by A. E. Grace
He opened the door, a curious smile pulling at his lips. He watched as her eyes widened at the sight of him in his state of undress.
“Ms. Cole,” he said. “Come in.” He left the door open and walked back into the bathroom, and squeezed out toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
“Mr. Cohen!” Circe began, but she stopped when she saw him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m about to brush my teeth.”
“Why?”
Miles shook his head slightly. “It’s nearly bed time.”
“Oh,” Circe said, her voice losing some of her previous conviction. “Well, anyway, Mr. Cohen, I just wanted to-”
“Miles. I don’t like being addressed formally.”
She blinked. “Fine, Miles. I have to be honest with you, I don’t much like how I’ve been treated.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“First you invite me to join you for four races for an exclusive interview, but when I return to your pit garage, you’re gone. I’m then driven off in a car to a hotel in the countryside!” She slapped her thighs with the palms of her hands. “And I don’t even know where the hell I am!”
Circe took what she hoped was a menacing step toward him. “And then I’m plonked in a hotel room and nobody has come to tell me anything, not even you!” She pointed a finger at him. “So I think it’s time that we righted the ship, don’t you, Mr. Cohen?”
“What would you have me do, Ms. Cole?”
“Give me an interview right now.”
Miles laughed. He liked this young woman! “Deal. Shut the door, would you?” He watched her as she looked from him to the door, but the indignation faded quickly, and she clicked it closed. Miles clapped his hands together, sat at the foot of the bed, and gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite him.
“Thank you,” she murmured politely.
“So where would you like to start?”
“Well,” Circe said, and she looked at her empty hands. “Hmm, I haven’t thought this one through.”
Miles got up and took a pad and pen from the desk. “Here, use this.”
“Thanks.”
“So, what questions do you have for me? I can only answer three questions, I’m afraid.”
“What?” Circe cried. “Why?”
“It’s nearly midnight, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow.” He grinned at her. Not only did she make him feel that funny sensation in his gut, but she was also adorable when out of her comfort zone. “You didn’t expect me to say yes to your request just now, did you, Ms. Cole?”
She shook her head, before letting herself laugh. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Like you said, it’s late.”
“Well, first let me say you’re absolutely right. I should have come down and filled you in. Do you want to go over that now?”
“Sure,” she chirped. “From what I understand, I get an interview after each race. I get to ask anything I want, and every question you answer is on the record, so I can print it.”
“Yes,” Miles said.
“What if I ask you questions that you don’t want to answer on the record?”
“Then I’ll tell you so.”
“Will you still answer them?”
Miles took a moment to study her. On the outside, with soft features and gentle beauty, not everyone might realize that behind that façade were the cogs of ambition whirring. But he did. He could see it in the way she sat, expectant, and in the way she spoke to him, determined to give off the aura of being undaunted, unintimidated.
“Only if it’s off the record, officially.”
She smiled and nodded once. “Good.”
Miles returned the smile. “So, questions?”
“Okay, first question. Why did you give yourself the nickname ‘Cheat’?”
He looked at her out of narrowed eyes, then. “How do you know I gave myself the nickname?”
“It’s obvious,” she told him, waving her pen casually in the air. “Your nickname only entered the vernacular after your third season, where you had just won the championship for the third time in a row. Nobody would invent a nickname likely to be construed as libelous, and so I’m guessing you probably told a reporter or two to deliberately use it, thereby creating your own nickname.” She took a deep breath. “Right?”
“Very good, Ms. Cole. I’m impressed.” Miles stared into her eyes. He was liking her more and more by the minute. “You’re right, of course. As to why ‘Cheat’? It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I just wondered if it would stick.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that your nickname implies that you are dishonest, and therefore undeserving of your reputation?”
Miles shrugged. “I’m a seven-time Formula One champion. I’ve raced in over half a dozen professional racing leagues. I’ve done stunt-car work. I’ve even raced Moto GP, though that was in my younger years.” He smirked when he saw Circe’s expression. That was something she didn’t know. “My nickname doesn’t imply dishonesty. It is freed of its original meaning when attached to me, or at least used ironically. That’s two, so you’ve only got one more question.”
Circe asked her next one without skipping a beat. “Are you always such an asshole to your fellow drivers, like you were today with Michael Hamilton?”
Miles laughed. “Yes.”
“Right. Last question: Why?”
Ha! Miles thought to himself. He’d give her that one.
“Why not? It’s all in the spirit, isn’t it? Anyway, it’s been nice chatting tonight. I hope you’ve got some useful material.”
Circe tapped the notepad with her pen, and then her nose. “Cheat, I’ve got plenty here to work with. I’ve learned a lot about you tonight, so thank you for giving me your time.”
She stood up, and Miles walked her to the door, pausing momentarily to tighten his towel. “Circe?”
She turned. He wasn’t sure if she’d caught that he addressed her by her given name. That had slipped out. He thought he was going to say ‘Ms. Cole’.
“Yes?”
Miles stepped closer to her, and the field between them was buzzing. “Fancy a drive tomorrow down the Great Ocean Road?”
“I-I’m sorry?”
“A drive. You and me. Yes or no?” He did a small monkey dance, and she obviously held back a laugh. When she didn’t reply, Miles conceded that he might have to try harder. “You could ask me more questions. Also, it’s a beautiful drive with some fantastic views. Two meals are included in this one-of-a-kind tour package, but I’m afraid there aren’t going to be any gift bags.”
She pursed her lips, breaking eye contact for a moment. “Okay,” she said.
Just hearing it made his heart skip a beat. He fought hard to suppress the broad smile that wanted to erupt onto his face.
“Good. Six tomorrow morning.”
“Six?” Circe echoed, disbelief coloring her tones.
“Good night, Ms. Cole.”
He exchanged eye contact with her for the last time before shutting the door, the muscle in his chest attempting to break through his ribcage. A heady energy had infiltrated every nerve ending in his body, and he felt alive, tingling, buzzing.
He laughed. He hadn’t felt like this in decades.
Miles fell asleep to thoughts of the curvy, pretty redhead with a luscious bum, and thighs he wanted to wrap his hands around and squeeze.
And for the first night in a long, long time, he didn’t feel the need to shift into his cheetah.
And he didn’t dream of it, either.
*
Okay… so that went a bit differently than I thought it would. Actually, I don’t even know how I thought it would go down.
I definitely shouldn’t have had that wine with dinner. I probably came off a bit pushy or obnoxious. Par for the course, Circe. You sure do know how to make a clumsy entrance.
It was a big glass, too, and they filled it up right near the top! Not that I’m complaining… s
ince I’m not paying for it.
I have to be honest, it’s a bit smug of him to just put everything on his tab. I mean, I know I can’t afford this place, but still… the assumption! What, a girl can’t pay for herself?
Who does he think he is, anyway? He’s just a race car driver! He drives around in circles for his profession!
Why do I feel embarrassed? I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t make any mistakes. I feel somehow like I’m at a disadvantage. I hate that.
I mean, he answered my questions, but they weren’t great questions. Actually, I was quite happy with the asshole question. That one wasn’t planned, it just popped into my head at the time.
And yeah, what was up with him just sitting there in his towel? At least put something on! Not that I’m complaining entirely… but it was definitely deliberate.
Maybe that’s an angle I can explore. Deliberate. Planned. In control. He seems like that kind of man, from my brief encounters with him today. Dictating the terms like he did to Ms. Jennings… the way he races.
He acts like he doesn’t care, like he’s careless, but I doubt it. I think he’s got a lot going on upstairs. I don’t know if he’s smart or not, but I don’t think he’s empty of thoughts.
Maybe that’s something I can look into.
God, I actually don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing. What questions should I be asking? How do I pry open whatever it is Ms. Jennings wants me to?
I’ve got an opportunity tomorrow, anyway. A six in the morning start is not my preferred hour, but I can’t give up on my second day!
I need to call Ms. Jennings. I need to find out what I should ask.
Too bad Dad doesn’t like racing, or I would have taken a picture with Cheat and sent it to him.
Hmm, come to think of it, he never asked me why I was barefoot. Maybe he didn’t notice.
Ew! My soles are filthy. They need do get a better cleaning service here.
“Still sleepy?” Miles asked, and Circe turned around to see the tall, broad-shouldered man striding casually toward her, a playful swagger in his step. He was rather neatly dressed in an amethyst shirt with his sleeves rolled up, black trousers, and newly polished shoes. He clapped his hands together, and the veins on his forearms sprung out in harsh relief.
A storm of insecurity swept over her, and she wondered if she had dressed too casually, in an un-ironed yellow blouse with a Peter Pan collar, light jeans, and tennis shoes that had long since lost their white gleam. She reached instinctively for her grey cardigan and put it on while still seated in one of the lobby’s sofas.
“Of course,” Circe responded, smiling. “It’s six in the morning. Who isn’t at this hour?”
“Me,” he said, and he gestured with his head to the door. “Come on, we’ll stop and get some breakfast in about an hour.”
He walked away then, and Circe was left looking after him, wondering just what he had planned. He seemed like a man who always knew what he was about to do, and so she was trying to keep her mind alert, trying to stay prepared for any surprise. She didn’t really think she could stay a step ahead of him – and it occurred to her that it was strange that she thought she had to – but she would be happy with at least not being left in his wake.
Getting up from the sofa, she looked once again at Miles as he took the steps up to the main entrance two at a time. His trousers hugged his tight bum… He stopped at the top of the steps just shy of the heavy wooden door, and turned. “Well, come on!” he urged, smiling at her. It was a bright smile, and a bit like walking out of a dimly lit shopping mall into sunlight, she was momentarily mesmerized by it.
What the hell was he so cheerful about this early in the morning?
Circe took the steps one at a time. She certainly lacked his enthusiasm, and covered her mouth as a wide yawn caught her mid-step. Thanking Miles quietly as he held the door open for her, she stepped outside, and wrapped her fingers around either elbow. It was chilly, and the muted crunching of the gravel underfoot paired with the thick smell in the air told her it had probably been drizzling not too long ago.
“Wait here,” he said, and he walked off toward the hotel’s car park. Minutes later, Circe heard the deep rumble of an engine, and a sports car pulled to a stop in front of her, with Miles at the wheel. He climbed out, walked around to her side, and opened the door for her.
“Wait a minute,” Circe said, doing a double take and blinking rapidly. “This is a Veyron.”
“It is,” he confirmed.
“You own a Veyron?”
He looked at her, as though surprised by the question. “Of course I do, Ms. Cole.”
“You can call me Circe,” she chirped as she climbed into the snug passenger seat of the world’s most expensive sports car. It was a little tight-fitting, but any discomfort that it gave her was more than made up for by the mere fact that she was about to zoom off along a scenic coastal road, seated next to her charge, Cheat Cohen, in the most expensive car that money could buy.
And then she’d get to write about it afterward! It seemed altogether unreal.
“I thought we’d stop off in Geelong for a quick breakfast, before driving straight through to Apollo Bay.” He handed her a roughly folded roadmap, and she could see he’d circled the two locations. She also took in the handwritten notes in the margins, scrawled in his surprisingly elegant script. “Geelong’s a big city, but Apollo Bay is just a small town,” he said. “It’s much nicer at the latter.”
“Sounds good,” she told him. “How far will we drive today?”
“To Port Campbell, to see the Twelve Apostles.”
Circe nodded. She had read about the Twelve Apostles on the flight over to Melbourne. They were a series of jagged limestone stacks off the shore, each one easily as large as a fifteen-story building. Eroded by the tumultuous ocean over time, they were separate from the actual coastline, and looked a bit like crooked spires or pleated-rock limbs growing out of the sea. A breathtaking sight, by all accounts.
“Great,” she told him. “I was planning on going there myself.”
He put the car into gear, and she instantly felt the tremble beneath her bum, like a restrained energy that just longed to be set free.
“Feel that?” he asked, looking at her.
“Yeah.”
“The Veyron is a mid-engine car, so you get the vibrations right up in your ass. It’s actually quite an interesting sensation.”
Circe didn’t know whether to return his juvenile smirk or ignore it altogether. “You know you’re on the record, right?”
“Sure.” He pressed down on the accelerator, one hand casually on the wheel. She heard the engine then, its baritone growl accompanied by walls of seething bass. He met eyes with her, and the comfortable veneer they had just established was pierced by awkwardness. She didn’t know if there was a connection between them, if he was just teasing her, or if she was just imagining it all. Guarded as always, Circe tried to ignore the feeling altogether, and she looked away.
“This is actually not my Veyron.”
“Oh?” Circe murmured, looking out of her window as they passed through the gates to The Banyan. She thought about it for a bit, and then furrowed her brow. “I didn’t think you could rent these.”
“You can’t,” Miles said, shrugging. “Or maybe you can, I actually don’t know.” He smiled at her. “But I was invited to drive this by a rather popular soap star here. After all, who can say that their car has been driven by Cheat Cohen?” He seemed to be offering a large dose of sarcasm with his faux-self-aggrandizing, and Circe pulled out her pad and pen from her purse and made a note. That would be something worth exploring for the article.
“So, he just let you borrow it, huh?”
Miles nodded, pushing his lips together. “That’s right.”
“I have a hard time getting my neighbor to lend me a sieve. So,” she said, slipping into work-mode. “What do you make of that?”
“Of what?”
“
Of some person just lending you their ridiculously expensive sports car?”
He shrugged. “Nice of them. Bit foolish, though.”
“Why?” Circe asked. “It’s not like you could steal it. These luxury cars all have tracking devices in them.”
“I meant it was foolish that it would matter to him at all who drove his car.”
“So you don’t appreciate it.”
“To tell you the truth,” he said, sighing. “I suppose I don’t really care. But, as it stands, I had an opportunity and I took it. Not going to feel bad about that.”
“No,” Circe agreed. She decided to probe. “Not a bad way to impress a girl, either.”
He looked over at her, face alive. “Well, if that was the goal, I wouldn’t have told you the car wasn’t mine. But I’m guessing expensive cars don’t impress you all that much.”
“They don’t,” Circe half-lied. In truth, who wasn’t impressed – even just a little bit – by a beautiful, extremely powerful car?
Once they were on the road, Miles sped up quickly, and Circe noticed that his hands never left the wheel. She saw then the paddles behind the steering wheel, and how easily he made it look as he shifted up and down as they wove down the narrow road.
“It’s semi-auto transmission,” he told her. “Manual shifts here with the paddles, but auto-clutch.”
“Difficult to drive?”
“God, no,” he said, stopping at a sign.
“Clear on my side,” Circe told him, and he turned onto the road, accelerating with dizzying force. Circe was pressed right back into her seat, and she felt her stomach rise into her chest. “Oh my God,” she gasped, holding onto her door handle. A smile like that of a child’s first rollercoaster ride broke out on her face. It felt like she was on a plane during take-off!
They had gone from resting to the speed limit, through a turn, in what she guessed was less than four seconds flat. The engine roared loudly all around them, but the car didn’t rattle at all. The vibrations were all transferred into her body, and she felt them in her core.
“Amazing, isn’t it.”
“Even you think so? Considering you drive a Formula One car?”