“I’m fine.”
“You’ve apologized for bumping into me seven times.”
She shot me a look. “I was trying to give you space to work.”
“I don’t need space from you.”
Her cheeks flushed pink. Two weeks into this secret relationship and she still couldn’t handle direct statements about us. As if admitting we actually wanted to be near each other would somehow make it more real or increase the risk of being found out.
“The data’s that interesting?” she asked, nodding toward my tablet.
“Riveting. Al’s convinced we can find another three-tenths in sector two if I brake later into turn eleven.”
“Will you?”
I grinned. “Course I will. Question is whether the car can handle it.”
“And if it can’t?”
“Then I’ll figure it out on the track.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Wasn’t joking.”
She paled. I set the tablet aside, studying her face. She’d gone from nervous energy to genuine distress in seconds.
“Vi. Look at me.”
Her eyes met mine, wide and worried.
“I’m not going to crash.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No,” I said slowly. “But I can promise I’m good enough not to.”
She swallowed hard. “Your mother probably thought the same thing when she watched you race as a child.”
Bloody hell. Direct hit.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Because I was eight years old and showing off. Because I didn’t know better.
But looking at her face, the genuine terror lurking behind her careful composure, I couldn’t say any of that. No excuse wouldchange the fundamental truth that every time I got in a car, there was risk.
“Because I need to come home to you.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Too honest. Too much. But they were true, and the way her breath caught told me she felt it.
“Griffin—”
I leaned closer, voice dropping. “Do you know what I think about when I’m going wheel-to-wheel with Callaghan for the lead?”
She shook her head.
