“You’re driving for Mirabella. Have been since you began in F1,” Frankie says. “Exhibit B.”
Now the amber in those eyes of hers are glinting with fire and I’m sure my blue ones are gleaming with ice. “No. I swear, Frankie, that’s not whatwewere about.”
“There was no we,” Frankie argues. “One night as a teenager does not make us a we. We never even…”
“Fucked?” I finish for her, and she yanks her arm out of my grip. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Clara start to approach. Her steps are slow, and her eyes are narrowed. She’s about to play referee. “I didn’t need to use you to get to your dad, Frankie.”
“Really? You want me to believe you just happened to play charming hero for his daughter? By happenstance?” Something flashes in Frankie’s eyes that looks like hurt, but it disappears before I can really be sure.
“You didn’t tell me your name that night,” I reply. “And I believe the historically accurate term is Aussie Hero. But I’ll allow charming.”
My quips don’t get her to relent. “You knew who I was.”
“And you knew who I was.”
“So you want me to believe what you are saying now?” Her left eyebrow arches. “But didn’t you also say you’d meet the next night? And you didn’t. That makes you a liar, James.”
She turns again and continues walking out of the lobby bar. Clara reaches me as Frankie turns left, deeper into the hotel and out of my sightline. “So that went well!”
Her enthusiasm is pure sarcasm. I frown. “I’ll fix it.”
“Doubt it!” she calls after me, but she doesn’t follow as I storm off after Frankie. I find her at the elevator. The doors have just opened and she’s stepping in, alone, so I sprint and slide in beside her just as the doors slip closed.
“You again?” She rolls those big, sexy eyes. God, why can’t I find her unattractive?
“You finally acknowledge that we dated and you think I’m going to let you walk out?” I ask, stand shoulder to shoulder with her instead of facing her, but my head is tipped in her direction.
“I didn’t say we dated. I said the opposite. We werenevera thing.”
“You admitted we had a night together. You’ve never done that before.”
She doesn’t speak or move for a few seconds as the elevator goes upward. Then, a blink and a sigh. It’s soft but carries a heaviness. And with that blink, her expression darkens. “I don’t remember everything about that weekend which is apparently normal after a drug… overdose. But I unfortunately remember you, and that night. But I figured you didn’t want me to remember you, since you stood me up. I was doing you a favor. And since you’ve never brought it up before either, I’m thinking I was right. You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t ghost you on purpose,” I tell her, the truth tumbling from my mouth before I can stop it. “I had family drama to deal with. Tommy had only been gone for six months at that point. As I told you, I was about to start racing again and my mum was still freaking out about me going back. There was a lot more going on in my world I didn’t even realize, and most of it blew the fuck up about forty minutes before I was supposed to meet you for our second date.”
I can tell she’s almost knocked on her fine ass by my candid outburst. We’ve never said a kind or personal word to each other since that first night in Monaco. “I have other reasons for letting you treat me like stranger, and treating you like one,” I continue, and for some reason, I take the one small step needed to bring us so close together our fingers brush. “But at that time, seventeen year old Billy James in Monaco wanted to do anything but ghost you. I swear on my life. I wanted to do everythingbutthat.”
Frankie turns only her head to me, so we can look each other in the eye again. She bites her bottom lip softly, somehow not disturbing the cherry red color painted on it, but definitely disturbing my dick. It twitches again, and I fight to not reach down and reposition it. “I don’t know whether or not to believe you.”
That damn perfect bottom lip is trapped between her pearly whites again. And then the stupid elevator pings, and the doors start to slide open, and we’re on her floor. She steps out of the elevator but presses a hand to the frame so the doors don’t slide closed and stares at me. “Do you know already?”
“Know what?” I blink and stare at her perfect face. She looks so conflicted and leery. Like she thinks I have ulterior motives. Bash’s insistent messages that I meet him before the party tonight pop into my brain and I start to feel uneasy. “You got something to share, Frankie?”
She moves her hand from the elevator doors and turns away. I let my eyes drop down the length of her body. Since she’s got her back to me, she can’t see me take in her narrow shoulders, the curve of her hip, or the golden, lean and yet muscular shape of her calf. I expect her to just storm off down the hall to whatever suite is hers, but she looks over her shoulder and I’m busted. There is no way she didn’t catch my eyes as they swept back up her body. But she doesn’t call me out. Frankie Castera does something else entirely. She turns around to face the elevator, and I lean forward and press the open button with my thumb to keep the doors from closing. After a moment of hesitation, given away only by a quick furrow of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows, she blurts out, “Dad is retiring. I’m taking over Mirabella Racing.”
And then she leaves, marching off like I’d anticipated earlier down the long hall with the lush carpet. I am left in more of a state of confusion than I would have been if she’d decked me. But I recover and manage to slide through the doors as they close without getting crushed. My pace is almost a run as she turns a corner at the end of the hall, and I manage to catch up to her just as she’s pulling a key card out of her purse.
“Are you fucking with me?” My voice booms down the long hallway much louder than I’d anticipated. She shushes me.
“He’s announcing tonight. I’m the new Principal.” She swipes the key card and her hand reaches for the door handle, but she freezes before she can open it because I open my big, fat mouth.
“You don’t even like racing.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Frankie’s hand drops off the door handle, and she turns to face me. Now we’re toe-to-toe like two prize fighters in the Octagon. “I fucking love it. I’ve loved it my whole life. I’ve been in this world even longer than you.”
“My dad put me in his race car when I was three months old. I have photographic proof,” I counter. I mean, he literally propped me up in the seat for a magazine photoshoot, but it counts.
“My parents fucked on my dad’s car after his first championship win and…” She waves a delicate hand up and down in front of her perfect body. “Voila!”
