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“Rocco?”

“Huh?” he turned, surprised to see Carolyn there and then immediately realized she’d been there all along.

“I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of coming back to Blue Jet.”

“Congratulations!” Ceci said, giving Nico a hug.

She turned to Clarke. “You too, Sir Clarke Kent. Oh, look at that. Your tie is crooked.”

It wasn’t. But it was once Ceci got her hands on it.

Nico eyed the man with curiosity. Clarke, who just a moment before had exuded that effortless calm he was known for, now seemed shy, almost awkward.

“There now,” Ceci purred, having finished fussing with his tie. “So how goes it, Sir Clarke, in your search for that damsel?”

His chin dropped to his chest as he shook his head, but Nico could see he was grinning. After a moment, he lifted his gaze and pinned those warm brown eyes on Ceci.

“Not so well. It’s tough these days for a knight—with or without the shining armor.”

“Is it now?”

“You haven’t been able to find even one?” Nico asked.

“Oh, I’ve found more than one. There are plenty of damsels to go around.”

“Ah, I see.” Ceci held up her finger. “But finding one in distress, that’s the difficulty.”

“No, plenty of those to go around too.”

Nico laughed.

Ceci frowned and then snapped her fingers. “Ah, I think I understand. There’s an overabundance of stock. The difficulty lies in making a choice.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not it.”

“Clarke!” someone shouted. “Over here! There’s someone I want you to meet!”

Relief flooded his face. “Excuse me, ladies,” he muttered with a slight bow.

Once he’d left them, Ceci shook her head.

“Hard to believe that guy can be such a brute on the racetrack. Once he’s off it, I can’t decide whether he’s traveled forward in time, having come to us from the early nineteenth century, you know the Regency period, or journeyed back in time, having come from the future.

I sometimes wonder if he’s really a super sophisticated robot made of carbon fiber and bioplastics rather than flesh and blood. ”

“I don’t know, Ceci. He seemed very much flesh and blood when you had your hands on him.”

“Really?!”

“Have you ever seen carbon fiber and bioplastics blush?”

Ceci burst out laughing. “It’s fun having you on the circuit.” She glanced around. “Now, where’s your teammate? I should congratulate him too. Ah, there he is. Guess I’ll wait. It looks like I might be interrupting something.”

Nico turned to see Rocco talking with Carolyn Wickham. She wondered if Ceci saw what she saw. A handsome couple engaged in an intimate conversation.

Ceci sighed. “It must be difficult to have been a driver, to know this business better than a lot of men, and to be relegated to the passenger seat by your husband just because he’s the one with the money.”

“Carolyn was a driver?”

“F3 some years back. When you think about what you have to put up with, what I had to put up with, just imagine what she had to put up with.”

Rocco watched Carolyn walk away.

Race for Blue Jet Lightning ?

Suddenly, Dario and Celeste were by his side.

“I didn’t know Ian Anker could dance,” said Celeste. “He’s not half bad.”

Rocco glanced over at the dance floor.

There was Nico.

Dancing with Anker.

Celeste was right. He wasn’t half bad. In fact, he was actually good, Rocco thought, as he stood with his hands clenched watching the man sweep Nico across the floor.

Why did she have to wear a backless dress?

He stared at Anker’s hand on her back.

It better not drift south.

Maybe he should butt in. People did that. Guys did that.

But just then the dance ended.

Good , he thought. Until he watched them walk away. Arm in arm.

He hurried after them. From the lobby, they entered the casino and, once there, sat down at a poker table.

Rocco stood some distance away, watching her. She seemed different. Not the girl who had dressed as Inigo Montoya and run through those cobblestone streets with him. Not the girl who drank GoGo squeeZ. Not the one he’d seen up on the podium.

There was a kind of artifice about her now.

He was debating whether to pull up a chair and sit between them when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned around to see Charles.

“I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet Beatrice and Sofia at the race. Nico’s told me a lot about them.”

Rocco smiled. “The two Tasmanian devils, you mean.”

Charles laughed. “They sound like great fun. I’m sure it’ll be nice to have a break with them. Your sister told me about your hometown. It sounds lovely.”

Rocco nodded before glancing back at the table. Nico laughed at something Anker said.

Anker was as groomed as he’d ever be. His tattoos were covered up by his tux, and his usually spiky and restless blond hair had been sleeked back. Hard to tell what gleamed brighter: that hair or those crystal and cobalt-blue eyes.

Did he have to sit so close to her? And why did he keep whispering in her ear? What was he whispering? Why couldn’t he say what he was saying out loud?

“It’s nice to have family,” Rocco heard Charles say.

He listened but kept his eye on that table.

“I only have my mother, but trust me, she’s family enough.

She’s asked me to come and visit over the next couple of weeks, but the timing couldn’t be worse.

I feel bad leaving Nico alone, especially in of all places—Vegas. ”

Rocco turned to Charles. “What’s that?”

“I said I feel bad leaving Nico alone in Vegas over the next few weeks.”

“She’ll be alone?” He glanced over at Nico before he turned back to Charles. “What about her family? Are they away? Traveling? She told me they did a lot of that when she was growing up.”

“Did she?”

Rocco frowned, unsure how to interpret Charles’s expression and his tone.

“Well,” Charles said, “they’re all gone now. Dead.”

Dead?

Rocco blinked. “Oh.” He paused. “So she’ll really be all alone.”

He glanced back at the poker table and bristled when he saw Anker place his hand close to hers. Another inch, and they’d be touching.

He clenched his jaw. “She seems. Different—tonight.”

Charles sighed. “She does that sometimes, puts on a tough femme fatale persona to bully that fragile part of her into a corner and silence it altogether.”

Rocco turned to him. “Fragile?”

“Yes. That,” Charles said, pointing at Nico as she tilted her shoulder and slivered her eyes, “tells me she’s feeling vulnerable.”

“Why?”

“I think she’s fallen for a man.”

Rocco felt his heart thud heavy and fast in his chest. Did he mean she’d fallen for Ian Anker?

“That frightens her,” Charles said. “I might understand why, if that were the man she’d fallen for.”

“Do you mean Anker?”

Charles nodded. “It’s not him. Though it doesn’t really matter.

She can’t find it in herself to trust any man.

More than that, she can’t trust herself.

Not when it comes to matters of the heart—love—I mean, romantic love.

I suppose it’s understandable—given her past. You should know that about her. ”

“Wait? What? Why should I know that?”

“Wow!” Charles exclaimed. “How much do you suppose is in that kitty?”

Rocco turned to see more people crowding round the table. Now there were only three of them left in the game.

“Maybe I should try to stop her,” he said.

“She knows what she’s doing.”

“How can she? She can’t understand what she’s risking.”

“Trust me. She can. And does. Question is—do you?” Charles waved at someone behind Rocco.

“Oh, there’s Mateo.” He placed his hand on Rocco’s arm.

“She won’t come unless she thinks you want her to.

And you’ll have to hit her over the head with a two-by-four to get that message through her thick skull.

I hope to hell you’re not the same and you get my meaning.

” He patted Rocco’s arm before walking away.

When Rocco looked back at the table, Nico and Anker were the only two left in the game. He weaved his way through the crowd and positioned himself directly opposite her. But she had yet to look his way.

“It’s your bet, Mr. Anker,” the dealer said.

Anker held up his finger as his crystal and cobalt-blue eyes rested on Rocco. The corners of his mouth slithered up his cheeks. He put his arm on the back of Nico’s chair as he turned to her. And this time, he didn’t whisper.

“That doesn’t really interest me,” he said, indicating the large kitty on the table.

Nico turned.

She sees me now.

He stared back at those dark eyes. And then his eyes drifted to Anker. He fisted his hands, seeing that grin sliver up Anker’s cheeks. He wanted to smack it off the prick’s face.

Anker leaned in and whispered something in Nico’s ear.

Rocco watched her face, looking for something in her eyes, anything that might signal some kind of reaction to whatever he was whispering. But he got nothing.

“All right,” she said nonchalantly.

“So, we agree to the terms?”

“We do.”

Rocco’s heart jumped to his throat and began to pound so hard it hurt.

“In that case,” Anker said, shoving the remainder of his chips forward. “I’m all in.”

Nico did likewise. “So am I.”