Faster Longer (Take Me...#3) (New Adult Bad Boy Racer Novel)

by Masters, Colleen

Harrison Davies’ Secret Affair with Ferrelli Princess Siena Lazio

  “There’s that freaking ‘p word’ again,” I mutter. Why is everyone so adamant about painting me as a helpless princess? I notice right away that there’s no by line attached to this story. No author has set their name to these allegations. No small wonder—I’m sure I wouldn’t want to tangle with both the McClain and Ferrelli legal teams. I go on to see what my anonymous tipster has to share with the world.

  -- Formula One racing has always been a hotbed of drama and intrigue. Tempers flare, engines rev, and empires are built and destroyed with the wave of a flag. And that’s just on the track. But this year’s world championship is shaping up to be the most intriguingly scandalous competition this reporter has ever witnessed. And while there are many threads that make up the tapestry of this particularly engaging melodrama, one is sure to take the world by storm—the romance between McClain’s new rock star driver Harrison Davies and Team Ferrelli’s own favorite daughter, Siena Lazio.

  They could have at least mentioned that I have an actual job on the team. Of course there’s no mention of the fact that I’m Ferrelli’s Director of Public Relations, and a damn fine one at that. I suppose the story is much juicier if I’m some cloistered maiden that Harrison’s stolen away from her ivory tower. What a load of bull.

  -- The affair between Davies and Lazio seems to have started up at the onset of the championship season. The two were seen in each other’s company for the first time in Barcelona, the site of this year's first Grand Prix. From the evidence that has been unearthed, it would appear that things got hot and heavy between the lovers rather quickly. This is hardly surprising where Harrison Davies is concerned. Though Davies stayed out of the F1 spotlight as a younger man, ostensibly training in private, his womanizing is legendary among the people who knew him before he was famous. Davies went through a string of high-profile girlfriends during his early-to-mid-twenties, infamous in London social circles as a serial heartbreaker. Add to that his penchant for club-going and whiskey, and Harrison is hardly the settling-down sort of man.

  Siena Lazio, on the other hand, seems to air on the side of being a goody two-shoes when it comes to romance. There is no evidence of an active love life in Lazio’s past, though many in the F1 community always expected her to pair off with Charles Spano, son of Ferrelli’s long time manager Augustus Spano. Perhaps it is the gaping difference in Davies’ and Lazio’s romantic experience that has close friends so very concerned for them.

  What close friends? I think to myself. The only person that’s known about me and Harrison on my side is Bex. And there’s no way she said anything to some grubby reporter. And what’s all this about my total lack of a love life? Just because I’ve never been the type to sleep around, doesn’t mean I’m a damn prude. I try to tell myself not to take the story personally, but how can I not? This is me and Harrison this author is talking about. This is my life.

  -- Though the romance between these young star-crossed lovers has been blossoming since the earliest days of the tournament, they’ve made it a point to be discreet. Or at least, they’ve tried to be discreet. But a slew of photographic evidence exists that paints a very clear, very scandalous picture of their heated affair. But though the romance was meant to stay under wraps, Siena Lazio’s older brother Lorenzo Lazio seems to have been made aware of their burgeoning love. We cannot say definitively when it was that Enzo learned of this affair, or whether he purposefully caused the wreck on the Moscow track out of spite for Harrison Davies, but the timing is extremely suspicious. Both drivers were suspended from the Luxembourg Grand Prix for reckless driving, but perhaps the Moscow wreck was more malicious than reckless.

  “Shit,” I mutter. If the F1 officials take that rumor seriously, Enzo could get a lot more than a slap on the wrist. Attacking another driver on the track is punishable by far more than a one race suspension—he could be disqualified from the whole season. And if that were to happen...I don’t know how he would ever forgive me.

  -- But the fact of this affair is only the tip of the ice berg where this scandal is concerned. There are more questions here that need to be answered.

  The first, of course, is whether this little romance is legitimate or a ploy on either McClain or Ferrelli’s side. It’s very possible that Siena and Harrison are trying to gain traction for their respective teams by throwing off the competing side. It doesn’t seem likely that Siena is trying to distract Harrison from his training, as they met before he was even made head driver. But then again, McClain’s former senior driver Maxwell Naughton’s early tournament crash was very suspicious. How could a veteran driver have spun out on a simple practice lap? Perhaps Naughton’s accident was not an accident after all. This reporter doesn’t mean to suggest that there was any foul play per se, but at this point we cannot rule out any possibilities.

  Of course, the far more likely scenario is just the opposite. No one would be surprised if Harrison Davies turned out to be using Siena Lazio to mess with her brother’s head. After all, a bad boy party animal like Davies doesn’t just change his ways out of nowhere. Why would a man with a reputation for womanizing suddenly go monogamous just as his star is rising? Perhaps he realized that Enzo Lazio would come after him, should he start up a fling with Siena. It’s entirely possible that Harrison Davies has been baiting Enzo Lazio into attacking him from the start, employing Siena as a human trap. It would be a shrewd strategy, if a devious one. The Lazio family has always been extremely tight knit, and an offense against one Lazio is an offense against the entire line.

  The latter explanation seems tragically more likely. A reliable source has released a line of text from a personal email that Harrison Davies sent the week he allegedly started seeing Siena Lazio. “It’s in the bag,” the email reads, “Time to do what I do best. She’s going to get me my first place title yet”.

  I stare at the words on the page, unwilling to take them in. Harrison can’t have said that about me. I know him. He wouldn’t use me against my own brother. All these weeks, I’ve seen nothing in him but sincerity and passion. He’s a driver, not an actor. I’d be able to tell if he was leading me on. Wouldn’t I?

  -- But that’s not all. Not only does Harrison Davies appear to be setting Enzo Lazio up by wooing his sister, she may not even be the only woman in his life. The picture at right shows a very different side of Harrison Davies’ love life—a much blonder side.

  My hands begin to quake as I swing my eyes toward the picture in question. I feel the air leave my lungs as I feast my eyes on the most unwelcome sight I could imagine. There, in a small thumbnail photo, is Harrison locking lips with a gorgeous, leggy blonde that I’d know the sight of anywhere. Shelby has her arms thrown around Harrison’s shoulders—the very shoulders that I’ve clawed in ecstasy and clung to in anguish. This can’t possibly be true...How could he do something that low?

  -- Sources date this photo back hardly a few weeks. It seems that Siena might be less of a lover and more of a pawn to Harrison Davies. If his heart actually belongs to Shelby Vaughn, the woman pictured here, what does that mean for this story? Details are still coming out, of course, but this reporter is committed to unraveling this sordid tale. Our F1 drivers are more to us than just athletes, they are examples and heroes to so many across the world. It’s always terribly disappointing when a professional driver behaves so disgracefully, and the public deserves to know if such behavior is occurring.

  There is one other aspect to this complicated web of deceit and lust that the public should be made aware of. It’s very possible that all of this—the affair and counter affair, the cheating and the lying—has been a cover up for an even bigger omission. There is a hard truth about the Lazio family that might be even more upsetting to some readers than the affair between Harrison Davies and Siena Lazio.

  A source within the Ferrelli camp has leaked the news that Alfonso Lazio, father of Siena and Enzo, once a world champion driver himself, may be keeping a secret of his
own.

  “No,” I breathe, “No, no, no...”

  -- The sad truth is this: before this season commenced a few months ago, Alfonso Lazio received a grave diagnosis. The famed driver, father, and husband is battling terminal lung cancer. A proud man, Lazio has refused chemotherapy and radiation, and operation is impossible at this stage. It is likely that he will pass away before the season has even drawn to a close. As tragic and momentous as this news is, could it be that Siena Lazio’s affair and Enzo Lazio’s retaliation have been staged by Team Ferrelli? This whole thing could certainly have functioned as an excellent tool of misdirection, had the truth not come out.

  So far, neither Team Ferrelli nor Team McClain have made a statement on any of these, or other, issues that have cropped up during this tournament. But this reporter would like to call for transparency from these teams. Dramatics are all well and good, but this tangle of lies has started to become dangerous. It is my opinion that this scandal need be sorted out, or else Lazio and Davies should both withdraw themselves from the championship at once.

  I let the paper fall from my hands as the rest of the words are obscured by my tears. My throat tightens into a hard knot as I grab up the rag and hurl it across the room, a thousand emotions fighting to trump each other within my heart. I feel as though the ground has just given out beneath me. Every detail of my private life, my family’s private life, is out there for the world to read. And hardly any of it is even true. At least, I hope to God it’s not.

  It’s bad enough that the world now knows about my father’s cancer. He’s going to be furious when he sees this. Alfonso Lazio is the proudest man I’ve ever met. The reason he turned down treatment in the first place was to steer clear of anyone’s pity. But now, he’s a victim in the eyes of the entire world. And that is going to kill him faster than any chemo could. But to have Enzo called into question as a would-be murderer on top of that? It’s too much. That’s my family, after all. They’re not fair game for the gossip mills.

  But worst of all by far is that one grainy little picture of Harrison and Shelby. Part of me prays that it’s fake or doctored, but my heart knows the truth. Harrison and Shelby are having an affair. Just as Harrison and I are. I’m on the same level in his eyes as that horrible woman—who happens to have my own brother’s heart in a vice. Can it really be possible that Harrison has been using me all along? Stringing me along, trying to keep my brother from taking his rightful first place title?

  I feel a strange, catatonic calm come over me in the face of such a devastating possibility. The potential for heartbreak is simply too big for me to even comprehend. Thinking that Harrison may have been taking advantage of me this whole time, using me to win the championship as that quote in the paper suggests...I’m paralyzed in the face of that kind of hurt. My entire body becomes very still, perched at the kitchen table. My mind grinds to a halt. My heart suspends its beating.

  Slowly, I stand and make my way upstairs. I gather my things, pack up my suitcase, and patiently wait for Harrison to get home.

  * * *

  Six hours pass before I hear the front door open. I’m sitting on Harrison’s massive king bed, staring at the crackling electric fire that I’ve turned up to still my chattering teeth. I’m cold all over, as if the blood has frozen in my veins. Or perhaps this is just what impending doom feels like. I can’t even bear to look up as I hear Harrison climbing the stairs. His heavy footsteps sound down the hallway, and I spot him out of the corner of my eye at last.

  “Siena?” he says, sounding worried, “Baby, what are you doing up here? Where...Why are your bags packed?”

  “Hi Harrison,” I say, my voice hollow, “Did you get a chance to read the paper? There’s a really fascinating story that might be of interest to you.”

  I nod to where today’s paper sits on the white bed spread. Cautiously, Harrison crosses the room and snatches it up.

  “Don’t tell me this got to you?” he demands. “I don’t know why you’d even bother reading it. You know it’s a bunch of rubbish. How could this change anything for you?”

  “I didn’t think it would,” I say, “But there were some very interesting things I learned today. Really. It’s worth a read.”

  Sighing, Harrison opens the paper and begins to scan the story about us. At first, all he can do is scoff repeatedly. But soon, he falls silent. I can practically feel his body vibrating with outrage as he reads on. I keep my eyes trained on the flickering flames as his anger mounts.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me...” he growls.

  “Keep going,” I whisper.

  Harrison’s face turns bright red as he finishes the story and stands stock still, paralyzed with ire. For a long moment, we’re suspended there, silent and motionless as the world crashes down around us. But the spell breaks as Harrison crumbles the newspaper into a ball and hurls it into the fireplace. I watch as the newsprint shrivels into ash, but those damning words will never truly be gone.

  “Siena,” Harrison says, kneeling before me, “Tell me you don’t believe a word of it. You have to know that it’s all bullshit.”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort,” I tell him, finally meeting his gaze, “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

  “That quote was taken completely out of context,” he insists, taking my limp hands in his, “I was talking about my car, for fuck’s sake. How could you think I’d use you to—”

  “And what about Shelby? You’re not using her either, I suppose?”

  A look of guilt twists Harrison’s handsome features. “I know it looks bad,” he begins.

  “It looks like you are Shelby are lovers,” I tell him point blank.

  “No,” he says, “We’re—”

  “What?” I demand, “What else could that picture possibly mean?”

  “It’s not from a couple of weeks ago,” he pleads, reaching to smooth my hair out of my face. I bat him away before he can touch me. “It’s got to be from a year ago,” he continues, “More, even.”

  “But it’s not fake?” I ask, “You and Shelby are—were—together?”

  “Not together, exactly,” he sputters.

  “Wrong answer,” I say softly, standing up from the bed and grabbing my suitcase.

  “Let me explain—” Harrison says, blocking me from the door.

  “You don’t have to,” I tell him, “You lied to me about her. There’s no coming back from that, Harrison.”

  “I never lied,” he insists, “You never asked—”

  “A lie of omission is just as bad,” I say, “I should know. I’ve been living one for months now. But I’m done with that Harrison. And I’m done with you. Now move the hell out of my way. I’m leaving.”

  “I’m not going to let you walk out that door,” Harrison tells me, “None of what you just read changes anything between us.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I tell him, “It changes everything.”

  Harrison grabs my arm as I move past him, but I wrench myself out of his grasp.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say, my voice icy, “Don’t you dare touch me, Harrison.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” he pleads, “If you’d just let me explain—”

  “Explain to the press if you’d like. I’m through listening to your justifications. I’m just so tired of this all, Harrison. I’m sorry, but I need to go. You do whatever you want. I’m out.”

  He stares at me wordlessly as I turn on my heel and march out of his bedroom, my heart as cold as stone. I can’t afford to feel anything right now. Not until I’m somewhere far away from this place that could have been my home, if only.

  Chapter Two

  Shit Storm

  I spot Bex and Charlie waiting at the airport the moment I set foot on Italian soil. I make my way toward them in the terminal, sure that I’ve never been happier to see anyone. Without saying a word, my best girlfriend and I rush into each other’s arms. I’m still too shocked by this morning’s events to feel
much of anything, but Bex’s embrace is the best comfort I can imagine right now.

  “I’m so sorry, Siena,” she whispers, squeezing me tight.

  “Yeah. Me too,” I say, looking over her shoulder at Charlie.

  My oldest friend stands away from us, his face stony. I know that look—it’s the look he gets when he’s beyond angry, when he’s hurt and confused and disappointed. To know that I’ve brought that look onto his face...it’s just another reason for me to feel lower than dirt. I purposefully kept Charlie in the dark about the whole Harrison thing. He’s probably feeling just as betrayed as Enzo and Dad.

  “We should get back to the house,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets, “Your dad will want to get a game plan together to deal with the press.”

  “How is he?” I ask, “And Enzo?”

  “Let’s get going,” Charlie says again, grabbing my suitcase and turning for the exit. “You’ll see them soon enough.”

  Bex laces her fingers through mine and walks beside me. The second the three of us step out of the terminal and into the airport proper, a dozen reporters close in around us, yelling in Italian and English in turn. I don’t even break my pace as we hurry through the herd of them, out to the Ferrelli car that’s waiting to carry us home. The entirety of Team Ferrelli is camped out at the Lazio home until it’s time to rejoin the season for the London Grand Prix. The hour long ride is completely silent save for Bex’s occasional remark. I know she’s trying to cheer me up, but I’m far beyond that now. I just need a minute alone.

  Of course, a private moment isn’t exactly easy to come by when you’re drowning at the center of a media frenzy. The press has already set up camp around the gates of the Lazio estate. At least someone shooed them off our property, but the whole swarm is still lingering as close as they can. A flurry of flashes lights up as we pass. I’m used to flash bulbs and shouting reporters—I’ve been wrangling them for Enzo for a couple of years, now. But I’m certainly not accustomed to being the target of their scrutiny. That will take some getting used to.