Counterpoints Book 3 Page 20

  Isabella wanted to tell him she wasn’t angry anymore, that she was starting to forgive, but her lips were sealed. She would have to find some other time.

  But I will never forget, and she knew it was true. That was never going to change, it couldn’t be undone.

  Christopher switched gears and then leaned his elbow on the side window.

  The traffic jam was slowing them down a bit, but neither he or Isabella seemed to mind.

  Rome was like that, traffic was part of its beauty. It was the additional adornment to the city’s ancient streets.

  He looked sideways at her and took in a breath. Her hair was all on one side, on the other side and her shoulder was bare. Her skin had turned amber, it was tanned and so incredibly sexy. The summer dress, she was wearing over her bikini, was a little see-through and Christopher’s eyes lingered around her fantastic curves, where her waist ended and her hips begun.

  For the past ten minutes, Isabella had been tapping her fingers on the side of the car and singing to an Italian song on the radio.

  He loved when she did that, sing in a low voice. Christopher had noticed she always did so when she was happy and at ease.

  Isabella was completely lost in her own world, so lost in thought that Christopher didn’t dare interrupt her.

  He just watched her move a little, while she tapped to the rhythm, and felt bewitched by her beauty and the fire that burned inside her.

  That was the pull she had on him. He liked her in every possible way. That was the difference, he realized, with all the other relationships he had had.

  Usually, the women he had been out with had been attractive. Period. He had never felt involved, he had never really been interested in getting to know them.

  But with Isabella, it felt as though he had been sucked into her vortex of beauty and wit from the very beginning.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she caught him giving her a side look at some point.

  “I was just thinking you should be terrorized by now, me driving a car with you sitting in the passenger seat…” he teased and then pressed on the gas a little without taking his foot off the brake, so she could hear the engine roar, just to prove his point.

  “After driving on track with you, nothing scares me. And it’s my car you are driving around Rome. How could I be scared? We are stuck in traffic and this car doesn’t go more than 130 km per hour…downhill…maybe” she tilted her head to the side and smiled.

  Christopher laughed and kept his eyes ahead, his foot pressing on the gas again to make the engine roar, trying to prove Isabella wrong.

  Maybe the car isn’t fast, but that doesn’t mean I can’t play with it and scare you a little, Christopher thought to himself and eyed her to the side.

  Slowly, the cars ahead began to move and Christopher triumphantly made his way to their exit.

  “It’s been great, meeting your family, a real big Italian family” he smirked and looked at her briefly again.

  “You asked for it and you got it. All the attention, the questions, the fighting…be careful what you wish for next time” she smiled jokingly at him.

  Isabella moved a little closer and wrapped her arm around his, as if to hug it. She turned his forearm a little and brushed her lips against his tattoo.

  Isa.

  “Well, to me they all seemed nice. I liked spending some time with your friends too, seeing what you are like around them. Even if I understood maybe ten percent of what you guys were saying” he said and added how he enjoyed also helping Maria sort out some stuff for her nursery.

  They had gone to see the place one day and had found her totally stressed out about the painting on the walls. The painters had cancelled last minute on her –some sort of emergency- and she was due to open the place in four weeks, with the furniture arriving in two days’ time.

  “Fear not my friend” Isabella had placed a hand on Maria’s shoulder and asked her boyfriend Giacomo and Christopher for assistance. And just like that, they had helped Isabella’s friends paint the entire nursery.

  She gives herself to the people she loves, like it is no hassle whatsoever, Christopher thought as he watched her do her little show in the car. The witty jokes, the sassy remarks, they all just served as a cover up, to mask the kind heart she had.

  He listened to her make fun of him, for not understanding what she and her friend had said in Italian and he couldn’t help but laugh, too. The sound of her laughter filled the car and Christopher felt something in his chest grow wider, bigger, out of proportion. It was like a weight, something that made him feel uneasy. The smile was gone off his face.

  “We have ten days of holidays left before we go back to London” he said then and saw her nod to the side of his eye. “Spend the summer with me”

  “Isn’t that what we are doing already?” Isabella smirked and tried to keep her voice cool.

  “I’m flying to Spain in a couple of days before I head back home. Come with me”

  “I can’t come with you” she laughed it off, like it was the silliest thing she had ever heard.

  “Why not?” he shrugged innocently. What was holding her from joining him on holiday?

  “Well” she began to say but found she had nothing.

  “Come with me” he said, “Come on, signorina. Say yes”

  “Only if you promise me we won’t be jumping off bridges, planes, racing” Isabella grinned.

  “You know I can’t promise you that” Christopher chuckled and then added “I’d like to take you to this charity gala I’ve been invited to in Tenerife. I have my boat there waiting for me”

  “Your boat?” Isabella turned his way, stunned.

  Wasn’t it in Cannes?

  “I always ask a crew to take it to Spain for the summer. We could tour the islands, tour Spain. Just you and me”

  Christopher looked ahead and crossed an intersection with caution. You never knew what to expect in Rome.

  Isabella went silent for a while, but he could see she was smiling and trying to find the right words to say.

  Spending the summer together, just the thought made her jittery, her heart beat picked up.

  “Okay, Mr. Taylor. I’ll be your guest” she held on to his arm a little longer and curled up on the car seat, leaning her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

  “Are you tired?” he asked, enjoying the feeling of her warm, suntanned skin on his.

  Isabella nodded but didn’t have the energy to speak. They had been in the sun all day and they had swum quite a lot, Christopher unable to sit still as usual.

  “Sleep, Bresciani, sleep. It will be an adventure, you’ll see” he mumbled and she let out a small laugh, her eyes still closed.

  It already is an adventure Christopher, it already is.

  Chapter 17

  Twenty days of summer break felt like barely seven.

  One moment Isabella and Christopher had been in Madrid, the next it was time to go back to London, before the second part of the First Category racing season begun.

  Isabella stared outside the MB facility window and sighed. Summer was officially over and London was wet and cold again, even if it was just the end of August.

  Twenty days, twenty very intense days with Christopher. She played with her pen, while Hillary spoke to one of the sponsors on the phone, and thought of all the things she and Christopher had done together.

  They had visited her family in Italy, then toured the Spanish islands on his boat, ending up in Madrid just before they left for London, to spend some time with Christopher’s mother.

  She had gotten a chance to properly meet Carmen and it took Isabella the duration of a meal together, to confirm just how wonderful and kind Christopher’s mother was.

  Carmen had welcomed them to stay as long as they had wanted, her house such a wonderful little piece of heaven in a green residential area of the city.

  Isabella had admired all her paintings, her art and the wonderful black and white pictur
es, hung in her white and beige modern living room.

  One picture in particular, Isabella couldn’t shake from her mind.

  “This photo of you and James is wonderful” Isabella had wanted her to know one evening, while Christopher had left the table to take a phone call from Mr. Jenkins.

  “Thank you, my dear. It was taken on our first date. Did you know James had a passion for photography?” Carmen had informed her.

  “No, Christopher never told me that” Isabella had shaken her head.

  “I said no five times before agreeing to go out to dinner with him. When I accepted, he said he had to take a picture of the ‘event’” Carmen had laughed a little, as the memory wandered back into her mind. “He was so used to having girls say yes, he couldn’t believe I had said no…five times. I was very focused on my dancing career. I had no time to waste on men. I actually told him that, to his face”

  Isabella had smiled to that and her eyes had examined the photograph more carefully.

  Carmen hair was tide back in a ponytail and it must have been summer, her top was lowered on her shoulders. They had been sitting at a dinner table, a hint of a smile on her lips, while James was smiling wide, the smile of someone who had finally achieved his goal. Take one of the prettiest ladies he had met out on a date.

  He had the face of a player, of someone comfortable in his shoes, someone who might have had many problems, but women hadn’t been one of them.

  Just like Christopher, Isabella had asserted

  “You remind me of myself when I was younger” Carmen had gone on “You are very down to earth and sincere. Eyes don’t lie”

  “Thank you, that is a really nice thing to say” Isabella had smiled, looking away for a moment. “Of course, I have half the elegance you have, when it comes to dancing”

  Carmen had laughed a little, setting down her fork and placing her dessert to the side.

  “Well, Christopher could teach you a few moves” she had smiled and told Isabella how much Christopher had loved to dance as a kid. He would start moving to the rhythm, every time she would play music for him. “But I was referring to how different you are from the women that normally surround Christopher, that surround the racing environment in general” Carmen had paused and the two stared at each other, as a private a conversation seemed to take place without speaking. “I was like you. I wasn’t after tabloids or money. I was happy as it was in my own world, good at what I did and I was only there, in those boxes for James. I only wanted to be with James. I was the main reason why James had calmed down a lot the years he had started winning all those championship in a row. Did Christopher tell you about…” The book, was what Carmen was going to say, but Isabella nodded immediately, sensing it was a touchy subject for her.

  “Yes, he has” she had quickly said.

  “Stay close to Christopher. He’s tough, he’s a fighter, but I am afraid this will have a strong impact on him. He never wanted for any of this to come out. He never wanted to be compared to James, always dreaded questions about him. I worry for him inside and outside that car” Carmen had admitted.

  “Everything is going to be okay” Isabella had reassured her. “We’ll find a solution, a way to keep things down to a minimum” she had smiled, but her chest had felt heavy all of a sudden, as mentioning the book had cast a shadow over their heads.

  September is around the corner, Isabella thought placing a hand on the glass window and kept her eyes on Christopher, as he sped by on the straight below her with his car.

  The glass vibrated until he was out of sight, down at the first curbs.

  He’s pushing, she said to herself, seeing how fast he was driving.

  He needed to, it was one of the last days of testing the new improvements on the car- the usual changes that every team applied to the cars, before the last part of the championship begun.

  Down on the left side of the MB circuit and training center, Isabella spotted a serious, rather sad looking Noah. He was holding on to his helmet, looking distressed and possibly tired. He surely didn’t have the face of someone who had just spent his summer holidays in the South of France.

  Christopher drove by the window again and Isabella’s stare followed the car.

  He’s pushing harder now, she looked back at Hillary, only to see she was still on the phone.

  Isabella’s phone beeped and she checked it immediately. She had time anyway, Hillary was still busy talking to one of Noah’s sponsors.

  “The opening is two weeks from now, Friday the fifteenth of September. Tell me you’ll be there” Isabella read Maria’s text and smiled.

  “Of course, I am going to be there. I’ll book a flight as soon as I am out of this meeting” then she added “Everything okay with the furniture, then?”

  It took Maria one minute to reply. “Everything is perfect, thanks to you and Christopher. You guys saved me and Giacomo from further delays with your painting skills. You are a fantastic friend”

  “No, you are a fantastic friend” Isabella replied.

  “No, you are”

  “No, you are” Isabella stopped herself from giggling and switched off her phone.

  “Here we are” Hillary walked over, to kiss Isabella on the cheeks and gestured her to take a seat at the table.

  “You look great” Isabella told her boss.

  She looks fantastic, actually.

  The week in Greece had really did wonders for those lines Hillary had lately developed on her forehead.

  Worry lines, Isabella used to call them.

  And Hillary was beginning to show. Under the pencil skirt and short sleeve polo shirt, Isabella could see how rounder Hillary’s belly had become.

  She had told everyone obviously, as she had entered her second trimester, but Hillary had been very secretive about the father and nobody had dared to ask.

  As they talked briefly about their summer break, Hillary gave Isabella the presentation of the new components on the cars – they would be attending a press release later that week with the drivers and Mr. Johnson- and set all her things on the table.

  “I know exactly what you did on your holidays” and she pulled out a tabloid from her bag.

  Isabella frowned and glimpsed at the pictures of her and Christopher.

  They were in Tenerife at the charity event and she had her eyes closed in one of the pictures.

  Of course.

  “So, bad news first” Hillary shuffled her papers “Two sponsors are letting Noah go. Part of the problem was Noah not meeting his contract duties. His attitude doesn’t help” she sighed.

  Isabella made a face but didn’t say anything to that. Noah’s actions spoke for themselves.

  “Good news. Christopher has been called to take part to a car TV show. This will be great publicity for us, for MB and for his Drivers’ Academy that is due to open in a few months…” and Hillary went on about how to plan the following events for both drivers.

  They worked at the table for a good hour or so. They checked the progress of the blog and social networks’ profiles of both drivers and gathered the data to hand over to both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jenkins.

  “We should write a new post, a new blog entry too, about how the last part of the championship is about to begin and what are the new components the team will use on the car” Hillary said.

  “Got it. I just went to take some pictures of the cars and the drivers this morning” Isabella downloaded the photos on her laptop and caught sight of one picture in particular of Christopher touching the front part of his car. She had taken it earlier, just moments before he had turned to look at her, wide smile on his face and looking gorgeous as ever, in his MB tracksuit.

  “Hey, at what time are you done today?” he had asked.

  “Around three in the afternoon” she had kept her face straight, but inside the butterflies had gone wild.

  “Good. I’ll see you home, I finish a little after that” Christopher had walked behind her, with his usual nonchalance, holding
tight to his helmet. “I can’t wait to jump back into that shower with you tonight” he had whispered in her ear.

  Isabella had looked down and bit her lips to hold back a smile.

  The shower, just thinking about it, had made her cheeks go red again.

  And even now, sitting at the table with Hillary, she felt the heat spread on her skin.

  “Excellent. Let me see” Hillary stood up and walked to the other side, to check the pictures she had taken.

  Isabella and Hillary were still looking at the files on the screen, when the meeting room door opened and inside walked Mr. Johnson, Mr. Jenkins and Christopher.

  All three of them were very quiet, a serious expression on their faces. They exchanged glances before Mr. Johnson started to speak.

  “Hillary, Isabella can we have a word, please?”

  “Of course” Hillary went back to her seat and they all sat at the table, Christopher choosing the chair exactly opposite from Isabella.

  He was looking straight at her, his eyes piercing and distant, like he was focusing on something inside Isabella’s eyes, something far and hard to make out.

  She smiled at him and shook her head slightly, not sure what that look meant, what he was trying to tell her. But he didn’t speak, he kept looking at her, his green eyes digging into her soul.

  “The reason why we are all here is that Alfred has just informed me of something, something very serious. I want you to listen carefully” Mr. Johnson stare turned to Mr. Jenkins, who crossed his arms over his chest and grunted.

  “I asked Mr. Johnson to fire Isabella this instant” he said, his tone harsh.

  “What?” Isabella turned to look at him and then at Mr. Johnson.

  Lastly, her eyes stopped on Christopher. He was still staring, his face hadn’t changed.

  He knows about it already.

  “Alfred, what the hell…?” Hillary said.

  “She has breached a part of the contract, by damaging Christopher’s image and helping another person with the intent of blackmailing him” Mr. Jenkins blurted out and Hillary gaped.