Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73568 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73568 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Her heart beat faster as she watched him walk away, the lingering warmth of his smile still tugging at her thoughts. It was absurd, really—the way he managed to get under her skin without even trying. But there was something about him, something that made her wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was more to this than she was willing to admit.
I save the document and close my laptop. It takes me no more than fifteen minutes to finish packing, wash my face and brush my teeth. I crawl into bed exhausted, but my mind still spins from the night’s events.
I’m going to be living with Lex Hamilton for the next two weeks and it shouldn’t make me as giddy as it does.
I guess that’s the hopeless romantic in me.
CHAPTER 8
Lex
Can’t say that I’ve ever waited for anyone in my life and yet here I am, loath to walk into the simulator room without Posey. She’s currently with Giovanni Scava, who is showing her how we manufacture the carbon fiber parts of the car. I can only imagine her pen flying furiously over that little pad of hers as Gio shows her the autoclaves—large, pressurized ovens that cure the carbon fiber components or the 3D printers we use for rapid prototyping. Not sure she’ll be able to weave any of that into her romance story but one thing I’ve come to appreciate about Posey—she’s hungry to learn it all.
The other thing I’ve come to realize… she’s not just here to get information for her book. She truly loves this sport and she knows a thing or two about fast cars from the research she did prior to coming here. I like that about her, her work ethic, because that’s always been important to me, despite my hard playing ways in my off time.
When I picked her up this morning at her hotel, I was surprised to have her eyeball my car with a gleam of pure reverence in her eyes. “A Lamborghini Urus,” she said in awe.
“I’m impressed you know what it is,” I said as I moved around the back of the SUV to put her suitcases in the boot.
“Six hundred forty-one horsepower, top speed of a hundred and ninety miles per hour, zero to sixty in three and a half seconds and still has the functionality of an SUV,” she murmured, opening the passenger door and sticking her head in to look at the interior. “But honestly… I took you for more of a two-seater kind of guy.”
She wasn’t wrong. I do love my McLaren. I closed the hatch and moved to her, tapping her on the shoulder. “Hop in. We have things to do today.”
When I got into the driver’s seat, I glanced over at her. She looked exceptionally pretty with her hair in a ponytail, no makeup on except some lip gloss, but fuck… she doesn’t need it. “Did your rental car get picked up?”
“It did,” she said with an appreciative smile. “And thank you for sending someone to do that for me. It wasn’t necessary.”
“It was nothing,” I replied, and it truly wasn’t. The name Lex Hamilton can pretty much procure anything, including the rental agency’s agreement to send an employee to the hotel to pick up the car in exchange for some merchandise.
Posey ran a hand over the leather-covered dashboard, then leaned over to peer at the electronics. “This car is sick.”
Laughing, I said, “I didn’t take you for a gearhead.”
“I wasn’t until I started watching FI, but you’d be amazed what shows up in your feed when you research formula racing. Plus, I loved the episode that featured all the drivers’ cars. I do seem to remember you have a two-seater, right?”
“A McLaren Spider.” A thought struck me as I realized she knows me better than I know her. If she watched all three seasons of that docuseries, she knows quite a bit about me. It made me curious. “Did you have a favorite driver when you watched the documentary?”
“I did.”
“And?”
She glanced at me, and I noted the sheepish smile and tinge of pink on her cheeks. “Sorry… it wasn’t you.”
“Who then?” I pressed, because weirdly, I felt a bit put out.
“Reid Hemsworth and Matthieu Laurent,” she replied almost demurely.
Both decent drivers, although Mattie is a bit of a wanker. Of course, Posey would say Ronan is a wanker too, and he is some of the time. I wanted to point out the double standard she has between the two but I let it go.
The conversation on the way to HQ mostly revolved around cars, naturally. She was curious about the ones I’ve driven, the ones I own, and what makes a good race car. I enjoyed explaining it all to her, seeing the sincere interest in her eyes.
I handed her off to Gio and we made explicit plans for him to have her back promptly at nine forty-five a.m., which was fifteen minutes before I was set to get in the simulator. It’s now almost nine fifty and I consider texting him. Getting ready for a sim run isn’t just about hopping into the seat. I have to go over the changes the engineers made to the car based on yesterday’s data and discuss what I need to focus on during this session. I’d like Posey to see that because… well, I want her to see how involved we are as drivers. For some reason, I don’t want her to think we just drive fast and try not to crash.