7

Press events generally fell to Simone and Violet to manage. But Simone had a full day of conference calls, leaving Violet in need of help managing a day of driver interviews in London. That was how Mira found herself in the back of a chauffeured sedan heading to London at a painfully early hour of the morning. In truth, she didn’t mind spending the day with Violet. During her first weeks at Lennox, she’d been working her ass off, but whenever she’d run into Violet, she always ended up laughing for a least a few minutes out of the day.

“You are a saint,” Mira muttered when Violet opened the back door and handed her a large takeout coffee.

She almost choked on her coffee when Violet joined her in the back seat. “What are you wearing ?” She’d never seen Violet in anything other than shredded jeans, band T-shirts, and leather jackets. Today she was in a black skirt suit, and her black hair was slicked back into a low ponytail. She was even wearing a pair of tasteful diamond stud earrings.

“I pull it out for public events. Seems major media outlets don’t trust you when you’re wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Fuck the Patriarchy.’ ”

“You look nice.”

Violet shrugged like her suit was full of bugs. “I look like somebody’s mum.”

Mira took a moment to consider her next question. She didn’t want to pry, but she and Violet were becoming friends. Friends asked personal questions, right?

“So,” she ventured, “you don’t exactly seem like the public relations type—”

Violet let out a loud bark of laughter. “You want to know how a girl like me ended up in a place like this?”

“Kind of.”

Violet hesitated for just a beat. “I used to date this guy, the lead singer in a band.”

“That makes much more sense.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t cut out for the groupie thing, you know? Hanging around the studio so I could tell the guys how brilliant they are.” She rolled her eyes. “So I started doing PR for the band kind of by accident, because I was bored. I’d go find club managers or reps from music websites and chat them up while the band set up. Turns out, I had some talent for it.”

“So what happened to the guy?”

Violet chuckled wryly, and for the first time, Mira saw a flash of something approaching a soft side in Violet’s expression. “He dumped me for one of those idiot groupies who hung around the studio and told him how brilliant he was.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was all very cliché.” As quickly as that flash of vulnerability appeared, it was gone, and Mira got the distinct feeling that she shouldn’t poke at it. “I definitely got the best part of the deal with the on-the-job training. I figured I’d learned some marketable skills so … I marketed them. I answered an advert for Simone’s assistant and talked her into hiring me. I was already a racing fan, so it was a good fit. Turns out the job is pretty much the same as rock, just a different group of contacts. And fewer dodgy clubs with sticky floors. The drivers are definitely easier to manage than egomaniac wannabe rock stars.”

Again, that door seemed locked tight, so she changed the subject. “How long is the drive to London?”

“With traffic, about an hour.”

“I thought we didn’t start until ten? Why are we leaving so early?”

“Because we have another stop to make. I didn’t trust Will to get his arse up and to London on his own, so I told him we’d pop round and give him a lift.”

“Lovely,” Mira muttered.

Every time she’d crossed paths with him over the last few weeks—and that happened too often for comfort—it still gave her butterflies in her stomach, as much as she tried to squash them. And now she’d be forced into his presence for an entire day. She already felt nervous.

The car pulled to a stop in front of a quaint stone house, saved from being described as a “cottage” only because of its large size. It even had weathered stone walls and an honest-to-God thatched roof. It looked like something straight out of The Holiday .

Her eyes went wide as she took it all in. “Is this where he lives?”

If she had to guess, she’d have thought a sleek new penthouse condo, something with glass walls and brushed-chrome fixtures, very minimalist and male.

“He has a place in London,” Violet replied through a yawn. “I think he’s just renting this. Well, off you go. Fetch him.”

“Me? Why me?”

“You’re the wrangler. I’m PR.”

“Wrangling talent is in your literal job description.”

“You’re new, which means I get to pull seniority and make you deal with it.”

Mira frowned but didn’t argue as she got out of the car and made her way up the stone walk to the front door to ring the bell. Silence. She rang it again. And waited. More silence.

This time, she raised a fist and pounded on the door, not stopping until she heard a muffled crash and a curse from inside. The door swung open, revealing a very rumpled and nearly naked Will.

Oh, no.

The body was just as flawless as she’d guessed—not that she’d spent much time imagining his body under his clothes. At least, she’d tried very hard not to imagine it. The reality was better than anything her imagination had cooked up, however—a nicely muscled chest tapering into a slim waist and hips, thankfully covered by boxer briefs. A delicious V of muscle ran down, down, down to a pretty significant bulge. He had one hand on his hip and the other braced on the doorframe. The muscles and tendons in his arms were flexed, a landscape of male upper-body beauty. His eyes were narrowed as he took her in from under a riot of wrecked dark hair.

Now her mind ran wild as she fantasized about running her palms along that jawline to feel the dark stubble dusting it, or tracing those abs to see if they felt as taut as they looked. And maybe sliding a hand under the waistband of those boxer briefs to see if that bulge felt as big and hard as promised.

“What the hell are you doing here at this hour?” Even his fresh-out-of-bed growl was hot.

She dragged her eyes back up to his and her mind back out of the gutter. She had to get him dressed and into the car. Definitely dressed. That part was imperative. “Press event? In London? Violet was sure you’d still be sleeping. I said, ‘Absolutely not! Will knows how important this press event is! I’m sure he’ll be on time and ready.’ ” She raised her eyebrows to emphasize her displeasure.

His head dropped back, and he groaned. “Fuuuuuuuuuck. Okay, what’s the address?”

“Uh-uh. No way am I leaving you, Sleeping Beauty. You’ll never show up on time. Now get dressed and let’s go.”

“But—”

“Go.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but then gave up, turning and stalking away from the door, leaving it gaping open in what she could only assume was an invitation to come in. He was already headed down the hallway and a moment later, she heard the house’s old pipes bang as he started the shower. When she rounded the corner into the living room, she was confronted with a blinding explosion of pink and floral, from the ruffled curtains to the tufted sofa. Crocheted doilies and china figurines of cats covered every flat surface.

“Nice place,” she shouted.

From down the hall, she heard a door crack open. “It’s not mine,” he yelled over the sound of the water. “It was the only furnished house to let in this backwater.”

“It suits you,” she yelled back.

She heard him grumble an oath before the door slammed shut. Suppressing a smile, she turned in the direction she guessed the kitchen was. It looked mostly unused, but there were two wineglasses, both still half-filled, on the counter. Two? She took a step closer and the mystery was solved when the toe of her shoe snagged on a lacy pink bra that had been discarded on the floor.

Nice. Very on-brand, Will.

Whatever he got up to after-hours was his own business, she supposed. Although she was battling a totally inappropriate flash of envy for last night’s faceless hookup. Somebody had gotten to indulge in all those fantasies she’d just been entertaining. Whoever she was, at least she was already gone. That would have been awkward.

He didn’t have any real food in his kitchen, but she did find a Keurig, so she made a cup of coffee and dumped it into a travel mug (pink and floral, from the gift shop at Historic Melford Hall). Ten minutes later, he appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, freshly shaved and dressed in a thin black wool pullover and dark jeans. His hair was wet, but with one rake of his fingers through the thick dark waves, it arranged itself into a perfectly artful mess. Rude.

“Seriously? Ten minutes in the shower and you look like that? It isn’t fair.”

He grinned broadly. “Are you flirting with me, Mira? I thought we decided to keep things between us professional.”

“Doesn’t seem like you need me as an outlet for your charm.” She pointed at the bra in the corner, where she’d kicked it.

He had the grace to look mildly embarrassed. “She was just—wait, did you just call me charming?” He leaned against the counter and a smug smile tugged at his lips.

“Nope. Turn it off,” she said sharply. “Take your coffee and let’s go.”

He looked from the pink travel mug to her. “Am I supposed to drink out of that?”

“If you don’t, I will,” she said, shoving it into his chest anyway. “Now, come on. Violet’s probably about to strangle you.”

When they reached the car, Violet had already moved to the front seat with the driver, leaving the back for her and Will.

“Nice of you to join us, Will,” Violet muttered as Mira and Will slid into the back seat. “Are we all set? Yes? Fine, wake me when we get there.”

For several minutes, they sat in silence as the car rolled through the bare winter countryside. Mist hung low on rolling hills. Even after so much time away, it still felt comforting and familiar. Mira pulled her eyes away from the view to check in on Will, who was looking at her. The moment their eyes met, he looked away and took a sip out of the pink travel mug.

“What’s your deal, Miranda Wentworth?” Will asked abruptly. “It’s been weeks and I’m realizing I don’t really know anything about you.”

“No deal,” she said, schooling her face into its best professional mask. “I’m every bit as boring as I seem.”

He shook his head. “Nope. You grew up in Formula One. That’s not boring.”

“Only partly,” she corrected. “My mother lives in Los Angeles. I also grew up there.”

“Obviously.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He gave her a bored look. “Your accent, love. It’s a bit of a dead giveaway.”

“I was born in London, actually. Dual citizenship. But yes, I spent most of my time in LA. Yours gives you away, too, you know.”

Now it was his turn to bristle. “Gives away what?”

“Where’d you go to school? Eton? Or maybe Winchester or Harrow?”

Color tinted the tops of his remarkable cheekbones. She wouldn’t call it a blush, exactly. It was more like his emotions betrayed him and laid a temporary claim to his face against his will.

“Harrow,” he said, after a minute. “How—”

“I said I lived in the States most of the time, not all of it.”

“Right. You spent enough time with your dad to pick out public school accents and fall in love with racing. Continue.”

“That’s it. I like racing.”

“You haven’t missed a single simulator session.”

“Okay,” she conceded. “I love racing.”

“So?”

“So, what?”

“What happened? Seems the old-timers at Lennox know you from when you were a kid, but nobody’s seen you in years. Where have you been?”

She shrugged dismissively to hide her discomfort and glanced out the window. “I was in college, then I was working.”

“Where’d you go to college? Working where?”

Oh my god, he just wouldn’t quit. “UCLA, business major, summa cum laude. Junior assistant at a payroll company. See? Nothing worth talking about.”

That payroll job had been like purgatory. She was organized and efficient by nature, so the work was easy, but when her old boss told her she had a great future with the company, she’d wanted to cry, imagining spending the next thirty years there. It seemed like divine providence when she’d heard about Pen’s leave a week later. She’d been desperate to escape, but escaping to Formula One was like a dream come true. And if coming back here also meant facing her nightmare? Well, every dream had a price.

“And this is the first time you’ve been back to England since you were a kid? Why? I mean, if I loved Formula One and my dad happened to be principal of one of the top teams in the sport, I’d have a hard time staying away.”

Staying away for seven years had been nothing short of awful. But she wasn’t about to share the reasons for her exile with him, no matter how hard he tried to weasel it out of her.

“I missed it,” she said evenly, in a tone of voice that invited no further questions. Of course, Will was not a person who respected boundaries.

“Not very much, apparently, since you never came back.”

“Hey,” she said, rounding on him. “Let’s talk about how a rich kid from Harrow ends up in Formula One. That’s a story I’d like to hear.”

He blinked, his dark blue eyes turning wary. “Lots of kids love racing. Lucky for me, I had the talent to do something about it.” He was the one to look away this time, squirming and fixing his attention on the dull winter countryside sliding by outside. “Until I fucked up, anyway.”

“I’ve heard.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, pretty much everyone has at this point. Just so you know, I’m not that guy anymore.”

“Good, because my dad took a big chance on you, and I’m glad to hear you’re not a rich boy who’s going to blow that chance at the first opportunity.”

He looked back at her, all traces of humor gone. “I appreciate what he’s doing, bringing me back like this. I wouldn’t do that to Paul. Despite what you might think of me, Mira, I’m not that much of a jerk.”

Now that she knew him a little better, she didn’t think he was a jerk anymore. A little arrogant maybe, but he wasn’t malicious. He was determined to succeed, that was obvious. And in that one way, she understood him completely.