn’t mean anything, and it wasn’t that bad. Despite the trembling of her hands on the wheel she’d had a little fun, hadn’t she? She was sorry about the car, but it hadn’t been intentional and it was only a little scratched. She was a good person, she’d never hurt anyone on purpose in her life, she wasn’t careless with other people’s property; she wasn’t a criminal …

      Her heart had started pounding again.

      Best not to think about it.

      She depressed the accelerator, the wind tugging at her hair. Perhaps if she drove a little harder it would help.

      She was living harder, too. She’d really pushed the boat out last night. In fact thinking about it made her feel a little sick.

      She had positively, absolutely drunk too much. She’d flirted with the wrong men and her attention had definitely not been on her borrowed adornment for the twenties-themed party. When someone had pointed out a couple of the younger partygoers, climbing all over it, she had moved it herself, parking the vehicle in the private courtyard. Clearly she hadn’t put the handbrake on.

       Why hadn’t she remembered to put the handbrake on?

      For that matter, why had she behaved so poorly this morning? Why hadn’t she apologised and done her best to smooth things over? Perhaps the better question was, what was she trying to prove? Was she that desperate for attention? For somebody to realise she needed help?

      Brought up short by the thought, Lorelei let her foot retreat from the accelerator.

      Did she need help?

      The notion buzzed just out of focus. Certainly she wouldn’t be asking any of her friends, none of whom had offered even a word of sensible advice since this whole nightmare began. Could she even call any of those people at her home last night friends? Probably not.

      It didn’t matter. At the end of the day a party merely meant she wasn’t alone. She hated being alone. You couldn’t hide when you were alone …

      In the rear vision mirror she caught a flash of red. Instinctively she depressed the accelerator. The car did nothing. She tried again and realised she was pumping her foot. Panicking slightly, although this had happened before, she gently stood on the brakes, bringing the car to a slow standstill on the roadside. She saw the sports car flash past in a blur of red and ignored the pinch in her chest because he hadn’t even slowed down. Not that she could blame him.

      Had she really expected him to stop?

      There was nothing for it but to turn off the engine for five minutes before taking it easy going down into town. The Sunbeam Alpine had been playing up for weeks. This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and it wouldn’t be the last.

      Laying her elbow on the door and pressing her head against her hand, she closed her eyes, allowing the sun on her face to soothe the surging anxiety that threatened to sweep everything before it.

      Nash watched the Sunbeam drop speed, weave a little. The brake lights stayed on as it ground to a standstill in a cloud of dust at the roadside.

      He sped past.

      He didn’t have time for this. For any of it. The banged-up car, the performance in the courtyard … the unreasonable desire to pull over, pluck those shades off her eyes and rattle around for that conscience of hers she’d assured him she had.

      He only got a few hundred metres down the road before he was doing a screeching circle and slowly heading back.

      She hadn’t got out of the car She seemed to be just sitting there.

      Nash already wanted to shake her.

      He pulled the Veyron in behind and killed the engine. Shoving his aviators back through his thick brown hair, he advanced on her car. Still she hadn’t shifted.

      What did she expect? A valet service?

      She was sitting with her head thrown back, as if the sun on her face was a sensual experience, her expression virtually obscured by those ridiculously large sunglasses. He noticed for the first time that she had a dappling of freckles over her bare shoulders. They seemed oddly girlish on such a sophisticated woman. He liked them.

      His tread crunched on the gravel but she didn’t shift an inch.

      ‘Car trouble?’

      She slowly lowered the glasses and angled up her face.

      ‘What do you think?’

      Those amber-brown eyes of hers locked on his.

      ‘What I think is you need a few lessons in driving and personal responsibility.’

      A smile, soft and subtle, drifted around the corners of her mouth. ‘Really? And are you the man to give them to me?’

      Nash almost returned the smile. She really was playing