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  A frisson of pure delight shivers through me.

  “So, you want the necklace?”

  “Mmhmm…”

  He hasn’t stopped looking at me, nor I, him. I’m dazzled, caught in his sweet spell.

  He tears his eyes away from mine, and I instantly miss his stare on me. Then, I see him getting the necklace off the rack.

  Before I can stop him, he’s holding the necklace up and saying to the market vendor, “How much?”

  The vendor says, “Fifty-five ringgit, but you can take it for fifty.”

  Carrick pulls his wallet out, and I see him get out way more than fifty ringgit.

  He hands the money to the man. “Keep the change.”

  I don’t know how much Carrick gave him, but the man’s eyes light up at the money, and he quickly tucks it away into his money belt.

  “Here.” Carrick gestures for me to turn around.

  So, I do, putting my back to him. “You didn’t have to do this,” I say softly.

  “I wanted to.”

  He places the necklace around my neck. The pendant lays cool against my skin.

  Fastening it, he lays his hands on my shoulders. “Now, you’ll always have your security blanket with you.”

  I feel something deep and meaningful settle inside my heart.

  I lay my hand over the pendant. “Thank you.” I glance at him over my shoulder.

  His eyes flicker to my lips. The blue in his eyes darken, and then he lifts his gaze back to mine, stepping away from me. “Come on. Let’s go get that food.”

  We walk on a little farther until Carrick stops outside a small restaurant. It’s so obscure that I would have walked past it.

  “Here?” I point to the building.

  “It doesn’t look like much from the outside but wait until you see the inside.”

  Carrick opens the door for me, and I step into a little Malaysian oasis. He wasn’t kidding. I’m almost tempted to step back outside to check that I’m still in the real world. I feel like I’ve just stepped into Narnia.

  The ceiling is high, and pretty red lanterns are hanging from it. The tables are dark wood, all laid with colorful place settings, differing in rich reds and greens and purples. The wooden chairs have cushioned backs, all equally as colorful as the place settings. The walls are gold-lined with beautiful paintings, and a drape is hanging around the back window, which surprisingly looks out onto a pretty garden complete with a water fountain.

  “Mr. Ryan!” A small, Malaysian chap comes wandering over from the bar area with a big smile on his face. “Good to see you again. I was wondering when you would be coming in. And I see you’ve brought a friend. Hello,” he says to me, smiling wide.

  “Hello.”

  “Guntur, this is my friend Andressa Amaro. Andressa, Guntur Wan. He is the owner of this fine place,” Carrick informs me.

  “Beautiful place you have here,” I say.

  “Thank you,” he says with a wave of his hand. “But the decor is nothing compared to the food.” He gives me a wink, making me chuckle.

  “He’s not kidding,” Carrick tells me as Guntur seats us. “Why do you think I haul arse over this way every time I’m in Kuala Lumpur?”

  “Well, thank you for bringing me with you.” I smile, meeting his eyes over the table.

  “What can I get you to drink?” Guntur asks us.

  “Sparkling water for me,” I say.

  “Same,” Carrick tells him.

  Guntur hands us each a menu. “We’ve added a couple of new dishes since you were last here,” Guntur tells Carrick, patting his back in a friendly way. “I’ll be back soon with your drinks.”

  “So, how did you find this place?” I ask Carrick. “It’s not exactly on the tourist map.”

  “When I first started in Formula One and I was out here for my first race, I met Guntur through one of the sponsors. He’s a relation of some sort. Guntur is a huge race fan. Anyway, he gave me his card for the restaurant, told me to come out. Said he served the best nasi lemak in the whole of Malaysia. I had no clue what nasi lemak was, but I was bored one night, so I took a drive and came out here. Had some nasi lemak plus a ton of other food, and now, I come back here to eat every time I’m in Kuala Lumpur. And Guntur is a great guy.”

  “Yeah, he seems nice.” I rest my chin on my hand. “And what is nasi lemak?”

  “It’s their national dish. It’s basically rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf.”

  “Are you into cooking?” I ask, bemused, trying to imagine him in the kitchen.

  “No, I’m reading it from the menu.” He gives me a cheeky smile, eyes flickering down to the menu before him.

  Laughing, I shake my head at him.

  “So, what are we having?” Guntur has appeared back with our drinks.

  I thank him as he places my water down in front of me, and I glance down at my menu. With no clue what to order, I look at Carrick for help.

  “You want me to order for both of us?”

  “Please.” I smile.

  I listen to Carrick rattle off what sounds like an awful lot of food while I take a sip of my water.

  Guntur scribbles down the order and then disappears off into the kitchen.

  “So, I can’t believe I’ve never asked you this before, but whereabouts in Ireland did you grow up?”

  “Houth. It’s an old fishing village not far from Dublin.”

  “Does it have any beaches?”

  “Nah.” He laughs. “Off the harbor is a scrap of rocks you can just about stand on to get near the water. Nothing like what you have in Brazil.”

  “I didn’t always have those beaches, remember? I was born in the UK.”

  “Yeah, of course,” he says. “Whereabouts in England are you from?”

  “London.”

  “And why did you move to Brazil?”

  I take a sip of water, preparing myself for my response. “My dad died when I was ten.”

  “Jesus, Andressa. I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You didn’t kill him.”

  He stares at me for a moment, looking uncomfortable.

  “Sorry. Poorly timed joke.”

  I wave it off, and his face relaxes. I just wanted the look of pity on his face gone. I can take it from anyone, but on him…it bothers me.

  “Anyway, my mother didn’t have any family in England, but she has a lot in Brazil. We were alone in England, so she took me back to Brazil to live.”

  “Must have been hard—losing your dad and moving halfway around the world.”

  “I managed.” Just barely. “And I have loads of cousins and aunts and uncles, so it was nice to be around family.”

  “How did your dad die? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “In an accident.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “The worst kind.” My voice is harsh, and I instantly feel bad, so I try to lighten the subject by changing it. “So, how did you end up becoming a Formula One driver?”

  “My dad was a mechanic—”

  “I didn’t know that.” I lean forward with interest.

  “Yeah, I grew up around cars. My granddad—my dad’s dad—was a mechanic, too, so I guess cars are in my blood. When I was seven, my dad took me and a few of my friends go-karting for my birthday, and from that moment on, I was hooked. I was karting on a regular basis, entering competitions. I loved it. Couldn’t get enough. My dad quickly realized how serious I was about it, and of course, he saw how good I was, especially since I was winning all my races.” He gives a cheeky smile.

  “So, he started dedicating a lot of his time to my dream. With all the races I was entering, it was hard for him with work, so he ended up having to reduce his day hours and take on more nighttime off-the-book jobs to earn money.

  “Then, when I was thirteen, my granddad passed away, and he left everything to Dad—his house and a good bit of money he’d saved over the years. Karting was good in Ireland, and the races were
decent, but I wanted more. Dad saw that there were more opportunities with karting in England and the possibility to progress to Formula One. So, he sold Granddad’s house and our house, and he moved us to England. He rented a place and took on jobs when he could. He used the money from Granddad and the house sales to keep us afloat.

  “I entered into Intercontinental A when I was fourteen, which I think is now called KF-two. Then, the year after, I progressed up to Formula A. The next year up, I was up to Formula Super A. I moved up through F-three, F-two, and then to F-one by the time I was twenty.”

  “Wow. That’s quite some story. Your dad did a lot for you to help get you where you are,” I say, starting to see the reason for Owen’s protectiveness over Carrick’s career.

  “Yeah, he did. He’s great. The best dad a guy could ask for.”

  That brings a lump in my throat. “What about your mum?”

  His eyes darken. “She’s not around. Hasn’t been for a long time.”

  “She left?”

  “When I was two. Apparently, she wasn’t mother material.”

  “Oh, Carrick…I’m sorry.”

  I can’t imagine anyone leaving a child. My mum would never have left me, and my dad…no way. The only way he left me was in death. And to leave someone like Carrick…I can’t imagine. He just shines so much.

  Reaching over the table, I touch my hand to his, curling my fingers around it. “She missed out big, Carrick. Really big.”

  His eyes flicker to my hand, lingering there a moment, and then they lift to my face.

  My heart starts to pump in my chest.

  I slide my fingers away. Picking my drink up, I take a nervous sip.

  “What’s your favorite car?” he asks out of the blue, assumably to fill the awkwardness I just created with my little hand-holding moment.

  “Oh, that’s easy. Jaguar XK-one twenty.”

  It was the car my father drove, his pride and joy. He had it until the day he died. I haven’t seen that car since. When my dad died, my mother got rid of his cars at auction and gave all the money to charity. I was angry for a long time about that.

  “What about you?”

  “Usually the one I’m driving. I’m fickle like that.”

  He grins, and I laugh.

  “How did you know you wanted to be a mechanic?” he asks.

  “Same as how you knew you wanted to be a driver. I grew up around cars. It was a natural progression. My mother probably wished I had done something else with my life though.”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything but a mechanic. I think she secretly wanted me to be a model, like she was.”

  “Your mother was a model?”

  “Mmhmm.” I probably shouldn’t have told him that. It wouldn’t take a genius to link my mother to my father with the help of Google, not that I think Carrick is going to go Googling my mother or me.

  “You know it’s funny. The first time I saw you, I had you down for being a model.”

  I roll my eyes at him.

  “So, is your mother anyone I would have heard of?”

  “Probably not. She gave up modeling after she had me. She was incredibly beautiful though, still is.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Here. I have a picture of her.” I get my phone from my bag and hand it to him, showing him the screen saver picture I have of my mother and me. I took it just before I left Brazil.

  “That’s your mother? Fucking hell, you look like sisters. She’s a definite MILF.”

  “Ew!” Reaching over the table, I grab my phone from his hand. “That’s gross! You can’t perv on my mother!”

  He’s laughing now. “Sorry. I’m not saying I would like to…erm, you know your mother, but I can imagine that some men would like to you know her—a lot.”

  “Jesus, Carrick. You’re making this worse.” I drop my head into my hands.

  “Sorry.” He chuckles.

  I lift my head, shaking it at him. “Moving on. I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while. Do you have any ritual things you do before a race?”

  My dad did. He always had to wear black boxer shorts and socks. Before every race, he would also have a plain egg omelet for breakfast. I never did learn why.

  “Yep.”

  I wait, but he doesn’t expand.

  “Well…are you gonna tell me what it is?”

  Arms on the table, he leans forward. “Okay.” He lets out a breath. “I have to eat a bar of Galaxy chocolate before each race.”

  “Really?” I smile. “Why?”

  Eyes on me, he rests back in his seat, keeping his hands on the table. “After we first moved to England, I don’t know if it was the pressure or being in a different country or what, but I wasn’t winning races. I was coming in fourth at best. I was panicking because Dad had given up so much by moving us to England, and I was getting frustrated because I knew I was capable of more.

  “Anyway, on this particular day, I was hungry because I’d forgotten to eat, and my dad was all, ‘You will lose this race on an empty stomach.’ So, he went off to get me something to eat. Anyway, he came back, telling me there was only this shitty vending machine. Then, he held out a bar of Galaxy chocolate, and I was like, ‘What the hell is that? I’m not eating that. It’s women’s chocolate. Men don’t eat Galaxy. They eat Yorkie.’ You remember the adverts?”

  “I do.” I laugh, loving the way he’s telling the story.

  He’s so animated with his eyes all lit up.

  “So, my dad got pissed off and said, ‘Well, they haven’t got any men’s chocolate, so eat the bloody women’s chocolate, and shut the hell up!’”

  I snort out a laugh. “So, what did you do?”

  “Sulked for about a minute, and then I ate the fucking bar of Galaxy, and it was the best chocolate I’d ever tasted—not that I admitted that to my dad at the time. Then, I got in my kart and won my first ever race in England.”

  He smiles fondly, and I can see the memory in his eyes.

  “And since then, before every race, my dad buys me a bar of Galaxy from a vending machine, and I eat it. It’s my one weird thing.”

  “But what if there isn’t any Galaxy chocolate in a vending machine? Or worse, there isn’t a vending machine?”

  He leans forward, a sexy-arse smile on his face. “There’s always a vending machine, Andressa, and there’s always a bar of Galaxy in it.”

  “Ah.” The power of being Carrick Ryan.

  Guntur appears at our table with a huge tray in his hands, laden with food. He starts placing the plates in front of us. Then, another waiter puts down a green leaf before me.

  “Banana leaf,” Carrick tells me when he sees me looking at it. “It’s instead of a plate.”

  “Oh, right. Cool.”

  After all the food is laid out, I stare at the rices, meats, vegetables, and other things I don’t even know how to describe, and Guntur tells us to enjoy our meal.

  Looking up, I say to Carrick, “So much for your healthy eating.” I smile, so he knows I’m teasing.

  “You see any overweight Malaysian people around here?”

  I give a glance at the few people seated in here. “Nope.”

  “Well, there you go then.” He grins.

  “Okay, Jabba,” I tease. “So, what should I try first?”

  He gives me a look and then muses over the dishes. He picks up a rice dish. “Try this.”

  We have a great time over dinner, eating and talking. We chat about school, friends, and random stuff, like favorite music and books—just everything and anything.

  We’re there for hours, the time just disappearing. It’s one of the best days I’ve ever had with someone.

  When we’re done, Carrick pays, again refusing to let me pay or even go half. And I don’t bother arguing, saving myself the how-much-did-you-earn-last-year speech.

  “Thanks for today, the karting and the food,” I say as we walk back out into the early evening sunshine.

  “Anyt
ime.”

  We walk back through the market and to the car. When we reach it, Carrick tosses me the keys.

  I grin like the cat that got the cream.

  “Back to the hotel?” I check, climbing in the driver’s side.

  “Yeah, but take the long way.”

  I put my seat belt on and turn the engine. She purrs like a kitten. The stereo comes to life with the pumping sound of Philip George’s “Wish You Were Mine.”

  “You ready for the ride of your life?” I tap my hand on the steering wheel as I turn my face to him, and I find he’s already looking at me, his expression unreadable.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  Something in his tone makes my heart bump against my chest.

  I slide the car in gear. Checking my mirrors, I pull onto the street. Pressing the pedal to the metal, I drive us out of there.

  “SO, WHAT DID YOU THINK?”

  Carrick and I are in the living room of his hotel suite, and we’ve just watch Cars. I finally talked him into it. I’m sprawled out on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table. Carrick’s at the other end of the sofa, and there’s a huge bowl of half-eaten ice cream between us. It was the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten. It reminded me of the mound of ice cream that Macaulay Culkin had in Home Alone.

  Clearly, Carrick is on a hiatus from his health kick. But I’m giving him a pass tonight because it was race day, and he came in third. It’s unusual for him. He’s usually first or second. Rarely third. He said the car was understeering. Ben and I checked it, but we couldn’t find anything wrong, so I don’t know what happened out there.

  But Carrick has understandably been in a shitty mood about it ever since. He’s competitive, and he doesn’t like losing.

  When he said he wasn’t up for going out, I said I’d stay and hang out with him while Petra and the guys went out.

  I don’t mind since we all leave for Bahrain tomorrow, but Carrick has to stay on for some press and sponsor things, and he has to film an advertisement. I won’t see him for a few days until he joins us there, so I’m happy to spend this time with him before I leave.

  We ordered a mix of food along with the ice cream from room service, and we’ve had a fun night.

  But then, every night I spend with Carrick is fun. It’s fair to say that we’ve grown closer recently. A lot closer. I see him most days, and if I don’t see him, we text or call.