High Octane

by Ashlinn Craven

  He was pretty sure Ronan didn’t fill her ears with his problems with his own father—a felon. And God knew, Maddux could hold a marathon talk on his troubles with sponsors and money and the rest of it. Only they didn’t fall into that trap, did they?

  He had to see her. Why wouldn’t she switch on her goddamn phone? He couldn’t function. He flopped on his bed in frustration and pulled up his laptop to check the weather forecast.

  Hungaroring, with its sixteen turns, was almost as treacherous as Monaco, and he didn’t like it one bit, even in the best of conditions. Flicking through websites, he landed on the BBC and the first thing glaring out at him was “Fontaine—The Man behind the Helmet.” Then he saw her name under it. His blood ran cold. What was this? God, she better not have said anything …

  He watched the video with growing unease. He’d agreed to an interview to prevent this very thing from happening. When the hell had she done all this? This morning?

  She was presenting him as the goddamn elephant man—a recluse that needed pity. His frown deepened on the part about his family. She mentioned “family tensions” when he was sixteen, the loss of his brother, and suggesting in the same breath that he felt somehow responsible for the winery. He threw the laptop aside and got up again. They had to talk about this.

  • • •

  Viv needed three goes before she let her call to Adam ring long enough for him to answer. Her nerves were shot. What was she? Sixteen?

  He answered immediately. “Where were you?”

  “Um, out and about with Sarah, our technician.”

  “When can I see you?”

  “Now?”

  “Good,” he said. “I know your room number.”

  “Yes … okay.”

  Within minutes, there came two sharp raps on her door. She sat up and swung her feet onto the carpet.

  She opened the door a crack. Adam stood in the corridor.

  “Can I come in?” Despite the tension, she broke into a grin. God, he looked good.

  He strode in, shutting the door behind him with his fist. He took two steps to her, his chest heaving under the dark blue T-shirt, his dark eyes focused on her, watchful.

  She forgot everything she’d been thinking about.

  He slammed his lips onto her open mouth and pushed her up against the wardrobe. She caved. Her body pressed into him, coming alive again. Her nipples hardened against his chest. He lashed her with his tongue and crushed his body tightly against her breasts. Heaven had just opened its pearly gates again—

  He drew back. “See?”

  “See what?” she panted, irritated that he’d broken off.

  “How much I needed that? This—separation—it’s not good.”

  “Hey, you’ll survive if I can.”

  “And what’s this?” He tore out his smartphone from his pocket and held up the display of the BBC website and her video. “What the hell, Vivienne? I thought we’d just agreed to a new date. You didn’t have to make stuff up.”

  She looked away. So he didn’t like the piece. Question answered loud and clear. “Is that why you called the station and gave the interview to someone else?”

  “I promised you an interview. You weren’t there in the office when I called. But I had to schedule a time.”

  “Okay, but you may have handed over your life to a different interviewer now who’s quite the bitch. Catherine Price.”

  “How could I have known that? I think—I think it’s for the best anyway. If we’re on TV together ... well, maybe you can be professional in front of a camera, Vivienne, but I can’t. I’ll only want to—” He stepped closer, eyes glowing, “you know.”

  “Yes, yes, okay,” she said, splaying her palms on his chest.

  “And if I choose to say nothing to this Catherine, then at least you won’t get the blame for being a bad interviewer, but you’ll get credit for having secured the interview.”

  She held her fingers to her forehead. “That’s … twisted, but yeah, okay. Look, the whole point of this was to make you approachable, likeable, nice, remember?”

  He paced around, saying nothing. She was definitely getting through on some level, so she continued. “What’s your problem with the piece?”

  His expression darkened. “All this Fontaine Fans stuff. Why do you encourage them? Give them publicity? They mill around my family home, tormenting my family, and you give them cred? I thought I told you I didn’t like it. It’s—it’s disappointing.”

  She sighed. “Adam, your family—”

  “What about them?”

  “My question exactly. I’ve told you about my brother, my family. My past love life even. You’ve given me nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Because I know where it would end up.” He shook the phone in his hand. “It’s funny how you want to dissect my life in public, even to interview me in public, and yet you won’t be seen dead with me.”

  He looked at her, then ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. That’s unfair. I know. You’re just doing your job.”

  She sat down on the bed, tugging the duvet to cover her knees. The irony stuck her, and not for the first time. But was he using that as a shield? So she couldn’t get too close? Too intimate?

  “Adam, I’ve respected your privacy within reason. But I had to say something. Yes, about your family, too—you didn’t just drop to Earth from a different planet, despite what some reports are saying. People need to know the basics so they can connect to you and see you as the good guy you are. I nearly died when I saw what happened in Bahrain—you know, after the race. That bottle could have slashed your eye out.”

  “You think you can prevent that?”

  “No, but it brought home to me what you needed.” She held her face up to him.

  “Let me be the judge of what I need.” His voice was gentler. He sat down beside her on the bed. He stroked a thumb across her cheek, then the other. He kissed her lips gently, then urgently. His mouth trailed down her neck. “But promise me this: Get off my case.”

  She nodded. Right now, she’d agree to anything. As long as he kept going.

  “I just need you,” he said.

  • • •

  They’d done it again. Adam shook off the blanket and the lingering feelings of lust and something more tender. He wished he could be locked up in this room with her until Sunday’s race, but he had a strategy meeting to get to in ten minutes. He couldn’t afford to get mushy-brained now.

  And it would always be like this—until the end race in Monaco in four months. Snippets of time together and lots of sneaking around. Hardly the level of attention she was used to from the likes of Ronan and Maddux, but it was her express wish to keep it secret. Anyway, once it was over, he’d have all the time in the world to make it up to her.

  As he dressed, he watched her sleeping. Vivienne looked beautiful naked, snuggled into fetal position on the satiny sheet with a serene look on her face. She managed to be fit and yet natural looking, beautiful and yet real. Everything about her was like honey—her voice, the looks she gave him, how she maneuvered him from one topic to another, how easy on the nerves she was, playful, confident and harmony-seeking. Five days and two continents into this relationship, he was one lucky bastard, and well he knew it.

  “Wake up,” he said.

  “Oooh what?” Viv raised her head and grinned at him. If her hair were long, it would be tousled. As it was, her spikes were just a tiny bit wayward, and it was incredibly cute.

  “I have to go.”

  After a lingering kiss, he traipsed reluctantly down to the garages. Bruce was inspecting the rear axle of Albany’s car. Albany waved when he saw Adam.

  “What’s the verdict on the GTX?” Adam asked.

  Bruce nodded. “Injection. You were right.”

  Albany shot him a look. “Bad luck, mate.”

  “Who was responsible for checking it?”

  “Marc. He’s real sorry; won’t happen again.”

  “Cut him some slack, Adam
,” Albany said. “Marc’s done overtime to get the car shipped, and it’s arrived quicker than anyone else’s—he knew someone in customs. So you can at least give him credit for that.”

  Adam nodded.

  “The engineers all have girlfriends now,” Albany continued. “Happy as pigs in muck.”

  “Yes, I know,” Adam said. And they weren’t the only ones. An image of Viv naked on the bed flashed in his mind, and he couldn’t be as angry as he wanted to be. Not by half. No, he was unfortunately rather like a pig in muck himself.

  Bruce looked guilty. “Like you said, mate, there may have been an excess of partying in Bahrain. I had a word with them, though. Reece will not be welcome in that garage again, you may be sure. We’ve set up a night watch and all.”

  “Good,” Adam said, unclenching his teeth. “Hey Marc, good move with the customs.”

  Bruce and Marc both stared at him like he’d spurted a second head.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, um—” Bruce began. “Marc, go check that suspension one more time, would you?” He turned away, but not fast enough to conceal a wide grin.

  Chapter 19

  Entering the Hungaroring BBC studio on race day, Viv felt as nervous as the first time she’d stepped into the studio in Abu Dhabi. Could her colleagues tell? Could they sense that she was now liaising with Mr. Spock? That underneath his Vulcan exterior lurked a complex human being whose affection for her was like a fine, precise arrow shot through her soul?

  They’d met Friday night, and she’d brought him luck—he’d qualified in pole position. She had left him at 10:00 p.m. to sneak back to her own hotel, which had been fine until she’d woken at 3:00 a.m., wishing she could go to him, a physical desire so strong she’d almost succumbed in the silence of the room. Instead, she’d switched on the TV and talked herself out of it. She hadn’t wanted to jeopardize his race by depriving him of sleep.

  Rick beamed at her and patted her knee in a grandfatherly manner. “You’re looking blooming this morning, my dear.”

  She smiled and settled into her seat, adjusting her microphone on her lapel. Was he blind, or had the makeup artist done a convincing job? “Oh, I’m happy to be back in Europe, Rick.”

  Rick flapped his hands. “Don’t get me started. Proper coffee, proper bread, proper beer. They don’t have a clue across the pond, do they? What’s your guess on how this’ll play out this afternoon?”

  “Well the qualifiers were so close. Mere hundredths of seconds between them, so I guess the cars are all at the same level. I think the starting positions are going to decide it for them. Fontaine first, Marlowe second, Bates third, Anderson fourth, Papastathopoulos fifth, and so on.”

  Rick nodded. “You’re probably right. But Marlowe holds the record here. He’ll want to hold on to that.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s strong this season. My money’s on him.”

  “Four down, thirteen to go. Tough to say.”

  Rick slid her a look. “Bates is due a win sometime soon.”

  “It would be nice to see him win here,” she said, miffed that even Rick couldn’t let go of her past. “It must be frustrating getting up on the podium in third place after every race. But he’s nothing if not resilient.”

  “Indeed.” Rick rearranged his hair as he always did after the makeup people flattened it too much. “And let’s see how the Marlowe-Fontaine vendetta plays out. I love an old-fashioned duel, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes.” Oh shut up.

  “One minute to go,” the director intoned.

  Steady. It’s just a race. It’s his job. Now, do yours. She untangled her hands under the table and filled her lungs. Her fingers were trembling. Lack of sleep? Hormones? Worry for him?

  The cameras homed in on Adam’s green car. He gave a thumbs up and then gesticulated to an engineer about something. She saw his dark eyes glitter behind his visor before the camera moved away again. Was he thinking of her? Or was he just calculating the g-force differentials to two decimal places?

  It was ridiculous of her to be worried. Races were safe these days, Nobody had been killed since Ayrton Senna in ’94. Serious injuries, sure, but no deaths.

  “And in pole position here we have Adam Fontaine in the green car, currently second in the championship table with sixty-eight points,” Rick said. “Can he close the gap on his old teammate Reece Marlowe? Only four points between them.”

  The cameras moved to Reece in second position, who did his usual wave around to the spectators as if he could sense the cameras on him. Rick looked at her to signal her turn to comment.

  “Yes, and Marlowe is looking dashing in his red colors,” she said, with strained chirpiness, “Beside him the Finns, Hänninen and Voutilainen. They’ve brought half of Finland here to Budapest, just like every year.”

  Her commentary went on and on. When Adam stuck behind the stupid safety car that lost him precious seconds over Reece, she fought to keep all frustration from her voice. At one point she very nearly swore at Reece.

  “Well, that was fun,” Rick remarked when they were off-air. “Viv, you got very animated. If you’re not careful, you’ll make me look like the levelheaded one.”

  “Impossible,” she retorted. “I just wanted the best man to win.”

  She pretended to be engrossed in her phone to prevent any more home truths slipping out.

  With Ronan, she’d been new to the F1 scene, and she’d overlooked a lot as she’d adjusted to the thrilling life on the road, speeding around the globe—a different city every two weeks, staying in posh hotels and attending splendiferous parties.

  She’d weathered the driver’s different moods depending on how the races went, and grinned and borne the constant publicity. She’d adapted to the madness, and it had worked out fine. By the end of her time with Ronan, it was clear that his career obliterated everything else. He’d given her the option of keeping the affair going—surface only—without even realizing that was what he was doing. She’d declined. It was an occupational hazard with these guys. And that was fine.

  But then not long after, Ronan had met Cassidy and discovered he did want a serious relationship after all, that he was capable of commitment. This was Ronan Version 2.0.

  She’d anaesthetized the blow by hanging out with Maddux, who made her laugh—Maddux, the bad-boy Texan who wanted fun. There was no ambiguity regarding commitment between them, as there was none, and no sex either. It was a move that benefitted both of them in terms of keeping the press happy and the stalkers away. And yet, to everyone’s surprise, Maddux got serious with Brynn not long afterward. They were suddenly marriage material. Enter Maddux Version 2.0.

  She knew she was being immature, but it hurt that both men had found who they did want after her, even though such a turn of fate had seemed next to impossible while she had been with them. Strange that.

  Then there was Adam. He didn’t ride the rough times; he dove right in. He seemed to take perverse pleasure out of making things more difficult than they needed to be. It was impossible to tell when he was in a good mood and when not because his manner hardly differed in either case, and that was somewhat disconcerting. But also reassuring. Something told her there wasn’t an Adam Version 2.0 waiting in the wings, ready to burst out the minute he encountered Ms. Future Bride. If there were such a woman that could so transform him, she couldn’t imagine what she’d be like.

  Chapter 20

  Hockenheim, Germany

  The F1 season was in full swing. After Hungary they moved through Austria into Germany, like World War II occupation in reverse. Adam had clinched Austria in retaliation for Reece getting Hungary, leaving the gap between them the same, with Reece a mere four points ahead.

  The races started to become a blur to Viv. The gaps in the points table widened between the elites—Adam, Reece, Maddux, Ronan, David Anderson—and the less fortunate.

  Adam went over all the team tactics with her in the evenings after each race, explaining why they’d
decided to do what they’d done, what had worked out well and what hadn’t. On air, her new insights into the sport surprised even her. She was hitting her stride, finally incorporating all she knew from following F1 as a fan with her dad and Liam, then on the circuit with Ronan, and now polished off with the added knowledge from Adam’s analyses. She judged situations correctly, sometimes even better than veteran commentator Rick.

  And people noticed. When the other drivers talked to her, they looked her in the eye instead of roaming all over her body. Well, most of them anyway. At press events, sponsorship types asked her what she thought the chances were for specific drivers.

  In private, the past three weeks with Adam had been wonderful. Sure, they didn’t have much time together, but what they had was intense bliss. Their schedules were unforgiving, particularly his, but they managed to meet up when he didn’t have any late strategy meetings and she didn’t have a press event or have to help with packing and moving. They’d seen another ballet together in Cologne, Germany, and spent whole nights away in secret hotels away from F1. But she always made sure to return to the BBC’s cheaper hotels at night.

  It was different with Adam. She never felt relegated to the back seat despite his schedule. But having to keep it so secret was an additional hardship that cut their time together even shorter. They had scarce time to talk, and when they did, it was about the race or the preparations for the race.

  The most difficult times were the VIP tents after the races and the press events where drivers mingled with the journalists. That was when Viv discovered just how good Adam was with stealth. He was a genius at hiding his feelings—his expressions rarely giving anything away unless his guard was down, usually on sheets as soft as butter at the hotels they escaped to whenever possible, and he had a reputation for sobriety and abstinence that he didn’t actually deserve. She had enough journalistic experience to be able to remain stonefaced whenever she came in contact with him in public, stealing a glance now and then, but never pushing her luck. So nobody suspected anything. In Germany at the Hockenheimring press conference, Adam shared the stage with Albany, his second driver, and Reece and Maddux with their second drivers. He had said his short bit about Gatari’s chances in the championship, and now he was off camera, looking down, jaw held in his fingers, playing with his phone.