Breathless In Love (The Maverick Billionaires #1) (3 page)

For the first time in forever, Harper wanted to forget about what was bad for her and just do what felt good. Which was why she finally said, “I’ll go with you for one turn around the runway.” She made sure to add as a reminder for them both, “But I won’t be wanting more than that.”

Only, she wasn’t sure he believed it any more than she did.

Oh yes, Will Franconi was dangerous.
Extremely
dangerous as he drew her to the passenger side of the car and her stomach fluttered with the hand-to-hand contact.

Harper hadn’t dated in over a year, ever since she’d realized that she was an easy target. Not only for men who wanted to get at her brother’s trust fund, but also because after so many years of working to take care of herself and Jeremy, she hadn’t had much time left over to nurture her other relationships. First she’d become involved with a man who wanted Jeremy’s money but not Jeremy.
Why can’t you just send him to a home for people like him?
he’d said. And then she’d rebounded into a relationship with a guy who had sworn he would always be there for her and Jeremy—at least until he’d found a far lower-maintenance woman. Jeremy’s heart had been broken when her boyfriend no longer came around to see him.

After that, Harper had decided love and marriage simply weren’t in the cards for her.

And that was okay. Because, honestly, she wanted to know for sure that Jeremy wasn’t going to be hurt by anyone else, rather than risk dating again.

Not that getting in the car with Will was akin to dating him, of course. She couldn’t imagine what a rich playboy like him would want with a completely ordinary woman like her. It was just that she hadn’t been this close to a good-looking man in a very long time. That had to explain why her heart was pounding hard and her skin felt flushed.

Will put her hand on the roll bar. “Hold on tight right here.”

Everything he said seemed to have a double meaning, turning something ordinary into something sexual. But she knew it had to be her sex-starved brain adding the extra meaning.

She lifted her skirt slightly to step inside, then slid down into the leather seat. Picking up the ends of the seat belt, she looked at them, unsure how the contraption worked.

“It’s a five-point racing harness,” Will explained as he got into the driver’s seat beside her. “Normally it would come up between your legs and down over your shoulders, but I think we can skip the leg harness for you today, given that you didn’t come dressed to drive in a race car.”

 When she started fumbling with the hooks and levers on the harness, he said, “Let me help you.”

The next thing she knew, he was settling a strap over her shoulder, his fingers brushing her collarbone as he brought it down across her chest. Thrill bumps raced across her skin with the near contact. She inhaled his scent—shampoo and soap and
very
sexy male—and her body tingled. Pulling the harness down to her lap, he flicked the latch closed with a snap, and she felt the pressure of his touch just below her belly. Low enough—and intimately enough—that her pulse rate shot up.

As he started on the other strap, his fingers skimmed the air just above her breasts, not quite touching, but barely short of a breath away. Harper didn’t look up, didn’t dare meet his gaze, just in case he realized the effect he was having on her. He snapped the second latch, buckled the belt across her lap with a simple flip of the two pieces she’d already connected, then cinched the strap.

Had he spent this much time getting Jeremy into the harness or putting the shoulder straps on?
At this point, her head was spinning so much from his nearness and all the almost-touches that she honestly couldn’t remember.

“Comfortable?” With the sun behind him, his eyes were shadowed, but she could have sworn heat sparkled in their depths.

“I’m fine.” Her answer was low, breathy, too close to a moan. She cleared her throat. “I’m great. Thank you.”

He pulled back slowly, his gaze still dark and intense, making her pulse beat even harder. After he secured his belt, he started the engine with a roar, and put a hand on the gear shift. “Ready?”

With a man like him, she didn’t think she’d ever be ready. But she managed a nod.

He took off with a burst of speed, and she hung on to the door with one hand, clutching the seat tightly with the other, down by the gear box where he wouldn’t see.

“Don’t worry,” he yelled over the rush of wind, “I won’t go too fast.”

Didn’t he get that everything he was doing was already too fast?

Her hair whipped around her face, and she had to let go of the seat to pull it back. She needed two hands to bunch the thick locks at the back of her head, out of her eyes and her lipstick. She was flying free beside him, held in only by the harness, as the wind screamed past her ears.

And he was smiling, watching her.

“Look at the road,” she shouted at him.

She felt him brake as he went into the turn at the end of the runway. It felt like they were going too fast, but the back end didn’t slide as he went into the second turn, heading down the opposite runway. Her body swayed and jostled in the leather seat. She could taste the salt air on her lips. In the distance, she could see Jeremy jumping up and down, punching his fist high.

Will went faster and faster, making her blood pound in her ears and the wind beat against her chest. She should have told him to slow down, to stop and let her out. She should be calling him a maniac, even screaming at him.

Yet right then, Harper had the insane urge to raise her arms in the air like a teenager on a roller coaster. A crazy voice inside her whispered,
Do it.

Unable to resist the pull of excitement and the thrill of the speed racing through her, she let herself go, throwing her hands up and her head back.

It was as exhilarating as it was terrifying. Maybe it was the combination of fear and danger and the pure joy of soaring through the air that made her feel so alive, with every nerve firing.

Or...maybe it was the man beside her.

* * *

Harper was utterly gorgeous, the sun sparkling in her wind-tossed hair, ecstasy glowing on her face. She didn’t shout or cheer—but she did hold up her arms. And she smiled.

The most beautiful smile Will had ever seen.

He wasn’t even near freeway speed, yet the shriek of the motor, the rumble of the pipes, and the open sky above them made it seem as if the car were flying at over a hundred miles an hour.

Just as he’d promised, he took her around only once. He didn’t want to push her limits.

Not yet, anyway.

While harnessing her in, it would have been so easy to touch her, to let his fingertips graze her gorgeous skin. His heart had hammered with the desire to put his hands on her. Even now, his fingers sizzled with her heat, and her sweet scent filled his head. But he could tell that she wasn’t like the women he usually spent his time with—women who knew the score and were in it for what they could grab before he moved on.

Harper Newman was different. And he liked that, liked knowing that wooing her would be unlike anything else he’d ever done in his life. Even if a voice in his head reminded him that he shouldn’t be looking for anything more than a quick roll between the sheets with her.

Not because she didn’t deserve more, but because she
did
. So much more than a fundamentally broken man like Will could ever give her.

He slowed after the last turn, heading back to her brother. Back to sanity for both of them.

For now.

She let her arms drop, and her sleeve brushed his arm as she said, “That was fast.”

She was trying for a noncommittal tone, but he could hear the breathlessness she was trying to hide. She might normally be good at hiding her feelings, but Will was too interested in her to miss one single thing. Especially the thrill of the speed still coursing through her veins.

“Too fast? Or just right?”

Her eyes met his and sparks jumped between them again. Sparks that had been there from the very first moment they’d looked at each other.

Finally, she admitted, “It was good,” her words a little huskier than he imagined she wanted them to be.

Ahead of them, Jeremy was hopping, skipping toward the car. He looked so happy. Which, Will was glad to see, made Harper very happy, too.

They rolled to a stop and he said, “Let me give you a hand.”

But she didn’t wait for his chivalry, simply unbuckled before he could help her and said, “I’m fine, thanks,” then turned to grab the roll bar and hoist herself up.

Jeremy ran over to them. “Wasn’t it cool, Harper?”

“I enjoyed it.”

Her answer was far too tight-laced, but Will knew that for a few moments out there, she’d been one with the car and the rush of speed. Just as he had.

“But once was enough,” she added, smoothing her jacket, then her skirt, and finally her hair.

“Once is never enough,” he said softly.

Despite how hard she was working to rein herself in, he heard her breath catch on the slightly sensual undertone to his words. Will knew that if her brother hadn’t been standing right there, he would have done something crazy, like grab her and kiss her.

No, he wasn’t good enough for her. But that knowledge didn’t keep him from wanting her. If anything, he was even more powerfully drawn to the good in her, to the sweetness and warmth she shared with her brother.

“I don’t have to be anywhere special for another couple of hours. I can show you the Aston Martin at my place.”

In truth, Will had a dozen important things to take care of today, but Jeremy was like a bright, mystical sphere that beckoned him closer, a breath of something clean that made him feel young instead of jaded.

And then there was Harper.

Beautiful, unique Harper with all that tightly leashed passion inside of her just waiting to be set free...

“We really can’t,” she protested at the exact moment Jeremy said, “That would be way cool.”

The traces of the woman with her arms over her head in his car were disappearing fast. Much too fast, as she said, “We’ve imposed long enough. This was far more than we expected.”

“Spending time with both of you hasn’t been any imposition at all.” He grinned at Jeremy. “No one has ever enjoyed my cars as much as you have. And the truth is that I like showing them off.”

“Can we, Harper? Please.” Her brother rocked on his toes, hands behind his back, his notebook clutched tightly in his fingers.

“You can follow me over in your car and leave when you’re ready,” Will added.

“Where do you live?” Her tone was wary, but at least she wasn’t still completely shutting down his idea.

“Portola Valley.”

Jeremy’s notebook was now tucked under his arm, his palms pressed flat together. He stood right in front of Harper mouthing,
Please, please, please.

Will knew it was dirty pool to let Jeremy do all the convincing, but the boy wanted it as much as Will did. He recognized the moment Harper relented. She shot out one sharp breath, and shook her head in a quick move as though she was telling herself she was an idiot—or a softie.

“All right. But we can’t stay long, Jeremy. Mr. Franconi is a busy man.”

“I thought you were going to call me Will.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

But he knew she hadn’t. She didn’t forget a thing, he could easily see that. She was simply trying to put distance between herself and that fast ride in the car. And
him
, most of all.

“We’ll follow you,” she said, “but please don’t drive too fast or I might lose you.”

Oh, he wasn’t about to let her lose him. Just like he wasn’t planning on losing her. “No fast driving on the way over,” he promised.

One thing she’d learn about him was that he always kept his promises. Will had been anything but honest in his youth—far from it, as he’d done countless things that had given Susan and Bob gray hairs—but they’d also been the ones to teach him the power of his word. Will hadn’t broken a promise since he was eighteen. His tattoo burned on his arm as a perpetual reminder of the things he’d done and the people he’d hurt.

“Can I go with Will?” her brother asked.

“Jeremy,” she admonished softly. “You shouldn’t invite yourself along like that.”

“But I already invited myself to see Will’s cars,” Jeremy said logically, “and he said yes to that.”

Jeremy certainly had a way about him, Will thought with a smile. The kid’s great attitude was contagious. “No problem, buddy, you can drive with me.”

As for Harper, he’d make sure she drove with him again, too. Only next time, he’d take her so far and so fast, and make it so good, that she wouldn’t dream of asking him to slow down.

It wasn’t just a house. It was a whole compound. The private road leading to Will’s home was a twisting half-mile up into the hills, past rolling fields of grass, scrub, trees, and other natural vegetation. Harper followed his car into the circular drive surrounding a rock fountain.

The house was like something out of a Frank Lloyd Wright photo book, with a wide, sweeping pathway of slowly rising brick steps surrounded by meticulously shaped flowering shrubs and artful rock formations. What she could see of the massive house was on two levels, one set farther back than the other, almost as if they were completely separate. A continuous line of windows flowed across the front, turning fluidly at the corners. Perched on a hill, there was an expansive valley view out the back. From the angle of the house to the drive, she could see an infinity pool, water pouring over its edge like a waterfall. Below that was a putting green.

Sticking behind Will, she steered her car into another drive, around a rock garden adorned with cacti and succulents, and headed up an incline. The garage he’d spoken of was actually two buildings, one opposite the other. She counted eight doors in each as she tailgated Will into the interior concrete pad between the two structures. One door slid up silently, and he pulled the Challenger inside.

She climbed out of the modest sedan she’d purchased several years ago based solely on its excellent safety record, and her heels clicked on the concrete as she headed to the open garage door. Lights came on inside, revealing several expensive cars whose value she could only guess. Probably a million dollars in gleaming metal, at the very least.

Will swept out a hand. “Welcome to my playground.”

Jeremy was already racing down the row of cars. “It’s down there.” Will pointed. Then her brother was gone, shooting toward the silver Aston Martin he’d been drooling over for ages.

“I see he likes speed,” Will mused, “in more ways than one.”

“After the accident,” she said softly, “he had to learn to talk and walk again. So now he feels he has to keep moving so his joints don’t rust up like the Tin Man.” Those were Jeremy’s words, ones that always made her smile.

Will turned his gaze from Jeremy to her. “What happened?”

Harper swallowed, feeling herself choke up. It had all been a long time ago, yet the kindness in Will’s eyes touched her. “A car accident when he was seven. A speeding teenager in his daddy’s sports car.” A teenager from a family that had nowhere near as much money as Will. “Jeremy was on his bike.”

“I’m sorry, Harper.” He looked upset on their behalf. And more than a little angry, too. “I can’t imagine how difficult that was.”

“He was in a coma for several weeks and suffered brain damage. In many ways, it’s like he never grew older than seven.” Jeremy would perpetually be a child. But he was alive. And she was more than grateful for that. “He’s a happy guy, though. And he’s doing well. I love him just the way he is.”

“He’s a good kid. Your parents obviously did a great job helping him through.”

“They did,” she agreed, still watching Jeremy skip around the Aston Martin, examining every detail. She’d already told Will this much of their story, so she might as well finish it for him, even though sometimes it felt like there was nothing else to her but this tale of one crash after another. “Our parents died a few years ago in a plane crash. So he’s all mine now.”

Will had come closer to her while she spoke. She was average height, but he was so tall, so strong, that he made her feel petite. “That must have been really hard on you.”

He was right, it had been
horrible.
But she’d concentrated on Jeremy, on doing everything she could for him and, eventually, the ache had become a little less each day. “I miss my parents a lot. My mother was always so good at giving advice, and my father was always so calm about things.” She would have given anything for them to be here.

Will reached for her hand and squeezed it as he said, “They would both be very proud of how you’ve done, Harper.”

His touch seared her. She was suddenly aware of every breath she took, the slight bump in her heart rate, and the heat of his body. He was so completely
there
as he used their connection to steer her toward Jeremy, keeping their pace a leisurely stroll down the line of cars.

“Your garage is amazing.” It seemed the polite thing to say and had the dual purpose of taking her mind off the loss of her parents and the focus off Will’s hand over hers. Almost.

The facility was spotless, with not a single oil stain in sight. Vinyl pathways had been laid down between the cars and along the rear wall. The tool chests were shiny red, with every tool put away or hanging on pegboard above the workbenches. Electrical cords in roller bins hung down from the ceiling. There was order rather than the chaos of a normal garage. Particularly
her
garage.

She moved ahead of him so that his hand fell away from hers. Without his touch, she felt close to normal again, just a slight tingle of awareness remaining. But at the same time, she couldn’t deny that a part of her missed it.

“You have so much space here,” she noted. “Couldn’t you also house the cars you have down at the airport?”

“Leland owns the hangar, and he’d been trying to rent out those spaces for a while. I’m glad to be able to use them.”

She recalled that Leland was his mechanic. “So you have a mechanic
and
you fix the cars yourself?” She waved a hand along the row of tool chests. “Not to mention building them.”

“Leland does the routine maintenance, while I get to do most of the fun stuff. But he helps out on a project if something requires more than two hands. Besides,” Will added, the dark intensity back in his eyes as he looked at her, “I’m a hands-on kind of guy.”

Harper remembered the way he’d fit the harness over her, nearly caressing her as he’d done so, and she flushed again. She didn’t like this awareness of a man she could never be with in a million, billion years. Her cravings for a rush, for thrills, were shoved way down into a secret place—whereas his were out in the open. She’d seen dozens of photos of him on the Internet, a different woman on his arm each time. They all had hourglass figures and wore sexy designer dresses that had probably cost as much as her car. Clearly, he was a player.

Yet, he was kind to Jeremy and obviously took great pride in building things with his own hands rather than simply hiring minions to do it for him.

Harper couldn’t put the pieces of the puzzle that was Will Franconi together in a way that made sense. Maybe if she knew more of his story the way he already knew hers, things might become clearer. But since she doubted she or Jeremy would ever see him again, Will Franconi would have to remain a mystery.

Needing another distraction from the heat still rising inside her, she pointed to grease-stained overalls hanging on the wall. “Looks like you’ve been doing a whole lot of work on your cars recently.”

“Like I said, cars are my thing. They always have been, since I was a kid. Even now, I can always count on them when I’m looking for a rush.”

“Can I sit in the car, Will?” Jeremy called from across the garage.

“Sure, go ahead.” Will leaned against a workbench, his arms crossed, drawing her attention to his broad chest. “So Jeremy lives with you?”

She forced herself to concentrate on his words, not his impressive muscles. “Yes. We live in our parents’ home in Palo Alto. He’s better with familiar things around him.”

“And what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a corporate recruiter.” She felt she ought to explain why she was wearing a suit today. “I had an interview this morning.”

“On a Saturday?” He looked impressed. “Dedicated.”

“I enjoy my job.” And she truly did love matching people up with the job perfect for them.

“No brothers, no sisters?”

“Just me and Jeremy. No cousins, either.”

“So you take care of him all on your own?”

“Yes. And we’re fine that way.”

Thank God Jeremy chose that moment to run back to them. She felt like she’d been under Will’s magnifying glass. He was even better at asking questions than she was, and that was pretty impressive, given that she asked questions for a living.

Why, she had to wonder again, was Will at all interested in her and Jeremy when they were never going to see each other again? Perhaps she shouldn’t be so wary when he’d been nothing but nice so far, but after her experiences with the last two men she’d let get close—and after she’d watched the way the wealthy father of the teen who’d hit Jeremy had used his money to buy them out of any trouble—Harper simply couldn’t trust blindly anymore.

“Can we see the other garage, Will?” Jeremy was a bundle of energy, even more so than usual. As though he felt he had to take big bites of Will’s world before it was gone.

“Sure,” Will said as he fished in his pocket for a remote. “But there’s no Birdcage Maserati over there.”

“I know,” Jeremy said sadly. “Maybe if I close my eyes and wish hard enough, there could be one day.” He did, squeezing his eyes shut.

Will laughed. “Sorry, I’m no genie in a bottle. Not today, at least.” He pointed his remote at the closest door and it rolled up to reveal a sporty red vehicle.

“
The Ferrari
,” Jeremy said in whispered awe before running toward the sports car. To Harper, his feet always seemed one step away from stumbling, but thankfully, Jeremy didn’t fall.

“You don’t have to do all this,” she said apologetically.

“I’m enjoying it,” he said again. “I like your brother. I don’t often meet people who are as excited about cars as I am.” He grinned at her. “He told me I should build a Birdcage Maserati.”

“He’s crazy for that car. He’s got pictures of it all over his bedroom wall.”

“I hated having to tell him no one makes a Maserati kit car.” Will put his hand on the small of her back as they followed her brother at a more reasonable pace. “He showed me his notebook on the drive over.”

The warmth of his touch was too much, too powerful. Wanting it so much more than she knew she should, she turned slightly, pulling away, trying to focus on what he was saying instead of his heat, his scent, and the things his hand on her back was doing to her insides.

“Even after you told him you couldn’t get a kit for it, he wouldn’t stop talking about that car, right?”

“Right.”

Why Jeremy had fixated on the Maserati, Harper didn’t know. She couldn’t see anything special about it—at least, no more than any other sports car. “I’m sorry about that.”

“You don’t need to keep apologizing for him. Like I said, I like your brother.” Another one of those gorgeous smiles curved his lips. “And I want to take you out, because I like you, too.”

Rushing ahead of them, Jeremy hadn’t stumbled, but Harper almost did just then. “Excuse me?”

“Dinner. Tonight. You and me.”

The shock of his invitation—and just how badly she wanted to say
Yes!
—sent her pulse into the danger zone. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Don’t think, Harper. Just say yes.” He gave her another smile, this one a little devious. “I already asked Jeremy, and he said it was fine if I took you out.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m perfectly serious. Hey, Jeremy,” he called, “didn’t I ask on the drive over if I could take Harper to dinner?”

“Yup. I said okeydokey.”

Knowing that she was
seriously
out of her depth with this man, Harper said, “I can’t date you.”

“Why not?” he asked reasonably. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Of course I’m not afraid,” she said quickly. Too quickly, perhaps.

Because the truth was that she
was
afraid. Afraid of just how much she wanted to go on a date with Will. Afraid of just how badly she wanted to feel his mouth on hers. Afraid of just how much she loved seeing him smile at her. Afraid of being so starved for male affection that she’d be tempted to let herself become a plaything for a billionaire who couldn’t possibly want her for anything more than that.

In the end, given the jumble of emotions inside of her, the best reason she could come up with was, “I don’t like to leave Jeremy alone at night. And it’s too late to get anyone to stay with him.”

“Then how about tomorrow night, so that you can find someone to watch your brother?”

“Tomorrow night is okay, Will,” Jeremy called from inside the garage, and she wondered how on earth he’d heard the conversation.

But she wasn’t ready to concede. “This is ridiculous. I don’t even know you. We just met, and only because my brother wanted to see your cars.”

“That’s why people go to dinner, isn’t it?” He smiled again, clearly a deliberate tactic, given that he had to know his smiles made her heart jump around inside her chest. “To get to know each other better.”

“Come on, Harper, say yes,” her brother added. “And then I can come back to see more cars.”

She shot Jeremy a shocked glance. She might have to ground him when they got home. Permanently.

“If you say yes,” Will said in a low voice, “I promise I won’t drive faster than you want me to.”

But that was exactly what she was afraid of. That she
would
want him to go faster. That she might even
beg
him to go faster. All because those thrilling moments sitting beside Will in his fast car this afternoon had been the best ones she’d experienced in a very long time.

Only, even though there were at least a dozen reasons she should say no, when she opened her mouth the word that came out was, “Yes.”

* * *

Will knew he shouldn’t lead Harper on. She was a good girl. She was someone who deserved the fairytale, a guy who was as good as she was. Not an ex-thief who still battled his demons, who knew that he could never change the blood he came from, no matter how much he wished he could.

Speed had taken away far too much from Harper already—her brother’s independence and her parents’ lives. And yet, he could feel that she craved it all the same. Craved the rush, the thrill, just as much as he did.

Just as much as he craved
her.

Will wanted Harper with an intensity he’d never felt before. And maybe if he hadn’t felt that same intensity from her, even as she’d tried to hide it, he could have let her go. But as he stood in the late afternoon sun watching them drive away, with Jeremy waving madly out the window as they took the downhill curve and disappeared, Will knew he couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t let either of them go, truth be told.