Fast & Hard: A Formula 1 Romance (The Fast Series)

by Kat Ransom

  Sandra wishes me good luck before she disconnects and I laugh. Luck, ha. Maybe I should have put more coins on the stones at Fairy Glen.

  I pace back and forth in the tiny suite of the motorhome and stress eat all the little chocolates on Lennox’s desk from some fan. Sorry kind stranger, but he can’t eat them anyway and I need them.

  He can’t find out about this, he just can’t. If he retaliates, Celeritas will terminate his contract, which is exactly what Digby wants, and then he’s done driving, forever. Just like my NBA client who went too far and never recovered, Celeritas will kick him to the curb and he’ll never recover. There are only ten teams on the grid and severing a contract will blackball him.

  I’m sick with the thought, I can’t stand keeping secrets from him. He’s been so honest with me, showed me his scars. But that’s why I have no choice. I won’t open those wounds up, dig my fingers inside, and aggravate the injury. I have to hide this from him, too, for his own good.

  Twenty Four

  Headline: Disastrous Finish for Gibbes, Engine Failure at France GP

  Headline: “No Explanation” from Celeritas for Mechanical Issues Causing Gibbes France DNF

  “There's just so much goddamned weight on my shoulders, all I'm trying to do is live my motherfucking life. Supposed to be happy, but I'm only getting colder. Wear a smile on my face, but there's a demon inside.” - Five Finger Death Punch - Jekyll and Hyde

  Lennox

  “Mal, why’s your phone locked?” I call to Mallory who’s just stepping out of the shower at my place. Only Matty and Jack are in the residential building with us at headquarters, so she’s been able to spend the night and not sneak off before morning comes.

  I don’t like the sneaking at all and wish she’d just come out with it, let us be a public thing, but she’s insistent it’ll get her fired or ruin her reputation. It doesn’t make me feel great that being with me could be career damaging but I know I’m taking that personally when I shouldn’t, so I quit bringing it up.

  And then I took advantage of the sneaking. Late at night, I took her on the hotel balcony overlooking La Sagrada Familia in Spain. Ate her on the deck of a boat on the Mediterranean Sea in Monaco. Licked maple syrup off her body in Montreal in my hotel room. That one wasn’t my most creative, but I was short on time and she had no complaints after the cleanup shower led to Round Two.

  I planned to make up for it in the French Rivera but then I was in no mood after my engine blew up and caught fire due to a “mysterious” oil leak and I didn’t even finish the race, lost out on all the points. I know what that was all about, more corruption inside the snake pit. But I’ve bitten my tongue, figuratively and literally, and tried to shield Mallory from it as much as possible.

  Plus, Mallory’s been exhausted, up late working on her laptop and phone. She’s been awake before me the past few days, which isn’t like her. She says it isn’t her parents causing trouble but I know she’s worried about her job here despite me doing my damndest to not cause her any additional stress.

  “I didn’t hear you, what’d you want?” She steps out of the bathroom with a white bath towel wrapped around her body, another one drying her long, wet hair. She’s so beautiful I lose track of my thoughts when she’s around. I’m out of my skull for this girl. She’s the most real thing in my life standing before me right now. Exposed, wet, raw, honest.

  “Come back to bed. Dick-on-Demand is having a big sale. A real blow out. Huge savings.” Like the crass asshole I am, I point to the size of the bargains currently tenting the bedsheet.

  “As much as I love a good dick sale, I have a meeting with Sandra. Then we have the sponsor event with Hintz-Hegmann in London.”

  I groan. There’s been a lot of phone calls and meetings with the Dragon Lady lately. Maybe sponsorships are picking up since I’ve been behaving myself, which was half the goal for Mallory’s nanny position. I guess that’s good, for her. I’ll deal with more glad-handing if it helps her. “Hintz-who?”

  “Hintz-Hegmann. They’re new. Synergized Eco-Centric Middleware.” She makes air quotes around the words and I look at her like she’s speaking pig latin, which she may as well be. “They reinvent real-time functionalities,” she continues.

  I may drive cars around in circles for a living, as Robert Mitchell so ignorantly stated, but I am not a stupid man. Another stereotype, of not just me, but all the drivers. We’re some of the most honed athletes on the planet and we’ve been trained and educated for decades to get here, the pinnacle of motorsports. Well, those of us who didn’t buy our way in. That said, what the fuck is eco-centric middleware? “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea, just look pretty and smile for the cameras,” she shrugs.

  “Mmmmkay,” I shake my head. I should probably be a good little boy for Celeritas and Google that before the event. “Anyway, I was going to Airdrop the photos from home to you but the password protection is on,” I hold her phone up to show her. Her old phone, the one she burnt to death and sent to an ashy grave in my fire pit, was never locked.

  “Oh,” she swipes it from my hands, “it’s the new phone, must not have updated the settings. Go ahead and send the pics now.” She walks back into the restroom with her phone and I send the photos to her from mine.

  Scrolling through the selfies she took of us, I find myself lying in bed smiling like a schoolboy. They remind me of better days when it was just us at home. Her in my sweatpants, kissing by the fire, spending the whole day in my bed, watching her investigate tide pools along the shore.

  I haven’t been home since. It’d be easy to blame my schedule but I haven’t made an effort to go home, either. It will feel empty without her now. Even more empty than it already is. When I go back home, I want her with me and she’s been too busy. I watch her get dressed and blow-dry her hair through the bathroom door and picture her in Scotland permanently. I imagine her at Mum and Pop’s on Christmas morning with Bram and Jack and Matty and I. I’m a lovestruck boy when she kisses me goodbye.

  A couple of hours later I’ve worked out and am dressed in team gear ready to act like a dancing bear at the circus for whoever Hintz-Hegmann are. Mallory has her little black Celeritas skirt on and her ass looks fantastic. I can get through the event if I focus on that visual. We head out of our building and I open the doors to the LaFerrari to help her in for the drive into London.

  She seemed off after her meeting with the Dragon Lady but was rushing to get ready. I need to make some serious decisions, Abu Dhabi will be here before I know it and I now accept I don’t want her to go back to New York. Like a selfish prick, I find myself wondering if she’d consider opening her firm somewhere in Europe. Even if she wanted to, she’d need to be in London or Berlin or Paris, not on an isolated island in the Hebrides.

  I don’t know how but we could figure something out. Once I’m out of my contract maybe the next team will be headquartered in a city that would work for her. We’d be apart so much, though, with me on the road more than half the year. I sigh, knowing I’m jumping the gun, but I could make something work.

  “Oh Ms. Mitchell, will you be joining me for the drive to London?” The hair on my neck stands up as I spin to see Dickhead DuPont prancing through the parking lot in his boat shoes, the lights of his Hummer flashing as he unlocks it with the key fob.

  “And why would she be riding with you in that monstrosity you drive to compensate for…” I wave at the ugliest vehicle ever to drive onto the Celeritas lot, but Mallory cuts me off.

  “No, I have work to discuss and will be riding with Lennox,” she calls back and scurries into the car. “Please just get in, Lennox,” she looks at me with pleading eyes while trying to pull the gullwing door down.

  Dickhead winks, actually winks at me, but I close Mallory in the car and get in my side, not letting him provoke me again. “The hell is that about?” I ask her as I start the car up.

  “I don’t know, he’s an idiot. Please ignore him, Lennox.” Her foot is tapp
ing against the floorboard and I sigh, hating that he’s making her uncomfortable, that this situation between us is making her life more difficult.

  Pulling out of the parking lot and swerving around Dickhead’s Small-Dick-Mobile because sometimes testosterone wins the battle and because today I’m not in an F1 car my team has crippled, I drive us the hour into London. Mallory’s so tired she sleeps most of the time, her time awake spent doing god knows what social media duties on her phone and sighing.

  “Ok, so you need to schmooze the founders, Chase Hintz and Bernie Hegmann,” Mallory rattles off as we head inside a snooty bar and restaurant that’s marked as closed for a private event. “All the company exec’s will be there, but those two are your targets.”

  I mm-hmm and roll my eyes and let her out of the car. Another day, another bullshit glad-handing.

  “Sandra wants me to take extra photos and stuff today. So, just so you know,” she fidgets with her purse strap and looks at the ground as we walk, “I’ll be floating around the whole event, you may not see me much.”

  “Ok,” I mumble. “Are you ok? You’re acting weird.”

  “Yeah, just tired.” She squeezes my hand then lets it go before anyone sees us. “They’re a really important potential sponsor.”

  Sure enough, I don’t see much of Mallory during the event. I spotted her by the bar a bit ago, standing with one of the H founders and Dickhead and my blood pressure rose but she tapped her iPad and mouthed the word “photos” to me before disappearing. I forced myself calm and wished I was drinking something stronger than club soda but I’m driving her home and probably don’t need alcohol clouding my judgment in this close proximity to Dickhead.

  Another hour later, I still don’t know what reinventing real-time functionalities means but I have been perfectly polite nodding my head and charming the employees and two founders. Whatever real-time functionalities are, they’re a definite fit for the F1 target audience, I agreed.

  Even the Dragon Lady would be pleased and hopefully, she’ll lay off Mallory. The club sodas are running through me and I excuse myself from the thrilling conversation about eco-centric middleware. Two employees stop me on the way to the bathroom for selfies. I smile. I deserve some kind of phony-fuck trophy for this. Eh, on second thought, no, I don’t want that tarnishing the real trophies in my garage.

  And then the smile is gone as I open the bathroom door. Dickhead is tucking himself back into his pants in front of a urinal and Mallory is standing inside the men’s room clutching her iPad, her back turned and looking up at the ceiling. Seeing me, her jaw drops and her eyes go huge.

  “Lennox,” she gasps.

  “The fuck?” I look between her and Dickhead who is wearing a smug grin as he strolls to the sink.

  Mallory stands in front of me and puts her hand on my arm, “Lennox, please…”

  “Get in the car,” I growl at her, staring at Dickhead, my whole body getting twitchy.

  “Aw, don’t be a poor sport, chap,” Digby gloats, shaking his hands off over the sink.

  “Lennox please, let’s just go, come on, please,” she begs and pushes against my chest urging me out of the room.

  Every cell in my body wants to give Dickhead something to gloat about and it takes every ounce of self-control to let Mallory pull me out of the room by my arm. I do, but I’m livid even as she gets into the car and I slam the door down, fire the car up, and tear out of the parking lot.

  She’s looking at her knees and clutching the iPad to her chest. “It’s not what it looks like,” she finally mutters.

  “Yeah? Why don’t you tell me what it was, then?” This goddamn Ferrari cannot go fast enough no matter how much I mash the pedal down and snap the paddle shifter.

  “Please slow down,” she grabs the door handle as I swerve between two cars and the car rocks back and forth.

  Her shoulder seat belt strap is loose so I reach over with my right hand and jerk it down with one quick pull, squealing us around a corner with my left hand on the wheel. “Thought you liked when I drive, love, or was that a lie, too?”

  “Not like this! And I didn’t lie!”

  “What the bloody hell were you doing? I asked you to stay away from him!”

  “I told you, I had to get some extra collateral. For Sandra.”

  “Really, Sandra wanted dick pics, or what?” What possible excuse could there be for being in a men’s room with the devil incarnate with his dick out? I asked her to do one fucking thing, stay away from him. The car lowers to the asphalt and the wing opens as soon as we hit the M1 in seventh gear.

  “You’re scaring me,” she whimpers and clenches her eyes shut.

  I take a deep breath and back off the throttle, somehow made to feel like I am the asshole in this situation. “How could you?”

  “I swear to you, nothing happened. I just, I needed a quote and he made me follow him in there to get it.” She’s still staring at her knees. If everything were Kosher she’d be looking at me, yelling at me, arguing back.

  “After everything I told you? I told you who he is. I fucking told you everything, Mallory! He’s the dangerous one and you’re scared of me? I asked you to stay away from him, just stay the hell away! Why can’t you do that?”

  “Nothing happened! Please just let it go! You can’t act like a madman or Celeritas is going to fire you!”

  “Fuck Celeritas!” I smack the steering wheel. “I don’t give two shits about Celeritas, Mallory, I don’t want you around him!”

  “Then I’m asking you to let this go and don’t let him provoke you for me. So that I don’t get fired.”

  There’s a tear rolling down her cheek again but I can’t look at her. I am too furious. I don’t think she really fucked Dickhead in the bathroom. I mean, minimally, Mallory’s not exactly a bathroom quickie kind of girl. But something is going on. She’s lying to me.

  Goddamn this noise inside my head. I can’t go through this again, it’ll kill me this time. She’ll kill me.

  I don’t speak the rest of the way home, my mind going faster than the car as I think about the locked phone, the increase in the number of alleged meetings, all the text messages from Aria and Cody all of a sudden. Hell, in France after I blew the car up and wanted to leave the track, she told me she wanted to stay and watch the rest of the race with the guys, that she’d meet up with me later. Why didn’t that tip me off?

  Because I’ve been an idiot.

  ◆◆◆

  A thousand times last night I almost got up and stormed into her apartment. All night I fought the urge to argue and demand answers. All night I went back and forth asking myself if I am seeing things, being paranoid because of past transgressions.

  But she lied. At the bare minimum, she made me a promise and is choosing her job duties over everything I told her. I’ve never brought anyone home or told her the things I told her. Years together with Kate and I never let her meet my parents.

  In a particularly low and gross moment in my life I can never get back, I poured over all of DuPrick’s media and the Celeritas pages looking for any incriminating evidence, photos of them together. I went through all of Mallory’s accounts. I don’t even know what I’m looking for but I didn’t find it and then I felt even worse.

  I didn’t even do that when I saw, with my own eyes, Digby banging Kate on my bed. I saw it with my own eyes so I didn’t have to go looking for proof, but I realize I also never felt like this about Kate. I was pissed, not hurt. Now it’s pain pressing down on my chest like a million tiny daggers.

  She had to know it would hurt me to find her in the bathroom with DuPrick, his dick in his hands. But she wouldn’t cheat, leave me for him, would she? What else is going on if she’s lying to me, if she can’t keep the simple promise to stay away from him?

  My phone buzzes again and I assume it’s another message from Mallory that I read over and over but can’t respond to yet. But it’s Matty and I’m late, I was supposed to be in the gym fifteen minutes ago. I run my f
ingers through my hair. Work, Matty, and Celeritas will have to wait, this is more important.

  Lennox: Help me understand. Can we talk?

  Mallory: I’m in a meeting. Later? Please?

  Another meeting. How convenient. It’s just as well, I need to do something with this frustration and making myself crazy isn’t helping.

  Two hours of cardio, boxing, and the speed-bag has helped to take the edge off even if my mind is still in warp speed. I’d prefer to stay longer, keep at it, picture Digby’s face on the heavy bag. But Matty’s pissing and moaning about strained muscles and I don’t enjoy ice baths. And I need to resolve this with Mallory, now.

  Matty’s been eying me suspiciously the whole time but the nice thing about Finnish culture, they don’t talk a lot. Small talk is considered rude and worse, inefficient. I appreciate that when he does speak, it’s the truth, there’s no hidden agenda. What a rarity.

  I consider asking his opinion as I sit on the weight bench and wipe the sweat off, but he’s just going to reiterate that I’m an asshole. He won’t expand or go into details, because being an asshole pretty much sums it up perfectly.

  My entire life has been dominated by my career since I was old enough to walk. She’s entitled to the same. I can deal with that, I’ll support her. I can’t deal with her around Digby and not trusting me to stay away from him. Lying to me, hiding things from me. Just act fucking Finnish and tell me the truth so I can fix it.

  “Phone’s been going off all day.” He tosses it to me and goes about re-racking weights.

  I set it down next to me on the bench, not wanting to look, and run the towel through my sweaty hair. Buzz buzz buzz. Buzz buzz buzz. Over and over. I just want a minute to think but it’s relentless. I give up and glance sideways at it on the bench. A picture of Mallory flashes on the screen then disappears.