by KT Shears
‘I’m Devlin Carter.’ He stuck out his hand and Anna took it, feeling a little foolish.
‘I’m Anna, Anna Sawyer. And I’m a feature writer, not a reporter.’
He looked amused and cocked his eyebrow again, indicating it was all the same to him. Anna turned away and put all her energy in to listening to Gary, who was babbling about some sort of simulator. She wondered if it was like those ones they had at the carnival, where it was like you were on a spaceship. That didn’t really make sense, but she quite liked the idea.
It seemed that even Gary could eventually run out of things to say, and class was finally dismissed, after he handed out the information sheets for the upcoming trip to Australia.
Anna stuffed hers in her handbag and headed for the exit – she had no desire to hang around and be pounced upon by Gary again. Or to engage in idle chit-chat with Devlin, who had seemed interested in her for some reason.
She realised, as she left the room, that she had no idea how to actually get out. She hadn’t been paying attention when Gary had whisked her along earlier, instead using all her energy to keep up with him, and Anna realised she was lost. She was just contemplating spending the rest of her days in the long corridor, when she heard a voice behind her.
‘Are you lost?’
Anna turned round, gratefully, and saw with a shock that it was Erik Jonasson. He smiled at her and she nodded forlornly.
‘I’m afraid so. I thought I was going to have to start a new life here.’
Erik laughed, white teeth flashing. Up close he was even more attractive than in the magazines and on TV, Anna thought. His eyes in particular seemed intelligent, and she wondered if she had done him a disservice when talking to Jules about racing drivers’ lack of brain cells.
‘I wouldn’t recommend that. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to Gary, and now look at him.’
Erik’s eyes twinkled and Anna couldn’t help but grin at him. She was glad she wasn’t the only one who found Gary Freeland a bit of a humorous character.
‘I think I can get you out,’ he whispered conspiratorially, and she leaned closer to hear him, catching a whiff of his expensive cologne. A bottle would probably cost more than her house, she thought.
‘Oh yeah?’ Anna whispered back, playing along, vaguely aware of the smell of him and the closeness of him. She thought of what Jules would say if she could see her now.
‘Just stay close and if you hear Gary, turn and run and don’t look back.’
Anna nodded, solemnly and they set off down the corridor together. She thought Erik’s natural pace would probably be quite fast, but he slowed right down so she could keep up easily. He was more thoughtful than Gary, at least.
‘Are you looking forward to the first race?’ he asked, as they walked down a corridor that bore a striking resemblance to the one they had been in just a minute before. Anna would definitely have lived out her days in this labyrinth if he hadn’t come to her rescue, she thought.
‘Yes,’ she said, evidently not very convincingly, as he threw his head back and laughed. Anna grinned sheepishly and threw up her hands. ‘I’m sorry, I have to admit, I don’t know much about racing. It wasn’t my choice to do this and I’m trying to play catch-up.’
She didn’t want to offend him – she knew he and the other drivers must live for their sport – but Erik didn’t seem annoyed, just amused. Anna dug into her handbag and withdrew one of the books she had bought online, waving it at him to prove her point.
Erik took it from her and thumbed through it quickly, laughing at the little notes she had written herself inside.
‘Ask about tyres – why do they need more than one set a race, I only change mine every couple of years,’ he read out.
Anna flushed and grabbed the book back. She had forgotten she had written that.
‘Race car tyres aren’t like normal tyres,’ he explained, as they rounded a corner and Anna saw they had reached reception. ‘They’re built for speed, not for durability, so the rubber is really soft. And with how fast we go, they can get worn down pretty quickly.’
Anna nodded. That made more sense than her book, and she said so. Erik flashed her a quick smile, and Anna felt a bit weak at the knees. He really was an attractive man. She wasn’t sure she’d ever spent time in the company of someone so gorgeous.
‘Well, there’s a hell of a long plane journey coming up, so think of some more questions and I’ll do my best to answer them for you,’ Erik said, and, with another quick flash of white teeth, he had gone and Anna was left standing there, not quite sure what had just happened.
After a few seconds, she shook herself and headed out the door to find her car. As she was getting in, she heard a car pull up beside her and she looked round. Devlin Carter was leaning out of the window of an insanely expensive-looking car.
‘Nice wheels,’ he said, gesturing to Anna’s little Clio. She glared at him.
‘We can’t all get paid millions for driving round in circles,’ she snapped. He laughed and wound up his window again, pulling away with a cocky wink.
Anna grumbled under her breath and got into her car.
Chapter four
Erik climbed into his car and adjusted the mirror slightly. That had been another tedious Gary Freeland meeting, he thought dully. The only slightly interesting bit had been the journalist. He recalled the look she had shot Gary and smiled to himself. She was feisty, he thought, and quite different to the usual women he met.
She was attractive too – not the usual stick thin blondes he usually went for. She was brunette and definitely curvy. He’d had a good look at her backside when she’d walked across the room to sit down. There were worse people to accompany you around the globe, he thought, remembering their silly conversation as they had walked down the corridor. It might be nice to have someone around who wasn’t entirely brain-dead.
Speaking of brain-dead… his mind turned to Devlin. Who did he think he was, sauntering in there halfway through the meeting? He shook his head. And who did Gary think he was, just letting him get away with it? They were supposed to be equals, him and Devlin, but he felt like the number two sometimes.
He watched as Devlin’s car cruised past his, and then saw it stop beside a small silver car. He realised, with a touch of annoyance, that it was the writer, Anna’s, car. Devlin was probably trying his usual chat-up lines. Erik didn’t think Anna was the type of girl to fall for them, though. He’d watched as Devlin had tried to make conversation with her in the meeting, and she’d brushed him off. It had made Erik pretty happy to see that, he had to admit.
He smiled as Devlin drove away – clearly Anna hadn’t wanted to engage him in conversation, and he watched the small silver car pull out and head out of the car park.
He eased his own car into gear and followed until the end of the road, when he turned left and she turned right.
He toyed with hitting the gym. The first race was less than two weeks away, and he wanted to be in top condition. But he was hungry and tired, and decided to go home instead. He could go to the gym tomorrow. As he drove, he thought back to the last season.
He was new to the team last year, Devlin having been there a year before him. He knew him of course, had raced against him before and spoken to him. He hadn’t liked him much but, then, Erik didn’t like many of the drivers much. They just weren’t his type of people – brash, flashing the cash, fickle. Devlin had made it clear from Erik’s first day that he saw himself as the number one driver, and Erik was just there to make up the numbers. He smiled to himself, recalling the first race of the season, when had had beaten Devlin to that number one spot on the podium. His face had been a picture – Erik wished he had had a camera. Unfortunately for both of them, their cars just weren’t good enough last year, another driver and team grabbing the championship. Devlin had finished second and him third in the standings, separated by one point. He remembered Devlin’s taunting smile as they waited backstage to collect their trophies and spray the champagne.
<
br /> ‘Next year it’ll be me on that number one step,’ Devlin had said.
Erik knew it was possible. Devlin was a good driver, and he raced hard. But Erik knew he was a better driver, knew that his quiet intensity gave him an edge over Devlin’s incredible arrogance and self-confidence.
He pulled into his driveway and fumbled in the glovebox for the remote control that opened his garage. He waited as the gates rose up, painfully slowly, he always thought, and then carefully manoeuvred his car inside. There was a door directly from the garage into his home – he’d had that added for convenience when he bought the house – and he unlocked it and went inside.
His voicemail was flashing and he pressed play. It was a message from his mother, asking him to call and telling him she loved him. He smiled as he heard her voice. He missed his parents; he was rich enough now to be able to fly them out to races frequently, but his mother wasn’t a keen traveller and they only made a couple of grand prix a year. He was looking forward to seeing them at the Germany race, a couple of months away.
Opening the fridge, Erik took out a bottle of water and the ingredients for a cheese sandwich, and then sat on his sofa watching the sports channel on his massive TV. There was a piece about him and Devlin and he watched with interest as the commentators discussed who they thought would lift the championship.
‘I’m going to say Jonasson,’ one of them said, an ex-racing driver himself. Erik nodded, approvingly. ‘Carter struggles under pressure, we saw that last year in some races, but Jonasson always stays cool.’
Another panellist jumped in. ‘But I don’t know if Jonasson has the passion. You can say what you like about Devlin Carter’s conduct and personality, but you can’t doubt he has the passion to win.’
Erik took a swig of water to wash down a bite of sandwich. He had intensity, and he would show them.
Chapter five
‘You got to meet them both?’
Dan had been quizzing Anna on her visit to Willis Mechanical all through dinner, sighing in exasperation when she was unable to answer simple questions about her visit.
‘I just sat there while Gary Freeland talked a lot of rubbish,’ Anna said, shrugging apologetically. ‘And then I got horribly lost and Erik Jonasson had to escort me out.’
Jules sat up in her seat, interested now.
‘Was he gorgeous? What was he like?’
Dan shook his head, and went back to his meal, but Anna could see he was interested to know what Erik Jonasson had been like too.
‘He seemed nice enough,’ she said, thinking back. ‘He explained a bit about tyres to me after he read a stupid note I’d written in one of those books I ordered.’
Jules waved a hand dismissively.
‘Oh who cares about tyres?’ she said, Dan bristling beside her. ‘Was he as gorgeous in the flesh as in that picture we saw?’
Anna considered it for a second.
‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘He’s a very good-looking man. And he seemed pretty down-to-earth. Not like the other one.’ She remembered Devlin’s comment about her car and felt a flash of anger again. Who did he think he was?
‘What, that Devlin guy?’
‘Carter,’ Dan said in a monotone.
‘Yes, Devlin Carter,’ Anna said, popping a piece of pasta in her mouth. ‘He’s an arrogant idiot.’
Dan was listening, interested.
‘They were saying on the TV the other night that his arrogance and self-belief are probably going to give him the edge over Jonasson in the championship.’
‘I hope not,’ Anna said, feeling slightly sad and not quite sure why. ‘He was quite rude.’
Jules howled with laughter and Anna looked at her, puzzled.
‘Only you could meet a millionaire racing driver and brand him “quite rude”,’ she said, Dan chuckling quietly too.
Anna laughed too. What had she gotten herself into?
***
She had a week or so before they left for the first grand prix of the season. Anna had suggested to Gary that she come into the headquarters again to properly meet people, but he had dismissed her, saying they were far too busy for that kind of thing. Instead, she busied herself with tying up loose ends at work, handing over any pieces she wouldn’t be able to finish properly to Eleanor, who was only too glad to take them on. She suffered from a crippling lack of imagination and intuition – Anna sometimes wondered how she’d ended up working here in the first place and wondered if she was the daughter of someone who knew someone. Then she would invariably feel guilty for thinking such a thing.
Anna had pored over her information sheet numerous times. There were lots of things on there she was pretty sure didn’t apply to her, and were to do with transporting the cars. From what Anna could gather, she was to be at the airport at 5am on Monday, April 2nd. She gathered that the team was travelling earlier than was usual, but Anna remembered Gary talking about various promotions and events that had been lined up to celebrate the start of the racing season. According to her schedule, the actual racing stuff didn’t start till Friday. Anna had asked Dan about this at dinner the other night.
‘Why do they have a bunch of practices? Shouldn’t they be good enough already?’
Dan had found that heartily entertaining, laughing away to himself while Jules and Anna looked at one another, baffled.
‘It’s not really practising,’ he said, when he had regained control of himself. ‘It’s more testing out the car in the conditions and the track, getting used to any changes made between races, and seeing if anything needs to be tweaked before qualifying.’
Anna didn’t know what qualifying was either, but it sounded like something important so she had nodded seriously.
She read some more of her books over the next few days, although Anna thought racing was probably one of those things you need to experience, rather than read about. Still, she found herself understanding a little bit more about how the whole thing meshed together – although she couldn’t bring herself to tackle the chapter on ‘kers’, whatever that was.
Packing largely consumed her thoughts in the days running up to her departure. Anna had no idea what to wear for a week in Australia, and especially not for a week on the racing circuit. She had e-mailed Gary asking about the luggage allowance. From the briefness of his reply, she had gathered that luggage allowances were quite far down his list of things worth considering, but she had at least got an answer. It was generous, so she decided to go for the ‘pack everything she owned’ approach, and chucked in just about every possible outfit she could need.
Stella called her in the day before Anna was due to fly, just to run over the brief again.
‘James O’Hare called me this morning,’ she said, after Anna had assured her that she was organised and ready to go. ‘He’s looking forward to reading your first column and is delighted that you’re going to be at the first race of the season.’
Anna nodded, hoping she had arranged her face into something resembling enthusiasm. She was sure James O’Hare would expect the writer on his payroll who was reporting on his beloved team to love the sport like he did, and even with Anna’s limited knowledge of different tyres and what a practice session was, she wasn’t sure she would be able to convince anyone.
Anna had dinner at Jules’ and Dan’s again the night before her flight and she was going to stay over there, too, as their house was nearer the airport and it would be cheaper in a taxi. Plus then she wouldn’t have to get up so early – 5am was horrific enough without having to get up hours earlier to make her way across the city. Both Jules and Dan were excited, although about totally different things.
‘I can’t believe you’re going to be walking around the grid,’ Dan enthused, shaking his head at the thought of it. ‘It’s amazing. I’d love to go.’
‘Maybe I can get you a VIP pass for one of the races or something,’ Anna said, and he beamed at her.
Jules, on the other hand, was obsessed with the two drivers, Erik and Devlin.
‘Will they be on the plane tomorrow?’ she asked in an innocent tone. She didn’t fool either of them – Dan rolled his eyes and Anna shook her head at her, smiling.
‘I don’t actually know,’ Anna said, ‘I hadn’t really thought about it.’
Anna and Jules both turned to Dan, their racing guru. He laughed at the expectant faces turned in his direction.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I’d have thought so, for the first race of the season, at least. It gets more chaotic as the season goes on so they’ll probably start making their own way, but seeing as they’re both in the country and heading to the same place, I imagine they’ll be on the same flight.’
Jules smiled triumphantly.
‘You have to sit next to one of them,’ she said. ‘And tell them about your poor sister, just waiting for a rich man to come and whisk her away.’
Dan glared and Anna held up her hands.
‘Don’t worry, Dan, I’ll tell them she’s a crazy racing groupie.’
The napkin Jules threw at her only narrowly avoided her head.
***
Seating arrangements were the last thing on Anna’s mind as she heaved her suitcase from the taxi drop-off into the airport. Packing everything she owned had been sensible at the time, she reflected, but she hadn’t considered the small matter of manoeuvring her luggage from place to place. It was 4:50am and she was out of breath, sweaty, tired, and annoyed. She paused for a moment to catch her breath.
‘Would you like a hand?’
Anna twirled round at the voice, and saw Erik Jonasson standing there, looking amused. Probably at the state of her appearance, she thought.
‘No thank you,’ Anna said, in a dignified manner. She resumed her efforts to haul the suitcase behind her to the entrance of the airport. She had almost made it to the door, when she felt it being seized from her, and Anna turned to see Erik had lifted it up, as if it was nothing.
‘What have you got in here?’ he asked, as he carried it into the concourse, Anna scurrying along beside him.
