SCORE (A Stepbrother Sports Romance)(81)

My mind thought of my father, smiling at me as he disappeared for another month. I saw my mother weeping the first two nights he wasn’t with us. I remembered the shouting and the fighting as I got older. I recalled the look on my mom’s face as she received the call telling us he had been killed.

My hands started to shake on the steering wheel, and my heart was pounding. I could barely breathe and quickly pulled over onto the wide grass verge. The line of traffic behind me continued through the barrier while I sat in my car. Tears welled up in my eyes. I just wanted to go home. I didn’t need this. I couldn’t face this place again, or anywhere like it.

I started to imagine my conversation with Geoffrey. Hi, it’s Summer. I couldn’t bring in this major contract because I was too traumatized by my childhood to set foot on a racetrack that wasn’t even built back then.

That’s okay, he’d say, just relax and sit this one out. And don’t worry about the next one, either. I’ll give it to someone who isn’t a total candy-ass.

Goddammit! I was better than that. I’d never let anything in this job faze me, never backed down from a challenge. That’s why they paid me. I was not going to start crying off now, like I’d seen so many other ‘strong women’ do in the past. I wasn’t going to be a victim of anyone’s mistreatment. Not a partner, a client, not even the things my father put me through.

I checked my face in the mirror, wiped my eyes without messing up my makeup, gave myself a stern look, and shoved the Mustang into drive. I floored it back onto the tarmac, throwing up great arcs of mud and turf from my rear tires as the big engine hurled me forward. An expensive silver sports car, I think it was a Maserati, had to brake hard to avoid me as I slewed out in front of it. I waved an apology.

At the gate, Dunlop’s PR team had left my tickets for me. The guard found an all-access pit pass and paddock parking pass in an envelope marked for me, handed them to me, and waved me through. It was race day, and the place was packed. Motorcycles of all sizes, shapes, and colors lined the roadways. Cars and trucks parked in the fields, and buses shuttled people back and forth from the parking lots to the circuit. After waving my parking permit at a few different marshals, I was directed to a space at the bottom of a 250-foot-tall tower. I looked straight up and saw an enormous observation deck high in the sky. The whole track must have been clearly visible from there.

As I got out of the car, the smell hit me. Nowhere else in the world smelled like a race track, yet each one smelled the same. The smell was hard to describe; it was like sun-melted tarmac mixed with the smoke from heated rubber, high-octane fuel, a hundred different fried foods, cigarettes, and beer: a heady, masculine smell that was irresistibly evocative to people who grew up around it. When I heard a couple of unbelievably loud engines roar by at a million rpms, I was back with my dad again. Only this time, it was exciting and fun. He was winning, the team was celebrating, and I wore a big smile on my face as I remembered those happier times before I was old enough to realize what was going on.

I’d phoned Dunlop as I drove through the gate, so there was a pretty, smiling PA called Sam waiting to greet me. She took me across a footbridge that ran over the track. I almost yelped in surprise as a motorcycle flashed under us at high speed before braking hard and leaning almost horizontally to disappear around the turn. As I closed my eyes and calmed my breathing, Sam giggled at my reaction. She couldn’t be more than twenty-one, with a short blonde bob, light skin, and a tight, white Dunlop t-shirt lashed to a pair of high, firm breasts. I just knew Donald had something to do with hiring her, even though I was sure I hadn’t seen her at the dinner last night. She made small talk about the circuit and the races. She liked one or two of the racers, she admitted with a slight flush to her cheeks, so she stayed in the Dunlop Moto GP division to follow them around.

For a second, I was tempted to ask if she knew James and what he did, but I decided against it. I shouldn’t be thinking of him or trying to find out anything about him. I should keep it a mysterious, preserved memory. Plus, another part of me didn’t want to hear how he might slut around with girls like her—or anything else that moved.

The bridge descended into another tarmacked area with a row of high-tech and posh trackside suites lined up and facing the raceway. A big Dunlop flag hung outside the third one, and there was Donald, chatting with some other suits. He turned to me as I approached

“Ms. Hayes,” he said, a slightly pained expression on his face, “so nice to see you again. I’m very sorry about last night. Far too much celebration, I’m afraid.”

“Please call me Summer, Donald.” I gave him one of my flirtiest smiles. “And rest assured, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve gone a little overboard and regretted it, I certainly wouldn’t need to make this deal.”

We both laughed politely. I was introduced to the members of his team and we actually discussed my PR proposals and did some proper work in the comfort of these converted garages for a while, despite having to raise our voices or stop talking altogether from time to time as the race bikes roared by on the track.

Lunchtime rolled around, and I was treated to chicken, smoked salmon, crudités, and white wine, courtesy of Dunlop catering, before Donald announced we should take a tour of the pits. The race would start at two, so I guessed I would have to man up and visit the track itself.

An oversized golf cart turned up, and I got in with Donald, Sam, and a couple of other execs, and it whisked us over to the pit lane. It had to be a quarter mile from where we were, around the middle of the track, so I was glad I didn’t have to walk it in my heels.