Start Me Up

by Maggie Riley

  “You said this wasn’t exactly the Celero,” I prompted, praying that we’d get out of the city soon and I could roll down my window and get some much needed fresh air, though the car’s A/C was a pretty good substitute for the time being.

  “It’s a personalized version of the Celero,” he said. “Limited edition.”

  “How limited?”

  “You’re looking at it,” he gave me a sideways glance. “Perks of being the boss.”

  “I’ll say,” I ran my hand along the dashboard.

  “I don’t have much use for her in the city,” he told me. “But she’s great when I can get away. Safe, efficient, and looks great.” He said all of this matter-of-factly. No ego, but no modesty either. Again. Hot. So, so hot.

  “What is it with men always referring to their cars as female?” I asked. “You’ve called it ‘her’ several times.”

  He gave a small shrug. “It just feels right,” he said.

  “And calling it ‘him’ wouldn’t?”

  He laughed. “No, not really.”

  “But didn’t that famous talking car have a male voice?” I snapped my fingers trying to think of the name. “My mom used to think the lead actor was so cute.”

  “You’re talking about Knight Rider,” Jack informed me. “And yes, it did have a male voice. Though, I couldn’t attest for the cuteness of David Hasselhoff.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, well, I can’t attest for my mother’s taste in celebrities.” I shifted in my seat a little to look at Jack. “Does she have a name?”

  “Your mother? I hope so,” he said, deadpan. “But yes, the car does have a name.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He paused, and I could tell he didn’t want to tell me.

  “Is it something vulgar?” I wanted to know.

  “No,” he let out a sigh. “But I did let someone else name her.”

  My eyebrows went up. This was the first inkling that Jack had a life outside work and I was intrigued. Until I realized he could be talking about a wife. Or girlfriend. Not that it should matter to me if he was single or not. But still, I couldn’t help prying.

  “A female friend?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” he shot me a look that clearly said he wasn’t going to talk about whomever it was that named the car. “But the car’s name is Elsa.”

  “Elsa? Like from Frozen?”

  He didn’t respond, but I saw him tighten his jaw. It was obvious that this conversation could go two ways – I could continue to ask him personal questions and risk a very awkward car ride and tour of the factory, or I could let it go and return to talking about other things. I chose to let it go. For now.

  We had made our way out of the city. I love New York, but there is definitely something nice about getting out of Manhattan once in a while. And today was the perfect spring day for that. The air smelled of flowers, even wafting into the car when I rolled down the window.

  “Need some air?” Jack asked.

  “Just enjoying the breeze,” I told him, rolling the window back up.

  “I can do you one better,” he pressed a button and the roof gave a small whirr and began to roll back.

  The wind rushed at us, the beautiful, warm air catching my hair and having it dance around my face. I laughed, and looked over at Jack. My pulse skidded to a stop. The wind was ruffling his hair, mussing it completely and I couldn’t stop staring. Good god, he was handsome.

  Then, without warning, he pulled over to the side of the road where there was a small stand with someone selling fresh fruit.

  “Wait here,” he told me, and got out of the car.

  I watched him walk over to the man at the stand, very much enjoying the view but having absolutely no idea what he was doing. He spoke to the guy for a few minutes and then the two of them disappeared behind the stand, apparently going to the owner’s truck which was parked to the side. After a few moments, both of them returned. Jack had a coconut in his hand and the man was pocketing some money.

  I was very confused. Even more so when Jack got back in the car and handed the coconut to me.

  “Drink that,” he said, and I noticed that it had been cracked open with enough room to stick a straw in.

  I stared at it and then at Jack.

  “You’re hungover,” he told me.

  I felt my face get hot. “Is it that obvious?” I was so embarrassed.

  “You were practically green when I first saw you this morning and I’m pretty sure the last thing you wanted was to get in a car. Drink,” he gestured towards the coconut. “It’s the best cure for hangovers. Trust me.”

  I eyed the coconut suspiciously. I’d had coconut before, of course, but not a whole coconut. I was used to it being in chocolates or maybe in facemasks, but just drinking a coconut with a straw seemed a little weird. And not very effective against the raging hangover I was grappling with.

  “Go on,” Jack urged. “It will straighten you out.”

  I took a sip. It wasn’t cold, but it was refreshing and sweet. I took another sip. It was good. Really, really good. I slurped the rest of it eagerly and by the time I was done, I realized that I felt way, way better.

  “Feel better?” he asked, taking the rest of it and cracking it open. “You can eat that part as well.” He opened up the armrest and procured a Swiss army knife with a spoon attachment. When I gave him a look, he shrugged. “Boy scout,” he explained.

  “Thank you,” I told him after I had devoured the rest of the coconut.

  “Ready to go?” he asked, starting the car up again.

  I nodded, feeling a hundred times better.

  “Good,” he told me, pulling back onto the almost empty highway. “Because we’re taking the fast way.” And then he hit the accelerator.

  Chapter 6

  JACK

  There were few things I liked more than driving fast. Sex, of course, topped it, but there were times when the adrenaline flowing through me gave me a similar sense of excitement and euphoria.

  And driving fast with a gorgeous woman sitting beside me, her cheeks flushed, her hair caught in the wind, her head thrown back in a laugh, well, that was pretty damn exciting too. More than exciting. Hot as hell.

  Blood rushed to other parts of my anatomy, reminding me that it had been too damn long since I had participated in that other kind of heart-racing, all-consuming activity. I’d had plenty of opportunity, of course, but the women who tended to make themselves available to billionaires weren’t usually the kind of women I was interested in. But Libby was temptation on a stick. From her endless curves to her lush mouth to her laughing eyes, I had a hard time looking away from her.

  So I was grateful that my attention was focused on the road. Driving was usually the best way to clear my head, and I had gotten some of my best ideas on this ride – heading from the city to the factory. But right now my brain seemed focused on conjuring up some very dirty fantasies involving Libby and the back seat of my car.

  It could never happen, though. Not only was the back seat far too small for the two of us to do everything I wanted to do to her. With her. But besides our vehicular limitations, I had strict rules when it came to the women I dated. My career was at an all time high and I didn’t have the time or the energy for anything serious. And I didn’t mix business with pleasure. So the moment I had hired her to write the book, I had closed the door on any possible sexual involvement. Because I didn’t sleep with employees. And I especially didn’t sleep with employees who were tasked to write about my life.

  Especially employees that were nothing like the people I usually hired. I managed a quick, sidelong glance at Libby once more. The dress she was wearing was just as outrageous as the one she had been wearing yesterday. I had never known anyone who wore so many colors at once. You needed sunglasses just to look at her.

  Everything about her was like that – blinding. Like looking into the sun. I was used to people blending in around me, trying not to draw the wrong kind of attention. R
ob had always told me that the last thing you wanted someone to remember was the way you looked. Your appearance needed to be neutral so it wouldn’t distract from the product. It was clear that Libby didn’t have that problem. She wanted people to look at her. And it was hard not to. Even though I knew I shouldn’t.

  But knowing that didn’t slack my lust. It had just been too long, I told myself. Despite what the tabloids said, I rarely dated and even when I did, it was with women who understood that I couldn’t commit more than a night to them. There was another, far more important female in my life, and I wasn’t looking to complicate that relationship by adding another woman into the mix. Especially one who was clearly interested in uncovering my carefully guarded secrets.

  She was sneaky, I’d give her that. All that talk about the car and car names, I had almost slipped. Almost.

  But if I valued anything, it was control. And I made sure that my self-control was never in question. I wasn’t going to let Libby find out anything I didn’t want her – or the world – to know. Even if she kept leaning forward and stroking the dash of my car, her generous cleavage on display, her small hand smoothing the faux leather like she was caressing something, or someone. Or a part of someone. My stomach tightened and I forced myself to look away. Control, Willis, I told myself. You need to be in control.

  I leaned harder on the gas. The road was clear and we shot down it, Libby thrown back against her seat, her chest bouncing, an excited, surprised laugh escaping her.

  “What is about boys and fast cars?” she asked.

  “I don’t know about other boys,” I told her. “But this man just appreciates a good, well-made engine. A really powerful one.” Despite my better intentions, the words came out in a seductive drawl.

  Her cheeks were pink.

  “How powerful?” she asked, and licked her lips.

  “Very,” I murmured, pulling my focus back to the road.

  Stop flirting, Willis, I ordered myself. You do not flirt with employees. You do not flirt at all. Because flirting was all about teasing and playfulness. And while I appreciated a certain playfulness in other aspects of my life, my love life was not one of them. I wanted everything to be straight forward, for both parties to know the score before anything started. Nothing about Libby was straight forward.

  “Mmm,” Libby made a soft little humming sound in her throat. “I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” I asked, realizing what a ridiculous question it was.

  We barely knew each other. There was no reason for her to trust me. And no reason for me to trust her. I needed to remember that. Yesterday I had thought we had come to an agreement on the book, on what I wanted covered. No personal details, I had told her. And yet, today, she had pried. Started digging for the human interest piece everyone was always trying to get out of me. But she was going to be about as lucky as the rest. My private life was locked up as tight as a vault. No one got in. Not even a sexy, redheaded, curvaceous temptress. No matter how much I wanted to show her exactly how powerful my engine could be.

  My office in Manhattan was a modern marvel. Tall and steel and magnificent, it was a sign of everything I had earned. Everything I had worked for.

  But truth be told, the factory was where I felt most at home. The steady hum of the equipment, the never-ending buzz of conversation, the constant flow of people on the factory floor. That’s where I belonged. Among people who understood machines, knew how to fix them, how to make them run, how to make them better. People who got their hands dirty. People with oil under their fingernails.

  That’s the world I had grown up in. Everything I knew about cars, about engines and machines, I had learned in a rundown motorcycle shop in Brooklyn. It was still there, only it wasn’t so rundown anymore. Mac and I had both sat at his father’s knee, learning the tricks of the trade, learning how to fix anything. Even things that weren’t related to cars and bikes, though it was harder to guarantee success in those other areas. But Tom tried to teach Mac and me anyway. And I soaked in the information as much as I could.

  Tom was the person who had taught me everything I knew about being a man. About how to be a good mentor. A good parent. And how to treat – and please – women. There was an art to all of it. And Tom was a master. You could bring him a bike and he could tell what was wrong with it just by listening to the engine. Mac and I got good at repairs, but we never were as good as Tom.

  Not that many people knew. He was a well-kept secret, but when he died and the shop went to Mac, all that changed. Mac had done his damnedest to make sure that no one forgot his father or his shop. And his hard work paid off. Now all of New York – hell, all of the United States – knew about Tom’s Bike Shop. It wasn’t a secret anymore. Instead, it was the place to go if you had a vintage motorcycle.

  And still one of my favorite places in the world. I could lose a whole day there, just tinkering with an old bike and drinking beer with Mac. We’d always open one for Tom, paying our respects to the master. To the man that taught us everything about making things work.

  The smell of the factory, of the grease and the metal, all of that reminded me of Tom’s shop. Of being a kid. A teen. A young man. Before I was on covers of magazines and had a big fancy office and all these people wanting to know every single detail about my personal life. Before women were trying to sleep with me because of the size of my wallet instead of the size of other things I kept in my pants. I was grateful for my success, damned thankful too, but sometimes I wished that it didn’t come with the expected open door policy on my private affairs.

  It was a moment before I realized that I was just standing there, lost in my own thoughts and memories. I glanced over at Libby and found that she was equally distracted. Her mouth was open, eyes wide, as she took in the bustling factory in front of us. Something tugged at my heart. The expression on her face was exactly how I felt about this place. Somewhere between awe and excitement.

  Then she looked over at me and the world seemed to slow for a second. Libby’s eyes sparkled and she smiled at me. I cleared my throat and turned away.

  “This is the factory,” I said needlessly.

  “It’s incredible,” she said, her voice a bit breathless.

  I hated that I kept seeming to lose my head around her, even if just for a moment. I had been captivated by a pretty face before, and though it had given me what I considered the most precious thing in my life, I had promised to never let myself fall for an innocent smile and trusting eyes again.

  “Let me show you around.” I knew I sounded gruff, but it was necessary.

  Libby blinked and the spell between us was broken. She straightened, as if she too was being brought back to reality, and pressed her lips together. Nodding, she pulled out a notebook and a pen.

  “A bit old-fashioned,” I noted, gesturing at her writing equipment.

  She looked down at it. “Is it?”

  “Most interviewers come armed with a recording device.” I couldn’t remember a reporter interviewing me without one.

  “Oh, well.” Libby dug around in her bag some more, coming up with her cellphone. It was an old one, several years and several models out of date. “I guess I can find some sort of app to do that.” She tried searching on her phone but even I could see how slow it was.

  “Let’s not waste any time,” I said, putting my hand on hers and lowering the phone for her. “We don’t have all day.”

  “Right, of course.” She tossed the phone back into the bag and held up her pen and paper, brandishing it almost like a shield. “I’m ready.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but as we walked and I talked, I could see her writing rapidly. Glancing over her shoulder, I noticed she was writing in some sort of code.

  “What is that?” I asked, pointing at what looked like a nonsensical scribble.

  “Shorthand.” She let me look at the notebook, but it made absolutely no sense to me. “My grandmother taught it to me.”

&n
bsp; “Your grandmother.”

  Libby nodded. “She was a secretary in the 1940s,” she told me. “When her boss needed her to take notes, this was what she did. Before computers and phone apps and all that stuff. Apparently the guy she worked for liked to talk a lot, so she got really good and really fast. He was a lawyer.”

  “I see.” I frowned at the paper, still trying to make heads or tails of it.

  “She kept a lot of the notes she took and when I found them in the attic when I was a kid, I wanted to decipher them. So she taught me her system.”

  “You wanted to decipher notes a lawyer made over sixty years ago?”

  Libby shrugged a shoulder. “What can I say, I was a weird kid. Learned a lot about property law, actually. Really boring stuff.”

  “I bet.” I just couldn’t figure her out. She had to be the weirdest, most unusual person I had ever met. And that was saying a lot considering I had been born and raised in New York, the central hub of weirdos.

  “But you were saying…” She poked her pen down at her paper. “’That technology is a double-edge sword that both connects and separates us.’”

  Well, at least she had the quote right. Apparently her system worked just as well as a recording app.

  “Why don’t we look at the engine room,” I suggested.

  “Sure,” she said as she kept scribbling, “but you should know that I don’t know anything about engines, so when I smile and nod, just pretend I understand everything you’re saying.”

  “You sound like my investors,” I told her.

  Libby threw back her head and laughed. Her red curls bounced attractively around her face and I had the sudden urge to run my fingers through them. I didn’t. Instead, I shoved my hands in my pocket.