One Night To Risk It All. Katherine Garbera

lies to the family that she was hurting. It wasn’t that she was so much wiser at twenty-six, but damn, she was a little smarter when it came to men. Or at least she’d thought she was.

      No more hookups with men whose last names I don’t know, she thought. Yeah, let’s make that rule one for the new year.

      The engine of her Corvette roared to life. She put the car in Reverse and spun out on the gravel drive as she tried to get away from the house and all the people inside it. But there wasn’t a car that had rolled off the assembly line that would go fast enough to take her away from herself.

      She had that way of doing this more often than she wanted to. She knew it wasn’t her fault—how in the world had she ended up at a party with Jose’s ex-wife? That was never supposed to happen. She’d followed the teachings of a well-being guru, who had advised her to write a letter apologizing. The guru had said that would bring forgiveness from the universe.

      Marielle thought she needed a refund, because all she could see as she raced down the road was the look on Bianca’s face as she’d recognized her, and it certainly hadn’t resembled forgiveness.

      She pulled into the drive that led to her family’s mansion and slowed the car, fumbling on the visor for the garage door opener. She parked the ’Vette next to her father’s classic Porsche and sat there for a minute, realizing that she was on the edge of tears.

      She took a deep breath, fumbling in her purse for her phone and that meditation app that her brother had gifted her for Christmas. She opened it and closed her eyes, listening to the soothing voice and pretending the heat on her cheeks was the sunshine the app’s moderator was talking about and not tears.

      But in her heart the truth was strong, and she knew that she hadn’t forgiven herself for those long-ago mistakes. Thank God she hadn’t run into Jose’s son. The little boy his wife had been pregnant with while he’d been telling Marielle that she was his soul mate. If she’d been older…

      Or not as dumb, she thought.

      This wasn’t working. She dashed her hand over her cheeks and turned off the car, getting out and standing there for a minute. She smelled cigarette smoke and looked up to see her eldest brother, Darian, standing there watching her. “I wasn’t spying, just giving you space.”

      “Thanks,” she said, walking over to him and taking the cigarette from his hand, dropping it on the ground and putting it out with the toe of her shoe.

      “You’re supposed to be quitting.”

      “I know. I didn’t take a drag, I was just holding it,” he said. “What’s up with you?”

      “Ran into one of my past mistakes this morning. It’s hitting me harder than I expected,” she said.

      “Why? You know you’re not that woman anymore,” he said.

       Why?

      She shrugged, but Inigo’s face danced through her mind. She’d liked him. He’d been fun, and he’d made her feel like she was enough.

      “What were you doing with her?” Bianca asked as she and Inigo watched Marielle drive away.

      “She’s the girl…the one I told you about last night,” he said, trying to put together the two images he had in his head. Jose’s mistress had always seemed someone cold and calculating. While he had never seen his brother-in-law with the woman, he had assumed that she’d manipulated Jose into the affair. Jose had been his idol. Inigo had wanted to be Jose when he grew up. But this…

      Marielle hadn’t seemed like the type of woman…who would what? he asked himself. Cheat? Have sex with a man? She’d been fun, and he hadn’t thought of anything but the heat between the two of them. He had put it down to a year’s worth of celibacy, but honestly she was hot and sexy and he had wanted her again this morning. Maybe that was what had caused Jose to cheat.

      “Her? Couldn’t you have picked anyone else?” Bianca asked.

      Inigo’s heart was breaking at the pain and humiliation he heard in his sister’s voice.

      “I had no idea who she was to you, Bia.”

      “Fair enough. But I never want to see her again,” Bianca said. Just then Derek Caruthers entered the room, rushing to his wife’s side.

      “Bianca, are you okay? I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you.”

      “It’s fine. I’m glad we’re leaving this morning. I’m ready to get back home,” she said. “I never thought I’d see her again.”

      “I’m sorry,” Scarlet said. “I had no idea you two knew each other or the circumstances. Did you know?”

      She pivoted on her husband, Alec, who just wrapped his arm around her and hugged her close. “Of course I knew he’d had an affair with Marielle. I didn’t know you knew her.”

      Inigo just walked out of the room. He was angry. All of the emotions that he’d felt when Jose had died, and he’d learned the truth, came back. He knew that wasn’t a healthy space for him to be in and ignored his father’s calls and his brothers as he first walked and then ran back to the guesthouse where he was staying. He changed into his running gear and left the house through the glass doors that led to the beach. He was vaguely aware that it was cold, and a light rainy snow was falling, but he didn’t feel any of it.

      He only heard the pounding of his feet on the pavement of the path that was empty on this wintry January morning. He concentrated on each step, trying not to allow any thoughts in his head, but it was hard to keep them out.

      He had always had a gift for attracting relationships that were toxic, but this had to totally take the cake. He’d found the one woman in the world he really couldn’t be with. It would destroy his family if he was with her.

      And yeah, it had been a fun hookup, but there was another part of him that wondered if this was his way of making sure that nothing distracted him from racing. From winning. He’d always been the kind of athlete that pushed everything aside to win. And he was close to being the champion, which had been his one goal since he’d started in the Formula One junior program at fourteen.

      He also felt the pain of realizing that his idol had feet of clay. That he was human and real and that he hadn’t been perfect. The cold air felt like a blade in his lungs as he continued to run, and he veered off the path and into the small town, where everything was closed. No one was out this early on New Year’s Day.

      Just him.

      Just the man who had too much on his mind and no easy way to sort it out. Should he just let Marielle go? Should he try to get vengeance for Bianca? He couldn’t help it, but that thought had entered his mind. Maybe it was that he felt she’d fooled him too. She had to know who he was. But how could she have? He’d been on a different circuit that year when Bianca had been pregnant and Jose had cheated.

      Many times Inigo had wondered if he’d still been shadowing Jose, would his brother-in-law have thought twice about cheating?

      At the end of the day, was he to blame? He’d pursued winning at any cost, and had turning his back on Bianca and Jose that year been part of the other man’s downfall?

      He had no way of knowing. Jose was dead, and Bianca had never wanted to talk about it.

      He stopped running, leaning forward to put his hands on his knees, his breath still sawing in and out of his lungs. His exhalations were loud in his head but didn’t drown out his thoughts. He could fix this. Make up for anything he might or might not have done back in the day.

      He could have Marielle and publicly dump her. Would that even bother her? She’d been a married man’s mistress.

      But even as the thought formed, he knew that it didn’t matter. She needed to know that the Velasquez family