“Yes.”
“Oh. It was slipping out, was it?”
“Yes. I had to correct it with steering and throttle to stop it spinning mid-corner. It ruined my lap times and my tires. When it’s like that, it’s difficult enough to exit safely, let alone while overtaking. I couldn’t take that risk no matter how much I wanted to. I don’t mind an oversteer-ychassisto a certain extent, but that was ridiculous.” He brushed a hand over his jaw—why the hell couldn’t he shut up?
“Is it that bad?” she asked.
“We’ll fix it.”
“Oh. Well. There goes my fear theory. Puff of smoke.” Her eyes wandered around his face. “Look, I didn’t mean to psychoanalyze you.” She sighed, and he heard the uncertainty in it.
“I want to know why you do this,” he said.
“Do what?”
“This.” He gestured to the scene in the tent. “Why waste your time trying to make something entertaining that’s clearly not?”
“Because it’s my job? I’m a journalist, remember? But also because I’ve loved this sport since I was a little girl watching with my dad and my brother, as do millions of others, okay?”
Adam fingered his watch. How ironic that the sport that had brought her closer to the men in her family had torn him apart from his. “Well, I’m glad you derive some pleasure from it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
“It takes a certain sense of the absurd to come back here as a journalist considering how the media followed you around with Hawes and Bates.”
Her nostrils flared. “Yes, call me absurd. I know everyone’s thinking it and worse, so I should at least be grateful you’re saying it to my face.”
“That’s generally how I say things.”
“Well, well, well, looky who’s here, skulking in the dark.” Reece swaggered up to them, the archetypal victor with the spoils, grinning from ear to ear. He had a champagne bottle grasped in one hand, two flutes in the other, and a harem of grid girls in tow. His zipped-down driving suit revealed tufts of grimy looking chest hair. “Surely not a lover’s tiff?”
Adam searched Vivienne’s face for her reaction. Her face was professionally blank.
“Hey, doll, is this guy boring you?” Reece said with full on lascivious grin. “Why don’t you talk to me instead?” This, despite the fact that he had several women hanging off him. Reece was, after all, the king of irony.
“I would,” Vivienne said smoothly. “Except,” she beckoned toward Adam, “I find this one kinda interesting.”
A microbe of warmth expanded within his chest. Few women could put Reece down like that, and none with such flair.
“Interesting?” Reece shook off his girls and made a show of scanning Adam up and down. “Not the first adjective that springs to mind.”
They were the same height. They used to laugh about this when they’d been friends. About how difficult it was for tall men to sit in cramped cars for more than an hour. About their struggles with a team manager who’d wanted to squeeze out all their free time from their contracts. That friendship was gone, replaced by rivalry and a sense of repulsion. Any closeness had vaporized after the collision in Malaysia—the collision that shouldn’t ever have happened between teammates. He seldom misjudged people, but he’d grossly misjudged Reece’s character.
“What adjective springs to mind?” he asked, with a note of warning that he knew Reece would understand. They may be the same height, but there the similarity ended. If it came to blows, Reece didn’t stand a chance and he well knew it. He was too undisciplined to work out properly, and his lifestyle was wreaking havoc on his body. His ability to withstand the g-forces of acceleration and deceleration was nothing short of a miracle, and it wouldn’t last forever.
Reece shrugged and backed off into his bevy of girls. “Before you die of boredom, Viv, come meet us at the Pool Bar party. Fifteenth floor.” He winked at her.
The privileged, London accent reverberated in Adam’s ears for several angry heartbeats after the playboy departed. “He throws a good party,” he said, watching the direction Reece had gone to make sure he wasn’t coming back for another go at her, which wouldn’t be at all unusual.
“So I hear,” she said. Her mouth was curled into a wry grin as if she’d drawn this conclusion herself from experience.
“Don’t let me stop you.”
“Was that your cue for me to leave?” she asked.
“No.” Adam stepped closer. Where had that precious moment gone? He wanted to ask her about Riyadh, but she was all business again now, reporter-like. That was Reece’s fault. “Just acknowledging the competition.”
“The competition for what?”
“For your attention.”
“Don’t worry, you’ve got it, as a reporter.”
“Good. But don’t expect me to be entertaining.”
Her forehead crinkled. “Look, it’s a sport, and a dangerous one at that. Having been involved with those drivers and friends with so many others, I can’t ever forget that. Just like I can’t forget the images of your accident in Malaysia. I may be looking for entertaining, yes, but I’m not blind to the sport’s serious side. I’m not out to trivialize this it. Give me some credit here.”
She didn’t sound like other reporters. She sounded genuine.
“Think I’ll head over to that party to talk to some people—you know—on the record.”
He found his voice again. “Vivienne—wait.”
She turned with an expectant cock of her eyebrow.
“Don’t mention the car. You mustn’t mention the oversteer. Please.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It didn’t even reach her cheeks. “I won’t.”
He watched her disappear into the crowd. Why couldn’t he say the right thing at the right time around her? Why did she always seem to want to get the hell away from him?
• • •
Viv left the VIP tent and climbed into a stand to watch the crowds begin to break up and progress towards the exits. The tension receded from her body. Of course, she had zero intentions of going to Reece’s private party—she’d only said that to get a rise out of Adam. His inability to distinguish a female journalist from a party girl reeked of the lazy sort of association everybody seemed to draw about her. Was it a hazard of the media profession, or was it some kind of universal rule that a female sports journalist in a male-dominated sport was always going to be a joke?
There was nothing wrong with trying to make his sport more accessible in a sensitive, intelligent way. And him? God, he could do with a spoonful of sugar.
Make that a bucketful.
She pursed her lips and looked around the circuit. The crowd had dwindled. Here in Abu Dhabi, the US fan contingent was feeble, but those that did brave the trip were die-hards. A few Star-Spangled Banners fluttered in the warm afternoon breeze, competing with the Union Jacks. She wondered what Adam’s fans thought about him. Surely they had a more favorable opinion. She approached the nearest US flag bearers.
“Where are you from, ma’am?” she asked the forty-something woman in a glamorous white trouser suit, a schoolboy of about ten years old in tow. Viv could smell the woman’s Chanel No. 5 vaporizing in the heat.
“New York.”
“And who are you here to cheer for?”
“Well, we like a good race no matter where they’re from.”
Viv nodded, smiling encouragingly. “Given that two US drivers are racing, are you hoping one of them wins this year? After all, they’ve both had such a great start here—in second and third place.”
“Well, we’re going for Maddux Bates.” The woman nodded to her son who wore the Supernova orange T-shirt emblazoned with the name Bates and sunglasses to match. “Huge fan.”
“Yes, I can see that. What about Adam Fontaine?”
The woman screwed up her face in thought. “No … not really. I mean, he drives well and everything, but he—”
“—does
n’t do fun ads,” the boy said. “Maddux has a great beer ad.”
“Shhh,” the mother said, nudging him. “Anyway, he’s not really American, is he? They’re a Belgian family. He was born over there. Just because they have a winery in California doesn’t make them American.”
“He’s Mr. Spock, yo,” the boy said.
“Why do you call him that?” Viv asked.
“That’s his nickname.”
“Well, why do you think that is?”
The woman shrugged. “He doesn’t smile?” The boy also shrugged.
“Would you like him better if he smiled?” He thought about it and nodded. His mother was nodding, too, eager to get away, no doubt.
Viv thanked them and let them go. She scribbled up a few notes on her notepad as they walked away. They’d got that much right; she’d never seen him smile either. God knows it might dent that perfect jawline of his.
She wandered over to a group of youths smoking by the barricade to the pits to ask them the same question. It had barely registered with them that Adam even was a US driver; they were mad about Maddux, they said in a half-drunken chorus. He was a good guy, they said. On being asked to elaborate, they held forth on his driving tactics. One of them mumbled about a charity organization he thought Maddux might support, but couldn’t name it or anything.
She was glad none of them recognized her as the ex-girlfriend of their hero. Though ex-girlfriend was an exaggeration. Despite all the press hype, she’d never been physically involved with Maddux, just good friends. He was handy to have around after she and Ronan had split up. The typical rebound friendship. Neither she nor Maddux had felt inclined to debate the truth of the matter with the media.
The public perception of drivers could change overnight, given the right positive—or negative—press. Public spats or beer ads or kindness—a well-placed photo with a child, or even better, a handicapped child, could alter a driver’s image just like that. It had happened with Maddux, and even to a lesser extent, Ronan. Of course, with a character like Adam, there was no telling whether he’d cooperate enough to allow it to happen. She pitied his PR people, whoever the miserable creatures were.
But his relative invisibility was exciting from an academic, journalistic point of view—a tabula rasa—a real chance, if she handled it properly. None of the other journalists seemed to be paying much heed to him yet. But two years ago, he’d driven faster than Reece during the second half of the championship. So he could do it again. She had to keep her head cool and scoop a good story on him. Because she’d bet her Swarovski-studded abaya there was some juicy story he was keeping all to his lonely self.
• • •
Adam exited the VIP tent after another beer and returned to the peace and quiet of his hotel room. He had to get a grip on his anger over Reece, or it would distract him and affect his performance, which was, of course, precisely what Reece wanted. The fact that Reece was chasing Vivienne McCloud didn’t help matters. It shouldn’t bother him, because Reece chased every half-decent looking woman he set eyes on. But for some reason, it did.
Saskia had called him again, so after a quick bath, he lay on the bed and returned the call.
“I asked Dad how he’d feel about the whole family getting together in December for the ceremony,” she said, “with full emphasis on ‘whole’ so he couldn’t willfully misinterpret.”
Adam sat up. “What did he say?”
“He said the family’s never going to be whole, with an emphasis on ‘whole’ so I couldn’t willfully misinterpret.” Saskia sighed.
“Did he say anything else?” He felt the knife of hurt and guilt twisting in his gut.
“No, he went off on one of his usual tirades about, well, the same old shit I’ve been listening to for the past ten years.”
“It’s how he sees it.”
“I don’t care. You’re not the one who’s had to grow up with this. You ran away, remember?”
“This is not a helpful conversation.” He traced the outline of his watch with his index finger.
“I’ll tell you what’s not helpful. It’s not helpful that he can’t just relax for a moment and let us celebrate as a family, or what’s left of it. You know … for once.” Her voice was tearful. “I mean, he wouldn’t even have to talk to you, would he? I could keep you at separate tables. Oh, Adam, if you couldn’t come, it wouldn’t feel like I was getting married properly. It wouldn’t feel real.”
The desperate silence made him clutch at straws. He should’ve given this wedding business more thought, but he’d been too wrapped up in the car problems, too immersed in his own world as his sister often accused him of, and rightly so.
“You could get married twice,” he suggested. “You know, have a second little ceremony, you and Jeff and me and some close friends.”
“That’s not funny, Adam. It’s not funny that my brother and my father still don’t speak to each other. I didn’t just lose a brother … thanks to you and Dad, I lost everything. And trying to play peacemaker these last twelve years—well, what can I say; it hasn’t been at all easy. So, it’s the least you could do.”
“Reconciliation can’t be one-sided, Saskia. You know how Dad is. It’s easier for him to lump what happened onto my shoulders than to accept the blame himself. So be it.”
Another silence. He could almost hear her brain switching gears, changing track.
“Well, I’m not doing two weddings. Never. A girl wants one wedding, not a patchwork. That’s silly.”
“I was only trying to help.”
“You’re not very romantic, are you?”
“I’m not even slightly romantic,” Adam agreed.
“Well then. Couldn’t you sneak in the back of the church after everyone’s been seated? Just for the ceremony itself? I could keep you hidden after that. He doesn’t even have to know.”
“You’re asking me to sneak into a church? How about I wear a disguise?”
“Adam—”
“Sask, I love you, but what you’re asking is impossible. I’m not going to sneak around, hoping he doesn’t notice me.”
“Oooh, you’re as stubborn as he is. Do you realize what it must be like from his point of view—to have one son killed while driving and the other making it his livelihood?”
“Drop it, Saskia.”
Her tone turned plaintive. “You could set up a garage or help us tend the winery. We’re always hiring people.”
“I have a job. This one. Does that mean nothing to you?”
“But Adam, at what cost?”
He said goodbye and hung up. He had to race. He had to win. Whatever it cost. He’d chosen his career over his family business, hell and isolation over his family, because it had been a choice forced on him by his grieving father half a lifetime ago. And that was supposed to change just because Saskia was marrying? The last twelve years of fighting through the barriers were all about this moment, this season, this chance.
Eddie would have understood perfectly.
Chapter 6
A week later, the frenzy of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix had died down. The whole circus was moving on to just-as-hot and just-as-sandy Bahrain. Viv was clearing out her desk when Mack’s unwelcome, stocky figure strutted by. He’d flown in from London to join them for the second race, and his sudden, oppressive presence reminded her of exactly how little she enjoyed being micromanaged.
“Good to get the two desert races over with in one go,” he said, red-faced, plunking his load of packing boxes by her feet. He straightened up, puffing with exertion. “Then you can move on and shake the sand out of your knickers.”
“Quite.” Was she being overly sensitive or was the discussion of knickers bad form with your boss? She’d explore that philosophical question in more detail when her probation period was over in six weeks. And what was she supposed to do with Mack’s boxes in the meantime?
“I liked your interview with Reece. Fun guy.”
“Yes.” And it had been fun battling of
f his advances afterward, too.
Mack exhaled noisily. “I’m missing some coverage on Fontaine. It’s a gap. I know he’s reclusive, but in my books, he’s first driver for Gatari and a serious contender for the championship title this year. If he makes the podium again in Bahrain, we’ll need an in-depth interview with him straight afterward. That clear?”
“As crystal. I don’t think he’s as anti-social as some of the gossip columns are making him out to be. I mean, he did give me that lift to the airport.”
As soon as she said the words, her stomach plummeted. That was the worst thing she could possibly have let slip.
Mack leaned his forehead closer to her face, his blubbery lips moving but the words failing to come out, hampered by growing incredulity. “Are you telling me, you sat in the same car as this guy?”
If smoke could come out of Mack’s hairy ears, it would be spewing out in large plumes.
“Yes,” she squeaked.
“And you didn’t find out anything … anything at all about him?”
Part of her wished that the power would blow and thrust them into darkness so she could scarper out the door. “I was panicking, Mack … the taxi broke down, the stupid driver, he could do nothing, and then Adam picked me up, and it was the middle of the day, you can imagine how hot it was …” She broke off, realizing how unprofessional she sounded.
Mack shook his head in resignation. “I thought hiring a woman was a smart move. You seem intent on proving me wrong.”
She looked down so he couldn’t see this getting to her. Swallowing quickly, she looked up again. “I can’t speak for every woman—or man—but I can prove that hiring me was a smart move.”
He strutted off.
God, she’d prove him wrong, arrogant old fart that he was. If she didn’t—if she had to start back at square one again of the journalism ladder—she’d kill herself. Her whole adult life had been spent flitting from one thing to the next—psychology, then marketing, then journalism with stints in between as a waitress, barmaid and content manager to fund all the college courses and distance learning at night.
She’d flitted from one person to another, changing boyfriends as often as she’d changed jobs. It had taken her a long time to figure out that you have to be happy with your own life before you could be happy with another person in it. And she’d yet to feel happy about her own life.
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