“How?”
“I told you,” Kip says, taking a seat on Elodie’s poofy, pale pink chaise lounge. “Word travels fast in Formula One.”
“How I found out isn’t important. What’s important is what we’re going to do about it.” Elodie turns to Kip. “Play me the recording. I want to hear it firsthand.”
He does, and I slump down onto the girly sofa next to him as I’m forced to relive the worst three minutes of my life. Well, maybe a close second for worst after the minutes when Ben gave me the shaft. Figuratively, unfortunately. Not literally.
When the recording ends, Kip taps his phone screen and looks to Elodie, now sitting behind her shiny, white desk.
“What do you think?” he asks, his question clearly directed at her and not me. You know, the person at the center of this whole mess. “What’s our next move?”
“I think we should get Ben in here for this.” She picks up her phone, swipes the screen, and begins typing.
“Why do we need him?” I ask. I was hoping to have at least twenty-four hours before seeing him again at the Monday debrief.
“I’ll explain when he gets here.” Her phone dings with an incoming text. She pauses to read it, then nods approvingly. “He’s on his way. Who wants coffee?”
While we wait for him to arrive, Elodie makes fancy lattes for herself and Kip from a shiny stainless steel machine on a credenza behind her desk. Leave it to her to have her own private coffee station, mere feet from the team’s state-of-the-art kitchen and dining room.
I decline her generous offer. I’m on enough of an adrenaline high after a race, win or lose. Add to that the drama with Nico—not to mention that earth-shattering kiss with my race engineer, who’s going to walk through the door any second—and the last thing I need is something to jangle my already frazzled nervous system even more.
I do accept a bottle of San Pellegrino from her. Not that I’m particularly thirsty. I hydrated as soon as I got out of the cockpit, like I do after every race. But it will give my hands something to do. And water won’t make me more on edge than I already am.
Ben arrives a few minutes later, entering without bothering to knock. Payback for Elodie interrupting us earlier? Or just because he knew she was expecting him? I don’t know him well enough yet to tell.
Although I’d sure as hell like to.
I dismiss that untimely thought and get right down to the business at hand. “Okay, he’s here. What’s the plan?”
“Plan for what?” Ben asks, taking a seat on an ottoman that matches the poofy pink chaise.
Elodie takes a sip of her latte before answering. “Dealing with this.”
She nods to Kip, who taps his phone screen, forcing to me endure my disaster of an interview with Nico for a third time. When the recording ends, he hits the screen again and stuffs the phone back in his pocket, which hopefully means I’ll be spared replay number four.
Thank fuck for small mercies.
“Shit,” Ben mutters.
“Exactly.” Elodie taps her perfectly shaped cotton-candy pink nails—I’m starting to think she has a thing for pink—against her coffee cup. “As I said earlier, we can’t afford any negative press. We just fired Marcel, and now your on-air tiff will make it look like Grady is some sort of spoiled prima donna who can’t work with his engineers. Which means we need to nip this in the bud.”
“We could do a concentrated media campaign,” Kip suggests. “Have them do some appearances together. Schedule some joint interviews.”
“As long as they’re not with Nico,” I interject.
“Of course not,” Kip answers quickly. “The point is to convince viewers you two are practically besties, not stir up the rumor mill even more.”
“The next race is in Monaco,” Elodie says, clearly thinking out loud because she’s not telling us anything we don’t already know. “I want you both at the Friday yacht party. And the post-race celebration at the Amber Lounge. Together. Arm-in-arm. Buddy buddy. For the whole racing world to see.”
Ben frowns, the color draining from his face. “Is that really necessary?”
His question kicks me in the gut. “Is the thought of hanging out with me that bad?”
“I’m sure that’s not when Ben meant,” Elodie says, her eyes shooting daggers at him.
He at least has the decency to look ashamed. “It’s just that I’m not really the party type.”
“But you’ll do this.” It’s a statement, not a question. “For LaRue. For me.”
