“Yes.” And it would be her last. Once this was done, she wouldn’t have any reason to ever return.
And to further underline that she wasn’t at home, that she was entering unknown territory, at least one of the random radio stations she flipped past was in French. From her time at boarding school, she knew just enough of the language to be dangerous. But she was pretty sureVa voir ailleurs si j’y suiswas a uniquely Swiss derogatory flip off, so she was imagining things there, too.
Every part of her subconscious was warning her that danger lay ahead.
Josh wouldn’t want to see her.
And when she stopped just south of Pine Harbour, pulling off the road into a scenic lookout spot to check her messages—really? There wasn’t anything that she needed to handle urgently?—she had to confront the gross feeling that the guilt she was feeling had nothing to do with skipping out on work, and everything to do with coming face to face with the man she hurt.
Josh Kincaid was still her husband, and no matter how hard it would be to see him again, she owed it to him to fix this properly, once and for all.
If she hadn’t used him for her own purposes in the very beginning, none of this would have ever happened.
3
Three yearsearlier
Monica checked her lipstick,her tits, and her winsome smile. All were on point. Good. The hot mechanic who had just returned from vacation was probably the only guy in the building who didn’t know who she was, and she needed a crash course in car racing.
She’d spent the last two weeks dodging subtle barbs and not-so-subtle shade about her suitability for the sweet marketing gig she’d been handed by virtue of being the boss’s daughter. She’d expected all of that. She hadn’t been prepared for the sharpest cuts to come from her father himself.
“You don’t need to know anything about racing, sweetheart. You just need to remember how often people want you to post on Instagram.”
That was her whole job, it seemed. Posting blink and you’d miss it slice-of-life video from the Fischer Racing campus to the team’s Instagram Stories. And if someone had Instagram and didn’t know how to use it, she could “consult with them.”
Nobody wanted her consultation.
She pushed through the interior door between the executive suites and the back garage bay and leaned against the wall. She’d watched this guy earlier, during the team workout in the morning.
That had been some good Insta content. Hot Mechanic peeling his sweat-slicked t-shirt up his rangy torso, revealing a six-pack dusted in golden brown fuzz. He’d wiped his face with the hem, then dropped it down, letting the damp fabric cling to his belly, not fixing the way it rode up a bit, still teasing a slice of his lower abdomen above the waistband of his shorts.
She hadn’t posted it online. She’d saved it to her phone instead. Maybe he had an account himself. It would be better content for him than it would be for the team.
That’s what she told herself—that she saved itfor him, this guy whose name she didn’t even know, but who she’d decided was her final chance to reboot her short-lived career in this building.
That decision had happened immediately after the workout. He’d taken charge of the pit crew, even though she didn’t think that was his job, and reminded everyone of the day’s agenda.
Which is how she knew to come back here, now, at the end of the day.
He was running a few of them through pit crew practice because they have a new tire guy on the team. This was the last thing he’d barked to everyone else—and she’d put it on her own schedule, too.
The garage bay had a raised viewing platform at the back, where she was standing now, with stairs at either end. Underneath the platform was where a lot of the…stuff…was stored.You need to know what the gear is called.
There was a lot she needed to know. So far, she’d memorized the race schedule—they were two weeks into a six-week break, then a ten-week circuit would start. She wanted to be Knowledgeable with a capital K by the time they were back on the track.
She forced herself to listen to the words Hot Mechanic was saying to the new team member.
“Don’t rush. Fast but smooth, that’s the rule. We want to finish before the fuel guy, but going faster than that just invites trouble.”
“Fast but smooth,” the new kid said, parroting what he’d just been told. But it didn’t look like he understood.
And maybe Hot Mechanic saw the not-listening panic in his eyes, too, because he gestured for the kid to come closer. The new guy glanced up at Monica, nervous and quick, but Hot Mechanic didn’t glance back. Like he didn’t care, or maybe he didn’t realize she was standing on the catwalk just behind him.
He dropped his voice. “Like when you’re fucking, you know?”
Heat swarmed through Monica’s lower belly.
The kid stared at him.
