High Octane

Home > Other > High Octane > Page 42
High Octane Page 42

by Ashlinn Craven

“Has Marlowe a case?”

  Sarah shrugged.

  She was playing the clip again when Mack walked by and rapped Sarah’s monitor with his pen. “We want to know what he does, what he loves, what he hates, whom he fucks and what he has for breakfast next day. This is the potential Formula One champ we’re talking about. Forget Marlowe for the moment, get on Fontaine.”

  Yeah, this would be funny if her career didn’t suddenly hang in the balance.

  “I’m talking live TV. In our US studio. We’ve a slot on April fifth, the day before the Austin race.”

  Her heart hammered. Live TV? US-style? Talk about the deep end. This could obliterate the guy’s persona, not unlike using a sandblaster to reveal a Renaissance fresco. “What if he’s a little, um, camera shy?”

  “I don’t care. I want his backside on that leather couch come April fifth. Otherwise you can consider your own backside taking a different route.”

  Mack wandered off to bully someone else.

  “Oh my God,” she said to Sarah, who touched her arm in sympathy. Viv had liked her from day one.

  “Where did the BBC find that dragon anyway?” Viv asked under her breath.

  “Well, he was like that with some other sports reporters, too, in the beginning. Martin Tanner for golf and equestrian can tell you that. Mack’s very much a believer in ‘when the going gets tough.’”

  “How about when the going gets pretty bloody impossible?”

  Sarah shrugged. “That’s too fine a distinction for him.”

  “I mean, what am I supposed to do? Go knocking on Fontaine’s bedroom door for an interview?”

  Instead of protesting at such a ludicrous suggestion, Sarah simply pulled a thoughtful face.

  She groaned. “Okay, okay, I get it. Privacy be damned, I go knocking.”

  Chapter 8

  Adam sat up in his armchair, a headache drilling into his temples. A dozen stitches and a long thin scar they said. He raised the eighteen-year-old single malt to his lips. Medicinal purposes. “What was it anyway?”

  “Glass bottle. Supernova energy drink. Keep your motor running,” Bruce said, mimicking the narrator on the famous TV ads. “I’m told it’s already at three hundred thousand hits on YouTube, and sales have doubled in an afternoon. Nice work.”

  He groaned at the irony.

  “You’re damn lucky it didn’t crack open against your thick skull and do some serious facial surgery.”

  “Guess I must have a guardian angel.”

  “Well, that guardian angel might be on a lunch break next time you decide to stop and stare down a crowd of Reece fans on the rampage. So watch it, mate.”

  “I’ll keep my helmet on.”

  “And Reece’s bluff came to nothing. What a bastard. I mean, our suspension is on the very limit, sure, but how the hell did he know that?”

  “A lucky bluff?”

  “I don’t know, Adam. How was it out there today, other than that? Give me the full version.”

  “The GTX is as perfect as a car can be now,” he enthused. “It went with me. Every time. And starting in second position, we could make tactics and stick to them. What a contrast to Abu Dhabi.”

  “Yeah.” Bruce took a sip of his whiskey. “And you never got yourself in a position where you had to overtake in a corner.”

  “No, thank God.”

  A rap sounded on the door.

  “Room service.” Adam sighed and rose. “They never leave me alone since this happened.” He pointed to his bandage. “Ice, chocolate, extra pillows, you name it. That’s it. I’m staying in a three-star next time.”

  The knock came again as he was a few paces from the door.

  “Adam—” Bruce began.

  He opened up to find Vivienne McCloud standing there in hip-hugging jeans and a silk print blouse that covered up everything in a way that made her even sexier. His breath caught in his throat. “Vivienne?” He held the door open and took a step backward.

  “Hi, Adam. I heard about … Are you okay?” Her clear, hazel gaze, wide with anxiety, roamed his face and then narrowed in disgust. “Ooh, it’s bruising.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, gruffer than intended.

  She nodded and turned her attention beyond his shoulder. “Am I disturbing you?” Her fingers twitched and she wasn’t carrying any writing pad or microphone. Intriguing.

  “No. Please, come in.” He waved to the armchair. “You’ve met Bruce before.”

  Bruce grinned his ruddy face off at her. His chief engineer definitely had a soft spot. “Ms. McCloud.” His Australian accent thickened. “Come join us in a whiskey. A beaut. I’m guessing you’re Scottish from your surname and will appreciate the finer things in life.” He threw himself down on the bed and patted the space beside him.

  Vivienne smiled big at Bruce. Adam folded his arms, watching her settle snugly beside the engineer, on his bed, shoulders touching. Neither of them asked him to sit down.

  “Indeed,” she said, “McCloud originates from Mc L-e-o-d, a Scottish clan. My father was Scottish. He’s dead now though. Passed away when I was fifteen My mum’s a Lancashire lass, and that’s where I grew up. There, and Edinburgh, if you can count six years of university as formative years.”

  “There you go, Adam.” Bruce finished pouring her glass and smirked. “I got the whole family history already, and I bet you never knew any of that.”

  She laughed, a soft, measured kind of laugh, like she was on her guard. Adam leaned his throbbing head against the bathroom doorframe. “I could have guessed it from her accent.”

  “See, you never actually have to tell Adam anything.” Bruce handed Vivienne her whiskey with a ceremonial flourish. “He just knows everything instinctively.”

  She looked straight at Adam, but he refused to hold her gaze. What was wrong with this picture? A stunning woman in his bedroom who’d come to him, who was sitting on his bed, drinking high-percentage alcohol, and then his bloody engineer making fun of him? It was obvious what was wrong.

  “Vivienne, did you want me for something?” he asked, emphasizing “me.”

  Her eyes glowed in the ambient light. “Well, now that you mention it, Adam, I was rather hoping you’d do an interview with me … with us, the BBC. Now that you’ve won.”

  She fingered her little, silver earring and made big doe eyes at him. “We’d love to have you in our studio. Or anywhere of your choice. Preferably around the April fifth time frame, if that would suit.”

  Bruce put down his glass on the bedside locker and shot him a look of sympathy.

  Adam swallowed in his dry throat. Her delicate features tilted upward, questioning him … her perfect body perched on his bed in her flimsy blouse that clung to her in all the right places, begging to be torn off, her tight jeans showing off elegant curves … it was all too much, and too little. The whiskey in his veins ... he’d had three or more … warming him, warping his mind … but she’d already managed to do that well before this moment. What if … what if he’d been here on his own? What then? What if she’d walked in on him then and used this begging tone with him? Yes, he’d like to do something with her—

  “Adam?” she asked, her eyes wide. God, he loved that Scottish-Lancashire lilt.

  But what she was asking was not good.

  “I don’t do interviews.”

  Her face collapsed into a determined sort of pout, one that he recognized from his sister as meaning this wasn’t the end of it. Not by a long shot.

  Bruce sighed, emptied his glass and slapped his thighs. “Well I’ll be off to bed then. First flight out to Atlanta tomorrow.”

  Yes, thanks, Bruce, go. Adam held the door wide for him to exit. As he passed, Bruce muttered under his breath, “Be nice.”

  “When am I not?” he murmured back.

  Bruce laughed all the way down the corridor.

  She shifted her ass on the bed as if she could read his deepest, predatory thoughts, avoiding him now that he’d shut the door. He should say something to
put her at her ease, but damned if he knew what.

  It was clear from the way she was drinking the whiskey that she didn’t normally. “You don’t have to drink it,” he said. “The minibar has other drinks.”

  “You’re right.” She smiled and cradled the glass in her lap. “But I do like the smell; it reminds me of my father.”

  “That’s a good thing?”

  “Oh yes.” She looked at him with curiosity. “I guess your father’s more of a wine drinker?”

  He fingered his jaw. “Yeah.”

  She nodded, eyes wide. The silence lengthened.

  “How was Riyadh?” he asked.

  “Oh yes, we haven’t spoken since then. Well, not properly. Riyadh was—” She stopped.

  He cocked his head, waiting.

  “—an experience.”

  “Did someone give you trouble?” he asked sharply.

  “No, no, not really. Al-Saeed, he’s not in a good place right now. But I think he wants his privacy.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s entitled to it.”

  “Of course.” Adam found he was in the middle of the room now. He could either sit on the bed beside her or on the chair by the desk. Indecision held him frozen in place. Without another word, she took her sweet ass off his bed and walked around him to the window, wringing her hands.

  He stared at the perfect indentation she’d made on the quilt and sat in the same position with his back to her. He studied the faint trace of her lipstick on her whiskey glass and then twisted his head around to see if they matched her lips.

  The silence seemed to creep in around them.

  “God, that crowd though,” she said suddenly, “How horrible were they, throwing a bottle at you?”

  He looked down again at his bare feet. “A partisan crowd, of no consequence.”

  “Oh but they are. Doesn’t it affect you … all that booing and hissing?

  “No.”

  “Adam,” she implored. “You need to do something about this.”

  He refused to look at her lest she think he actually agreed with this. Pandering to the fans came way, way down in his list of priorities. “What do you suggest? Exercise mind control? They’re Reece fans. Of course they hate me.”

  “They don’t hate Maddux. Not in the same way. And he’s American, too.”

  “British connections though. He launched his career in the United Kingdom ”

  “Well, take any of them. But you’re an easy target. Adam, look at you. You could be popular. I’m serious. You need to hire a decent PR team. You need to seriously revamp your image.”

  “I don’t care about it.” This conversation was much easier with his back to her.

  “But everybody else does. It’s becoming a problem.”

  “Not for me, it’s not. You shouldn’t care about it either, Vivienne.”

  “But I see how it affects you. It affects everything about your career, your sponsorships, your interviews, the press conferences. Even your personal safety, Adam. Don’t you see it yourself? I can’t believe you entered Formula One without an inkling of how it works.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. You may not accept it, but the proof is out there. I’m just trying to help you.”

  “My job is to drive a car around a circuit and to follow team orders. No help necessary.”

  “It’s not that simple, but there’s no talking to you.” She sighed heavily. “I know you used to be friends with Reece and everything, but there’s something you should know.”

  Was this the point where she told him she was sleeping with Reece? “I think he’s a distraction,” she said.

  “For you, or for me?”

  “For your engineers.”

  Adam bolted up and faced her. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been down there. In your garage. He had a troop of girls there a couple of nights ago. Look, maybe you already knew about this, but I thought you should know.”

  “What were they doing exactly? What was Reece doing? What do you know?”

  “Having fun. Drinking, partying. You know how Reece is.”

  Too right he knew how that jerk operated. A kick in the nuts would be too mild a response to his ex-friend’s backhanded ways, but that’s what he had coming to him.

  Vivienne drew a sharp breath and pressed her back into the window. Without realizing it, he’d started toward her. Her gaze darted over his shoulder to the door and then came back to him. He caught a flash of something—fear?

  He closed his eyes. Christ, what was he thinking? She was a woman alone in a room with a man twice her weight, reeking of whiskey no doubt, and he was cornering her? He backed up a step. “Don’t be afraid of me. Please, not that.”

  Her laugh came shakily. “I guess I could say the same thing to you.”

  Slowly, he examined the contour of her lips, the slope of her neck, the parabolic curve of her eyelashes, knowing they’d all resurface in his dreams. Her hazel eyes had taken on less of a deer-in-headlights quality and more of a sultry vixen. Or was that just the whiskey talking?

  “Thank you for this information,” he said.

  “No problem.” Vivienne marched past him and didn’t stop until she’d reached the door. She paused before leaving. “Adam, I wasn’t partying down there with him. I just saw them, okay?”

  He nodded. What was there to say? He sank back down on the bed and knocked back the whiskey from her glass. How had Ronan and Maddux managed to get through to her the way they had? Charm? But she didn’t seem to be someone who fell for charm alone.

  Which was why he still held out hope that she might, one day, feel something stronger than professional interest toward him.

  Chapter 9

  As it was her last evening, and she was pretty sure the next hotel the BBC occupied in Austin wouldn’t be half as luxurious, Viv decided to check out the hotel spa. What was the point of staying in a Bahraini five-star if you never took advantage of the facilities? She could do with a bit of pampering to coax the tensions out of her body.

  Fifteen minutes later, she leaned back against the mosaic tiles of the hamman, feeling the rush of steam in her nostrils, her muscles already unclenching in the damp heat. This felt wonderful. She closed her eyes and concentrated on clearing her head of all its debris. All her doubts about her choice of profession and her choice of men in the past began to fizzle away in the steam.

  She just had to stick to her guns and not let them get to her. Any of them. When she was a famous journalist reporting from war-torn northern Iraq or Kyrgyzstan or wherever, she’d smile in memory of these strange beginnings. And they’d all still be sitting in their cars spinning around circuits that cost the GDP of a small country, trying to find the meaning of it all.

  The glass door opened, bringing in a gush of cold air and a tall male. She peered through the steam at the hazy figure. Adam Fontaine. Naked except for swimming shorts, his sculpted upper body revealed in all its hard, sinewy glory.

  Holy Mother.

  He cleared his throat and looked like he was going to exit again, but then he sat opposite her, as far away as possible in this tiny space.

  A new batch of steam plumed upward from the vent in the center. It burned her face for a moment and obscured her view of him completely.

  “Is it hot in here or is it just me?” his voice penetrated the plume of steam.

  She snorted involuntarily. Was that a sense of humor trying to claw its way out of his robotic intelligence subsystem? She blinked water from her eyes. “It’s very hot and very moist. Sure you can handle it?”

  “Let’s see who gives up first.”

  The air cleared a little, and she saw him better. He sucked in his lips a few times and raised his chin in a show of examining the pretty mosaic pattern of the arched ceiling. His expression was pained. Maybe steam baths weren’t his thing? Had he followed her in here?

  Well, it was time to see him sweat.

  “Adam,” she said, breaking the s
ilence. “What really happened in Malaysia two years ago between you and Reece?”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Just a rumor. I heard you were first driver and that Reece crashed into you and then claimed he’d been first driver all along and you were trying to usurp him. Is that true?”

  “That’s a very specific rumor,” his reply came. “I suppose it’s from a very reliable source?”

  “Very reliable.”

  “Bruce.”

  She didn’t bother denying it.

  “It would be better to stick to the official version and forget about it, Vivienne. Digging that up won’t help your career. Or mine.”

  “It’s not about my career. I just want to know.”

  There was silence except for the steam machine bubbling away cheerfully, spurting out new clouds of vapor as if trying to compensate for their lack of conversation. Her face was streaming with condensation and sweat. No doubt she looked a total mess. Normally she’d stay a maximum ten minutes in a steam room, but she wanted to use this opportunity if it killed her. She’d lost her cool in his bedroom and wasted that chance.

  “Are you involved with him?” Adam asked suddenly.

  “Who?”

  “Reece,” he hissed.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “He bluffs about a lot of things.” When he raised his head again, Viv imagined she saw a tilt in his upper lip. A trickle of water slid in a curve down his perfect cheekbone and rested in the corner of his mouth. She had a sudden crazy urge to go over there and lick it off.

  She shook her head. “Oh yes, I heard about his attempt to disqualify you. But your car’s within the legal limits, isn’t it? That suspension’s okay?”

  He nodded. “Yes, and thanks to you, I know how he knew we’d adjusted it, and which engineers I can trust and which I can’t.”

  “Glad to be of service.”

  His gaze latched onto hers, intense and calculating. She didn’t know where to look—at those eyes, or his sensitive mouth, or the intricate muscle and bone of his shoulders, or his perfect, contoured torso, all screaming out to be touched, caressed, kissed ... Did he have a woman hidden away somewhere?

  She shut her eyes, and the heat within her grew more intense, matching the heat of the steam. And if he didn’t have a woman, did he do quick, no-strings-attached shags? No, of course he didn’t. He didn’t even do slow relationships, according to the files, and she’d scoured them all for precisely this information. Either he was very good at stealth, or he really was half Vulcan.

 

‹ Prev