Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,60

a lot to him, so she agreed, and changed her flight to three days later.

She drove north with him two days before the race. She stayed in the background once they got there. He was busy checking out the car. He was as intense about his racing as he was about his business dealings all over the world. He did everything with passion, including loving her.

The day of the race, she woke with a feeling of terror. She hated being there, and was annoyed at herself for getting talked into it.

She stood grim-faced as the race began, her whole body tense until it ached. He had several near disasters on the track, scraped along a wall, tore off part of a fender, narrowly missed a collision twice. Yet in the end he won. But at what price glory? Maggie was drenched in sweat and shaking when he came to find her, beaming. He was filthy, and his broken ribs were still taped, but to him, every minute was worth it. It was what he lived for.

“It was great, wasn’t it?” He smiled broadly at her and kissed her, but she didn’t answer him at first.

“Great for you. Agony for me. You’ll have to go to your races without me,” she said, and he knew she meant it, so he didn’t argue with her. He didn’t want to upend the delicate balance they had established in the past two months, which seemed to be working.

“I understand,” he said gently. They drove back to London, with his car on a truck, to be worked on at his warehouse close to London, where he kept all his race cars. They spent a quiet night together, without talking about the race after she congratulated him. They made love that night, as she clung to him desperately, and he felt guilty when she had nightmares all night, the worst he’d ever seen. She would fly to Chicago the next day. It was time to go back to her own life, check on her own investments, and get ready for Aden to come home in three weeks. She needed to be on her own turf, sleep in her own bed, and be away from Paul for a while. Everything about him was intense. She kissed him when she left and was happy to go home to her simple life in Lake Forest, and be by herself.

* * *

—

She could hardly wait to see Aden. When he came home, it felt like Christmas all over again. He knew that some of his friends would be there, and others wouldn’t. He saw as many friends as were there, and had a couple of quiet dinners with his mother.

The second night he ate at home, she told him about Paul, and braced herself for his reaction.

“Paul Gilmore? The race car driver? Are you serious? That’s sick, Mom!” She thought he meant it literally and her face went pale, only to discover from his comments a minute later that “sick” was the new jargon for “cool in the extreme.” For a few minutes, he had panicked her. Then they both got serious. “Are you in love with him?” It was a reasonable question, and she wasn’t sure what to answer.

“I was very much in love with him as a teenager, when I was seventeen. I loved him like a kid then. And I love him differently now. I like being with him, we understand each other and know each other well, even though there was a thirty-year gap before I saw him again last September in Monte Carlo. I loved the life I had with your father. I don’t like the life of being with a man who needs to risk his life every day in order to feel alive and justify his existence, and who thinks that’s fun.”

“That’s how he makes his living, Mom. He’s a legend. He’s one of the most important drivers who ever lived. He’s broken nearly every record.” Aden was vastly impressed by him, and wanted a hero in his life, which worried Maggie too.

“That’s hard on the people who love them. That’s why he isn’t married and doesn’t have kids. Racing is more important to him. I wouldn’t want to live that way forever, but it works for now. He’s a very kind, generous man, and I think you’ll like him. I like him too. I even love him, though differently from your father. I loved the sense of safety and security