Now it just felt cruel.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ he asked gently.
Looking out over the dingy car park, her eyes were huge in her pale face. ‘For once, I don’t even know where to begin to answer that,’ she said with a brave attempt at a laugh. ‘What if he doesn’t remember me? What if I got it totally wrong and to him I was just another anonymous, meaningless one-night stand? What if he’s there, surrounded by beautiful, adoring women, and he completely blanks me?’
‘Then it’s his loss.’ Dominic sighed. His caffeine craving was starting to bite, and this was the kind of conversation Lizzie was so much better at. ‘And you’ll know he was never worthy of your heart, or the time you’ve spent waiting for him, and you can finally move on.’
‘And Alexander?’
‘Look—here’s what I suggest.’ Frowning, Dominic got to his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets in what every member of the Clearspring marketing department would recognise as an indication that he meant business. ‘I think you should write Cristiano a letter, containing the basic facts about Alexander’s birth and leaving the name of your solicitor where he can contact you. If he doesn’t acknowledge you at the party, you can leave it with a member of his staff and come home knowing that this time you really have done all you can.’
Stunned into a moment’s silence, Kate blinked. ‘You’ve thought it all through, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve thought of nothing else since this damned invitation arrived.’
‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’
Despite her defensively tensed shoulders, Dominic recognised the final protest of a woman who knew she was defeated. He felt a small glow of tentative triumph.
‘So buy something. I’ll look after the kids at the weekend, and you and Lizzie can hit the shops in Leeds.’
‘I can’t afford it,’ Kate protested weakly. ‘I’m a single parent, remember?’
Reaching into the drawer again, Dominic took out his chequebook and began to scribble. Tearing it out, he handed a cheque to her with a grin. ‘Take this and buy something stunning, and hopefully you won’t be for much longer.’
‘It’s going to be quite a party.’
Dr Francine Fournier looked up from the invitation in her hand and raised a perfectly shaped, brutally eloquent eyebrow. ‘I’m just sorry I can’t be there, but unfortunately tonight is—’
‘Please—there’s no need to explain.’ Cristiano got up from the chair and walked a few paces across the thick carpet of Dr Fournier’s consulting room before turning back to her with a bleak smile. ‘I think we both know that the whole thing is a complete sham. I wouldn’t be going myself if I had any choice.’
Outside, the February dusk was falling early over Nice, and a thin slick of rain made the pavements glisten. In here, the lamps cast a soft glow over serious seascapes in oil, and a huge bowl of white hyacinths on the desk perfumed the centrally heated air. There was nothing remotely clinical about the room apart from the lightbox on the wall with its illuminated display of cross-sections of Cristiano’s brain.
Dr Fournier sighed, slipping the invitation inside the cover of the file of notes that lay open on the desk in front of her. ‘It’s not a sham, Cristiano,’ she said, in the grave, low-pitched voice she used for breaking bad news to families. ‘It’s just a little premature, perhaps.’
‘Premature?’ Cristiano echoed hollowly, thrusting his balled fists into his pockets and walking over to look more closely at the X-ray images, as if he might be able to see something in the intricate whorls and dark spaces that Dr Fournier had missed. ‘By how long? A year? A decade? A lifetime? Because, from what you’ve just told me, I’m never going to be able to race again.’
Francine Fournier was forty-eight years old, and had been happily married to her second husband for six years. She was also one of Europe’s most senior and well-respected brain injury specialists, but, in spite of all these things, she still had to steel herself against the spark of attraction as she looked from the images of the inside of Cristiano Maresca’s head to the face of the man himself.
‘I didn’t say that.’
The light from the X-ray box emphasised his pallor, and the lines of tension etched around his impossibly sexy mouth, but neither of those things detracted from his extraordinary good-looks.
‘Not in so many words,’ he said hoarsely. ‘But if you can’t find out what’s wrong with me and work out how to put it right, it amounts to the same thing.’
‘It’s not that simple, Cristiano. The good news is that you’re looking at a healthy brain. Those X-rays show that your recovery from the accident has been remarkably complete.’ She picked up the top sheet from the file and frowned slightly as she studied it. ‘All your stats are excellent—proving that your reflexes and responses far exceed those of the average fit male your age. My investigations have been exhaustive, and I can state categorically that there’s no physiological cause of the symptoms you’ve been having.’
He gave a hollow laugh. ‘You’re saying that it’s all in my mind?’
‘The brain is a very complex organ. Physical injury is easy to see, but psychological damage is harder to measure. The palpitations and flashbacks you’re suffering while driving are very real symptoms, but their cause is nothing I can specifically identify or treat.’ She paused, rearranging the papers on her desk, her large diamond eternity ring flashing in the lamplight as her hands moved. ‘I believe,’ she began again carefully, ‘that they are directly related to your memory loss. In itself, that’s not a problem, but because your subconscious has blocked out memories of the crash you haven’t yet been able to process them and move on.’
‘But what about before the crash?’ Cristiano’s voice was like sandpaper. ‘Why can’t I remember that either?’
‘Retrograde amnesia,’ Dr Fournier said gently. ‘It’s not uncommon. Many people experience some degree of memory loss after a head trauma. The length of time that’s lost is significant—the fact that you’ve only got a gap of twenty-four hours is good news.’
Cristiano gave a hard, abrupt laugh. ‘Is it?’ Silhouetted against the gathering darkness outside, his broad shoulders were absolutely rigid. ‘Will I ever get them back?’
‘It’s impossible to say. There are no guarantees. Sometimes memory comes back in its own time.’
He swore in Italian, softly and savagely. ‘I can’t wait for that. The Grand Prix season starts in six weeks.’ Thrusting a hand through his hair, he gave a ragged, bitter laugh. ‘Suki’s invited every sports journalist and team sponsor on the planet to this ridiculous event tonight to celebrate my return to the circuit. Silvio has rediscovered religion thanks to the miracle of my recovery.’
Dr Fournier’s voice was deliberately soothing. ‘Have you talked to the people you were with that night? Sometimes you just need a trigger for the memory to return…’
Cristiano gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘I was alone. The last thing I remember is getting into the car for qualifying.’ He had been over it time and time again. He remembered the click of the harness as he’d got into the car, and after that nothing. Sometimes, just as he was drifting off to sleep or waking up again, he thought he caught the echo of something that was a memory rather than a dream, and desperately tried to hold onto it, but the harder he tried the more elusive it was. ‘Suki tells me I did an interview with someone from Clearspring Water, but that can’t have taken long. After that I must have gone home.’
Leaning against the windowsill, he dropped his head into his hands for a moment as despair and