I clamped my teeth together. This wasn’t the first time Kaz had tried this approach with me, but it wouldn’t wash.
“It is, however, Tate’s fault that he only ever talks about the glamor, the girls, the thrill of winning, the excitement of going Mach 2 with his hair on fire. Has he ever mentioned the risks? No. Does he ever outline the discipline and the skill required to succeed? Hell, no. And what about the hard work and effort, the hours sweating it out in the gym to maintain a high level of fitness and ensure you were healthy enough to manage these powerful machines? Nope. Not a bloody word. If he’d shared more of the reality required by the sport, then maybe Dean wouldn’t have been so starry-eyed. Maybe he’d still be alive today.”
Kaz sighed. “He’s not the only driver who does that, sweetie. You’ve got to acknowledge that these guys are salesmen as well as racing drivers. They are selling a dream, an image. The sponsors, the investors, the spectators aren’t interested in all that other stuff.”
“Well, they should be,” I insisted. “Out there somewhere is another Dean. Someone else’s son, brother, nephew, who wants to emulate their idol, who’ll take a risk and end up on a mortuary slab.” I flinched, swallowing past a lump in my throat.
Kaz pulled me into a hug. “I know it hurts, honey. I wish I could take your pain away.”
I leaned against her for a few seconds, then got to my feet and brushed myself down. “Right, let’s get on. I need to make the most of you this weekend before you leave me alone with this bunch of narcissistic dicks.”
I made a horror face, and she laughed.
By the end of the day, I’d picked up about eighty percent of what I needed to know to run a smooth operation. This wouldn’t be like my usual job, dashing around the emergency room and dealing with really serious injuries. From what Kaz had told me—despite my beliefs regarding the dangers of this sport—emergencies were rare. However, if an incident did occur, having a qualified doctor close on hand would come into its own. My skills could make the difference between life and death.
I was really looking forward to the change of pace. Unlike Kaz, I’d used this opportunity to take a sabbatical from the hospital. I’d been pulling too many sixteen-hour shifts recently, and I knew my body well enough to listen when it needed rest. In the medical profession, burnout was a real issue, and those who refused to admit they needed a break usually suffered in the long run. I wouldn’t be one of those people. Medicine, and saving lives, meant too much to me to risk a mental collapse. I’d worked too hard to let it slip through my fingers, and I planned to have a long and successful career.
“Shall we meet in the bar at the hotel, say seven?” Kaz asked.
“Sounds good.” I slung my purse over my shoulder. “Gives me time for a shower and a nap. Want a lift back?”
She shook her head. “I need a quick word with Charlie first,” she said, referring to Charlie Westwood, the race director of the sport’s governing body. He also held the title of safety delegate, therefore, he’d become the man at the top of my hitlist to influence now that I’d breached the inner circle.
“Don’t forget to tell him I’m going to be his new best friend.” I followed up my comment with a wink.
Kaz chuckled. “Poor Charlie. Try to remember he’s one of the good guys.”
I stepped outside the medical facility, shielding my eyes from the sun which remained high in the sky given the time of year. Right now, the temperature sat at a balmy eighteen degrees Celsius, although the forecast predicted the weather to turn nasty over the next twenty-four hours. The onset of wet conditions would make racing all the more dangerous, heightening my anxiety.
I headed over to my car and replied to a couple of texts I’d had from Mum, then slipped my phone in my pocket. I pressed the key fob, and the indicators flashed twice, accompanied by a beep to inform me the alarm had deactivated. Opening the door, I put one leg inside when a voice behind me called out.
“What are you really doing here, Madison?”
I paused, twisted my head, and suppressed a groan. Leaning against the metal railings, hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, feet crossed at the ankles, stood Tate. I’d have seen him if I hadn’t been preoccupied replying to Mum and been able to take evasive action.
Like get inside the car quicker and drive away before he had a chance to engage me.
He pushed himself upright and ambled over, his gait casual, belying the sharpness to his tone.
“I already told you. My job.” I climbed the rest of the way inside the car and moved to close the door. I had absolutely no intention of getting into a debate with Tate Flynn. It had been a long day, and this wasn’t how I intended to end it.
Tate stopped the door from closing by grabbing the top of it with his non-injured hand. I considered slamming it anyway, but if I did, there was a very good chance I’d break most, if not all, of his fingers. Tempting… Sadly, purposely causing harm to another went against the Hippocratic oath.
Leaving him to his little victory, I started the engine regardless. I set my handbag on the passenger seat then clicked my seat belt in place, further adding to the non-verbal cues I wasn’t planning to hang around.
What followed was a modern-day equivalent of a stand-off, the likes of which had been prevalent in those seventies’ cowboy films starring Clint Eastwood. I sat in my car, ever so gently revving the engine and staring through the windscreen as if he wasn’t there. Tate remained in the same position. Neither of us said a word.
The first person to give in would undoubtedly be me. I’d never been very good at dealing with uncomfortable silences. I held on longer than I thought I could, silently congratulated myself, then expelled a heavy sigh and turned my most bored expression his way.
“What do you want, Tate?”
“To talk.”
I suppressed a feeling of surprise.
“About what exactly? What could you and I possibly have to talk about?”
“I want to know the real reason you’re here.” he said. “Does this mean you’ve given up your vendetta against me?”
I heard a definite smirk in his tone, and I ground my teeth together until my jaw ached.
“You wish,” I snapped.
“Actually, I don’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to do without my resident stalker.”
I narrowed my eyes. From this angle, he looked even taller, and I didn’t like the advantage it gave him. I shouldn’t have got into the car.
“You’d cope, I’m sure. Goodnight, Tate.” I yanked on the door. Whether that forced him to release it, or he did so of his own accord, I’d never know. Regardless, the door closed, allowing me to drive away. The second I pulled through the gates and out of the confines of the track, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. Two encounters with Tate Flynn on my first day was not what this doctor ordered.
By the time I reached the hotel, I was exhausted, hungry, in desperate need of a shower, and suffering from a sense of uneasiness which manifested itself in my gut. Tate had consumed a lot of my attention over the past two years, and none of it had been positive. Kaz would say I was obsessed with him—in fact, she had made that very comment on several occasions. I disagreed, of course. I wasn’t obsessed with Tate. I just wanted him to change, to take his position as the ‘too handsome for his own good’ poster boy of the racing world more seriously. To recognize he had a responsibility to show a different perspective of motor racing to celebrity-fixated impressionable young boys. To convey to them it wasn’t all thrill and speed, fun and games, but a huge amount of hard work, and a bloody great dose of risk-taking. He was too flippant, too ‘party animal,’ too… too… inside my goddamn head.
I parked the car, turned off the engine, and, fisting my hair, I screamed at the top of my voice. I didn’t want Tate in my head, or in my life. Except he was buried deep inside both.
All I needed to do now was work on cutting off the bastard’s air supply.
Tate
My hand throbbed as
I headed over to the medical center on Sunday evening. Winning the race had been worth the resultant agony, but I couldn’t help worrying it had become infected. The level of pain certainly indicated that possibility, and the area around the wound was swollen, the skin raised and bumpy. Still, Jared had only finished third, so I’d stretched out my lead by another ten points. I’d take an infection as payment for that reward every day of the week.
As the building came into view, my phone rang. For a split second, I dared to hope it might be my mother or father calling to offer their congratulations.
And then I laughed. As if.
It didn’t matter how successful I became, I’d never meet my parents’ unrealistic expectations. I dug my phone out of my pocket with my non-damaged hand and glanced at the screen. I smiled. Ah, Joanie, the manager of my medical and research facility and all-round Florence Nightingale. I’d rather talk to her than my parents anyway.
“Joanie. Good to hear from you.”
“You drove like a demon,” Joanie said. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you, my darling,” I replied. “But I’m sure you’re not ringing just to congratulate me.”
She laughed. “You know me too well, Tate.”
“That’s what happens after six years working together. What’s up?”
“I want to talk to you about expanding the facility.” Her voice took on a serious tone. “Of course, that would mean we’d need more funding, but, Tate, demand is far outstripping supply. I hate asking you, especially with everything you do already.”
I chewed on my lip, considering. My facility helped patients with terminal cancers, particularly Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a disease close to my heart—because it had killed my big brother. In conjunction, we ran a sister lab where we developed experimental treatments in the hope of eventually finding a cure.
It was a philanthropic mission I kept strictly under wraps. If my involvement leaked into the public domain, then the press would make it all about me. And it was not about me; it was about these people desperately clinging to what remained of their life. Whatever I could do to make their last days and weeks more comfortable, I’d do it.
The facility was the main reason why I took on so many sponsorship deals. The downside to that strategy was not only the time they stole from me, but also the amount of publicity those businesses expected from me in return for the millions of dollars they poured into my bank account each year.
Money that I immediately directed into the facility.
“Give me a few weeks,” I said. “Let me get to the summer break, and then I’ll put the feelers out. I can’t see it being a problem, especially if I’m still leading the championship by that point.”
Joanie sighed. “Tate, you can’t. You’re doing too much already. Please, at least think about going public. That way you’d be able to pull in funding from other sources, ones that didn’t demand your time as part of the deal.”
“No,” I immediately responded to the familiar argument, one Joanie and I had several times a year. Each time, it ended the same way with my refusal and her reluctant acceptance.
Until she attempted to put her side of the argument forward again a few weeks later.
“I’m worried about you.”
“Well, don’t. I’ll fix this. It may take me a while, but I will get the money together.”
“Stubborn as a mule,” she muttered.
“I love you, too, Joanie. Gotta go. I’ll see you soon.”
I cut the call. My throbbing hand reminded me why I was standing outside the medical facility. I hadn’t seen Madison since our altercation in the parking lot on Thursday, but she’d definitely been on my mind.
I found it so strange; for two years she’d been the stone in my shoe, the weight on my back, the cross I was forced to bear. Since she’d turned up on my patch—and would be sticking around for the next few months—I’d examined her a little closer. And although I hated to admit it, I liked what I saw. Her antipathy toward me was evident, but I’d never been fond of easy street. I liked a challenge, something to fight for. I also found it highly frustrating that the person she saw when she looked at me wasn’t anything like the man beneath the public façade. It pissed me off that she so easily believed the celebrity image without bothering to scratch beneath the surface.
I opened the door and stepped inside to find Madison sitting in the corner, staring at a laptop. She raised her head as I closed the door behind me.
“Oh, it’s you.” She gestured to a chair on my left. “How’s the hand?”
“Sore,” I replied, deciding not to respond snarkily to her less-than-enthusiastic greeting. “Did you watch the race?”
She got to her feet, snagged a stool, and sat on it, then wheeled herself over. “Let’s take a look.”
“I’ll take that as a no. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
I could have sworn she actually growled, and the glower she shot my way was fierce enough to shave the skin from my face.
“Hand, Tate.”
I grinned and obeyed her order. I decided I liked teasing Madison. Maybe I’d take that up as my new sport once my racing career ended.
“How about coming to Hockenheim a day or so earlier to watch me test? The factory has made a few tweaks to the car, and we’re going to try them out. You never know, you might learn a thing or two.”
She roughly grabbed my wrist, her intractable approach clearly meant as a message, but regardless, I experienced the same rush of electricity as last time she’d touched me. Blood rushed to my groin, and I fidgeted in my seat. The subtle movement did nothing to relieve the pressure of my cock against my zip.
Yep, it was safe to say I’d begun to develop a very healthy interest in Madison Brady.
An even safer bet, though… She’d rather stick her hand in a vat of boiling oil than put it anywhere near my dick.
No matter. I planned to change her mind.
She bent her head to examine my injury. I breathed deeply through my nose. Strawberry and vanilla shampoo. Delicious. She wasn’t wearing any perfume or excessive makeup. It told me something about her; that her job interested her more than her appearance. I respected the hell out of that. I preferred the natural look anyway, and that included pussies. I hated the modern trend of shaving the damned thing off or, even worse, the ‘landing strip’. Urgh. I bet Madison had a neatly trimmed bush, something to burrow into with my nose and—
“Tate!”
I jerked up and caught her annoyed gaze. Daydreaming about pussies aside, she had fantastic eyes, especially when alight with irritation. “What?”
“I’ve been asking questions for the last thirty seconds. Can you pay attention, please?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Miles away.”
“This is infected. How long has it been like this?”
I shrugged. “No idea.”
She expelled an exasperated breath. “Didn’t you feel it as you were driving? This must have been really painful.”
I shrugged again. “I’m always in some sort of pain. Driving is hard. It’s not just sitting in the cockpit and turning the wheel, you know. When I’m on the track, I don’t register pain. And when I’m not driving, well, I’m too busy in strategy meetings or press interviews.”
Or attending the latest function dictated by my sponsors to keep pulling in the steady stream of cash I need.
With rigid shoulders, Madison stood and walked across the room. I momentarily considered offering her a massage, something to relieve all that tension. I grinned to myself as she clanged about, adding various paraphernalia to a silver tray. I’d love to see the look on her face if I did.
When she returned, I spotted two needles. My inner grin turned into a groan.
Fucking brilliant.
She took hold of my hand once more, adopting a gentler touch this time. She removed the stitches, which bloody hurt, and then cleaned the area with alcohol-drenched swabs. I hissed through my teeth when she did that.
“Just stitch me back up, stab me with those needles, then let me go. I’ve got a sponsorship meeting to get to.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What kind of sponsorship?”
“What’s it to you?” I asked. I wasn’t being rude. I had a genuine interest in her reply.
“Nothing at all,” she responded, her eyes cutting away from mine as she prepared the thread to re-stitch my hand. “Making conversation, that’s all.”
“Aww, Madison. Am I winning you over?”
She snorted, and her nostrils flared. God, now I’d had time to study her up close, she was utterly adorable. She folded her fingers around mine and tugged my hand toward her. It didn’t take her long to stitch me up.
Picking up the first syringe, she eased up the sleeve of my T-shirt and injected it into my upper arm. “That’s an antibiotic. I’ll give you some oral medication, too. You’ll need to take it for five days. Five, Tate, not one day less.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, saluting.
She rolled her eyes and picked up the second needle. “I need to give you a tetanus, too. Drop your trousers.”
I grazed my tongue over my top teeth and looked her up and down. “Now you’re talking.”
She huffed through her nose. “I wasn’t aware they allowed children to drive racing cars.”
I chuckled, stood, and unbuckled my belt. We locked gazes, mine hot, hers… exasperated. But the second I unfastened my zip she lost her nerve. She half turned away, switching her attention to the fluid inside the needle, examining it closely. I opened my mouth to tease her, then changed my mind. I had an inkling Madison might be thawing toward me, at least a little, and I didn’t want to ruin that.
The Full Velocity Series Box Set Page 22