“Oh, the one the intern’s on?” I rake a doubtful gaze over Victoria. “From what Ilya said in the debrief, it’s not going very well, is it?”
Her jaw clenches. “I’m working on it.”
I scoff. “Right. Care to explain why you can’t just go over my previous races?”
“I need up to date data from the current car,” she says.
“My car hasn’t been upgraded in years,” I challenge.Come on, admit that even you—an intern specificallyassigned to me—are actually rooting for Elio. I want her to say it to my face.
Declan lets out a long, irritated breath. “Either get your ass in the chamber or—”
“I’ll just assume you’d be a couple tenths of a second behind Elio.” Victoria shrugs. “You know. Like you usually are.” She turns to examine the nearest screen to her, gazing at a model of the race track. My blood starts to heat, and my nostrils flare with anger.
Elio scratches his chin, attempting to hold back a smile.Prick.
“That’s not accurate,” I growl.
She glances at me over her shoulder. “Isn’t it? in the last six races, you’ve been between one and three tenths of a second behind him. It’s reasonable, then, to assume that—”
“Elio, get thefuckout of here,” I snap. “This is a grownup conversation.”
“Right.” He nods amiably. “I always try to give my elders their space.” He glances at Victoria. “Talk to my PA about getting that interview set up, yeah?” He leisurely walks out of the room like he has all the time in the world.
I should get a sainthood for not punching him in the face on his way out.
“What turns did he do best on?” I demand.
Thomas is the one to answer. “T3, T5, and T11.” He joins Victoria in staring at the map. “Eleven’s the trickiest, for sure. Pretty impressive that he managed to—”
“Set me up,”I snap. I might absolutely hate the new direction F1’s heading in, but I’ll bedamnedif I get upstagedby someone who never should’ve made it past F2 in front of these three.
It has nothing to do with impressing anyone, certainly not an intern, andeverythingto do with making a point.
Chapter Seven
Victoria
Asher doesn’t just run afewlaps after storming into the sim chamber like a hurricane; he goes throughten. I watch each of them, not even bothering to make recordings on my tablet, because I’m enthralled by him.
A row of mirrors peering into the high-tech sim suite affords me an enviable view of him, sitting in front of the wheel, wearing a scowl and a tight grey T-shirt that shows off a stunning view of his swollen biceps.
By lap three, his breaths have turned to pants, as if he’s actually racing. By lap five, sweat has started beading on his forehead, and on the tenth and final lap, I realize I’ve been ogling him when I should’ve beendoing my job.
“Well, the good thing is that you were right,” Declan replies quietly as Asher finishes out and unstraps himself. “Mostly, anyway. He’s averaging an eighth of a second slower than Elio, and they had the same exact setup—aside from the cars. Elio’s has had several more upgrades than Asher’s.”
I finally manage to tear my gaze away from Asher and instead glue it to the screens showing his laps, and his times on each portion of the course.
My heart drops into my stomach when I see what Declan and Thomas are missing. The other two are focused on Asher’s overall times, but my focus falls to the turns Thomas identified. Three, five, and eleven.
Asher wassignificantlyfaster than Elio for all of them, in every single lap. He wasn’t trying to winoverall; he was trying to beat Elio.
He still has a competitive streak. I may be able to use that to both our advantages.
I may not like him, but I’m assigned to him, and I dislike that there’s no one on this team trying to help Asher. Even Declan is far more intent on making sure Elio’s taken care of—and he should be giving both of them the same attention. I get his reasoning; Elio has greater potential to score the team points, so he should get more resources. But I don’t imagine that’s helping motivate Asher to score any points.
And, at the end of the day, I’m an intern for car #2. Which means that, as much of an asshole as Asher is, my job is to help him.
As soon as he steps out of the sim suite, I bombard him with a litany of questions. “Why didn’t you use X-mode at all? Also, your booster mode was on for seven laps consecutively, which—”
