20

When they came down, the night was still young and Will was hungry to keep Mira near him. They were still too close to the track, where she might suddenly decide she was needed for work, so he kept talking, distracting her, as he steered her over the bay through the Helix Bridge, the twisting steel aglow with blue and purple lights, curving over their heads. From there, a path took them along the edge of the marina, the lights of the city glittering on the water as it grew dark.

As the sun set, the temperature finally cooled a bit, although the night air was still tropical. A breeze rippled across the water, blowing Mira’s hair across her face, and the scent of mandarin and clove shampoo drifted over to him.

“So the last time you were in Singapore …” she began, then trailed off.

He glanced over at her. “Yeah?”

“You got so drunk, you don’t remember it? You’d just been signed to a Formula One team,” she said in disbelief. “I don’t get it.”

“Ah, yeah,” he said, shrugging in discomfort. He’d been such an idiot back then, playing fast and loose with the chance of a lifetime. That was a mistake he only intended to make once. “My head was not in a great place.”

When she just kept watching him in silence, he sighed. She wasn’t letting him off that easy.

“So you know my family is … well, they’re …”

“Rich?”

He sputtered a laugh. “Well, yes, they’re that, too. But I just meant they’re … uptight. They don’t approve of me.”

Her brow furrowed in a way he was rapidly finding adorable. “But, why? There are maybe thirty people on earth who can do what you do.”

“Careful, Mira, you’re starting to sound impressed.”

She chuckled, nudging him with her shoulder. He nudged back. Whether she was aware of it or not, she wasn’t shying away from touching him like before. That had to count as progress. He could still feel the shape of her thigh under his hand. Now it was seared into his brain, and he wanted more.

The path emptied out into a plaza, so they kept walking, skirting the marina, and getting farther and farther away from the track, the hotel, and all the other reminders of the real world.

“Come on,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

“Well, to start, unlike you, I was rubbish at school. It was all so bloody boring. The only thing I was really good at, the only thing I really wanted to do, was racing. And that was fine when I was just racing karts as a kid. But I was supposed to leave all that behind when I grew up. Get serious, go to uni, go to work in the family firm.”

“I’m guessing that wasn’t part of your plan?”

He scoffed. “I didn’t even try for uni. I’m the first person in my family since the Norman Conquest without a university degree.”

“I’m pretty sure they hadn’t invented college yet.”

He chuckled. “Maybe not, but let me tell you, as soon as they built unis, the Hawleys sent their spawn. My family owns a bank. Did you know that?”

“I heard something about it. Like Citibank?”

“Not exactly. There’s only one branch of Hawley and Sons, near Temple Bar, and it doesn’t take new clients.”

“So who banks there?”

He scoffed. “The same dusty English families that have been banking there since time immemorial. Hawley and Sons is about tradition . Everything done just as it would have been in the time of George the fucking Third.”

“And then you came along.”

“And then I came along. I swear, I can’t even breathe in that place. It smells like a tomb.” Just thinking about the mahogany and velvet interior of Hawley and Sons made him feel like his skin was too small for him. If he’d had to spend his whole life in that place it would have driven him mad.

“Yeah, I can’t picture you in a place like that at all.”

“Neither could I, and thankfully I had options. When I landed a spot in Hansbach’s young drivers program, the parents were willing to give me a year or so to get it out of my system. I mean, most drivers don’t make it. They figured I’d wash out with the masses and get on with real life.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Nope. I got signed to Hansbach’s Formula One team instead.” He paused for a moment, remembering when he’d gone home to tell them about the contract, stupidly thinking they’d be happy. It was only the biggest news of his life, the best thing that had ever happened to him. Dumb kid that he’d been, he thought it would prove to them that he was doing the right thing, that he was in the right place. It hadn’t even occurred to him that they wouldn’t see it as good news.

Inhaling deeply, he flashed her a forced smile. “They were, to put it mildly, not happy. Huge bloody row. Lots of horrible things said. You get the idea.”

“And they still haven’t come around?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t speak to them again for years. Only started again recently and as little as I can manage.”

She reached out, laying a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

He glanced down in surprise at her small hand on his forearm. For so long people had been judging him on all the bad things he’d done, he wasn’t used to someone feeling sorry for him.

“Look, before you start feeling too much sympathy for me, let’s be clear. Nobody’s to blame for the shit I did that year except me. But … yeah, I was mad. If I couldn’t be good, then I’d be really, really bad, you know? And now? Fuck it. They know where to find me, if they care, which they don’t.”

“That’s sad, Will.”

“Hey, what did I just say? No pitying me. I’m fine.”

“If you say so.”

He threw his hands up in exasperation. “I am!”

“Will—”

“Are you hungry?” he asked abruptly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and turning to face her. “I’m starving.”

“Well …” She paused considering. “Yeah, I am, actually. Do you think there’s anything open around here?”

They’d wandered into the business district, surrounded by glass skyscrapers, all empty this long after the workday had ended.

“Wait …” He pulled out his phone and searched the map. His memory was fuzzy, probably because he’d been drunk the last time he was here, but he remembered someplace amazing and he thought it was close by. “Aha. I was right. This way.”

Another few blocks and they were there.

“What is this place?”

“It’s a night market. Basically a market for street food vendors.”

“Street food?” Mira asked dubiously. “Like meat on a stick?”

“Yeah, but the best meat on a stick. Come on.”

They followed the smell of grilling meat to a bunch of satay stands ringing the outside of the pavilion. He placed an order at the one that had the most people clustered in front of it and passed her a skewer.

“God, that’s amazing,” she moaned after taking a bite of charred chicken.

“See? Meat on a stick can be good.”

“ So good.”

His eyes snagged on her mouth as she licked sauce from her thumb. Don’t think about her lips , he lectured himself. And absolutely do not think about her tongue.

Inside, the stalls sold everything from Japanese udon to Indian curries to Malay fried rice.

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know. There are so many things, and it all smells so good.” Just then someone passed them balancing a plastic tray with a huge steaming bowl of soup. The scent trailing behind him was unreal.

“That one,” they said in unison.

The man behind the counter, burly and dressed in a rumpled white chef’s smock with the sleeves rolled up to reveal thick forearms roped with muscles, jerked his chin at them. “Soup?”

Will pointed at the guy who’d passed them. “Two of those.”

“You got it, boss.”

The chef went to work, dumping noodles into two bowls, then vegetables and a handful of greens, before ladling steaming broth over everything. With a pair of tongs, he scooped various things out of an assortment of bins spread in front of him—a fat white fish fillet, a cluster of prawns, some octopus.

At his side, Mira sucked in a breath and grabbed at his arm. “None of that.”

“None of what?”

She closed her eyes and shuddered. “That. With the suckers. Nope .”

“The octopus? Are you allergic?”

“Phobic,” she spit out through clenched teeth.

“You have a phobia of octopuses? Octopi? Whatever?”

Her eyes were still squeezed shut. “Tentacles.”

“You have a phobia of tentacles ?” He started to laugh, but when he saw the look on her face, he stifled it. He looked back to the chef and shrugged. “No octopus?”

The chef sighed deeply and shook his head. “Your loss.”

It was crowded, but they wound their way through the forest of small tables nearby to an empty one. Will began poking through the assortment of condiments on the table.

“What’s that?” Mira asked.

“No idea.”

“Is it spicy? I love spicy.”

“Looks spicy.” He passed the bottle to her and she sprinkled some on her finger to taste. He kept his eyes on his soup so he wouldn’t stare at her sucking on her finger again .

“So a tentacle phobia? Really?”

“Just the …” She waved her fingers. “And their little …” She made a sucking sound. “Just … nope.”

“Wow, something that intimidates Miranda Wentworth.”

She looked up from spooning hot chili paste into her bowl. “If you laugh at me, I will strangle you.”

He bit his lips to hold back his laugh and shook his head. “I am absolutely, definitely not going to laugh at you.”

“Oh, and I’m sure you don’t have any embarrassing little personal quirks?”

“Not a one.” He grinned, nudging her foot with his under the table. “You know I’m perfect.”

“Very funny. Everybody’s got something. Now you know my big embarrassing hang-up. You have to tell me one of yours.”

“I don’t have any phobias.”

“Fine. Something else. Something that embarrasses you.”

Leaning back in his tiny chair, he looked up at the ceiling fans high overhead, their lazy spinning barely stirring the humid air. “There’s nothing, really.”

Across the table, she narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re lying. I can tell.”

He huffed, then closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe he was about to tell someone about this. That he was about to tell Mira about this.

“I have delicate inner ears.”

She blinked. “What?”

He waved a hand beside his head. “My inner ear canals. They’re sensitive to everything.”

“Seriously? Your inner ears?”

“See? That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I’m a Formula One driver, nerves of steel and all that shit. I’m not supposed to have fragile ear canals.”

“I promise, I’m not laughing at your ears.” She was totally laughing at him; she was just fighting to hold it back. “So what happens with your ears?”

“They react to everything, especially my diet. Salt, alcohol. It makes me prone to dizziness the next day. That’s why I was such a mess my first season with Hansbach. The drinking was bad enough on its own, but the next day, my ears were a disaster. Every time I went into a tight turn, I’d get dizzy.”

“Delicate inner ears,” Mira mused, fishing a prawn out of her soup with chopsticks and pointing it at him. “See, I knew there was more to you than meets the eye.”

“If you tell anyone, I’ll have to kill you.”

She looked up and met his eyes, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “I won’t breathe a word. After all, you know one of my secrets, too.”

He stared back at her until the air between them grew thick with tension. “Tell me another one,” he murmured, nearly a whisper in the midst of a hundred conversations surrounding them.

Her throat moved as she swallowed and dropped her eyes. “Maybe we should just eat.”