1. Three Years Later

1

THREE YEARS LATER Lennox Headquarters, Chilton-on-Stour, England

Mira raced down the hallway of Lennox Motorsport, rubbing her thumb over the surface of her employee ID like a talisman. She glanced down at her new job title again.

Miranda Wentworth

Executive Assistant, Lennox Motorsport

This was real. She was back.

Mira stopped outside Penelope Farnham’s open office door.

“I did it,” she whispered, overcome with emotion.

A woman, tall, angular, and about Mira’s age, poked her head out of the office and raked her eyes over Mira with a lightning-fast glance. “You’re Miranda? The new Pen?”

“I guess so? Yes. I am. And Mira’s fine.”

“I’m Violet, from PR,” the woman said over her shoulder as she brushed past. “And you’re supposed to follow me.”

Mira hurried down the hallway after her. “But I’m supposed to find Penelope—”

“Yeah, well, this morning Pen’s doctor told her she was absolutely not allowed to leave bed until her due date.”

“Oh. She’s not coming?” As intimidated as Mira had been at the prospect of meeting Pen in the flesh, not having her here to show her the ropes was infinitely scarier.

Penelope’s doctor-ordered bed rest had led to Mira’s last-minute hire, just weeks from the start of the Formula One season. Pen was, to put it mildly, a little freaked out about turning her job over to some total newbie from America. As Mira quickly packed up in LA and prepared to fly out to England, Pen had texted nonstop with instructions. Mira had already filled three notepads. And now it seemed like the job was about to become one hundred percent more terrifying.

Mira finally managed to catch up to Violet’s long-legged stride and gave her long, tousled jet-black hair, pale skin, on-point winged eyeliner, shredded jeans, and battered leather motorcycle jacket a quick once-over. She radiated “cool girl” right down to her slick English accent. Mira tried not to be intimidated. “Simone’s not in PR anymore?”

Violet shot her a quick glance. “Right. You already know your way around Lennox, don’t you?”

“It’s been a long time,” Mira said, her stomach swooping with nerves. But if anyone was expecting that hot mess of a girl she’d been, they were in for a disappointment. That Miranda was gone forever, and this Miranda wasn’t going to make a single slip.

“Don’t worry, Simone’s still here. I’m her assistant. She’s out at the test track for press day. We’re starting there.” Violet hip-checked a door and ushered Mira outside, where a golf cart was parked haphazardly on the grass. “Hop in.”

As Mira slid into the passenger side, Violet popped behind the wheel and slammed her foot on the gas pedal, sending the cart rocketing forward. Approaching the track, Mira could hear the unmistakable sound of state-of-the-art automotive perfection roaring across the asphalt. Forgetting all her professional cool, her heart began to beat faster. This was what she’d missed. The track, the cars, the sound .

“Were there a lot of upgrades to the car this season?” Mira asked.

“Oh yeah. It’s a whole new car, really. It’s on the track for the first time today, so things are a bit mad around here.”

“Not the best time to be starting.”

“It never is,” Violet said with a grin. “Welcome to Lennox.”

Violet braked with a spray of gravel at the edge of the track, and Mira stumbled out, unable to take her eyes off the streak of blue just coming out of a hairpin turn.

“It’s beautiful.” Her fingers tangled in the chain-link fence separating her from the track as the car hit the far curve, and she could see it properly for the first time.

Last year’s livery design had been too blocky and broken up, obscuring the elegance of the car’s design. This year was a huge improvement, solid Lennox royal blue with just a single slash of silver up the side, highlighting the car’s aerodynamic perfection, low to the ground and sleek as a knife.

The car sped toward the next curve and she could feel the power of its engine. Anticipation had her toes curling inside her sensible black pumps, and her chest thrummed in time with the engine. Here came the turn.

The car kept accelerating far past when her own instincts would have told her to brake. Just when it seemed inevitable that the car would careen into the wall, the whine of the engine dropped as the driver downshifted. It powered through the curve at a speed that felt physically impossible.

She let out a gasp as it sped away, down the straight, as if the car had sucked the breath clean out of her lungs. “Holy shit,” she murmured as her grip on the fence went slack. “That’s some driver.”

Violet chuckled. “Just you wait. Come on, let’s go introduce you to everybody before he comes off the track.”

She hurried after Violet, buzzing from her first close encounter with Formula One in seven years. For so long she’d been relegated to watching the races on her laptop in LA. But nothing could replace being here on the track, seeing it, feeling it.

As hard as coming back was going to be, it was what she wanted more than anything. If she could do this—successfully manage a season at Lennox—maybe she could parlay that into a career in racing management.

“Today’s just a press day,” Violet was explaining as they made their way to the pit lane. “So we can get some promotional footage of the car. They don’t even have decent tires on it yet.”

She remembered this part. FIA regulations forbade them to do much before official testing in Bahrain, but even a day like today, ostensibly just for press shots, was a chance to gather information about the car.

In the garage bay off the pit lane, Lennox’s second car was being readied for the track, surrounded by a dozen mechanics in blue jackets. As she and Violet approached, they paused, sizing up the new arrival.

“Mira, this is the pit crew. Crew, this is Mira, Pen’s replacement.”

“We have names, Violet,” a young Middle Eastern guy groused with a wink.

“And Mira will dutifully learn them all, Omar, but we don’t have time today. Where’s Harry?”

Omar turned and shouted over his shoulder. “Harry, Violet’s here to harass you.”

Harry … Mira’s heart gave a twist. None of the crew had been around long enough to remember her. She had a fresh slate with them. But Harry …

A familiar old voice growled from behind the far side of the car. “I’ve got no time for press nonsense today.”

Harry might have looked and sounded like a gruff gnome of a man, but when she’d been a curious little kid with a love of racing, Harry had indulged her, letting her hang around the race bay and patiently answering her endless questions. She hadn’t seen him since … well, everything—and if he looked at her differently now, she might just shrivel up and die.

“Come out, Harry,” Violet crooned. “I promise I won’t bite. Look, I’ve brought along someone new for you to growl at. It’s Mira, Pen’s replacement.”

At once, Harry’s grizzled gray head popped up from behind the car. “Mira?”

The unmistakable joy in his eyes made her weak with relief. Her smile was genuine as she raised a hand in greeting. “Hi, Harry.”

Harry scooted out from behind the car with surprising speed and agility for a man his age. “Come let me get a look at you, girl.” He seized her by the shoulders, his eyes skating over her face. “All grown-up now, aren’t you? Give us a hug, then.”

He folded her into a firm embrace, and her eyes pricked with tears. She hadn’t known how much Harry’s warm welcome would matter to her until now.

“It’s really good to see you again, Harry. So how’s the car this year?”

His eyes lit up with enthusiasm, but as he opened his mouth to reply, a voice cut across the hum of the pit lane.

“Harry, what the hell! Are your engineers fucking idiots?”

Harry’s eyes shot heavenward, and he let out a long-suffering sigh.

Mira turned to look in the direction of the voice and stifled a gasp. The first car had just come off the track and its driver was descending on them like an approaching thunderstorm.

Her eyes registered many things all at once. He was taller than she expected. And hotter—oh … so hot. His blue race suit was unzipped to the waist, the sleeves tied around his hips, revealing a thin white Nomex undershirt that hugged every inch of his upper body. His tousled dark hair—nearly black—looked far too good for having just been flattened under a helmet, and his thick dark brows were furrowed in anger.

But his eyes … his eyes were absolutely electric. She could tell they were bright blue even at a distance, and the intensity of his gaze gave her chills even when it wasn’t directed at her. And then there were his cheekbones, his jawline, his chin … bone structure that beautiful should be illegal, especially when combined with the long legs and the broad shoulders and the tapered waist, and … god .

She dropped her eyes, embarrassed to realize that her face was hot and her body had gone all fluttery. No no no . She was absolutely not allowed to feel this white-hot flare of attraction just minutes into her first day, and certainly not for a driver, of all people. Maybe he was just some test driver, someone she’d encounter once, then never see again—

“Problem, Will?” Harry said as he approached, and Mira’s heart sank.

Will . He was Will Hawley, Lennox’s new driver.

Which meant he was about to become a very prominent part of her work life.

Well, that extremely inconvenient blast of physical attraction was going straight into a trunk, padlocked, and dumped into the depths of the ocean, because there was no way . Not ever. He was one thousand percent off-limits for a million different reasons.

To keep her eyes away from him, she flipped to a page of notes at the front of her notepad, everything she’d hurriedly compiled about the team on her flight over. Will Hawley was almost as new here as she was. Lennox had planned to keep both of last season’s drivers, but then Phillipe Deschamps injured his shoulder. He’d had surgery during the offseason, but his recovery hadn’t gone well. Just a few weeks ago he announced that he was retiring, and the hunt for his replacement began.

There had been loads of media speculation about who would be chosen, and everybody went bananas when they announced they were signing Will Hawley. The sport seemed pretty divided on him. Half thought he had more raw talent than anybody who’d ever gotten behind the wheel. The other half thought he was a hot mess whose off-track bullshit canceled out any promise he might have.

Either way, though, he was danger. The words were written all over that gorgeous face in big capital letters. And if there was one thing Mira was good at these days, it was steering clear of anything dangerous.