Di Sione's Innocent Conquest. Carol Marinelli

welcome on board his friend Sheikh Kedah’s yacht.

      Kedah seemed hell-bent on returning the wild week Matteo had given him on a recent trip to New York City. The second day had been spent galloping at breakneck speed with his friend along a beach. Matteo had taken a tumble and dislocated his shoulder. The sheikh had called for his private physician to put it back. With Matteo’s arm strapped and a little out of action they had hit the racetracks and placed a few bets on a camel race. The potential two years’ jail time for illegal betting had only served to give Matteo an extra high!

      It had been a giddy introduction to Dubai but now he had crashed back to earth—the smell of oil was nauseating and the sound from the track had his molars aching. He’d lost the sling that the physician had provided and so his shoulder was killing him.

      And Abby Ellison was nowhere to be seen.

      It was after four and he wondered if she might have finished for the day. A group of guys were watching as Pedro, the Boucher driver, put the car through its paces. He knew it was Pedro because Matteo recognised the deep green of the Boucher car.

      Matteo had done some further research on the team, of course.

      They had entered in the prestigious Henley Cup. A series of three races—Dubai, Milan and Monte Carlo. The final race took place in July a week before Ellison’s fundraiser.

      As newcomers the Boucher team wasn’t being taken seriously, especially because the owner was a woman. Just a little rich girl playing with her daddy’s money seemed to be the general consensus.

      Pedro Sanchez, their driver, was someone who was being watched seriously though, and there were a couple of other teams who had their eye on him.

      The group of men all ignored him and that suited Matteo just fine. He just drank from a large bottle of cola and idly watched.

      Or rather, at first, he idly watched.

      Matteo had never really been in to cars and not just because his parents had died in a crash. His father had once taken a five-year-old Matteo for a joy-ride.

      There was no joy in that memory!

      Still, this was different—Pedro was really putting the car through its paces now, hugging the bend, belting it down the straight, and the roar of the motor was, as it flew past him, a bit of a turn-on.

      ‘Whoa!’ one of the guys shouted as the car lost traction, but then Pedro skilfully righted it and Matteo watched as the car again sped down the straight and then slowed down as it came towards them.

      ‘Hey...’

      Matteo turned as someone greeted him and blinked in vague surprise. ‘Pedro...’ Matteo shook his hand; he recognised the young man himself from his research. ‘Sorry for the double take. I thought that I was watching you out there. I didn’t realise there were two drivers.’

      ‘No, no...’ Pedro said. ‘Soon you’ll get to see me drive. That’s Abby—she’s just checking out some adjustments that she has made.’

      Matteo looked back at the car and, sure enough, climbing out from it, dressed in tight leather, was no man, and the vague turn-on Matteo had felt before was rather less vague now.

      He hadn’t known that he was in to leather either!

      The racing world was looking up, he decided as she took off her helmet and the fire guard and then shook her long dark hair out.

      She was tall enough to wear her curves well, and if she only smiled he would return it with the best of his. And Matteo’s smile could melt. But then he remembered he was not here to seduce and so he kept his business expression on.

      ‘So,’ Pedro said, ‘I hear that you have a meeting with Abby.’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘Good,’ Pedro responded and he could hear the slight edge to the man’s voice. ‘Then I guess it’s time for me to show you a little of what I can do.’ He looked over to Abby, who had reached them now. ‘How is she?’

      ‘Oh, she’s running like silk now.’

      They spoke as if the car was a person!

      ‘I’ve warmed her up for you,’ Abby said and then, as Pedro headed off towards the car, she finally acknowledged Matteo. ‘Di Sione?’

      ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘But you can call me Matteo.’

      Abby didn’t return the smile.

      Instead she blanked him and turned her attention to Pedro, who was climbing into the car.

      Was she always this polite with investors? Matteo pondered.

      ‘How long has Pedro been out here?’ Matteo enquired, wondering how long he’d had to acclimatise to the hot and humid conditions.

      ‘Long enough,’ Abby said and then carried on ignoring him as Pedro started to do some laps.

      ‘Why don’t we...?’ Matteo started but his voice was drowned out by the sound of the engine and he had to wait till Pedro had passed before continuing. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere we can talk?’

      Still she ignored him and watched the track intently and then, when Pedro had finished a few laps, she turned and finally answered him.

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘Sorry?’

      ‘I don’t need an investor who wants to pull me away.’

      ‘But Pedro’s finished.’

      ‘I’m watching the competition,’ she said.

      ‘And you do need an investor,’ Matteo said.

      Not this one, Abby thought.

      She knew the Di Sione name, of course she did, and she had looked Matteo up.

      Of course she had.

      Reckless, wild and debauched, she had read, but looking at the photos of him and finding out a little more about her potential sponsor, it didn’t take long for her to work out that he was also as sexy as all hell.

      And Abby didn’t like sexy.

      It terrified her, in fact.

      Abby had seen and recognised Matteo the second she had stepped out of the car. He was even better in the flesh and her stomach had curled in a way she would prefer it did not.

      She had also seen and felt his eyes roam her body as she had walked towards them and had felt her cheeks turn pink from that fact.

      ‘Can I get earplugs?’ Matteo asked. Another team was taking their car out and his hangover was making itself known again. ‘I guess we can resort to sign language if we’re not allowed to go somewhere decent to talk.’

      ‘Decent?’ Abby frowned. What sort of a sponsor was he? Didn’t he get that she lived trackside?

      She watched Evan put his car through its paces. She had been waiting all day to watch this. Evan Lewis, driver of the Carter team, was one of the Boucher team’s toughest opponents. Her friend Bella, who she had studied engineering with, worked for the Carter team and had told Abby that the engine, along with the driver, were poetry in motion. Yes, she had waited all day to see this but as Evan in the aqua-blue car tested the track, she found that she couldn’t concentrate.

      Matteo stood beside her, swigging from his bottle, which made her thirsty, and as she licked her lips he offered her a drink, as if they had known each other for months.

      She gave him a terse shake of her head and he moved forwards and leaned on the rail and bent over a little.

      And she noticed.

      Oh, she tried to watch Evan but her eyes kept flicking to Matteo’s long legs and to a white, slightly crumpled shirt that, despite the heat, wasn’t damp. He had a bruise over his left eye and she wanted to know where it had come from. He put down his bottle and in her peripheral